CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Except most trucks aren't electrical at present ...and welcome to the inevitable goalpost moving portion of our 'discussion'.
Nobody claimed that EVs have already replaced ICEs... only that growing EV sales are starting to cause ICE sales to decline. You objected that this wasn't relevant for delivery trucks. You were wrong.
Quote: Also see my point below on subtraction and how you get from 25% to 20% with these little niggling points you seem so dismissive of. The "roughly 25%" figure was my citation of ICE contributions to GHG emissions. The "20%" figure was your claim that eliminating ICEs would contribute less than 20% of any solution to stopping global warming. You can't just subtract and say there is a 5% difference... because we are talking about two different things.
... Yes, two different things. Yet again you failed (accidentally?) to read my posts for comprehension. The article you linked only talked about passenger vehicles. There's more to the ICE pie than that. And the other ICE uses are completely relevant to how fast we stop the rise in CO2.
It's not so much moving goalposts as you brought a football to a track meet. Sorry but not my problem.
CBDunkerson wrote: There are thousands of electric farm and construction vehicles in use today. And tens of millions that are running via ICEs.
What's your point? That 1/10th of 1% will save us from global warming?
That would be a hard no.
There's another thing too about ICEs. They last for a decade or more. So take for instance the local bus service where I live. They are incrementally replacing their fleet and for the last two years at least I estimate they've replaced 10%/year. So far all of the new buses are diesel. No doubt their shop is set up to service diesel buses and for now that's what's economical to buy.
My point --> Even if next year they start replacing their buses with hybrid or EV or CNG, those diesels will take a decade or more to leave the system.
Same with farmers and their equipment.
Same with long-haul trucking companies.
Same with freight train companies.
Etc.
Here's something that relates to model uncertainty:
As the World Warms, Clouds Could Disappear—Catastrophically
Wired wrote: For decades, rough calculations have suggested that cloud loss could significantly impact climate, but this concern remained speculative until the last few years {circa 2014}, when observations and simulations of clouds improved to the point where researchers could amass convincing evidence.
...
Physicists have struggled since the 1960s to understand how global warming will affect the many different kinds of clouds, and how that will influence global warming in turn. For decades, clouds have been seen as by far the biggest source of uncertainty over how severe global warming will be—other than what society will do to reduce carbon emissions.
...
All the climate models include Earth’s ocean and wind currents and incorporate most of the important climate feedback loops, like the melting of the polar ice caps and the rise in humidity, which both exacerbate global warming. The models agree about most factors but differ greatly in how they try to represent clouds.
Clouds are still a big unknown in climate models but now (see below) we are getting a grip on just how much error they might be throwing into the results.
Wired wrote: The least sensitive climate models, which predict the mildest reaction to increasing CO2, find that Earth will warm 2 degrees Celsius if the atmospheric CO2 concentration doubles relative to preindustrial times, which is currently on track to happen by about 2050. (The CO2 concentration was 280 parts per million before fossil fuel burning began, and it’s above 410 ppm now. So far, the average global temperature has risen 1 degree Celsius.) But the 2-degree prediction is the best-case scenario. “The thing that really freaks people out is this upper end here,” Marvel said, indicating projections of 4 or 5 degrees of warming in response to the doubling of CO2. “To put that in context, the difference between now and the last ice age was 4.5 degrees.”
The huge range in the models’ predictions chiefly comes down to whether they see clouds blocking more or less sunlight in the future. As Marvel put it, “You can fairly confidently say that the model spread in climate sensitivity is basically just a model spread in what clouds are going to do.”
The problem is that, in computer simulations of the global climate, today’s supercomputers cannot resolve grid cells that are smaller than about 100 kilometers by 100 kilometers in area. But clouds are often no more than a few kilometers across. Physicists therefore have to simplify or “parameterize” clouds in their global models, assigning an overall level of cloudiness to each grid cell based on other properties, like temperature and humidity.
But clouds involve the interplay of so many mechanisms that it’s not obvious how best to parameterize them. The warming of the Earth and sky strengthens some mechanisms involved in cloud formation, while also fueling other forces that break clouds up. Global climate models that predict 2 degrees of warming in response to doubling CO2 generally also see little or no change in cloudiness. Models that project a rise of 4 or more degrees forecast fewer clouds in the coming decades.
The climatologist Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, said that even 2 degrees of warming will cause “considerable loss of life and suffering.” He said it will kill coral reefs whose fish feed millions, while also elevating the risk of damaging floods, wildfires, droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes and causing “several feet of sea-level rise and threats to the world’s low-lying island nations and coastal cities.”
Chris Bretherton, an atmospheric scientist and mathematician at the University of Washington, performed some of the first simulations of these clouds combined with idealized climate models in 2013 and 2014. He and his collaborators modeled a small patch of stratocumulus and found that as the sea surface below it warmed under the influence of CO2, the cloud became thinner. That work and other findings—such as NASA satellite data indicating that warmer years are less cloudy than colder years—began to suggest that the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right.
So that summarizes the problem well. And also strongly supports my contention of a floor for the year 2100 being +2.5°C!
Wired wrote: Bretherton and his team set out to investigate why Southern Ocean clouds are so abundant. Their data indicate that the clouds consist primarily of supercooled water droplets rather than ice particles, as climate modelers had long assumed. Liquid-water droplets stick around longer than ice droplets (which are bigger and more likely to fall as rain), and this seems to be why the region is cloudier than global climate models predict. Adjusting the models to reflect the findings will make them more sensitive to cloud loss in this region as the planet heats up. This is one of several lines of evidence, Bretherton said, “that would favor the range of predictions that’s 3 to 5 degrees, not the 2- to 3-degree range.”
Assumptions are killers in regard to generating accurate climate models and assumptions are everywhere. Sure, modelers try to bracket the error in their models but with chaotic systems the bracketing problem is harder than anything else they do when building their models.
