Comments not related to oil or natural gas in this thread please.
426 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, Aug17, 2017”
Here is a large study of the break-up time of frozen arctic lakes. The study was performed across Northern Europe, Central Siberia and Northern Canada over a 14 year time span.
Arctic lakes show strong decadal trend in earlier spring ice-out To date, records of ice phenology have differed in length and are relatively few, hampering detection of persistent, regional-scale trends, if they exist. In this study, we examined over 13,300 lakes over a 14-year period, a robust dataset that illustrates remarkably fast changes in arctic-wide ice phenology. This study is the first attempt to provide a detailed spatial analysis of changes in lake-ice break-up for multiple arctic regions at an inter-annual scale. In contrast to earlier studies, the current analysis considered all lakes with a surface area greater or equal to 1 km2 in five sampling regions across the Arctic (Fig. 1). It utilized the high spatial and temporal resolution of freely available remote sensing data. We developed a method to estimate break-up dates using time series of surface reflectance data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite sensor and to generate a standardised estimate for over 13,300 lakes. Four key variables were extracted for each lake: 1) the date when ice is first detected, referred to as freeze-up start (FUS); 2) the date when there is no longer any detectable open water on the lake, referred to as freeze-up end (FUE); 3) the date when the first ice-free water appears, referred to as break-up start (BUS); 4) the date when the lake is completely free of ice, referred to as break-up end (BUE). However, only BUS and BUE have been analysed further due to unreliability of extracted FUS and FUE dates (see below).
Full paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep38449
Single molecules can work as reproducible transistors — at room temperature
Researchers are first to reproducibly achieve the current blockade effect using atomically precise molecules at room temperature, a result that could lead to shrinking electrical components + boosting data storage + computing power https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170814120959.htm
Power-to-liquid: 200 liters of fuel from solar power and the air’s carbon dioxide
Production of fuels from regenerative electric power is a component of the energy turnaround. The first 200 l of synthetic fuel have now been produced from solar energy and the air’s carbon dioxide under the SOLETAIR project. The mobile chemical pilot plant that can be used decentrally produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170808182423.htm
A bit misleading since they’re starting with hydrogen. We may have to start doing stuff like this to sequester carbon but I strongly suspect there are more cost-effective ways to sequester carbon. We certainly will never use this to produce fuels, since burning liquid fuels is on its way out anyway.
“Your manifesto suffers from your total ignorance.” ~ Nathanael
And why’s that? If you don’t support your points, then they’re essentially moot.
Also, it’s a very rough draft and more of a brainstorm and just to get it out there, but at least I have one and am willing to share it. How about you? Nothing?
The manifesto is also open to suggestions/recommendations/etc., including from you, but it nevertheless contains much that others recommend anyway.
In any case, Permaeans don’t have to be everyone. That would seem to go without saying.
Species branch anyway. That’s how we get new ones. Some survive, such as from their branching, while others get caught in evolutionary dead ends, such as from not branching, and vice-versa.
Even the very conservative IPCC estimates have something like this happening by 2100 for a BAU case. 2026 seems too soon to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 2050 was this bad.
I think what is needed here is to actually put the so called global warming projections into perspective. So, here they are, assuming we wiped out all the carbon sources today, eliminated all the cows farting methane and so on, the 100% effort temperature rise would be limited to…just 4.9985 degrees F. Meanwhile, the do nothing “business as usual” temperature rise would be just 5.0000 degrees F. Not only is this difference as about as trivial as trivial can be, it’s also well under our ability to even measure.
Point is, climate is going to change regardless of what we as humans do or don’t do. This has been the case of the world’s climate ever since the beginning of time, before there was just even one human inhabiting the place. Climate scientists by now know there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change the course of earth’s climate, yet they still want us taxpayers to keep on funding their career choice for as many decades as they can get.
yep
George, the degree of precision of your forecasts is amazing.
The world’s only genius with an IQ below 70.
You mean like 69.9999? It’s truly amazing how precise IQ tests have become, these days, eh?
George Harmon – 1) were you at one time turned down for a job, maybe janitor, at a climate research institute and still bear the scar (or are you just jealous that they get to do interesting work, maybe an occasional exciting field trip and you’re stuck in the commute cue with just your (apparently malfunctioning) calculator for company? 2) As you like a lot of significant figures maybe you could work out the ratio of military spending to that spent on climate research.
A 10C rise? That means that it probably won’t get below zero F around here anymore in the winter, maybe. Snow shovels might go into semi-retirement until the AMOC stalls out.
Couple weeks in the summer would really suck, probably go up the mountain for that period of time.
OFM better start watching for gators though and the Brits will be agape at the Hippos in the Thames.
The Canadians might like it though. They won’t have to go to Florida in the winter, maybe only down to Virginia to see the gators and the palm trees.
I am not worried though, we get 10C temperature rises here every year, then the ice melts. Certainly won’t be much hotter than Florida. I think the mosquitos will get bigger, which means the swallows and dragonflies will increase in size too. Just as long as it’s not those tiger mosquitos. Nasty things.
