Swiss Re warnsof the global economic impact if we don't decarbonize by 2050.
Here's an article from Aug 2020 basically laying out all the planned expansion your article above is now reporting QB. Seems like China's coal expansion is part of an ongoing effort to modernize and streamline their processing of coal. Also this is a pattern they've demonstrated before; in response to an economic downturn (the article mentions 2009-2011) the state funnels money to stimulate the economy and they turn to coal to fuel that recovery.
Also, couldn't part of this be politics? This article suggests their imports of coal will remain the same but diversify since Beijing is now being more restrictive of coal cargos from Australia. Now they're buying more from Russia, but the US is starting to review stringent sanctions on Russia which may exacerbate things...
I don't know. This all seems like a trend, that the entire world is aware of, that China double deals on it's energy policy. This doesn't mean we throw our hands in the air and not shoot for the best policy WE can achieve though.
Meanwhile Mrs. Thunberg is pushing to end fossil fuel subsidies in the US while simultaneously stating the plain fact that she has no confidence it will get done. Unfortunately I agree with her pessimism, but that doesn't mean we don't push and fight for it anyway.
What do you think about that one QB? I find some opinion pieces out there saying ending fossil fuel subsidies is a no brainer. Other opinion pieces stating that doing so will crater the US economy. I'm not citing them b/c frankly they appear to be hyperbolic editorials with some kind of larger agenda on both sides. Plus, no one can even agree what the right financial impact even is for the tax breaks that subsidize coal and oil and such.
A young woman from Sweden seems to have a very specific message. You can't make "deals" with science. But some of her suggestions is to take serious and deeply impacting financial moves now and to keep pushing for the 1.5 C temperature shift, no matter how pie in the sky it might seem. She and others in the scientific community still hold this as possible, but QB, you've stated over and over why it isn't.
I frankly don't know which is right.
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Quark Blast wrote: Whereas 'developing economies' (China, India and the rest of the world) in orange have all been increasing dramatically and will continue to do so for decades more. Can you cite even a single major energy forecaster (e.g. IEA, EIA, BNEF, etc) that believes we will see "decades" of coal plants "increasing dramatically" in "developing economies"?
I cannot... because it just isn't remotely plausible. Coal plants will be in decline in every country within five years.
At the outside.
China is the last great exception... and that only because regional managers went on an all out construction binge ahead of planned (and now in effect) central government pullback on coal plants.
NYT article on the renewable revolution
There is an interesting observation in the article;
The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, the most productive in the world, can generate enough oil to produce just under one petawatt-hour of energy per year (about 1/27th the global total)... until the oil runs out within a few decades.
On the other hand, if you removed all the oil drills and covered the same ~3,000 square mile area of Ghawar with modern solar panels you could produce just over one petawatt-hour per year... indefinitely.
So, we've got yet another option for 'where do we put all those solar panels'... cover over old oil fields and you'll generally wind up producing more power. At lower costs.
CBDunkerson wrote: NYT article on the renewable revolution
There is an interesting observation in the article;
The Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, the most productive in the world, can generate enough oil to produce just under one petawatt-hour of energy per year (about 1/27th the global total)... until the oil runs out within a few decades.
On the other hand, if you removed all the oil drills and covered the same ~3,000 square mile area of Ghawar with modern solar panels you could produce just over one petawatt-hour per year... indefinitely.
So, we've got yet another option for 'where do we put all those solar panels'... cover over old oil fields and you'll generally wind up producing more power. At lower costs.
Great. So how do you get that solar power electrical generation from Ghawar to the EU? To the US and Canada? To Japan? To China?
I mean, what's your point?
If the Saudis can't make bank from solar Ghawar why should they give up selling the oil from there?
Mark wrote: This all seems like a trend, that the entire world is aware of, that China double deals on it's energy policy. This doesn't mean we throw our hands in the air and not shoot for the best policy WE can achieve though. Except we're already doing that - our best. Most of what the various GND packages coming out of congress these days aren't going to make that go any faster and will likely set us back based on reasons I've already posted up-thread fairly recently.
Mark wrote: Meanwhile Mrs. Thunberg is pushing to end fossil fuel subsidies in the US while simultaneously stating the plain fact that she has no confidence it will get done. Unfortunately I agree with her pessimism, but that doesn't mean we don't push and fight for it anyway.
What do you think about that one QB?
Here's the latest interview of Lomborg. It doesn't really get going until about twenty minutes in but I'll note that the interviewer, a Canadian apparently, grills Lomborg fairly well.
In summary, Lomborg implores global humanity to look at the following five areas to achieve the best result in mitigating AGW.
1) Carbon tax - this one needs to be implemented carefully lest it become a tax upon the poor as we saw with the green-power projects in places like the EU and UK.
2) Innovation/R&D - with the amount of CO2 that needs to be removed from the atmosphere there's simply no timely way forward that doesn't involve billions in well spent basic research. As it happens the various GND spending packages (both proposed and passed) have more than enough in them to cover this but it remains to be seen if it will be well spent or wasted.
3) Adaptation - it's well to remember that we've got several decades to work on this one and it involves everything from levee building to rezoning (thus local migration), from crop rotation to genetically creating new cultivars, from nuclear fusion to altered habits/schedules.
4) Geoengineering - here with the caveat that this should be studied more for the science than the actual use there of, since most of the ideas floated so far are of the Hail Mary type and/or with poorly understood potential ramifications in altering a chaotically dynamic thing like the global climate.
5) Prosperity - we should be looking to improve the daily life of as many people as we can. When people get rich, like something north of $5,000/adult/year (which is still not most of the world), they start doing things that are good for the environment. Which is mostly not having so many kids but also having a little free income to consider the spending of money on things to help the environment generally.