Wired wrote: Schneider emphasized an important caveat to the study, which will need to be addressed by future work: The simplified climate model he and his colleagues created assumed that global wind currents would stay as they are now. However, there is some evidence that these circulations might weaken in a way that would make stratocumulus clouds more robust, raising the threshold for their disappearance from 1,200 ppm to some higher level. Other changes could do the opposite, or the tipping point could vary by region. This last point is absolutely critical.
Up-thread recently I pointed out that a +2.0°C year 2100 for the global average could very well produce a +4.0°C year 2100 for areas above 60° N/S latitude, or worse. And once you push the arctic that far, there goes the permafrost - releasing CO2 and CH4, which raises the global average temp... how much more? We don't know for sure, only that it will be more.
CB on Wednesday March 6th wrote: Natural sinks currently absorb roughly 50% of the GHG we emit each year. Wired wrote: We currently pump out 10 billion tons of it each year, and scientists estimate that Earth can absorb about 2 billion tons of it a year, in addition to what’s naturally emitted and absorbed. If fossil fuel emissions can be reduced to 2 billion tons annually through the expansion of solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal energy, changes in the agricultural sector, and the use of carbon-capture technology, anthropogenic global warming will slow to a halt. Last I checked 2/10 = 20% not 50%
:D
Quark Blast wrote: CB on Wednesday March 6th wrote: Natural sinks currently absorb roughly 50% of the GHG we emit each year. Wired wrote: We currently pump out 10 billion tons of it each year, and scientists estimate that Earth can absorb about 2 billion tons of it a year, in addition to what’s naturally emitted and absorbed. If fossil fuel emissions can be reduced to 2 billion tons annually through the expansion of solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal energy, changes in the agricultural sector, and the use of carbon-capture technology, anthropogenic global warming will slow to a halt. Last I checked 2/10 = 20% not 50%
50% "currently", 20% eventually.
"Of the 555 ± 85 PgC of anthropogenic carbon emitted to the atmosphere from fossil fuel and cement and land use change, less than half have accumulated in the atmosphere (240 ± 10 PgC) (Table 6.1). The remaining anthropogenic carbon has been absorbed by the ocean and in terrestrial ecosystems: the carbon ‘sinks’ (Figure 6.8)."
- IPCC Fifth Assessment Report 6.3.1
That's looking at totals since 1750... 240 / 555 = ~43% remaining in the atmosphere. Looking just at recent emissions yields similar results;
Of the total emissions from human activities during the period 2008-2017, about 44% accumulated in the atmosphere, 22% in the ocean and 29% on land.
Adding the upper end of the uncertainty range on both of those figures gets us up to a worst case of ~50% of emitted carbon remaining in the atmosphere currently, as I said. Taking the uncertainty range the other way I said we need to reduce emissions ~60% for current sinks to cover the remainder.
Now, the 20% figure you are getting from Wired is a different kettle of fish entirely. That's an estimated future equilibrium point. That is, once all the feedback cycles have played out and the carbon content of the atmosphere and oceans has balanced out they expect natural sinks to be reduced to just ~2 gigatons of carbon per year. An important note for the long term, but irrelevant to the usual 'by 2100' discussions.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: CB on Wednesday March 6th wrote: Natural sinks currently absorb roughly 50% of the GHG we emit each year. Wired wrote: We currently pump out 10 billion tons of it each year, and scientists estimate that Earth can absorb about 2 billion tons of it a year, in addition to what’s naturally emitted and absorbed. If fossil fuel emissions can be reduced to 2 billion tons annually through the expansion of solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal energy, changes in the agricultural sector, and the use of carbon-capture technology, anthropogenic global warming will slow to a halt. Last I checked 2/10 = 20% not 50%
50% "currently", 20% eventually.
...snipped math stuff See the now bigger and bolder portion of the quote from Wired above.
Last I checked "currently" meant... currently. Yeah?
:D
.
On a related note. There was an expressed interest in debating particulars of climate change (as opposed to opinions) and I was called out for being too opiniony.
I've now cited at least a dozen+ studies/articles since then and no one has cared to debate any of those particulars. This is the response I expected but I still find it mildly disappointing.
I thought the recalcitrant nature of clouds in computer modeling (note: that would be all computer models) was especially interesting as it touches on both chaos and insufficient granularity as causes of error. I've been echoing some version of this sentiment since my first post here.
If models can't be trusted, how do you know that there will be some sort of global temperature increase?
Irontruth wrote: If models can't be trusted, how do you know that there will be some sort of global temperature increase? The models can't be trusted to give the answer for the year 2100 to the nearest 1.0°C. If one or more feedback loops or tipping elements are missing from the models, or parameterized wrong, then they could have an error well in excess of that.
However as the models have gotten better (a reasonable presumption - see loads of discussion up thread as to why) it allows us to put a lower limit on the model error result. This is why I say we are looking at a floor increase of +2.5°C by the year 2100.
The same sentiment is given in my prior quote from the Wired article I cited. Namely, Wired wrote: Chris Bretherton, an atmospheric scientist and mathematician at the University of Washington, performed some of the first simulations of these clouds combined with idealized climate models in 2013 and 2014. He and his collaborators modeled a small patch of stratocumulus and found that as the sea surface below it warmed under the influence of CO2, the cloud became thinner. That work and other findings—such as NASA satellite data indicating that warmer years are less cloudy than colder years—began to suggest that the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right. What Chris discovered was a rise in the floor for a reasonable temperature increase. In his case he gave +2.0°C as being not hopeful. Of course Chris was only looking at the cloud portion of the models. Similar conclusions were reached by scientists specializing in:
- Antarctic glaciers,
- Arctic permafrost,
- coal power generation globally,
- the magnitude of CO4 contribution as it impacts other parameters,
- deforestation (especially in the humid tropics),
- atmospheric particulate pollutants,
- Etc.
