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Global Climate change 2019

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  • #46
    Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
    warming at the turn of the century was because the "Little Ice Age" ended in the late 1800's.
    So maybe we are just in another warm period.

    Comment


    • #47
      Reordering things slightly so they make more sense

      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      OK thanks. THat is too much to respond to point by point but I will take a look.
      I don't expect a point by point response - having just done one, i know how much work they are (which is why i was reluctant to do this in the first place).

      Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
      warming at the turn of the century was because the "Little Ice Age" ended in the late 1800's.
      Some of the warming in the late 1800s might have been that (the LIA ended a bit earlier than that), but clearing land for agriculture and the rapid growth in coal use are also thought to have contributed.

      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
      I notice that chart has a HUGE temperature increase in the first half of the 20th century. Then it leveled off and now it is rising again. Since we had far fewer people back then, what cause that rise? And why did it flatten out during the most industrial period 1950-1980?
      Coal use produces two things, from a climate perspective:
      CO2, which warms the climate, and is long lived in the atmosphere. Its long time in the atmosphere means that emissions are essentially cumulative - each year's emissions are added to the total of all previous years..
      Aerosols, which reflect sunlight and cool the climate, but wash out with rains. Their effects are therefore short duration. You can think of the aerosol impact as a running average of the last 5 years of emissions only.

      Current thinking is that the cumulative impact of CO2 dominated until the vast expansion of coal use early-to-mid last century. At this point, there was so much coal being burned, that even the short lived aerosols could dominate. Starting in the 70s, Europe and North America started instituting pollution controls that lowered total aerosols, and CO2 had been accumulating the whole time, so the balance switched back.

      There's been some suggestions that, as China is cutting back on coal and starting to control its pollution, that we may see a somewhat enhanced trajectory starting somewhere in the next few decades. But i've not seen someone go through and do a quantitative projection on that.
      "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        More? I am thinking they are getting funding. If there were no global warming, they wouldn't have funding.
        You do realize that we studied the climate well before the general awareness of climate change as an issue, right? Getting climate data has always been part of the remit of both NASA and NOAA, and the military has collected a lot of it. And, if it weren't for the fact that we were funding this research before people were generally aware it was an issue, US-based scientists never would have been involved in determining it was an issue.

        A lot of your arguments here seem to be based on mistaken premises.

        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        uh no. I am talking about such things as the "green new deal" which is a socialist plan that relies on taking away things such as cows, airplanes, powerplants, etc, and making the public more reliant on the government for everything. They couldn't push such things through if there weren't a crisis they could point to.
        Ok, i interpreted austerity as meaning "government austerity", given your other term was a form of government. My mistake. I personally felt the green new deal was stupid, so we're agreed on that. Climate change is too important an issue to turn it into a wish list for a bunch of unrelated stuff.

        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        The charts I have seen show about 7 inches in the last 100 years, (200 mm) and the rise is steady, not an increasing curve like you would expect if global warming was causing it over the last few decades.


        https://climate.nasa.gov/system/char...Level_left.gif
        You may not be able to discern a curve visually, but if you use math, one's there.
        https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html
        https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/n...-accelerating/

        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        I am not sure what that chart is showing. Where is the actual temperature on that chart?
        This is not meant to be superior, but if you really have put time into trying to understand the science here, these are terms you really should know. For one, the temperature is shown as the anomaly (relative change) vs a baseline as the average of global temps between 1980 and 1999, as indicated in the axis label. CMIP is the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, a set of some of the most sophisticated climate models that are each run multiple times and averaged (the averaging makes the black trace much smoother than the actual real world data). The colored bars are the various temperature records - HadCRUT is the UK Met office, NOAA is NOAA, GISTEMP is NASA, Cowtan and Way is NOAA's updated one (the subject of the Science article Singer was ranting about).

        The Hindcast is simply feeding the models known forcings (CO2 levels, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, etc) and seeing whether it reproduces similar temperatures. The forecast is taking average forcings for things like solar and volcanoes, and increasing CO2 levels, and letting the models keep running beyond where the data runs out.