Do wonder where the winter Olympics will be held. Probably Antarctica in the dark. Can make some money selling headlamps.
I think the mosquitos will get bigger, which means the swallows and dragonflies will increase in size too. Just as long as it’s not those tiger mosquitos. Nasty things.
Don’t worry too much, given that it is likely that atmospheric O2 content seems to be decreasing.
For giant insects to function the limiting factor isn’t necessarily temperature. They either need to evolve lungs with alveoli or the O2 concentration needs to return to levels where they were during the Carboniferous and Permian, when O2 made up over 30% of the atmosphere. Side note to George Harmon, we actually are able to know that to a high degree of confidence!
Though if you’ve ever had to deal with No-See-Ums, which are minuscule, maybe giant mosquitoes aren’t so bad! At least you can see them and shoot them down… 😉
I remember the times spent in the north country during spring where it might have been days before I realized there were also mosquitos. There were also times when I did not take off my wet suit until after getting in the tent. They can’t bite through rubber. Black flies are beyond annoying.
It was the larvae growing super-large to prevent oxygen poisoning that made the big insects. The adults can control the amount of oxygen they take in but the larvae often breathe through the skin and have no control over oxygen intake.
At 30 percent oxygen, the lightning induced fires must have been something. Best to live in a swamp.
Best to live in a swamp.
Methane Burp + High O2 + Lightning Strike = Really Big Kaboom
Lot’s of large fried insects falling from the sky, manna from heaven… 😉
Which is exactly why dragonflies don’t have eyebrows and their eyes bug out. 🙂
It was the larvae growing super-large to prevent oxygen poisoning that made the big insects. The adults can control the amount of oxygen they take in but the larvae often breathe through the skin and have no control over oxygen intake.
Actually it has a lot to do with how insects breathe through tracheal tubes.
“As you become a larger insect, more of your body is taken up by tracheal tubes. Eventually you reach a limit to how big you can be,” VandenBrooks said. “The more oxygen that is available, the smaller that system needs to be and the bigger you can grow.”
There are other ideas out there which make sense. The idea that the giant dragonfly would need a much denser atmosphere to fly. Of course higher density would provide an even more efficient breathing mechanism.
Say the dragonfly wingspan is increased by 7 times, it’s wing area will be about 49 times greater. However, if other parts such as the body are kept proportional, then it
s mass would increase by approximately 343 times. This would increase wing loading by almost 6 times over a smaller dragonfly. So they would have had to be extremely fast and powerful or maybe the air was just denser. Would have ruined their ability to hover and fly backwards/sideways. http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/201/8/1043.full.pdf
Fred, that article is full of air. Dragonflies spend up to five years in the water and only a few weeks as flying adults. Their growth occurs in the water not in the air.
That is certainly correct! However one has to take into consideration evolutionary pressures of building those giant dragonflies that would then have to fly in O2 enriched air and then reproduce to produce viable aquatic larvae. Not to mention that if the atmosphere had a higher O2 concentration so too would the shallow ponds where those larvae developed.
While the science is not 100% settled, (ever hear that before 🙂 ) There seems to be a high degree of correlation between larger insect sizes and greater atmospheric O2 levels
Atmospheric oxygen level and the evolution of insect body size
Jon F. Harrison,1,* Alexander Kaiser,2 and John M. VandenBrooks1
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►
Abstract Insects are small relative to vertebrates, possibly owing to limitations or costs associated with their blind-ended tracheal respiratory system. The giant insects of the late Palaeozoic occurred when atmospheric PO2 (aPO2) was hyperoxic, supporting a role for oxygen in the evolution of insect body size. The paucity of the insect fossil record and the complex interactions between atmospheric oxygen level, organisms and their communities makes it impossible to definitively accept or reject the historical oxygen-size link, and multiple alternative hypotheses exist. However, a variety of recent empirical findings support a link between oxygen and insect size, including: (i) most insects develop smaller body sizes in hypoxia, and some develop and evolve larger sizes in hyperoxia; (ii) insects developmentally and evolutionarily reduce their proportional investment in the tracheal system when living in higher aPO2, suggesting that there are significant costs associated with tracheal system structure and function; and (iii) larger insects invest more of their body in the tracheal system, potentially leading to greater effects of aPO2 on larger insects. Together, these provide a wealth of plausible mechanisms by which tracheal oxygen delivery may be centrally involved in setting the relatively small size of insects and for hyperoxia-enabled Palaeozoic gigantism.
I’m in the higher PO2, smaller overall tracheal system, therefore bigger insect body size, school of thought. Cockroaches being a notable exception to this general rule. Seems even 300 million years ago they were already planning to take over after the end of the Anthropocene 😉
The only interesting question is why do you guys believe all these nutty alarmist predictions, when the previous ones have all failed, and when they are clearly crazy. Is this some sort of Judeo-Christian tradition where we should be expecting the Apocalypse?