Mark wrote: A young woman from Sweden seems to have a very specific message. You can't make "deals" with science. But some of her suggestions is to take serious and deeply impacting financial moves now and to keep pushing for the 1.5 C temperature shift, no matter how pie in the sky it might seem. She and others in the scientific community still hold this as possible, but QB, you've stated over and over why it isn't.
I frankly don't know which is right.
My disagreement with the Teen Titan is that she keeps aiming for a target we've already missed (+1.5°C year 2100) and in doing so she's going to help us to miss the target we still can hit (+2.5°C year 2100).
Grrreta and the scientists who back her (and/or whom she promotes) are letting the messaging get in the way of the action needed. I'll think about this some more and get back to you here perhaps (this is a new term, very changed schedules for me and much busier in a good way so we'll see).
Quark Blast wrote: Exactly where did I say anything at all about 'decades of coal plant increases'? That would be the very next sentence... where you used an article about coal plants in China "As an example".
Quark Blast wrote: Great. So how do you get that solar power electrical generation from Ghawar to the EU? To the US and Canada? To Japan? To China?
I mean, what's your point?
The point, as I clearly stated, is that Saudi Arabia isn't the only place in the world with oil fields. It just has the most productive one. So... all other oil fields on the planet are less productive than one which already can't compete with solar in terms of total annual energy production. That means that most oil fields (i.e. all but those not in high oil/low insolation areas like Alaska) could be converted to solar plants.
No need to get solar power from Ghawar to the US when you can just put solar panels on land previously used for oil drilling in Texas.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Exactly where did I say anything at all about 'decades of coal plant increases'? That would be the very next sentence... where you used an article about coal plants in China "As an example". An example of what?
If you can answer that question in reference to the graph for question #4 in the NYT article you cited, then maybe we will have communicated.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Great. So how do you get that solar power electrical generation from Ghawar to the EU? To the US and Canada? To Japan? To China?
I mean, what's your point?
The point, as I clearly stated, is that Saudi Arabia isn't the only place in the world with oil fields. It just has the most productive one. So... all other oil fields on the planet are less productive than one which already can't compete with solar in terms of total annual energy production. That means that most oil fields (i.e. all but those not in high oil/low insolation areas like Alaska) could be converted to solar plants.
No need to get solar power from Ghawar to the US when you can just put solar panels on land previously used for oil drilling in Texas. If it were that easy this thread wouldn't exist because it would already have been done years ago.
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Quark Blast wrote: If it were that easy this thread wouldn't exist because it would already have been done years ago. If something recently postulated about current generation solar panels was so easy, it would have already been done with older generation solar panels?
I thought you were "[hear] to discuss climate change and how global humanity might effectively go about mitigating AGW." CB has presented such an idea and you have summarily dismissed it with "If it were easy someone would have already done it"
That doesn't sound like you're interested in discussing potential mitigation so much as you are interested in simply telling everyone that you're smarter than they are.
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Heather F wrote: I've just removed a very large number of posts. Please stick to the topic, and stop insulting each other. Maybe it would be better to just remove the singular bad-faith actor that's been filling these forums with actual harmful misinformation and behaving the worse half of a two-man donkey costume.
It would now be cheaper to replace 80% of existing US coal plants with wind or solar
A 2019 study predicted we'd get to this point by 2025... it actually happened early in 2021.
Coal power in the US was already in freefall.
This development is important because it will result in coal plants closing in the areas where they are still common and widely supported (e.g. the rural south, west, and midwest). Anywhere that there is competitive bidding for power someone will be able to come along and build a new wind or solar farm and undercut the cost of coal. Mere 'tradition' or preference won't keep coal plants chugging along in the face of economic pressure. Yes, politicians could still block construction of renewables or tip the scales with taxes/subsidies, but it has become one step more difficult to keep propping up the coal industry. The NEXT step is coal losing the money race to renewables and finding those political favors suddenly going the other way.
A decade ago coal was at its peak in the US. Over the past ten years coal has been cut in half while natural gas soared and wind/solar began experiencing exponential growth. By the end of the current decade US coal will only exist as a novelty in a handful of places, natural gas will be in the sort of freefall coal is experiencing currently, and wind/solar will be the dominant sources of electricity. Most of the rest of the world is on a similar trajectory. Even the worst case scenarios are looking like we'll have negligible global fossil fuel usage by 2050.
CBDunkerson wrote:
So, we've got yet another option for 'where do we put all those solar panels'... cover over old oil fields and you'll generally wind up producing more power. At lower costs.
Well, if we'd ever gotten teslas atmospheric electricity transfer working that might be an idea. But as it is most oil lands are in the remotest parts when you need most of the power in the most populated parts.
I like the solar roadways idea. Just need to make them work a little better.
BigNorseWolf wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: So, we've got yet another option for 'where do we put all those solar panels'... cover over old oil fields and you'll generally wind up producing more power. At lower costs. Well, if we'd ever gotten teslas atmospheric electricity transfer working that might be an idea. But as it is most oil lands are in the remotest parts when you need most of the power in the most populated parts.
I like the solar roadways idea. Just need to make them work a little better. Like pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere. We need to make solar roadways work a lot better before we actually see them in use beyond 'proof of concept'.
There's lots of ideas that sound great until you look at actually implementing them. If you believed the hype in the year 2000 then all new construction would be solar roof/tiles/panels a decade ago. You can read about some of the serious problems with solar roofs here. It's hard to find good numbers but it seems clear that the actual number is well below 20% at present.
Going back to the NYT article that was linked by CB and question #4 with the total emissions graph:
Look at the area under the curve of 'developed' vs other nations. Notice the trends and you can easily see that well before 2050 the bulk of all CO2 emissions will be from the other nations category. So by 2100 by far the bulk of the blame for GHG emissions will be elsewhere than 'developed' nations.