        There's a lot to potentially say here, but the key point for this discussion is that the models are running pretty close to the actual temperature for decades after the data runs out.
        "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
          You do realize that we studied the climate well before the general awareness of climate change as an issue, right? Getting climate data has always been part of the remit of both NASA and NOAA, and the military has collected a lot of it. And, if it weren't for the fact that we were funding this research before people were generally aware it was an issue, US-based scientists never would have been involved in determining it was an issue.

          A lot of your arguments here seem to be based on mistaken premises.


          Ok, i interpreted austerity as meaning "government austerity", given your other term was a form of government. My mistake. I personally felt the green new deal was stupid, so we're agreed on that. Climate change is too important an issue to turn it into a wish list for a bunch of unrelated stuff.


          You may not be able to discern a curve visually, but if you use math, one's there.
          https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html
          https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/n...-accelerating/


          This is not meant to be superior, but if you really have put time into trying to understand the science here, these are terms you really should know. For one, the temperature is shown as the anomaly (relative change) vs a baseline as the average of global temps between 1980 and 1999, as indicated in the axis label. CMIP is the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, a set of some of the most sophisticated climate models that are each run multiple times and averaged (the averaging makes the black trace much smoother than the actual real world data). The colored bars are the various temperature records - HadCRUT is the UK Met office, NOAA is NOAA, GISTEMP is NASA, Cowtan and Way is NOAA's updated one (the subject of the Science article Singer was ranting about).

          The Hindcast is simply feeding the models known forcings (CO2 levels, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, etc) and seeing whether it reproduces similar temperatures. The forecast is taking average forcings for things like solar and volcanoes, and increasing CO2 levels, and letting the models keep running beyond where the data runs out.

          There's a lot to potentially say here, but the key point for this discussion is that the models are running pretty close to the actual temperature for decades after the data runs out.
          OK, I have already admitted to having some Dunning-Kruger here on the topic.

          I am not completely convinced but I am feeling more confident in the data now. Thank you.

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
            OK, I have already admitted to having some Dunning-Kruger here on the topic.

            I am not completely convinced but I am feeling more confident in the data now. Thank you.
            Nice thread so far - enjoyed reading through it
            My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

            If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

            This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
              I was born in '46 and experienced colder winters in the 50's
              Younger than you I am, but I spent an early 5 years in Alaska. Not nearly as cold now as it was then.

              Jim
              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

              Comment


              • #52
                In case The Lurch hasn't seen my post in the other thread, thanks to him I believe that global warming is most likely happening, and likely at least in part due to mankind. But I still have some doubts, and I believe that it is not as bad as the media and politicians make it out to be. I don't think we will see the point of no return in 10-15 years. I think it will likely be a hundred or more if things don't change. I think the politicians and their ilk are using it as a scare tactic to push through their agendas. I also think that due to technological advances, we will probably be beyond using fossil fuel in 30 years or less, with electric vehicles replacing gas ones, and hopefully with fusion generators being perfected and used for power generation, or maybe even with some advances in solar power efficiency.

                So thanks The Lurch.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  In case The Lurch hasn't seen my post in the other thread, thanks to him I believe that global warming is most likely happening, and likely at least in part due to mankind. But I still have some doubts, and I believe that it is not as bad as the media and politicians make it out to be. I don't think we will see the point of no return in 10-15 years. I think it will likely be a hundred or more if things don't change. I think the politicians and their ilk are using it as a scare tactic to push through their agendas. I also think that due to technological advances, we will probably be beyond using fossil fuel in 30 years or less, with electric vehicles replacing gas ones, and hopefully with fusion generators being perfected and used for power generation, or maybe even with some advances in solar power efficiency.

                  So thanks The Lurch.
                  I had not seen it, but thanks for posting on my home turf to let me know. I appreciate you approaching things with an open mind.

                  Incidentally, we may not even need fusion to bail us out - it's now cheaper to build and run wind turbines than it is to simply buy the natural gas for a power plant, at least in the central US.

                  If you want to talk about the science behind the 15 year figure, happy to do so. Like any projections, there are some assumptions built in, but it's not a point of no return so much as it is a "point after which it gets much harder to return than it was to get there."
                  "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                    I had not seen it, but thanks for posting on my home turf to let me know. I appreciate you approaching things with an open mind.

                    Incidentally, we may not even need fusion to bail us out - it's now cheaper to build and run wind turbines than it is to simply buy the natural gas for a power plant, at least in the central US.