2016 was warmer because it was an El Niño year. 2017 will be slightly less warm, and 2018 is likely to be slightly less warm than 2017. So that graph is going to be totally wrong from its first year, but you guys won’t even remember it, as you will still have total faith on the impending climate doom is about to befall on the faithful and unbelievers alike.
The problem with getting rid of religions is that the void is immediately filled by all sort of nutty beliefs, like climate doom.
By the way, the BAU case is not BAU at all. Nobody here has an excuse for not knowing that fossil fuels are limited and its consumption cannot increase linearly much longer. Get real.
Yesterday I had a job interview at the British Antarctic Survey. Nobody there has time for this kind of nutty alarmist prediction. The real science by people on the ground is quite frightening enough.
Unfortunately the BAS is a classic British quango, a bunch of scientists dedicated to finding out the truth constantly stymied by an impenetrable bureaucracy and high level politics which drips feeds money into whichever photo opportunity or geopolitical or cash cow project the government minister is backing this week. Recently this has resulted in a big injection of cash for new research vessel, etc., but it is a very thin veil over projecting continued claims to sovereignty over the Falklands/Malvinas, and the oil fields in the surrounding ocean.
If the politicians and other leaders do not understand the value of what scientific research provides, then the scientists have not properly presented their case.
Of course it is always possible that the politicians and leaders have some idea of the actual value of the research they are funding.
Politicians often do not *want* the truth; it is not in the best interests of the politicians to tell the truth to the public.
Remember Al Gore. He very consistently told the truth. Not very good for getting elected. Also Walter Mondale.
The smarter and cannier politicians want the scientific research to be available to *them* but not necessarily to the general public. They will set up funding for scientific research but disguise it as something else. But they will be opposed by the stupider and more short-term politicians who don’t understand the value of it even to themselves.
The only question is why the owners of the website have not banned Javier yet. He stinks up the comments sections with his turds.
While Javier doesn’t have a leg to stand on, as a scientist, because he utterly ignores the precautionary principle, thereby effectively defining himself as a troll, he DOES make a valid point occasionally.
We won’t be burning ever increasing amounts of oil and gas very many more years. Depletion, rising prices, substitution of renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency technologies all combined virtually guarantee that we will experience peak oil and gas within the easily foreseeable future.
Hi Preston,
The IPCC AR5 has a different forecast, note that RCP4.5 is the most likely scenario due to limited fossil fuels.
another chart from IPCC AR5 Chap 11. Note that this includes the unrealistic cornucopian RCP6 and RCP8.5 scenarios making the high end unrealistic, but the low end might be realistic if the projections of Tony Seba are correct (which might match RCP2.6).
Hi Dennis,
The lower end of IPCC predictions does not support alarmist views. We could continue as we have done and wait for fossil fuels to phase out due to depletion without the climate turning sour on us.
Hi Javier,
Much is unknown, there may be a lot of coal and natural gas, enough to cause problems, climate sensitivity is also not known, so better for both the environment and lower risk to reduce fossil fuel, in any case there might not be enough fossil fuels in which case that may create economic risk so we should pursue whatever non-fossil fuel energy will work best, keeping all options on the table (including nuclear and using some natural gas as a transition fuel).
On that I agree. Looks to me that we either go the gas + nuclear path or we are going to have a very serious energy problem.
Anyway nearly all the CO2 reduction has been from a coal to gas transition. Those that have stuck to coal, like Germany, have not reduced their CO2 emissions.
“Anyway nearly all the CO2 reduction has been from a coal to gas transition.”
As the price of natural has risen above last year’s lows, coal has made a comeback. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal-fired generation will exceed gas this year and next.
But that trend is nationwide, and while gas demand is down in California, it isn’t because of coal-fired power plants. The state has expanded its use of battery storage to help integrate more renewables, and the results are showing in pipeline flows.
SoCal Citygates averaged 2.3 Bcf/day during the past two months, a decline of 5% to 7% compared with the same months last year. And PG&E Citygate flows averaged 1.5 Bcf/d in June — a decline of 16% from June 2016, according to Ventyx data.
It might be that California (~10% from solar) is a bellwether for the energy transition as may be the case for leading solar countries like Germany (>6.2%), Italy (>7%) and the UK (3.4%).
“On that I agree. Looks to me that we either go the gas + nuclear path or we are going to have a very serious energy problem.”
How soon do you think we are going to have this “very serious energy problem”? Below are two charts I generated from the same data used to prepare my report on the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly. The top chart shows the percentage of annual US electricity generated by solar up to 2016 and the lower one shows the monthly variation. It would appear that the US is on track to generate 10% of it;s electricity from solar by 2022 if the growth rate is not less than the growth rate between 2012 and 2017 when the percentage of electricity generated by solar grew from 0.1% to >1%.
It would also appear that the growth of solar may be accelerating since the percentage generated by solar in May 2017 was in the order of 60% more than for the same month in 2016, in contrast to the two previous years when the year on year increase was on the order of 45%. If solar were to continue growing at recent growth rates for the next ten years, it would generate 100% of US electricity by 2027.