My opinion is informed by Chris and all the other specialists and the papers they wrote and talks they've given. Collating every respected specialist opinion I get a +2.5°C year 2100 minimum, and I reserve the right to increase that in the near future as more and better data become available.
Anyone think Elon Musk might let me go to Mars?
Quark Blast wrote: See the now bigger and bolder portion of the quote from Wired above.
Last I checked "currently" meant... currently. Yeah?
:D
Everyone is agreed that we "currently pump out 10 billion tons" of carbon per year.
The IPCC and hundreds of scientific studies show that only about half of that carbon is "currently" remaining in the atmosphere.
Wired's statement, "...scientists estimate that Earth can absorb about 2 billion tons of it a year", is presented without a time frame. It is clearly separated from their statement about current emissions and does not match measurements of current absorption. It is, in fact, an "estimate" of future absorption... and thus not relevant to the discussion we were having about current values.
Quote: I've now cited at least a dozen+ studies/articles since then and no one has cared to debate any of those particulars. You say many false things. Those are debated. You also quote studies and articles which generally don't support the false things you say. There is no reason to debate things in those citations that everyone agrees on... like your attempt to start a debate about current emissions above. The (roughly) 10 billion tons of carbon figure is not in dispute.
Quote: I thought the recalcitrant nature of clouds in computer modeling (note: that would be all computer models) was especially interesting as it touches on both chaos and insufficient granularity as causes of error. ...and who has been disputing that there is uncertainty around clouds? No one.
It's when you then go further and claim the uncertainty is so great that we know nothing (in direct contradiction of your claims of knowing for certain that we have already emitted enough to exceed 2.5 C warming) that people point out that the evidence doesn't support either of the mutually contradictory positions you are taking.
Quark Blast wrote: What Chris discovered was a rise in the floor for a reasonable temperature increase. In his case he gave +2.0°C as being not hopeful.
...
This is why I say we are looking at a floor increase of +2.5°C by the year 2100.
...
My opinion is informed by Chris and all the other specialists and the papers they wrote and talks they've given. Collating every respected specialist opinion I get a +2.5°C year 2100 minimum
You're doing the apples are oranges thing again.
Bretherton found that climate sensitivity was likely to be higher than +2.0°C. I, the IPCC, virtually all climate scientists, and overwhelming evidence agree.
You then taking that as a floor for warming by 2100 just shows (again) that you don't understand what you are talking about.
The +2.0°C climate sensitivity estimate is for a doubling of CO2... from ~280 ppm to ~560. We are currently at ~412... nowhere near double the pre-industrial level. The 'floor' implied by this lower CO2 level would be only ~1.1°C.
Now, it would be reasonable to assume that we will continue emitting enough GHGs to increase the atmospheric concentration for some time, but even at the current rate of growth (~2 ppm per year) it would take until 2093 to get to ~560 ppm. Thus, your "+2.5°C minimum" only works out if we assume that nothing will be done to decrease emissions for the next 70+ years. I do not find that a plausible assumption given that we have already slowed, if not stopped, the rate of growth and are clearly moving rapidly towards technologies (solar, wind, electric vehicles) which will cause it to decrease.
CBDunkerson wrote: <misquoted me again by inappropriately chopping up a previous post of mine>
You're doing the apples are oranges thing again.
<snip>
My context retaining quote from Wired:
"We currently pump out 10 billion tons of it each year, and scientists estimate that Earth can absorb about 2 billion tons of it a year, in addition to what’s naturally emitted and absorbed.
If fossil fuel emissions can be reduced to 2 billion tons annually through the expansion of solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal energy, changes in the agricultural sector, and the use of carbon-capture technology, anthropogenic global warming will slow to a halt."
Seems pretty clear to me those CO2 figures are being discussed as year-by-year. Not the convoluted interpretation you take. I can hardly believe you can't read for comprehension any better than that but if so maybe there's no point in trying to discuss plain facts with me?
.
To my other main point, as Chris indicated quite clearly in the article:
"the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right.
This is a sentiment I've read at least twenty times over the past few years. Some respected specialist in climatology looks at the models in regards to how they represent the climate component in which they are most expert and they realize that the models, all of them, fail to capture a significant feature(s) about their climate component specialty.
In general all these problems and doubts show the climate models are underestimating the negative impact on climate for the component they know best.
Add all of these doubts up and there is no reasonable expectation that the year 2100 will be less than +2.5°C over preindustrial (as always I state that barring some near miracle tech that scrubs CO2 and/or CH4 out of the atmosphere). Hence +2.5°C is a reasonable floor for what we can expect in the year 2100.
Quark Blast wrote: Seems pretty clear to me those CO2 figures are being discussed as year-by-year. Not the convoluted interpretation you take. Ummm... neither the text I quoted from you nor my reply that you are ostensibly 'responding' to said anything about CO2 emission rates. Year-by-year or otherwise.
Rather, I was pointing out the flaw in your (now repeated) statement that you believe there will be more than +2.0°C warming by 2100 (apples) because the warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (oranges) is likely to be greater than +2.0°C.
Apples are not oranges. Warming by 2100 is not the same thing as warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2. This is obvious... not a "convoluted interpretation".
Also, your claim that I, "misquoted me again by inappropriately chopping up a previous post of mine"...
The text you then cited (about 10 billion tons of carbon per year) did not even appear in the message I was replying to. I did not misquote you. That is a lie. Please do not do that.
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Reading up, definitely finding CBDunkerson the more persuasive voice(he seems to have way better reading comprehension which helps alot when you're trying to understand facts).
I declare this thread won!
(by me, because my question was answered by Scott Betts on the first page=p)
CBDunkerson wrote: The text you then cited (about 10 billion tons of carbon per year) did not even appear in the message I was replying to. I did not misquote you. That is a lie. Please do not do that. Well then the solution is simple for you. Reply to what I actually post instead of what you think I post. How hard is that?