                    If you want to talk about the science behind the 15 year figure, happy to do so. Like any projections, there are some assumptions built in, but it's not a point of no return so much as it is a "point after which it gets much harder to return than it was to get there."
                    I have been listening to Sanders and the other democrat candidates. They are claiming we have a climate crisis and the tipping point is 12 years and the only way we can save our planet is to tax everyone to death. That is the the sort of stuff that really turns me off and makes me suspicious of Climate Change.

                    I think if we concentrate on just improving technology for it's own sake, we will eliminate the problem. Whether you believe AGW is true or not, we will be running out of petroleum at some point, and we do know it causes smog and pollution, so switching to electric cars just makes sense. And they are better vehicles. Simpler mechanically, higher torque, better handling. And easier to control with computers (self-driving). So we don't need politicians breathing down our neck and threatening to tax people and petroleum companies to death. We just need to get an infrastructure in place (charging stations) and make the electric cars more affordable and the free market will take care of the rest. And as you point out, once it becomes cheaper to make electricity using something like wind power, then oil and coal powered plants will naturally close down.

                    And I think even the population will start to take care of itself. People in most first world countries are having fewer children, barely keeping the population steady (2 children per family). If we can help the third world countries move into the 21st century, I think their populations would level off too.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                      I have been listening to Sanders and the other democrat candidates. They are claiming we have a climate crisis and the tipping point is 12 years and the only way we can save our planet is to tax everyone to death. That is the the sort of stuff that really turns me off and makes me suspicious of Climate Change.

                      I think if we concentrate on just improving technology for it's own sake, we will eliminate the problem. Whether you believe AGW is true or not, we will be running out of petroleum at some point, and we do know it causes smog and pollution, so switching to electric cars just makes sense. And they are better vehicles. Simpler mechanically, higher torque, better handling. And easier to control with computers (self-driving). So we don't need politicians breathing down our neck and threatening to tax people and petroleum companies to death. We just need to get an infrastructure in place (charging stations) and make the electric cars more affordable and the free market will take care of the rest. And as you point out, once it becomes cheaper to make electricity using something like wind power, then oil and coal powered plants will naturally close down.

                      And I think even the population will start to take care of itself. People in most first world countries are having fewer children, barely keeping the population steady (2 children per family). If we can help the third world countries move into the 21st century, I think their populations would level off too.
                      Not a good idea to listen to politicians, especially Gore.
                      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                      go with the flow the river knows . . .

                      Frank

                      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                        I have been listening to Sanders and the other democrat candidates. They are claiming we have a climate crisis and the tipping point is 12 years and the only way we can save our planet is to tax everyone to death. That is the the sort of stuff that really turns me off and makes me suspicious of Climate Change.

                        I think if we concentrate on just improving technology for it's own sake, we will eliminate the problem. Whether you believe AGW is true or not, we will be running out of petroleum at some point, and we do know it causes smog and pollution, so switching to electric cars just makes sense. And they are better vehicles. Simpler mechanically, higher torque, better handling. And easier to control with computers (self-driving). So we don't need politicians breathing down our neck and threatening to tax people and petroleum companies to death. We just need to get an infrastructure in place (charging stations) and make the electric cars more affordable and the free market will take care of the rest. And as you point out, once it becomes cheaper to make electricity using something like wind power, then oil and coal powered plants will naturally close down.

                        And I think even the population will start to take care of itself. People in most first world countries are having fewer children, barely keeping the population steady (2 children per family). If we can help the third world countries move into the 21st century, I think their populations would level off too.
                        Two quick thoughts:
                        Since it does seem to be a point of focus, i'll explain what the 12 year figure actually means. It's something we really do need to consider in our planning, but how we manage that planning is of course in the realm of politics, not science. I'll come back to that tonight when i'm done with work.

                        Second thought is that you're right on population trajectories. In the words of the (sadly deceased) scientist Hans Rossling, we've already reached "peak baby" - the total number of newborns in the world has been in decline for a couple of years.
                        "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Ok, the "we're screwed in 15 years" idea:

                          It helps first to back up to the big picture: why are we mostly focusing on 2șC as a target for limiting warming?