The China Development Bank along with the Export/Import Bank of China invested in $474 million worth of coal projects outside China in 2020. I've already cited sources for all the new coal power building inside China last year alone - more than enough to power Germany! Coal power currently exceeds half of China's total power output.
Well before the year 2100 by far the majority of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses will be emitted by countries other than the US, Japan, the Commonwealth and the EU. In 2019 China’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Exceeded the Developed World for the First Time. How fast we in the 'West' de-carbonize our economy will be only theoretically measurable in the average annual temperature by the year 2100. What will matter is what China, India and the rest of the developing nations do over the next few decades.
Like I said previously, I'll be paying close attention to the promises of COP26 and then even closer attention to the practical actions taken to enact those promises. I'll hazard a guess now and say the practices won't live up to the promises. Not much of a gamble really, just predicting the future based on invariant past behavior.
Remember last month up-thread when I warned about increases in commodity prices causing problems with the whole idea of meeting the Paris Agreement goals in a timely manner? Remember how some people trash talked my person and my position on this issue?
Well check this out:
Cars keep getting pricier and the commodity boom makes it worse
And it won't just be cars that get more expensive but all the components for solar and wind power, and... well, everything else too.
Bloomberg/MSN wrote: ...Demand is booming as major economies reopen and many consumers continue avoiding public transportation. The global semiconductor shortage also is inhibiting production, keeping inventory tight and driving up vehicle prices. Anyone think people avoiding public transportation will help with global CO2 emissions?
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Bloomberg/MSN wrote: The boom in copper prices adds to the costs of electric vehicles just as the industry implements an energy transformation to meet tighter emissions standards. EVs use nearly 3 1/2 times more copper than gas guzzlers because of the larger amount of wiring inside, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
The increases may hurt automakers like Tesla and Volkswagen that are trying to make EVs more price-competitive with traditional cars.
They also may encourage automakers to explore alternative chemistries for their EV batteries. The majority of cells use some combination of lithium, cobalt and nickel, which have jumped a minimum of 47% each in the past 12 months.
Anyone think higher prices across the board will encourage people to purchase EVs?
Copper is up 98% so far. That's not insignificant now is it?
Lots of little things add up. There's the constant hum from the anti-nuke types but we'll need nuclear power to hit even a +2.0°C year 2100 target.
Granholm wrote: Net-zero electricity by 2035 already looks like a heavy lift; doing it without the existing nuclear fleet seems more like magical thinking. Indeed! We will either start building next-gen nuclear plants or we will fail to meet our climate goals on that point alone.
DOE study finds lots of good news on US power in 2020
Comparing actual 2020 US electricity generation results to what was projected in 2005;
CO2 emissions were 52% lower
Costs were 18% lower
Human health impacts were 92% lower
Coal and oil use were 70% lower
Renewables were 79% higher
Jobs were 29% higher
This is a good demonstration of the issue I have highlighted many times with studies that project 'current state' assumptions forward... they are obviously going to be wrong when applied to rapidly changing systems.
Note that even in absolute terms, US power sector emissions dropped 40% from 2005 to 2020. The population increased. GDP increased. Electrification increased... but CO2 emissions went WAY down. Proving once again that there is absolutely no need to 'cut back' or radically change the way we live to stop AGW. We just need to continue shifting from power sources that emit a lot of CO2 to ones that don't.
Norway eyes expansion of oil and gas industry under policy proposal
The government wants to hand out more exploration licenses – ignoring modelling that shows fossil fuel expansion must end now to meet global climate goals
Oh, I'm shocked.... naw, not really.
But hey! Norway leads the world in EVs owned/capita, so it's all ok. Right?
Tar sands companies aim for ‘net zero’ by 2050 – with no plan to extract less oil
The alliance of Canadian oil producers makes no mention of winding down oil production, which modelling shows is necessary to achieve global climate goals
Not only will no less oil be coming out of Canada but, due to slightly increased costs associated with the short-sighted canceling of the Keystone XL, Russia and other less environmentally careful producers get a handy boost to their output. And so the atmosphere will get a corresponding boost to the GHG total, because of course it will.
PSA:
We're "following the science" even when we are totally not following the science.
Gas Is So Scarce in Europe That Coal Is Making a Comeback
>Europe needs coal to meet power demand back at pre-Covid level
>Gas inventories in Europe are 25% below the five-year average
Bloomberg wrote: Coal usage in the continent jumped 10% to 15% this year after a colder- and longer-than-usual winter left gas storage sites depleted, said Andy Sommer, team leader of fundamental analysis and modeling at Swiss trader Axpo Solutions AG. As economies reopen and people go back to the office, countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Poland turned to coal to keep the lights on....
With gas supplies already tight amid heavy maintenance cutting flows from Norway, utilities have turned to coal to keep the lights on. While the price of carbon is trading near a record, many have hedged it years in advance. That means burning coal could still be profitable.
Generators with “highly efficient” new plants can probably manage to produce power from coal until 2023, even with high carbon prices, Axpo’s Sommer said
Sure this will all even out one day and the EU may even get off of coal totally by 2030 but the issue is, as I've often said, the CO2 "Budget". If we spend it now, and we are!, then we won't have it later as a cushion. At the rate things are going presently - mainly with China but several other countries around the globe also in a big way and with these types of "unforeseen" oopsies in the EU adding to the total spent - we will be out of CO2 "Budget" well before the end of this decade.
We haven't been likely to hit a +1.5° C year 2100 for two decades now at least. These little things add up fast and I'm starting to lose hope we'll hit a +2.5° C year 2100.