Quark Blast wrote: Well then the solution is simple for you. Reply to what I actually post instead of what you think I post. How hard is that? Obviously, I did reply to what you posted. It was just a DIFFERENT post of yours. Yeesh.
You made this post.
I quoted that post and responded.
You then falsely accused me of misquoting what you said in a completely different post.
Anything to draw attention away from the fact that you conflated two different things to reach your conclusion that there will be a minimum of +2.5°C warming by 2100.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Well then the solution is simple for you. Reply to what I actually post instead of what you think I post. How hard is that? Obviously, I did reply to what you posted. It was just a DIFFERENT post of yours. Yeesh.
You made this post.
I quoted that post and responded.
You then falsely accused me of misquoting what you said in a completely different post.
Anything to draw attention away from the fact that you conflated two different things to reach your conclusion that there will be a minimum of +2.5°C warming by 2100. Ahhh... that makes sense then.
You butted into a discussion between myself and Irontruth and derailed that discussion with a tangential point I care nothing about.
Good job!
:D
Quark Blast wrote: You butted into a discussion between myself and Irontruth and derailed that discussion with a tangential point I care nothing about. That you "care nothing about" the fact that your arguments are premised on errors is kinda the whole problem.
You (repeatedly) cited a study finding that there would likely be more than two degrees of warming when atmospheric CO2 reached 560 ppm as evidence for your belief that there will be at least two and a half degrees of warming by 2100.
That would only resemble logic if we knew for a fact that atmospheric CO2 levels will reach 560 ppm before the year 2100. We do not. Ergo... your 'conclusion' is gibberish.
Quark Blast wrote: CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Well then the solution is simple for you. Reply to what I actually post instead of what you think I post. How hard is that? Obviously, I did reply to what you posted. It was just a DIFFERENT post of yours. Yeesh.
You made this post.
I quoted that post and responded.
You then falsely accused me of misquoting what you said in a completely different post.
Anything to draw attention away from the fact that you conflated two different things to reach your conclusion that there will be a minimum of +2.5°C warming by 2100. Ahhh... that makes sense then.
You butted into a discussion between myself and Irontruth and derailed that discussion with a tangential point I care nothing about.
Good job!
:D If it's a tangential point you don't care about, why did you discuss it?
If you didn't care about discussing it.... you wouldn't have discussed it. Note how many aspects of this conversation I don't mention.... that's what not caring about a discussion looks like.
Earlier you complained that no one was arguing with you when you just stated facts. Thanks for admitting that you're just taking up these stances and talking to people in insulting ways in order to gain attention for yourself.
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: You butted into a discussion between myself and Irontruth and derailed that discussion with a tangential point I care nothing about. That you "care nothing about" the fact that your arguments are premised on errors is kinda the whole problem.
You (repeatedly) cited a study finding that there would likely be more than two degrees of warming when atmospheric CO2 reached 560 ppm as evidence for your belief that there will be at least two and a half degrees of warming by 2100.
That would only resemble logic if we knew for a fact that atmospheric CO2 levels will reach 560 ppm before the year 2100. We do not. Ergo... your 'conclusion' is gibberish. That sounds reasonable but only if you ignore what Chris actually said, Chris wrote: That work and other findings—such as NASA satellite data indicating that warmer years are less cloudy than colder years—began to suggest that the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right. Why then are, according to Chris, the climate models wrong on the low end considering only the way they model clouds?
Other experts, ones I've cited/linked up thread, say they same thing about their area of expertise. The models don't fully capture the negative effect from (e.g.) tundra and permafrost, etc.
.
Ironthruth wrote: If it's a tangential point you don't care about, why did you discuss it?
If you didn't care about discussing it.... you wouldn't have discussed it. Note how many aspects of this conversation I don't mention.... that's what not caring about a discussion looks like.
Earlier you complained that no one was arguing with you when you just stated facts. Thanks for admitting that you're just taking up these stances and talking to people in insulting ways in order to gain attention for yourself.
Why did I discuss it? Well, obviously I didn't realize he was answering for you. Had I known that I would've ignored his post.
I like the way you back into a conclusion regarding my need for attention.
Word of advice, stay out of the counseling field! Like way away.
;)
I'm not backing into the conclusion. You stated it.
Quark Blast wrote: That sounds reasonable but only if you ignore what Chris actually said,Chris wrote: That work and other findings—such as NASA satellite data indicating that warmer years are less cloudy than colder years—began to suggest that the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right. Why then are, according to Chris, the climate models wrong on the low end considering only the way they model clouds? I agree with everything Professor Bretherton said and am not ignoring any of it. Like me, and virtually everyone else who has studied the matter, he believes climate sensitivity (cf. "least sensitive global climate models") is almost certainly greater than 2 degrees of warming. Not only am I not "ignoring" that... it is the bloody point I have been trying to get you to understand.
The problem comes in when you, not Chris Bretherton, then say that this makes it clear that there will be more than 2 degrees of warming by 2100. Apples are not the same thing as oranges. Warming due to climate sensitivity is not the same things as warming by 2100. Will you ever even TRY to address this point or are you just going to keep making one blatantly false accusation ('misquoting!', 'ignoring!') after another?
CBDunkerson wrote: Quark Blast wrote: That sounds reasonable but only if you ignore what Chris actually said,Chris wrote: That work and other findings—such as NASA satellite data indicating that warmer years are less cloudy than colder years—began to suggest that the least sensitive global climate models, the ones predicting little change in cloud cover and only 2 degrees of warming, probably aren’t right. Why then are, according to Chris, the climate models wrong on the low end considering only the way they model clouds? I agree with everything Professor Bretherton said and am not ignoring any of it. Like me, and virtually everyone else who has studied the matter, he believes climate sensitivity (cf. "least sensitive global climate models") is almost certainly greater than 2 degrees of warming. Not only am I not "ignoring" that... it is the bloody point I have been trying to get you to understand.