                          Climate change doesn't influence a single phenomenon. Sea level rise, droughts, extreme precipitation etc. etc. are all driven by changes in the climate. And, being climate related, they're chaotic but constrained. Think of that like winter temperatures - they're going to vary a lot, but generally be colder. So each of these things doesn't just have a simple response to a warming climate; instead, it has a probability curve. So scientists have looked at the point at which the climate will warm enough so that enough of these individual probability curves will start pushing into new territories, resulting in potential disruptions to things like agriculture, port infrastructure, etc.

                          The general consensus is that that starts to become very noticeable at 1.5șC, and much more dramatic at 2șC. (For context, the difference between temperatures in the late 1800s and an ice age can be as little as 4șC, which gives you some sense of why a change that appears as small as 2șC might be disruptive).

                          So it's become an international goal to keep warming below 2șC. Now, we've done many studies into how much the temperature will change in response to changes in CO2. These all have error bars and don't all agree, but if we merge them all, then we can come up with a likely value called the climate sensitivity, which measures the response of temperatures to CO2. And, once we have that, we can determine how much CO2 we can add to the atmosphere before temperatures are likely to change by 2șC.

                          We can then compare that total volume that we can afford to get away with to our current emissions. And we can see when emissions have to start trending down before we're committed to enough CO2 in the atmosphere to go past the 2șC goal. That's where we get the 10-15 years figure.

                          Now, the caveats: there are definitely uncertainties. The climate sensitivity is uncertain. Some potential values are lower, which would give us more time (though the uncertainties are biased high, in that it's more probable to warm faster than we expect). Each individual factor influenced by that temperature change has uncertainties. So, while we're finding that sea level rise is happening faster than expected given the amount of warming we've seen, we may end up finding that droughts in agricultural areas are on the less-sensitive-to-warming side of their probability curve. The combination of all these impacts may be more amenable to our current infrastructure and way of life.

                          The other thing is that climate change takes time - it's not throwing a light switch. The CO2 we put in the atmosphere now will take years to warm the planet, in part because the oceans and ice take years to equilibrate to a warmer world, and act as brakes on the change in the mean time. So it's entirely possible that we overshoot the mark in 15 years, but by 15 years after that, are producing so much excess wind power that we can afford to pull CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

                          But because all of those things are uncertain or hypothetical, it's generally thought that the best way to manage risk is to at least attempt to get the trajectory heading in the right direction within the time we've got.



                          Now, a big problem with all of this: consider how many words it took to make what i hope is a decent summary of the issue. Compare all those words with the amount given to a policymaker or scientist in today's media landscape. For the most part, you're going to hear things that are so over-simplified as to be confusing, and sometimes effectively misleading. It's one of the reasons that so many discussions of this are just, well, awful.
                          "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                            Ok, the "we're screwed in 15 years" idea:

                            It helps first to back up to the big picture: why are we mostly focusing on 2șC as a target for limiting warming?

                            Climate change doesn't influence a single phenomenon. Sea level rise, droughts, extreme precipitation etc. etc. are all driven by changes in the climate. And, being climate related, they're chaotic but constrained. Think of that like winter temperatures - they're going to vary a lot, but generally be colder. So each of these things doesn't just have a simple response to a warming climate; instead, it has a probability curve. So scientists have looked at the point at which the climate will warm enough so that enough of these individual probability curves will start pushing into new territories, resulting in potential disruptions to things like agriculture, port infrastructure, etc.

                            The general consensus is that that starts to become very noticeable at 1.5șC, and much more dramatic at 2șC. (For context, the difference between temperatures in the late 1800s and an ice age can be as little as 4șC, which gives you some sense of why a change that appears as small as 2șC might be disruptive).

                            So it's become an international goal to keep warming below 2șC. Now, we've done many studies into how much the temperature will change in response to changes in CO2. These all have error bars and don't all agree, but if we merge them all, then we can come up with a likely value called the climate sensitivity, which measures the response of temperatures to CO2. And, once we have that, we can determine how much CO2 we can add to the atmosphere before temperatures are likely to change by 2șC.

                            We can then compare that total volume that we can afford to get away with to our current emissions. And we can see when emissions have to start trending down before we're committed to enough CO2 in the atmosphere to go past the 2șC goal. That's where we get the 10-15 years figure.