The Lithium Mine Versus the Wildflower
> The deposit could power 400,000 clean-energy car batteries
> There’s just one roadblock: a rare, fragile species of buckwheat, which for a mine might mean extinction
Wired wrote: Some time ago.... seeds found their way into this soil, which lacks important nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, and is extremely alkaline, more like baking soda than loam. But wild buckwheats.... are a tenacious genus of plant, known for making do with whatever soil they happen upon. Evolution ran its course, and a new species emerged. The plant learned to grow there and, as far as anyone knew, only there. There were no competitors for that toxic soil. Until, that is, the lithium mine.
In mining terms, the alkaline soil is called overburden—material that’s stripped away to access desired material below. The value of lithium has soared recently as the reality of climate change hits home. The element is at the heart of the batteries that will power millions of electric cars and a renewable energy grid.... The total value of the mine’s resources was estimated at $10 billion....
Donnelly first became aware of the plant’s plight in 2019, and shortly after that his organization successfully sued to stop Ioneer from exploring the terrain. That fall, they petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to declare Tiehm’s buckwheat an endangered species. “If the Endangered Species Act has any meaning at all, this plant gets listed,” he says. Donnelly had seen plenty of plant destruction throughout his career. And yet the damage to the buckwheat last summer hit him especially hard. “It was like seeing a good friend of mine get murdered,” he says. When Donnelly thought about giving up, Fraga reminded him there were still plants left to save....
All mines have a dirty side, whether or not their products are “green.” They can destroy landscapes or pollute water supplies or expel greenhouse gases. Historically, mining companies have cared little about those impacts, doing the bare minimum to adhere to regulations. But lithium miners face extra pressure to act responsibly, explains Alex Grant, a technical adviser who works with those mines. Electric vehicle buyers are likely to care, for example, that 25 percent of their car’s lifetime carbon impact comes from the battery supply chain. So automakers, seeking to enhance their climate-friendly reputations, have increasingly leaned on lithium suppliers to burn less coal and seek certifications attesting that their mines do not ruin waters and habitats....
In Nevada’s far north, Thacker Pass, another major lithium project close to digging, is held up by disputes with indigenous groups and ranchers over water rights and pollution. The same is true in places like Chile and Bolivia. Alternatives that appear more ecologically appealing, like brines near California’s Salton Sea, have been talked about for decades, but the technology and financing behind those projects is uncertain. We could look to the oceans, maybe; deep-sea mining could offer lithium on a scale that would make any terrestrial mine seem puny. But the environmental costs of that approach are arguably even less well understood, and potentially enormous.
So there you have it. One more example, plus related notes, for how costly and slow - and environmentally unfriendly! - the execution of the GND will be.
Delay, after delay, after delay eating up our CO2 "budget"... plus, increased costs and so slower adoption of green things eating up our CO2 "budget"... or worse, shoving the mining operations into areas of the world where the "peripherals" of mining can run amok and really eat up our CO2 "budget"... you know? like shutting down the Keystone XL and forcing oil and gas production onto environmental stalwarts like Russia.
Future is looking bright. Like SPF 1k bright.
Northwest "heat dome" Signals Global Warming's March
Axios wrote: The big picture:
However, climate scientists tell Axios this actually understates climate change's influence, since warming is also altering weather patterns in ways that makes strong heat domes more common and prolonged.
Daniel Swain, a climate researcher at UCLA, told Axios that the mean warming in the region is "more likely a floor than a ceiling," given climate change's potential effects on atmospheric circulation, soil moisture, and other conditions that can amplify extreme heat....
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Of note:
Scientists may also be missing part of the tie between global warming and extreme events, creating an even greater societal vulnerability to these events since we're not properly anticipating them and hardening our infrastructure, according to Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Penn State.
Mann and his colleagues have zeroed in on persistent, unusual contortions in the jet stream, which is the high altitude river of air that helps steer storms, as being linked with heat extremes such as this one.
Climate models, he says, don't come close to simulating how such patterns are changing in frequency and magnitude as the world warms.
These guys, these climate scientists at UCLA and Penn State sound like a sweet blend of Yours Truly and Bjorn Lomborg. These guys are bang on brilliant!
:D
What does "hardening our infrastructure" mean? Does that mean spending more money on energy grids, alternate energy sources and other mitigations that would reduce GHG's and therefore slow future climate change? If so, wouldn't those also be projects enacted and led by local, state and federal governments?
I thought governments were dumb, can't handle climate change, and per Lomborg our money would be better spent on third world economies to raise them out of poverty? Did I miss a day in class, or am I getting it all wrong (again)?
I expect I already knew the answers before I typed this, but curiosity got the better of me, sorry.
Darn it. I wanted to see just how many posts in a row Quark Blast would go. Current max total 5.
Tristan d'Ambrosius wrote: Darn it. I wanted to see just how many posts in a row Quark Blast would go. Current max total 5. Another reason why I said sorry above.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: What does "hardening our infrastructure" mean? Does that mean spending more money on energy grids, alternate energy sources and other mitigations that would reduce GHG's and therefore slow future climate change? If so, wouldn't those also be projects enacted and led by local, state and federal governments?
I thought governments were dumb, can't handle climate change, and per Lomborg our money would be better spent on third world economies to raise them out of poverty? Did I miss a day in class, or am I getting it all wrong (again)?
I expect I already knew the answers before I typed this, but curiosity got the better of me, sorry.
Curiosity isn't a bad thing!
Lomborg is for intelligent scaling of our AGW mitigation efforts. To go wild with a GND spending spree (as we in the "west" seem to be hell-bent on doing) will certainly result in a majority of the money being wasted on projects that do nothing for the year 2100 (and beyond) except actually increase the total amount of GHG we emit.