The problem comes in when you, not Chris Bretherton, then say that this makes it clear that there will be more than 2 degrees of warming by 2100. Apples are not the same thing as oranges. Warming due to climate sensitivity is not the same things as warming by 2100. Will you ever even TRY to address this point or are you just going to keep making one blatantly false accusation ('misquoting!', 'ignoring!') after another? It's not just what Chris says, it's the implication that follows from what he says.
You see the IPCC Report is, in part, based on the data from the least-sensitive-to-clouds climate models. These models are almost certainly wrong on the low end.
In Chris's example it was the models that gloss on the fact that warmer climate equates to less cloud cover, which in turn equates to a higher temperature than if the clouds were still present to the degree <--see what I did there? they were when the global average temperature was less.
In addition Chris is only considering the poor results from the failure to model clouds accurately.
Other climate scientists who specialize in other sub-systems in the global climate system say much the same thing about how poorly their specialty is underrepresented in the standard climate models.
Add up all of these under-modeled factors and it becomes quite clear that the Paris Agreement/COP24 GHG reduction targets won't actually get us to +2.0°C in the year 2100.
Decisions being made on the results of these climate models are almost certainly wrong in important ways. The models themselves all have certain error*, and on top of that, decisions are being made on how to reduce/mitigate GHG that aggregate this certain error. We're not just seeing through a fog as we plod along but we might even be looking in the wrong direction. Hard to get where you want to when you navigate using these methods.
* Hard to model chaos with linear equations (yes, some climate models still use linear equations as a proxy over certain ranges for some parameters) and hard to model non-linear processes with non-linear equations when the equations themselves are sensitively dependent on initial conditions - conditions whose numeric values we can only guess at.
Quark Blast wrote: You see the IPCC Report is, in part, based on the data from the least-sensitive-to-clouds climate models. These models are almost certainly wrong on the low end. The IPCC report is also based, in part, on models that are almost certainly wrong on the high end.
Your insistence on pretending that there is only uncertainty on the low end is one of the many many problems with your 'analysis'... but in this case the entire line of reasoning is a red herring because you continue to refuse to address the difference between IPCC warming estimates due to doubling of atmospheric CO2 (apples) vs warming estimates by the year 2100 (oranges).
Quote: Add up all of these under-modeled factors and it becomes quite clear that the Paris Agreement/COP24 GHG reduction targets won't actually get us to +2.0°C in the year 2100. ...and now we have yet a THIRD criterion, warming based on the (presumably current) Paris Agreement reduction targets (peaches).
Apples are neither oranges nor peaches. You can't just use them interchangeably like that. You keep trying to vindicate your false claim (i.e. that there is no way to avoid +2.5°C warming by 2100) by pretending that 'truish' claims (e.g. the current Paris Agreement targets would almost certainly result in more than +2°C warming by 2100... if we ignore the fact that they are intended to be improved upon every 5 years) mean the same thing.
It all comes down to how much GHG we emit in the coming decades. Theoretically, it is still possible to avoid +1.5°C warming by 2100... say if we had a nuclear war and killed off most of the human race in the next few years. On the high end we could assume that the current Paris Agreement reduction pledges are the best we'll ever get and warming by 2100 will probably be around +3.0°C. More likely the reduction pledges will improve over time as falling prices make it easier to convert to cleaner power options. Thus, the eventual warming will likely be somewhere between those two extremes... and your insistence that it will have to be >2.5°C is just nonsense.
In accordance with current forum rules, why is this thread not locked?
Slim Jim wrote: In accordance with current forum rules, why is this thread not locked? Because it's not a political thread. It's a science thread with political implications.
Per the linked post, this is not about elections or ballot initiatives or even a politically charged current event. It it not a parody of a political figure or a such a politically charged current event. Nor does it have the sole topic of a specific political figure, party, or agenda.
Plus, it's been generally low traffic, low complaint for quite some time and hasn't turned into the kind of flame war they were trying to avoid.
Science: It now appears likely that there were several "Snowball Earth" phases, some lasting over a hundred million years, prior to the "Cambrian Explosion" (the point at which life became multicellular). Much more recently, most glaciers (especially alpine) currently observed around the world, and which everyone was panicking about so recently, did not even exist during the "Medieval Warm Period" only a thousand to eight-hundred years ago, and ice-sheets two miles thick covered much of Europe and North America as recently as less than 20,000 years ago.
Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again).
All the hysteria since circa 1989 has been political maneuvering to create a multi-trillion/annum "carbon trade" tax racket that global citizenry does not notice because it's built in at the corporate level and parsed into rising prices. The other victim, of course, is the integrity of government-funded science, which is now a smoking crater. But then, it couldn't have gone any other way given the inexorable nature of government in the first place.
Slim Jim wrote: Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again). Umm, no.
The Snowball Earth scenarios were pre-craton, pre-multicellular life, pre-free-oxygen atmosphere... in short, the earth so little resembled what we have today that to suppose a return to the Snowball Earth condition is really only an outline for a fantasy novel.
Sorry.
:(
CBDunkerson wrote: The IPCC report is also based, in part, on models that are almost certainly wrong on the high end....
<snippity snip snip>
It all comes down to how much GHG we emit in the coming decades...
As for part one:
The IPCC report has to keep a positive attitude as the social engineering problem * is made far worse if all one does is list the state of affairs and outline the likely path to a worsening climate.
Which is to say, the IPCC errs to the low end climate model predictions against the high end ones. It's hard to motivate people with mere warnings of certain doom.
As for part two:
No, it comes down to hoping against hope that we have modeled the climate well enough that our program of GHG mitigation/reduction (should we actually settle on one and move to implement it instead of just talking about it like we've done now for over 20 years) won't be overrun by one or more Tipping Elements/Points.
* This recent discussion doesn't even account for the sociological factors. I've cited/linked a few sources for this but social systems are resistant to change without a valuable "carrot" and/or an obvious and painful "stick". So far we don't seem to be using either very good carrots nor very large sticks.