                            Now, the caveats: there are definitely uncertainties. The climate sensitivity is uncertain. Some potential values are lower, which would give us more time (though the uncertainties are biased high, in that it's more probable to warm faster than we expect). Each individual factor influenced by that temperature change has uncertainties. So, while we're finding that sea level rise is happening faster than expected given the amount of warming we've seen, we may end up finding that droughts in agricultural areas are on the less-sensitive-to-warming side of their probability curve. The combination of all these impacts may be more amenable to our current infrastructure and way of life.

                            The other thing is that climate change takes time - it's not throwing a light switch. The CO2 we put in the atmosphere now will take years to warm the planet, in part because the oceans and ice take years to equilibrate to a warmer world, and act as brakes on the change in the mean time. So it's entirely possible that we overshoot the mark in 15 years, but by 15 years after that, are producing so much excess wind power that we can afford to pull CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

                            But because all of those things are uncertain or hypothetical, it's generally thought that the best way to manage risk is to at least attempt to get the trajectory heading in the right direction within the time we've got.



                            Now, a big problem with all of this: consider how many words it took to make what i hope is a decent summary of the issue. Compare all those words with the amount given to a policymaker or scientist in today's media landscape. For the most part, you're going to hear things that are so over-simplified as to be confusing, and sometimes effectively misleading. It's one of the reasons that so many discussions of this are just, well, awful.
                            The way I see the politicians is they think, "How can I use this to benefit me?" -- they love a good crisis, and to pretend to be the one who will solve it for you, if only you give them more power! The result is that we are getting people like Al Gore, Alexandria Cortez, Bernie Sanders, et al who are predicting we are all going to die in 12 years if we don't let them tax everyone heavily, and basically destroy the infrastructure and economy of the entire planet by banning planes and cows, immediately. They are chicken little's who are screaming the sky is falling. And when the sky doesn't fall when they say it does, it just makes the whole thing look like a phony cock-up.

                            I think, we will naturally limit our CO2 output just by allowing technology to advance normally. Things like electric vehicles, hyperloop tube transports, wind turbines, will naturally replace gas cars, a lot of planes, and coal and oil powerplants. We can incentivize the changeover, with tax breaks and such, but there is no need to go crazy and start banning planes and gasoline engines and forcing powerplants to close.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                              I think, we will naturally limit our CO2 output just by allowing technology to advance normally. Things like electric vehicles, hyperloop tube transports, wind turbines, will naturally replace gas cars, a lot of planes, and coal and oil powerplants. We can incentivize the changeover, with tax breaks and such, but there is no need to go crazy and start banning planes and gasoline engines and forcing powerplants to close.
                              I tend to be quite a bit more pessimistic. It's quite clear we're not going to meet our targets, and we're going to manage things in a way that's going to be extremely disruptive - lurching from crisis to crisis instead of planning for anything. At some point, we're going to realize that fossil fuels have to go sooner than expected, and suddenly lots of extraction companies are going to lose their value overnight, which is going to make a complete mess of the economy (and probably my retirement). Society's just not good at doing things until after something's already gone wrong.

                              In my optimistic moments, however, i do note that projections of wind and solar output from 10 years ago were suggesting that we'd be at 1-2% for these things. We've come a long way faster than expected so, even if we have to go much much further, there's a chance we'll get there sooner than i fear.
                              "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                                I tend to be quite a bit more pessimistic. It's quite clear we're not going to meet our targets, and we're going to manage things in a way that's going to be extremely disruptive - lurching from crisis to crisis instead of planning for anything. At some point, we're going to realize that fossil fuels have to go sooner than expected, and suddenly lots of extraction companies are going to lose their value overnight, which is going to make a complete mess of the economy (and probably my retirement). Society's just not good at doing things until after something's already gone wrong.

                                In my optimistic moments, however, i do note that projections of wind and solar output from 10 years ago were suggesting that we'd be at 1-2% for these things. We've come a long way faster than expected so, even if we have to go much much further, there's a chance we'll get there sooner than i fear.
                                Even if we eliminate petroleum as a fuel, it is still has a LOT of uses: lubricants, plastics, asphalt, paint, and more. Not all are putting CO2 into the atmosphere. I don't think oil companies are going to disappear if we stop using fossil fuels.

                                Comment

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