The next edition of the EPM should be released in less than a week as at the time of this post.
I am not too fond of linear extrapolations. Thinks grow or decrease until they don’t.
I was just trying to point out some potentially disruptive alternatives to your “gas + nuclear path” but, I guess I am wasting my time. Feel free to invest your money in the “gas + nuclear path” but, IMO the would be quite unwise. Incidentally my extrapolations were not linear but exponential (>40% per annum) a la Tony Seba’s exponentially improving technologies.
Below is the other renewable that is giving team Koch nightmares, wind.
Hi Islandboy,
My view is different from that of Javier who seems to favor natural gas and nuclear. I think we should use natural gas as little as possible as a transition fuel to get us to nearly 100% non-fossil fuel energy sources.
I also think we should use all non-fossil fuel options solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, and nuclear and pick the least cost option when all externalities are considered.
Euan Mearns is a pretty smart guy, and he’s smart enough to understand that he is misrepresenting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for reasons that are not clear to me.
Maybe he will reply here and have something to say about MY interpretation of the facts.
He virtually IGNORES the ecological/ environmental/ public health costs associated with the fossil fuel industries and the use of fossil fuels.
He ignores that a substantial portion of the money spent upgrading the grid, etc, would have necessarily been spent anyway.
Most of the investment in renewables has gone into research and development, and in salaries for people doing actual manufacturing and installations.
We spend megabucks on infrastructure that actually returns very little, or nothing, of lasting value , to the people of the world as a whole, from sports stadiums to highways to nowhere to urban renewal projects that sometimes arguably leave cities WORSE off than if they were never implemented.
The cost of R and D has been partially recovered already, and most or all of the remainder of it will be recovered over the next few decades.
The cost of actual infrastructure has been falling like a rock, and gives promise of continuing to fall fast for quite some time yet. It’s my personal opinion that the prices used in projecting the cost of renewable electricity, compared to the costs of gas and coal fired electricity, are substantially slanted in favor of the gas and coal industries. Inflation alone may drive the cost of gas up much faster than estimated by those making the comparison, and we don’t know for sure that depletion won’t result in the price necessarily going up even faster, as it becomes necessary to turn to ever less desirable resources in the ground. Smaller, deeper, more isolated fields are going to cost a lot more to produce.
Renewable energy means local control over local economies, and renewable energy means greater national security in the case of energy importing countries. The less energy a country must import, the less need it has for a large standing military establishment, which returns almost nothing of value to the people who must pay for it, UNLESS it’s actually put to use of course.
Renewable energy means that fossil fuels are somewhat cheaper, because any time any factor suppresses the sale of a commodity, the price of it tends to fall, everything else held equal.
Cheaper coal, oil, and gas mean cheaper food, cheaper electricity, cheaper heat and air conditioning, cheaper steel, cheaper everything, right across the board.
Hard figures are hard to come by, but I strongly suspect that every dime that we spend on renewable energy subsidies is returned to us,in short order, collectively, by way of reducing what we spend on the fossil fuels we collectively use for all purposes.
If the electric car industry takes off as most of us here in this forum believe it will do, and the wind and solar electricity industries continue to grow as they have in recent years, we will be able to cut our per capita consumption use of oil by as much as a third, within the next decade or two. Everything else held equal, this means that oil will likely be SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper than it would be OTHERWISE, meaning I as a farmer can sell everything from beans to beef for less.
We Yankees will be getting twenty percent of our electricity from the wind and the sun within the easily foreseeable future. We will suffer less asthma, fewer heart attacks, fewer strokes. Our forests will be more productive, our farm land will be more productive , because we will suffer less from the effects of acid rain. We will be spending less on water treatment plants, because we will be dumping less mining wastes into streams.
I maintain that renewable energy is the biggest bargain of the twenty first century, up until now, and that it is likely to remain the biggest bargain of the century for some time to come.
None of this however is to say that we won’t need a lot of fossil fuel fired electricity for quite some time to come, probably for at least three or four more decades at the minimum.
OFM- agree. Some have speculated that E. Mearns is not a trustworthy/unbiased source of analysis on energy issues because he has financial interests or backing directly from/by the fossil fuel industry. I’m not sure about that, but it certainly would explain his heavily biased stance.
Absolutely amazing. The observational data used shows almost no increase in global surface temperature for the late 1990’s onward. NASA has about 0.5C rise for that same period.
Hi Gone Fishing,
I like the data from Berkeley (BEST).
Here is their data from 1986 to 2011 (the data in the IPCC chart is based on four data sets). From 1997 to 2011 the annual temperature increased by 0.12 C.
I used Land ocean data annual summary with air temperature above sea ice.
Dennis, look again. You are sure you are reading that graph correctly?
Hi Gone Fishing,
Here is the BEST data.