This is why I'm a strong advocate for increases in energy efficiencies. There is a direct and often immediate payoff to the end user, and they make a difference since everyone is a participant.
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Slim Jim wrote: Science: It now appears likely that there were several "Snowball Earth" phases, Highly disputed. Indeed, 'Snowball Earth' is still considered a hypothesis... in that there is as much evidence against it as there is for. It may have happened one or more times in the distant past, but we're nowhere near being able to prove that.
Quote: Much more recently, most glaciers (especially alpine) currently observed around the world, and which everyone was panicking about so recently, did not even exist during the "Medieval Warm Period" only a thousand to eight-hundred years ago This one is just straight up false. For one thing, the so called 'Medieval Warm Period' was localized around medieval Europe... and thus had no impact whatsoever on (for example) glaciers in the southern hemisphere. Further, for this to be true even for Europe there would have to have been no glaciers there during the MWP... yet there are numerous historical records of them.
My guess is that this fallacy is being created based on the fact that none of the ice currently in the alpine glaciers is 800+ years old... which is simply because glacial flow causes the ice to move downwards and melt while precipitation adds new ice at the top. Thus, the individual ice molecules are relatively short lived (seldom more than a century), but the glaciers have been there far longer.
Quote: Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again). Even if your 'facts' had been correct this 'conclusion' would be both insupportable and irrelevant to the issue of global warming.
Insupportable because it ignores the fact that solar output increases over time... making it possible for the Sun alone to eventually prevent a Snowball Earth scenario.
Irrelevant because it doesn't change the present reality at all. Even if the Earth CAN somehow reach a 'Snowball Earth' state at some point in the future... so what? Why do you act as if that somehow invalidates the fact that the planet is currently warming?
Quote: All the hysteria since circa 1989 Arrhenius proposed the theory of anthropogenic global warming in 1896. Guy Callendar showed sufficient evidence that it was happening to make the issue widely studied starting in the 1940s.
I'd guess you're citing ~1989 based on James Hansen's testimony to Congress in 1988 and/or the first IPCC report in 1990... so shortly after the evidence became logically indisputable.
Quote: has been political maneuvering to create a multi-trillion/annum "carbon trade" tax racket that global citizenry does not notice because it's built in at the corporate level and parsed into rising prices. I'd argue that the long run-up (not to mention the suggestion that all the current governments, and climate scientists, of the planet are working together) makes this conspiracy theory impossible... but even ignoring that... if the tax is invisible then why do the Illuminati (or whoever) need to promote the idea of global warming? It doesn't matter. They can take their invisible tax regardless of what the "global citizenry" believe.
Quote: The other victim, of course, is the integrity of government-funded science, which is now a smoking crater. Despite matching non-government funded scientific results? Heck, even 'climate skeptic' Richard Muller wound up confirming global warming when he got money from Koch Industries to actually study it. Are the fossil fuel companies in on the conspiracy (against themselves) too?
I just love the idea that it's all a big government conspiracy while governments have been way behind the scientific consensus, when they're not outright opposed.
"Conspiracy theories" aren't built on logic.
Irontruth wrote: "Conspiracy theories" aren't built on logic. That's what they want you to think.
Quark Blast wrote: Slim Jim wrote: Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again). Umm, no.
The Snowball Earth scenarios were pre-craton, False. You could visit the link I provided. Quote: pre-multicellular life, Awesome! You did read some of my post, where I said that. Quote: pre-free-oxygen atmosphere... False. (Only one episode, the Huronian glaciation, preceded an oxygenated atmosphere.)
~ ~ ~
*All* carbon currently in fossil sinks (oil, coal, etc) is there due to biological activity (unless you accept abiogenesis theories, which are another topic entirely). In other words, it was free in the environment (as CO2) during periods which included extreme glaciation. Quote: in short, the earth so little resembled what we have today that to suppose a return to the Snowball Earth condition is really only an outline for a fantasy novel. Meanwhile, glaciers were only half their current size as recently as 900 years ago, then sprang back to approximately 1.5x what we currently have in only a few hundred years during the Little Ice Age (which only ended in the mid-19th Century). The activities of humanity had nothing to do with these wild swings, which mainly ended before the Industrial Revolution was underway in earnest.
Slim Jim wrote: Meanwhile, glaciers were only half their current size as recently as 900 years ago... You realize those glaciers constitute about 0.95% of the total ice on Earth? That's a flux of about 0.5% over 500+ years.
The variance AGW can produce (or at least initiate) is several times that and one would have to go back 125,000 years or so to a similar net change in the global climate; though the change occurs at a much slower pace and with only about half the current increase in atmospheric CO2.
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Slim Jim wrote: Quark Blast wrote: Slim Jim wrote: Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again). Umm, no.
The Snowball Earth scenarios were pre-craton, False. You could visit the link I provided. Definitely no, unless your craton definition is banana-based (see final comment below).
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Slim Jim wrote: Quark Blast wrote: pre-multicellular life, Awesome! You did read some of my post, where I said that. Yes it is awesome and the major reason why conflating these deep-time glaciation events to the modern climate is, well, an exercise incommensurate with the facts.
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Slim Jim wrote: Quark Blast wrote: pre-free-oxygen atmosphere... False. (Only one episode, the Huronian glaciation, preceded an oxygenated atmosphere.) If you want to call ~1% atmospheric free oxygen an "oxygenated atmosphere" then (to paraphrase CB) I'm talking apples and you're talking bananas.
Slim Jim wrote: pre-free-oxygen atmosphere... False. (Only one episode, the Huronian glaciation, preceded an oxygenated atmosphere.)
Actually, and this may bolster your case, whatever it is, the Huronian glaciation followed the Great Oxygen Catastrophe. It was caused by the drop in atmospheric methane - combined with the released oxygen to form CO2 and H2O.