For example:
Shutting down the Keystone XL will not appreciably reduce the amount of oil coming out of Canada's tar sands and will guarantee that the oil is produced in a more GHG-promoting way (rail is more GHG intensive than pipeline as it happens); and also guarantee that even more GHG will be emitted elsewhere via relatively leaky Russian oil and gas production that takes over for the reduced timeliness of what can now come out of Canada/USA.
And yes, genuinely getting the developing nations out of poverty sooner would get them on a lower trajectory for the GHG they are destined to emit. On a dollar-for-dollar basis that would be money far better spent as measured against GHG in the atmosphere over time.
That said, developed nations do need to harden our infrastructure against the load we know is coming for them. That would be things like building out a 'smart grid', building better seawalls, buying out low-lying residential land for other uses going forward, and especially investing in technology for new solutions and increasing efficiency of current solutions.
End note:
I like how there is complete silence on the Penn State and UCLA climate scientists hitting the very same warning notes as myself. People really don't want to change their minds; especially when forced by evidence and plain logic.
People are funny.
:D
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The complete silence has no relation to the messenger or the message. We were just largely ignoring the thread in the hopes that if left alone it would quietly die.
Guess that isn’t happening.
Don't forget the salient point communicated here! A good lesson to be learned for sure. Not as sure as it is wasted effort but still a good lesson, should someone care to take it to heart.
Accelerated sea ice loss in the Wandel Sea points to a change in the Arctic’s Last Ice Area
Nature wrote: This area has been predicted to retain multiyear ice much longer than elsewhere as the climate warms, and is therefore referred to as the “Last Ice Area” (LIA)...
The first sign of change in the LIA emerged during the spring of 2018, when a large polynya formed in response to anomalous northward winds which drove sea ice away from the coast. These winds were so strong that model simulations indicated that the polynya would have developed even with the thicker ice that had been present there several decades ago. This serves as a reminder that not all notable events encountered in the Arctic are the result of climate change and much is yet to be discovered and understood.
Much indeed! The climate models failed yet again in the direction of 'raising the floor' for the effects of AGW. Absolutely no surprise on my part - I've been warning about this for years.
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Nature wrote: While primarily driven by unusual weather(~80%), climate change in the form of thinning sea ice contributed significantly(~20%) to the record low August 2020 sea ice concentrations {SIC} in the Wandel Sea {WS}.
....
Our work suggests a re-examination of climate model simulations in this area, since most do not predict summer 2020-level low SICs until several decades or more into the future.
Off by "several decades" in a model space of less than a century? Who would've thought?
Well, me of course, thanks to the many brilliant scientists I've cited and quoted for years up-thread; not least - Stephen Wolfram. Yay Stephen!
Also note that the authors of the paper admit to "unusual weather" being the main driver of the polynya phenomenon, as I indicated with the approximate percent values I inserted above.
Now what is driving the "unusual weather"?
That is an excellent question.
Add more heat to a chaotic system and you increase the system variability. And this isn't even considering the issue of Tipping Element / Points.
So, the LIA early melting issue is yet one more example of how our climate models are destined to fail; except later, when they are adjusted with empirical data. But then, at that point, they're only predicting what we already know; also known as retrodicting. The real test will be to build models that drive research and not the other way around. Quantum computing might get us there someday. That day is likely to be very near or just after the Singularity, so it might not matter ultimately. Still, if we're here, it'll be interesting to see the solution.
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Quark Blast wrote: Don't forget the salient point communicated here! A good lesson to be learned for sure. Not as sure as it is wasted effort but still a good lesson, should someone care to take it to heart. The takeaway from that thread, if you read it beyond the part where TOZ called me an arse (you've been called worse) is that someone posted an opinion and I offered counterpoints. That person assumed every refutation of a point I made was an attack - they weren't.
Shall I provide links to all the people who have posted about why they feel YOU should be ignored? We can test the limit of the number of links that can go in a single post if you want.
You want to start setting up direct call out posts like that, I can be equally as antagonistic as you. We can dance the dance that locks this thread, I'm sure there are some others who'll join in.
Your call.
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There still yet remains no plausible reason for the global warming conspiracy to exist.
If the scientists said they needed to study coconut drinks with tiny umbrellas and shipping themselves off to the french Caribbean in a 5 star villa for their uhm.. research... I could see a rationale to generate a faux crisis. Or at least why someone might suspect ulterior motives.
But what is supposed to be the rationale for scientists faking money for a trip freezing off their arctic circle drilling ice cores? Do people think that scientists get to keep the grant money, or that someone with a PHD couldn't get a job working for an oil company instead because all the money is in that sweet sweet university pocket book?
Unless the data is faked it is incontravertable.
It cannot be faked on accident
It must be faked on purpose
It was faked in order to....
It requires incredibly circular reasoning for the faith that global warming is fake supporting the idea that the conspiracy has SOME reason to exist which is needed to show that global warming is fake which must be true in order to support the idea that the conspiracy has some reason to exist which is needed to show that global warming is fake.
I get that some conspiracies are real, but most of them make a whole lot of sense even if they're lacking in hard evidence. There's a clear line between what the conspiracy does and how it gains money, power, removing a rival, balancing global forces so that no one gets out of hand etc. But there is simply no conceivable reason to fake the data and no way the data doesn't lead to the conclusion of ACC unless it's fake.
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BigNorseWolf wrote: There still yet remains no plausible reason for the global warming conspiracy to exist.
If the scientists said they needed to study coconut drinks with tiny umbrellas and shipping themselves off to the french Caribbean in a 5 star villa for their uhm.. research... I could see a rationale to generate a faux crisis. Or at least why someone might suspect ulterior motives.
Starts writing a grant to study the effects of sea level rise on Pacific atolls
Woah! Back to the OP!
:D
There has been faked data. And hype, lots of hype.
It's a lazy way to see a conspiracy but it doesn't take much to set some people off.