1997 0.434
1998 0.581
1999 0.348
2000 0.362
2001 0.501
2002 0.581
2003 0.568
2004 0.47
2005 0.652
2006 0.599
2007 0.607
2008 0.468
2009 0.593
2010 0.675
2011 0.557
I get 0.557 – 0.434 = 0.123 C
Look at the graphs below. Huge differences depending on who produces the graphs. No wonder the politicians are no on fire to listen and no wonder the deniers have traction.
I go with NASA. They have a very wide range of planetary climate experience.
Hi gone fishing,
The IPCC chart uses annual data from 1986 to 2011 for the observations, from 1997 to 2011 the annual data from NASA shows a 0.1K increase in temperature, the BEST data is slightly higher at 0.12 K for the same period.
It is not very clear what your complaint is, the IPCC in 2013 did not have data for anything beyond 2011 (it takes years to prepare the report) so I have shown what the BEST and NASA data show for the 1986 to 2011 period and it is essentially the same.
From 1997 to 2011 the temperature increases by 0.1 C for this data set.
The temperature trend over the 25 year period from 1986 to 2011 for GISTEMP is 0.16 C per decade. When the data set is extended from 1986 to 2016 the trend increased to 0.18 C per decade. The long term trend from 1970 to 2016 is 0.178 C per decade. These are all for the GISS data, for BEST the 1970 to 2016 trend is 0.18 C per decade.
BEST data also Land Ocean Global Temperature anomaly with 1951-1980 mean set to zero.
NASA global mean temperature anomaly land and ocean data.
using annual data from that GISS chart from 1997 to 2011 (2011 is where the IPCC data ends for the 2013 AR5)
Dennis, I am REALLY TIRED of having to scroll the comment sections past Javier’s crap. I know you enjoy debunking his crap, but it is actually rendering the site much less useful.
There is a reason for banning trolls. This is it. You should do it.
Just click on the little X next to his name and you will experience the bliss of not having to read his comments…
My feeling is NH land temps are what matters the most. The reason I feel this way is because that is where most of the food is grown. The reason warming is important to me is for its impacts. The impacts are likely to be felt most in terms of future food production. Anomaly and which baseline to use are semantics. What matters here is plant physiology, future temps, and the NH jetstream/suitable weather for farming.
I think it’s the frequency and size of anomaly of extreme events that is more important than the average, although that is the biggest influence on the excursions, but just saying x degrees warmer is much blander than saying y% crop yield lost every z years on average. There was an article in last month’s Nature Climate Change that shows extreme El Nino frequency will double with a warming of 1.5 K (and the frequency increases linearly with GMT so as we aren’t going to stop at 1.5 K it could end up every 4 or 5 years, and likely extreme would become ultra-extreme or something). Extreme La Nina events don’t increase in frequency though. And within each El Nino year there can be natural variability in time and location so the extreme 3 sigma and above events become significantly more likely.
How much warmer is it getting in each month of the year?
There hasn’t been any warming from the late 1990’s onward except for the recent El Niño. That’s why it is called the Pause: “A temporary stop in action or speech.”
So far nobody has been able to successfully predict future temperatures. It is a mass delusion to think that we know how temperatures are going to be in 20, 50, 100 years. Past periods of cooling, warming, or pause, have always surprised the “experts.”
“There hasn’t been any warming from the late 1990’s onward except for the recent El Niño.” – Javier
Fail
Top hottest 10 years as per global land surface temp anomaly:
2016, 2015, 2007, 2010, 2005, 2014, 2013, 1998, 2002, 2012.
Second place is as close as it gets to first place, aka being a record warm year. Your predictions are all so far total failures. Every single one of them.
Hi Javier,
Here is BEST and GISS and the average of the two, annual data from 1995 to 2014 (leaving off el Nino from 2015 and 2016).
There seems to be a positive trend of 0.136 C per decade. Slightly above the 100 year trend of 0.085 C per decade, but less than the 50 year trend of 0.159 C per decade. Also note if we check the trend from the last strong El Nin0 in 1998 to the most recent strong El Nino in 2016 the trend is 0.174 C per decade.
I imagine the 50 year trend might be followed, but this depends on many factors such as greenhouse gas emissions, ENSO, AMO, and volcanic eruptions all of which are difficult to predict.
You are certainly correct that climate knowledge is imperfect as is our ability to predict future events before they have occurred.
This is self-evident to some people.
chart below
Dennis,
Your mileage varies depending on the database of choice. For example UAH 6.0 will give you a slope of 0.0106979 °C per decade.
So we go from a low end of 0.01 for UAH to a high end of 0.13 for GISTEMP LOTI.
Two observations:
– At present rate it would take nearly a century to raise 1°C.
– There is no indication of acceleration, unless you want to propose that El Niño warming is due to CO2.
I readily accept that the world has been and is warming and that present temperatures are highest recorded by thermometers. I just don’t see that warming with CO2 is much faster than warming prior to CO2. The effect of CO2 appears small and we can adapt to it as we have adapted to the warming that has been taking place since the end of the Little Ice Age. Adapting to warming supposes a lot less problem than adapting to cooling.