It's not clear in which Ice Ages glaciation actually reached the Equator - not in the more recent ones. Probably the Huronian, possibly the following Cryogenian.
It's likely that Ice Ages are only possible on Earth in the presence of photosynthesizing life: Without atmospheric Oxygen, methane remains in the atmosphere and is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Mind you, I've got no idea what this line of argument has to do with our current climate change.
Slim Jim wrote: Conclusion: Every single molecule of "fossil" carbon sequestered by lifeforms into oil deposits, peat bogs, coal beds, and methane hydrate sinks could be burned tomorrow and not result in a climate sufficiently altered to prevent such a thing (a Snowball Earth) from happening again (should whatever caused them happen again). This may be true, but in the absence of "whatever caused them", burning that fossil carbon will heat the planet far beyond what will be good for us.
There are various theories for causes of Ice Ages, but they all operate on geological time: sun cycles, continental drift, etc. Or as I mentioned above - the start of photosynthesis.
Meanwhile, the changes we're making to the atmosphere are happening on a scale of centuries or even decades.
*giant voice* Fee, Fie foe fum. I smell the blood of an internet troll...mun.
Changing Views About A Changing Climate - August 3, 2012
NPR wrote: FLATOW: And what should that policy be? What should we do?
MULLER: The most important thing, there are two things that are really important. One is there's an enormous amount that can be done with energy efficiency and conservation: better automobiles, better insulation in homes. The second thing that we need to do, and this is equally important, is to recognize that natural gas emits one-third the carbon dioxide of coal.
And the future emissions, unfortunately, are not within the U.S. control. By the end of this year, China will be emitting twice the carbon dioxide as the U.S., and they're growing rapidly whereas our carbon dioxide emissions have been going down over the last few years.
So unless we can devise an approach where China can reduce its emissions, it won't do any good. Fortunately, there is that approach because China is building essentially one new coal gigawatt every week. That's a huge growth, and it's responsible for their increase in emissions, but they have good natural gas resources.
We have to develop and devise methods for clean fracking. Clean fracking is the key. They have enormous reserves over there. If they can switch from coal to natural gas, that'll have as big an effect as worldwide energy conservation and energy efficiency.
...
FLATOW: And where do you go from here? Is there anything next on your agenda about global warming?
MULLER: Well, I think the issue of policy is really important. And we have been looking very hard about what can be done. In my new book, we talk about how much money can be made by using energy efficiency, energy conservation, I called it energy productivity.
The fact is just for the ordinary citizen, as well as the Chinese, a little bit of money placed in insulation in your home can yield a return on your investment that exceeds that of Bernie Madoff. And not only that, it's legitimate, and it's even tax-free because you don't pay taxes on money you save.
So that, and unfortunately too many people in the community, too many of my friends who are worried about global warming, have already taken a position on fracking. The fact is that natural gas can be made clean. It's not hard. It's much easier to do clean fracking than it is, for example, to make cheap solar.
So I'm hoping that the environmentalists who have started to oppose fracking, I think prematurely, can be won over and recognize that this has to be part of a worldwide energy policy. Natural gas also helps the Chinese because their citizens are being choked by the soot and other emissions of their coal plants.
So expediting a shift, this should be U.S. policy, that we will help the Chinese make the shift from coal to natural gas. China, India, the developing world, this is absolutely essential.
FLATOW: And what about a shift to renewables?
MULLER: Well, that's wonderful, and that will ultimately take the place of natural gas, but take China for example. Last year, they installed what everybody says was a gigawatt of solar. In fact, it wasn't a gigawatt because that's the peak power. Average in night, and it's half a gigawatt. Average mornings and late afternoons, it's a quarter of a gigawatt.
Meanwhile, they put in 40 gigawatts of coal. So renewables are great, but for the developing world, they're still too expensive. And so China and India are going the way they can afford. We can't criticize them for that, and we can't afford to subsidize them. So the switch to natural gas I think is absolutely essential for the next several decades.
So this is a nearly 7-year-old interview but it shows that the idea of using policy to increase efficiency is the way to go. Everybody wins and they win "right now", not two to ten decades out.
Even though renewables are far cheaper now then when Gerd got interviewed, they cannot be deployed in the same way as, say, natural gas. Renewable energy sources are too sparse and intermittent to achieve what they theoretically can without also investing in energy efficiency. And we aren't investing near enough in improving efficiencies.
Worse, there is a lot of "heat" generated on the topic of individual action. Individual action is a ####### waste of time on the scale needed to combat AGW. Not only will all of our individual actions not add up to #### but we won't do them anyway should the option actually exist.
As an example:
How many people here will get their Adventure Paths delivered by rail instead of air? Who's going to elect 25 day delivery instead of overnight or two day delivery?
No one.
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Just last December Muller is still talking sense. Germany seeks private funds for climate projects in Africa, elsewhere
Rueters wrote: The European Union’s climate chief last week called for the bloc to aim for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The BDI Federation of German Industry warned Europe against adopting overly ambitious targets, noting that Europe accounted for only 10 percent of global CO2 emissions.
Asked about the EU target, BDI President Dieter Kempf told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper, that moving toward net-zero emissions in Europe would require more investment.
“A completely, or largely emission-free economy would carry an enormous price,” he said.
Getting the world off of coal, and especially not building new coal power generators, is far more important than damaging the EU economy trying to achieve "zero emissions" a decade or two sooner. That "success" devotes an enormous amount of capital at a fraction of the problem. That same capital used to help developing nations build cleaner power sources will have ten times the impact, easily.
So...I was wrong about internet troll -mun?
Richard Muller is a blowhard who spouts off complete nonsense on things he doesn't understand.
Case in point: " It's much easier to do clean fracking than it is, for example, to make cheap solar."
...and yet cheap solar exists, while 'clean fracking' does not.
This is just like Muller's idiotic claims that climate change temperature series were faked, that global warming hasn't killed any polar bears, that China will continue to average double digit GDP growth for decades, and on and on.