I learned that^ from the Internet.
@thejeff You might start here.
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Quark Blast wrote: There has been faked data. And hype, lots of hype.
Thanks for finally admitting your role in this. Prior to my quietly washing my hands of this in hopes the thread would die - a washing I see was premature - I looked at a sample of the links posted by persons other than you, and they're not the ones with fake data.
No, thank you for proving my point about showing how little it takes to set some people off. You and the "elf" guy are prime examples of how to read-into a statement meaning that is manifestly not there.
Here's a better way to manage the hype:
WMO verifies one temperature record for Antarctic continent and rejects another
WMO wrote: “This investigation highlights an important ‘teachable moment,’ particularly with regard to media dissemination of this type of information. When news of these observations became known, global media quickly disseminated them with headlines of temperatures exceeding 20°C for the first time ever in Antarctica. The examples presented here illustrate why media should be cautious in reporting temperature extremes,” said Prof. Randall Cerveny, Rapporteur of Climate and Weather Extremes for WMO. Or as they say in the original report, WMO Committee wrote: The committee urges increased caution in early announcements as many media outlets often tend to sensationalize and mischaracterize potential records. Cautious, yes, from a scientific perspective I agree.
That example is one of an indeterminate but very large number of media hype cases I just warned about. However, I would caution that we don't let a needed correction of media hype misdirect proper inquiry.*
There is a scientific question to be asked about these specific types of meteorological phenomenon. That is, are these anomalous temperature readings more frequent under a regime of increased average global temperature? Does AGW make these more common, in the same way Cat5 hurricanes are modeled to be more frequent?
* Or as they say for themselves in characteristic wordy academic style:
"Secondly, given the strong relationship between föhn events and recent record temperature extremes, members of the committee would urge researchers to continue to examine long-term trends in warm advection, föhn and extremes. While a few studies of this type have been carried out for the Antarctic Peninsula and other Antarctic and subantarctic regions (e.g. Cape et al, 2015; Spiers et al, 2013, Bannister and King, 2020,Kazutoshiet al., 2021), questions still remain as to whether or not föhn events are getting warmer and generating new temperature extremes. We would also suggest that more research is also warranted to determine at which degree the föhn type contributes or interferes with the record temperature extremes.
Quark Blast wrote: No, thank you for proving my point about showing how little it takes to set some people off. You and the "elf" guy are prime examples of how to read-into a statement meaning that is manifestly not there. You have no moral or logical right to complain about that, given that you did EXACTLY that in my early posts, and then twisted things I said again in a post complaining about you twisting my previous post. From what others said, you did exactly that to them, too. Or: Those who live in glass houses should NOT throw stones at a mere window.
I would just like to point out that my previous "thank you" was sincere, if unwelcome. And so now I would like to say, thanks again for doubling down and really proving my point. Srsly!
Can Lithium Supply Keep Up With Strong Electric Vehicle Demand?
As electric vehicle demand grows, analysts predict 75% of all mined lithium could go to EVs by 2025
TS wrote: “Gigafactories,” Elon Musk’s once novel word for his five battery factories around the world, will soon be regarded as critical national infrastructure. It is estimated that Europe needs 30 gigafactories by 2025 and Volkswagen Group alone is reportedly planning to build six. The IEA thinks demand for lithium will increase 40–fold by 2040. I wonder what that will do for pricing? And if it gets priced too high, what that will do for sales of all things Li-battery?
Then there's copper, cobalt, and a couple dozen other GND-critical materials that require extensive procurement and processing before becoming part of a consumer product. What do you suppose is the CO2 footprint for all that effort over the next 30 years?
Will China secure these "strategically important" supplies by hoarding them? How much will that drive up prices? And how much will that slow the EV switchover?
Leaked EU Plan to Green Its Timber Industry Sparks Firestorm
Bloomberg wrote: A European Union strategy to boost forest protection has turned a simmering scientific debate into a full-blown firestorm, pitting one of the bloc’s oldest industries against a perceived power grab by technology-driven regulators.
....
The disagreement over facts underscores the confluence of factors that are making it difficult for policy makers and companies to manage the rising damages wrought by climate change.
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“At the end of the day, what we’re doing is setting new standards,” he said. “Since the green revolution, farmers and foresters have constantly been faced with new challenges and asked to adapt. They can do it, but want to know who will pay.”
Who will pay?
Why the taxpayer of course! And we all know that won't create any problems.
:D
And, as always, a "disagreement over facts" = a disagreement over who gets the money/power.
So, about a year ago I started suggesting that we may have reached 'peak fossil fuel electricity production'... and now we've got the first major professional analysis reaching that conclusion.
According to the study, India peaked in 2018... leaving China as the only country in the world with growing fossil electricity production, which they project will peak no later than 2025... with any new fossil fuel facilities built in the interim becoming stranded assets (i.e. having to be shut down to avoid losing ever more money) at that point.
The rest of the 'developed and developing world' has seen declining fossil electricity production for many years, and the net global total is now clearly trending downwards. Further, renewables are cheaper in 90% of markets worldwide and as a result 'emerging' markets are 'leapfrogging' over fossil fuel power infrastructure and going straight to renewables... just as they previously skipped ever developing land line telephone infrastructure and went straight to cellular. Thus, there is no foreseeable reason for a fossil electricity 'resurgence' in the future.
The alternative, 'China, India, and emerging markets will develop massive amounts of coal power' narrative always seemed like complete nonsense to me. It becomes even less plausible now that data shows that fossil fuels are in global decline. Poor countries with emerging electric markets are NOT going to pay extra to resurrect dead fossil fuel technologies that the rest of the world has abandoned.