Hi Javier,
I disagree, too much warmth is harder to adapt to, you can only take off clothes until naked.
The BEST data is best in my view, the satellite temperatures depend on models which may be inaccurate.
At present rate it would take 88 years to reach 2 C above long term Holocene average temperature.
Also I would use the long term average temperature
Dennis,
You are welcome to choose the database of your choice, just don’t put too much trust on it being better than others. One of the problems with temperature records is that they are a moving target. Temperatures of the past keep changing all the time way more than their supposed error bars due to continuous adjustments. It is impossible to do proper science on data that is changed continuously.
One of the problems with using a single number to represent climate change is that most people don’t really understand what it represents. That the temperature of the planet has been increasing doesn’t mean that everywhere every time it has warmed the same. The warming has occurred preferentially in the Arctic and high latitudes, preferentially through increasing minimum temperatures, more in winter than in summer, and more at night that during the day. The main effect has been that the coldest places in the planet (except Antarctica) have got less cold. Maximum temperatures at the tropics have not increased much, so nobody has had to take clothes off. The planet has become a nicer place due to global warming.
Another effect is that due to the reduction in the meridional temperature gradient the climate has less extreme weather manifestations. It is not by chance that the number of strong hurricanes has got so low. The same goes for tornadoes and severe droughts.
Hi Javier,
Increasing temperatures may become a problem over the long term, it will depend in part on the rate of increase and how well plants and animals can adapt. There might also be a negative effect on agriculture as warmer is not always better and rainfall may also be affected in a warming world.
We cannot predict the effects very well, you believe they will only be positive, I would say we don’t really know so why experiment with the planet.
Hi Dennis,
So you think we can predict climate change but not its effects. You have it backwards. We cannot predict climate change, but we know the effects of both warming or cooling.
And it is well known between paleo scientists that warming beats the hell out of cooling in terms of positive effects.
The increase in biodiversity and ecosystem productivity with the decrease in latitude is known since the late 18th century. As the planet becomes more tropical (the tropics expand) the productivity of the whole planet increases, and we are already taking advantage of that.
As the warming comes with increased humidity, the effect is double goodness. A 14% greening of the planet has been measured since 1980, mainly from semi-arid regions, while forests are expanding in many areas.
Not every effect will be positive, but the positives are going to seriously dominate over the negatives.
And a dominant species like ours is a planetary experiment by definition, as are ants. We are doing many changes to the planet, and probably most of them are bad, but increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is one of the good changes. I am quite sure it will be recognized as such in the future when we are over the global warming scare.
Hi Javier,
If one reads a very limited set of scientists, I suppose one could conclude what you have.
You are correct that we cannot predict precisely either future climate or the effects.
Global average temperature has not varied very much over the past 11,000 years varying within about a 1 C range, over all but the past 100 years atmospheric CO2 was between 260 and 295 ppm, the models do a fairly good job of reproducing the past.
Your dual claims that we do not know what will happen, but that mostly positive things will happen seem to be mutually exclusive.
We have experienced colder temperatures than the past 11,000 years during Glacial maximums and the flora and fauna of the planet survived, note that Global temperatures were about 4 C less than the HCO during the LGM.
It has been millions of years since the planet has experienced Global average temperatures above the HCO, your claim that you know that high temperatures will be more positive than negative seems specious. The planet has indeed greened, it does not follow that more warming will mean more greening, it did not work that way for the Sahara. The fact is we don’t know how much the Earth will warm (climate sensitivity is not known precisely, but based on the evidence is likely between 2.5 and 4 C) nor do we know what the effects will be. Better not to experiment with the only planet we have in my opinion any more than we have already done.
As you often point out, past performance does not predict future performance, I agree non-linearity is far more likely, along with chaotic effects making prediction a problem.
So why do you feel confident that you can predict what will happen? Everyone is wrong but you? Is that your claim?
Hi Dennis,
“If one reads a very limited set of scientists, I suppose one could conclude what you have.”
Due to my scientific background I have done a deliberate effort at reading both positions and try to determine as neutrally as possible what position is best supported by evidence. I have no skin in this game. It would be the same to me that it was all due to CO2. It simply doesn’t appear to be supported by the evidence.
“Your dual claims that we do not know what will happen, but that mostly positive things will happen seem to be mutually exclusive.”
That’s what the evidence supports. The 350 year long global warming has been a blessing to the world. The LIA sucked big time both to humans and ecosystems. There is no evidence that the advantages of warming are close to disappear and the disadvantages become dominant. There is a limit, no doubt, but we have no information on where it lies, and temperatures are heavily regulated in this planet, so we have no evidence that it is even possible to reach it.
“We have experienced colder temperatures than the past 11,000 years during Glacial maximums and the flora and fauna of the planet survived, note that Global temperatures were about 4 C less than the HCO during the LGM.”
We have lots of evidence that the glacial period was very stressful to most temperate species, and that the lack of CO2 might have limited plant productivity. Such a world would only support a fraction of current human population.