He's a fine scientist, but his ego and biases push him to make absolutely absurd claims in fields that he has not studied.
Basically, citing Muller's opinion doesn't impress. He has a track record of being spectacularly wrong far more often than not. Let him actually complete a study or show us this magical 'clean fracking' and then we'll talk.
CBDunkerson wrote: Richard Muller is a blowhard who spouts off complete nonsense on things he doesn't understand.
Case in point: " It's much easier to do clean fracking than it is, for example, to make cheap solar."
...and yet cheap solar exists, while 'clean fracking' does not.
This is just like Muller's idiotic claims that climate change temperature series were faked, that global warming hasn't killed any polar bears, that China will continue to average double digit GDP growth for decades, and on and on.
He's a fine scientist, but his ego and biases push him to make absolutely absurd claims in fields that he has not studied.
Basically, citing Muller's opinion doesn't impress. He has a track record of being spectacularly wrong far more often than not. Let him actually complete a study or show us this magical 'clean fracking' and then we'll talk.
Ad hominem much?
Also, neither you nor Gerd defined "clean fracking" so the one real criticism fails to carry meaning. Kind of like giving a 1-star Amazon product review and then saying in the text portion of the review; "me no likey". Yeah, the 1-star said as much but what I want to know is something actually about the product not an echo of your already stated personal feelings.
Why would CBD need to define "clean fracking"? It's Muller's term. The onus is on Muller to define it. Or if you want to defend it, you certainly can.
Sheesh, what kind of reading skills do they teach at your university?
Quark Blast wrote: Ad hominem much? Umm... no.
That term refers to arguing against the person without addressing the validity of their position (e.g. 'we should ignore what Bob says about economics because he smells bad'). My entire commentary on Muller was about the validity, or rather lack thereof, of his un-researched statements. He has been proven wrong over and over again. Once he even got money from the fossil fuel industry to back up his claims that scientists were faking global temperature data... and wound up proving himself wrong.
Quote: Also, neither you nor Gerd defined "clean fracking" so the one real criticism fails to carry meaning. So you're going with semantic nullification? Muller could be considered correct if we redefine 'clean' as 'just as polluting as it always has been'?
Great. He didn't define "cheap" solar either. Ergo, if we want to go with semantic flim-flam we can render Muller's entire statement effectively meaningless. So why are you bringing him in to this? Because he doesn't work in the field? Because he has been consistently wrong about it? Because he says truly ridiculous things that can only be made 'pretend reasonable' if we apply absurd re-definitions to the words used?
With all the pointless attacks against Gerd's person (he espouses "flim-flam" while giving exactly no examples other than your mere opinion) or against myself (disparaging my university reading skills), you missed the relevant reason I cited him. Let me try again.
Getting the world off of coal, and especially not building new coal power generators, is far more important than damaging the EU economy trying to achieve "zero emissions" a decade or two sooner.
That "success" devotes an enormous amount of capital at a fraction of the problem.
That same capital used to help developing nations build cleaner power sources will have ten times the impact, easily.
Everyone is white-knuckling over how to squeeze the last ounce of green energy into the Euro-grid to claim that last fraction of possibility, while the same dollars (or Euros) spent in Africa, South America, India and/or Asia (sans China) would achieve at least an order of magnitude reduction in the global GHG emissions as we head towards the year 2100.
The details can be worked out but Gerd is right in the big picture. Policy, particularly international policy with a one-globe perspective, is the way to get to 2100 so we can hope to achieve something less than a +2.5°C result. The current effort, Paris/Katowice/etc., makes a lot of wonks feel good but really isn't lessening the resulting average global temperature in 2100. It just isn't. The science says so.
I feel like I'm being ignored here in favor of ire and spite...
Quark Blast wrote: With all the pointless attacks against Gerd's person (he espouses "flim-flam" while giving exactly no examples other than your mere opinion) or against myself (disparaging my university reading skills), you missed the relevant reason I cited him. Ummm... given the above, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disparage your reading skills.
I said that you, not your imaginary friend 'Gerd', were suggesting semantic flim-flam and gave a very clear example of this (i.e. suggesting that 'clean fracking' could be taken to exist if we just re-define 'clean' to mean something roughly equivalent to 'dirty').
No one, other than you, has said anything about 'Gerd'... whoever that is supposed to be. You just started mentioning the name semi-randomly in reference to an interview involving two people... neither of whom are named Gerd.
Quote: Policy, particularly international policy with a one-globe perspective, is the way to get to 2100 so we can hope to achieve something less than a +2.5°C result. The current effort, Paris/Katowice/etc., makes a lot of wonks feel good but really isn't lessening the resulting average global temperature in 2100. It just isn't. The science says so. We have all repeatedly agreed that the current Paris accord targets are insufficient.
You alone have repeatedly refused to address the fact that the Paris accord targets are meant to be improved upon every five years OR the fact that wind, solar, and storage battery costs continue to plummet at remarkable rates which will make the same dollar commitments countries envisioned five years ago capable of generating much greater amounts of clean power than were originally planned.
Gerd is earth isn't it? I mean I thought that's what it was called by the Norse. I mean instead of just "Midgard".
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Thomas Seitz wrote: I feel like I'm being ignored here in favor of ire and spite... Well, now you've raised my ire.
Would an offering of cookies help undo the ire?
Thomas Seitz wrote: Would an offering of cookies help undo the ire? Cookies? Cookies?!? We're going to boil ourselves alive, I can't get a spot on the Mars shuttle, and you're going to offer me cookies!?!
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Irontruth wrote: Thomas Seitz wrote: Would an offering of cookies help undo the ire? Cookies? Cookies?!? We're going to boil ourselves alive, I can't get a spot on the Mars shuttle, and you're going to offer me cookies!?! <takes Irontruth's cookies>
Hey, if we're going to boil ourselves alive, we might as well have cookies while we wait.
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