Meanwhile, electric vehicle sales continue to grow exponentially in major markets around the globe and virtually every automaker has announced plans to stop making ICEVs... again, the inevitability of this rapid transition has been obvious for years, but is now reaching the point where it is more 'observed current reality' than 'inevitable future state'.
These developments make a 'two degrees warming above pre-industrial by 2100' global warming result a very real possibility.
CBDunkerson wrote: So, about a year ago I started suggesting that we may have reached 'peak fossil fuel electricity production'... and now we've got the first major professional analysis reaching that conclusion.
According to the study, India peaked in 2018... leaving China as the only country in the world with growing fossil electricity production, which they project will peak no later than 2025... with any new fossil fuel facilities built in the interim becoming stranded assets (i.e. having to be shut down to avoid losing ever more money) at that point.
The rest of the 'developed and developing world' has seen declining fossil electricity production for many years, and the net global total is now clearly trending downwards. Further, renewables are cheaper in 90% of markets worldwide and as a result 'emerging' markets are 'leapfrogging' over fossil fuel power infrastructure and going straight to renewables... just as they previously skipped ever developing land line telephone infrastructure and went straight to cellular. Thus, there is no foreseeable reason for a fossil electricity 'resurgence' in the future.
The alternative, 'China, India, and emerging markets will develop massive amounts of coal power' narrative always seemed like complete nonsense to me. It becomes even less plausible now that data shows that fossil fuels are in global decline. Poor countries with emerging electric markets are NOT going to pay extra to resurrect dead fossil fuel technologies that the rest of the world has abandoned.
Meanwhile, electric vehicle sales continue to grow exponentially in major markets around the globe and virtually every automaker has announced plans to stop making ICEVs... again, the inevitability of this rapid transition has been obvious for years, but is now reaching the point where it is more 'observed current reality' than 'inevitable future state'.
These developments make a 'two degrees warming above pre-industrial by 2100' global warming result a very real possibility.
It looks to me like we'll be certainly beyond a +1.5°C year 2100 by 2024/5. Then we'll be chipping away at a +2.0°C target for the next 20 years. A great number of factors will work to slow the build out - the scale of projects, environmental concerns and concomitant lawsuits, critical component shortages, the forbidden topic - mostly economic, graft/corruption/poor oversight, and war. Among other things.
All of that ignores major negative feedback loops like the just mentioned Amazon forest situation or the previously mentioned permafrost melt. The IPCC targets have averaged, in some way, a number of different and significantly outdated climate models. One of the consequences of that approach is to blunt the perceived effect from the more detailed/focused models - like for permafrost melting.
Without nuclear fusion, or an unforeseen and truly amazing efficiency improvement to batteries, the very best we can hope for is a +2.5°C year 2100.
China’s New Carbon Market Isn’t Designed To Fix Climate Change
Qtz wrote: But China’s system doesn’t have a cap at all. Instead, permits are allocated to each plant based on a formula that accounts for how efficiently the plant runs compared to a benchmark for its class, and on how much electricity it produces relative to its maximum capacity. More efficient plants receive more permits, as do plants that run less often. These forces should push plants toward maximum efficiency, and favor newer facilities. { So far so good.}
But high-productivity plants could get more permits than they need—essentially getting paid by the government to pollute. And without a cap, there’s nothing to prevent new plants from being built, increasing total emissions. { Ah, yes - the catch.}
Moreover, so many permits are allocated that the cost is too low—about one-tenth the EU cost—to matter much. And each plant’s permit requirement is capped at 20% above its original allocation; any emissions beyond that are gratis. In other words, once a plant pays for extra permits equal to 20% of its original allocation, there’s no further cost to pumping out 30, 40 or 100% more. Finally, if a plant owner decides to simply thumb their nose at the system altogether, the fee for non-compliance is only about $4,600—again, too low to matter much.
$4,600 "too low to matter"? A penalty that low may not pay for the cost of inspections to assess compliance. Yeah, this isn't looking good at all.
I do not doubt that China will get it's act together eventually with this messed up "carbon market". My point in citing the article on this (temporary?) mess is that it is yet one more thing that will spend the remaining global carbon "budget".
We really don't have a "budget" to spend - at present, even assuming the most amazing reductions possible, we will spend the remaining CO2 "budget" by 2024/25 and completely blow past the +1.5°C year 2100 Paris Agreement target. There are literally scores more issues like this one, though most of them individually will result in less CO2/NH4 emissions than China's carbon "market", but together they add up to essentially no chance at all of making a +2.0°C year 2100.
Climate change: Science failed to predict flood and heat intensity
BBC wrote: Computers are fundamental to weather forecasting and climate change, and computing will underpin the new climate science “Bible”, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) next month.
But former Met Office chief scientist Prof Dame Julia Slingo told BBC News: "We should be alarmed because the IPCC (climate computer) models are just not good enough.
Computer models "just not good enough"?
Gosh that refrain sounds very, very familiar doesn't it?
:D
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BBC wrote: Prof Bill McGuire, for instance, from UCL, told me: "The obvious acceleration of the breakdown of our stable climate simply confirms that - when it comes to the climate emergency - we are in deep, deep {Bantha poo-doo}!
"Many in the climate science community would agree, in private if not in public.
"The IPCC's reports tend to be both conservative and consensus. They’re conservative, because insufficient attention has been given to the importance of tipping points, feedback loops and outlier predictions; consensus, because more extreme scenarios have tended to be marginalized.
"Plenty of peer-reviewed papers not addressed in IPCC documentation present far more pessimistic scenarios. There is no reason why a consensus viewpoint should be right, and we need to be preparing for the worst, even if we still hope for the best."
It really is nice to have so many credentialed and respected climate scientists agree with my thesis.