“It has been millions of years since the planet has experienced Global average temperatures above the HCO”
Not true. The Eemian was significantly warmer than the Holocene and sea levels reached 6 meters above present. That was about 125,000 years ago.
“So why do you feel confident that you can predict what will happen? Everyone is wrong but you? Is that your claim?”
It has been demonstrated that conservative predictions tend to be better than radically different predictions. This is because things tend to continue being as they have been more often than not.
Not everybody is making alarmist climate predictions for the next 50 years. Those that do are certainly wrong.
The best prediction according to the conservative rule is that global warming will continue at the pace we have observed for the past 50 years and that did not cause us any serious problem. Next in probability is that global warming will not take place for the next 50 years. The chances that climate is going to get into a warming run away are very low, because it is not supported by evidence and based on shaky assumptions.
Just wait and see. At some point the lack of evidence of significant warming is going to become impossible to ignore.
Hi Javier,
You are correct, the Eemian was warmer, maybe about 1 C higher than the 1951-1980 mean global temperature. With 6 meters of sea level rise this could be a problem, though we don’t have a great handle on the rate of sea level rise as far as I know during the Eemian.
Dennis,
The graph is relative to 2005? They keep moving the goal post. If you go back and start from 1750 then 2016 was already at 2C. The IPCC is clearly kidding themselves…. We can’t avoid a tipping point just by moving the starting point.
Speaking of tipping points, CO2 is spiking all around the arctic. GeorgeH is likely right about one thing, changes in emissions cant stop CO2 from continuing to rise. It’s too late to stop it now.
Hi Preston,
It all depends how one defines pre-industrial temperature. Some people use 1850-1900, which was a relatively cold period. If we take 10,000 BP to 200 BP (where P=1950), it is fairly close to the 1985-2005 average used in AR5.
Now if you think 1850-1900 is special in the 10,000 year Holocene, you can use that as your baseline which is about 0.5 C less than the 1986-2005 mean.
In any case the 10 C warming by 2026 is very far-fetched and does not match the science.
Wait a minute, you want to base things on a single year? What is so special about 1750?
There are another 9800 years before that in the Holocene that you could choose, most of which were warmer than 1750.
Temperature was descending during the time period you mention. 1750 is good because it is the approximate start of the industrial revolution. Just far enough back to be a good baseline point without getting into the long term natural cooling.
I see though from the data being presented that anyone can choose just about any result that they like. So there is no point other than in watching the gross natural changes that are occurring.
No wonder so many people are not paying much attention to climate change. All this varying data sure gives the deniers a huge amount of traction.
The migrating birds, melting Arctic and dead coral have their own tales but they are quiet and don’t self publish. I guess some large methane hydrate burps might convince some people but if they don’t cause huge devastation quickly then they will be whitewashed and ignored.
“Experts” will come forward to say how this has all happened in the past and is nothing to worry about, that it is good for us in some twisted way.
At least the Lilliputians all agreed that it was an egg they were talking about. We can’t even seem to do that.
Hi Gone fishing,
I am not denying that temperature has increased, it most surely has, it has just not really been clear how the 2 C limit was decided and what is meant by pre-industrial temperature.
Over the past 11,000 years Global temperatures have varied by about 1 C, that is the temperature range within which human civilization developed, the average over that period has been about 0.2 C relative to the 1961-1990 Global average temperature. We don’t have a very good estimate of the temperature in 1750, but this was a relatively cool period in human history (about 0.4 C below the 1961-1990 average and 0.6 C below the average of the past 11,000 years.)
Note the recent data on the chart is the 21 year centered average temperature and ends in 2005 at 0.6 C, temperatures are relative to the 1961-1990 average temperature (set at zero).
With the temperature falling for 6000 years, why make up some arbitrary zero point, why not just use the data?
Source? Land data? Ocean data? Both? Neither?
Hi Gone fishing,
I am using science (by Marcott et al) to estimate global temperatures for the past 11,000 years.
Human civilization thrived and developed during the HCO, perhaps any temperatures above that would be catastrophic, in any case 1.5 C above the 1850-1900 average temp (we don’t have very good data before this) would be about 1.14K above the 1951-1980 average and 0.64 K above the peak warmth of the HCO about 7000 BP.
In any case my main point was that a 9 C increase in Global temperatures from 2016 to 2026 is highly unlikely.
Do you disagree with that proposition?
As I said why set zero at a modern temperature? Why not just use the actual data. That 0.7 degree fall over seven thousand years is 1/50 or less of the modern rise rate (low resolution of the graph inhibits accuracy but then again the data probably has a wide error range).
Latest rates of rise show +2.5C/century which should accelerate due to various increasing factors.
As far as the 9C by 2026, I was trained to look at boundary values and do not like to suppress thoughtful results. One must first look at a problem as if it could exist, measure it, find the sources of energy change involved and see if it fits anywhere within a possible distribution of results. With the large number of knowns with unassigned coefficients and unknown interactions, it might be possible.