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The big gap between U.S. emissions and climate targets
Axios wrote: They see CO2 emissions from electricity, the largest global emissions source, rising 3.5% this year and another 2.5% in 2022.
Coal-fired generation, especially fueled by China, is slated to rise by 5% this year. "It will grow by a further 3% in 2022 and could set an all-time high," IEA notes (emphasis added).
Drip, drip, drip come the delays. Drip, drip, drip as each little factor erodes a little more of the CO2 "budget".
Who had wildfires create their own weather patterns on their bingo card?
Goth Guru wrote: Who had wildfires create their own weather patterns on their bingo card? Hard to say since the bingo cards are now on fire.
Drip....
Europe needs to get tough and switch to LED to meet its emission reduction targets
CCN wrote: The renewed call to action comes after a landmark 224-page report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), titled ‘Net-zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector,’ which seeks to explain what is needed to decouple carbon emissions from the global economy.
In the report’s foreword, Fatih Birol, IEA’s Executive Director, describes the proposed necessary action as “a total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies.” The following chapters go on to comprehensively cover all aspects of energy and climate policy, from phasing out fossil fuels to decarbonising economies.
The landmark report considers the future of lighting within its net zero emissions scenario, recommending that sales of LED bulbs “should reach 100% by 2025 in all regions” of the world and that minimum energy performance standards should be complemented by the smart control of appliances....
“Compared to sites where conventional lighting is used, the new system achieves up to 50% energy savings by adapting the lighting to demand, and using daylight harvesting and presence sensors,” said Marcel Devereaux, Energy Projects Manager at parent company NSG.
“This is on top of the significant savings already achieved by changing to LED lighting. Also, the carbon footprint at Pilkington Automotive can be reduced by 290 tonnes of CO2 each year,” he added.
According to findings from Signify, upgrading professional lighting across the EU, which includes the lighting in offices, industrial complexes, roads and parks, shops and hotels, would reduce CO2 emissions by 42 million tonnes. An additional 8.9 million tonnes CO2 reduction could be realised from converting homes to LED. Such a massive reduction across the EU is equivalent to the amount of CO2 that 2.3 billion trees – a forest larger than the United Kingdom – would sequester in a year.
LEDs you say? We need to focus, in part, on serious energy efficiency upgrades? Why yes, I agree.
Nice to see a major publication coming around to something I've advocated for all of my adult life and then some.
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Drip....
Indonesia to burn coal well into the 2050s, under updated climate plan
CCN wrote: In a 156-page long term strategy document submitted to the UN, it outlines three pathways including a “low carbon scenario compatible with the Paris Agreement”.
Even under this pathway, the most ambitious of the three, the amount of coal used for primary energy will continue to grow until at least 2050.
While renewables share of electricity generation will grow under this pathway to 43% by 2050, coal will still provide 38% of the country’s growing electricity needs. Methane gas (10%) and biofuels (8%) make up the rest....
While energy-related emissions are growing, Indonesia’s biggest source of greenhouse gases is deforestation, driven by land clearance for palm oil and timber plantations. In 2016, it was the fifth biggest emitter in the world, factoring in land use change.
In its climate plan for this decade, Indonesia commits to restoring or rehabilitating 14m ha of degraded land including peatland. This is an area the size of Bangladesh.
So, given the promises ("promises" rather, as they are not actually actions started as of yet) a full 56% of energy will be produced from generally un-sustainable methods and a belief in CC&S. And this doesn't touch the biggest problem with climate and the Indonesian economy, which is palm oil. But we are assured that this palm oil concern can be completely mitigated with forest rehab and this solution should be no problem at all, barely an inconvenience. 'Cause, you know, planting trees and restoring mature hardwood tropical forest is at least as easy as cutting everything down and burning it. Right?
.
Drip....
China, India miss UN’s extended deadline for climate pledges
CCN wrote: But despite some renewed political momentum, the picture isn’t likely to change much without enhanced action from emerging economies.
Niklas Höhne, a climate policy expert at the NewClimate Institute, told Climate Home News there remained a “gigantic gap” between current levels of emissions and the action needed by 2030.
Commitments made as of April would still lead to 2.4C of warming by the end of the century if implemented in full, according to Climate Action Tracker.
“With all the pledges on the table we are basically stabilising global emissions by 2030 when we should be cutting them by half,” said Höhne.
Leading scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have said emissions should fall 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 to limit temperatures to 1.5C by the end of the century.
The picture for long-term goals is slightly better. NewClimate Institute’s latest estimates found that if all net zero emissions goals are met, the world could limit temperatures to 2C, in the most optimistic scenario, by the end of the century, said Höhne.
The two biggest CO2 and NH4 polluters missed the deadline huh? Oh that bodes well. I'm sure they're taking so long because of the extra time needed to type up all their new "promises".
"If", "if", and "could"? That's a little wiggly for optimism I think.
Drip....
This new paper* is not good.
The one criticism I've found, so far, is that the earth-systems model used to assess the AMOC data for this study is a rather simplistic model space. Thus these results need to be tested on more comprehensive climate models. Which, though I tend to agree with that criticism, rather highlights another concern of mine. Namely, climate models (as seen in the IPCC reports) are only using some of the relevant data to generate their results. The corollary being they are missing critical data and so are almost certainly giving us a picture of the year 2100 with multiple critical erroneous results.
Niklas Boers+ wrote: The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary.
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I wouldn't have expected that the excessive amounts of freshwater added in the course of the last century would already produce such a response in the overturning circulation. We urgently need to reconcile our models with the presented observational evidence to assess how far from or how close to its critical threshold the AMOC really is.
And of course this idea isn't exactly new, but has been seemingly systematically ignored in the interests of making more 'elegant' model results, or perhaps is seen as "too alarmist" for the IPCC committee process.
* Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).
+@ the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
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