Paleo evidence shows it has happened before.
Hi Gone fishing,
Does the Paleo evidence suggest a 9 C change in temperature over 10 years?
Can you point me to the evidence that suggests Global average temperatures have changed by 10 C in 10 years in the past 800,000 years?
The temperature data is from Marcott et al 2013 through 1740 and then the 21 year average of Berkeley Earth annual land ocean temperature data from 1851 to 2005.
Again I will go with the IPCC Global Climate models which suggest a mean change of about 1.2 C from the 1986-2005 mean until 2050 for RCP4.5 which is the most likely emissions scenario from a peak fossil fuels perspective (and note that my scenarios are considered very optimistic by many here and are mostly consistent with RCP4.5). Even the cornucopian RCP8.5 with carbon emissions 3 times larger than my medium scenarios results in less than 3 C of warming above the 1850-1900 mean for the highest climate sensitivity models.
The 10 C warming by 2026 is nearly 5 times that level and also twice as high as the change from the LGM to today (about 4.5C difference in Global average temperatures based on Shakun et al 2012.
I will continue to go with what the mainstream climate science says, especially over the short term, longer term permafrost and ice sheet melt could be a problem. Snow cover is already included in the climate models along with the associated albedo effects, reduced aerosols is also covered (especially in RCP 2.6).
With a transition to solar, wind, and nuclear and depletion of fossil fuels and sane policy (as in the EU) a scenario roughly between RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 is most likely, best if we were closer to RCP2.6, but that might require the scenarios presented by Tony Seba to be correct.
The problem with claims that 8 C of warming between 2016 and 2026 is a likely outcome is that such claims look foolish after the fact. The most warming expected (not accounting for permafrost and ice sheet effects) from RCP6 or lower is about 5C of warming from the 1850-1900 mean to 3000 CE, this assumes constant ARF (anthropogenic radiative forcing) from 2300 to 3000 at 6 W/m2. In reality ARF will slowly decrease as emission will have stopped and greenhouse gases will gradually be sequestered over 700 years so ARF will decrease a bit.
Fig below from AR5WG1 Chapter 12 Fig 12.43
Dennis,
it has just not really been clear how the 2 C limit was decided
I think I already told you that. It came from a document from the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), essentially pulled out of thin air. There is really no scientific reason to think there is any limit that we can determine to warming that can divide it between safe and unsafe.
“The late Quaternary period has shaped our present-day environment, with the lowest temperatures occurring in the last ice age (mean minimum around 10.4°C) and the highest temperatures during the last interglacial period (mean maximum around 16.1°C). If this temperature range is exceeded in either direction, dramatic changes in the composition and function of today’s ecosystems can be expected. The tolerable temperature window is therefore 10.4˚C to 16.1˚C. If we extend the tolerance range by a further 0.5°C at either end, then the tolerable temperature window extends from 9.9°C to 16.6°C. Today’s global mean temperature is around 15.3°C, which means that the temperature span to the tolerable maximum is currently only 1.3°C (~2˚C above the pre-industrial global mean).”
Pure madness to think that half a degree below the ice age mean minimum temperature is tolerable. At that temperature a great part of the Northern Hemisphere becomes covered in ice sheets. These people appear not to know what they talk about.
Hi Javier,
It seems to me that for the flora and fauna of the planet that are well adapted to the range of temperatures experienced in the last 100,000 years or so that there is some optimum temperature range.
For the past 11,000 years mean global temperatures have averaged about 14.9 C with a range of 14.4 C to 15.3 C through the end of the 20th century. I imagine there is an upper limit to what is a safe upper limit and I tend to defer to those ecologists and biologists that have studied the issue.
Is your claim that there is no upper limit?
My guess is that average global temperatures of 20 C would be a serious problem.
Dennis,
There is no way of getting to a 20°C average. The climate is full of negative feedbacks and we are at the bottom of the Quaternary Ice Age. The oceans are incredibly cold (~ 3.9°C). The thermal inertia of the planet is huge. Only to get out of the Ice Age might take several million years of warming. At present we are hanging on to a finishing interglacial ready to go back to the default glacial period state. That we are worried about warming is hopelessly funny.
Global warming is 350 years old, and the Holocene is full of multi-centennial warming and cooling periods. Global warming will eventually end and will be substituted by global cooling, as it always has. It is unlikely though that we will be alive when that happens.
After 650 million years of life-compatible tightly regulated temperatures, if it was possible to have a runaway warming or cooling it would have already taken place. The planet has seen things we can’t even imagine.
Hi Preston,
Global data goes back to about 1850 for Land and Ocean in 1850 it was -0.48 C and in 2016 it was 0.946 C, so a change of 1.4 C.
For the Holocene before 1750 the average temperature was 0.15 C relative to the 1951-1980 mean from 11,000 BP to 200 BP (1750 CE).
For about 5000 years, the temperature was close to the 1986-2005 mean temperature of 0.36 C (from about 10,000 BP to 5000 BP.)
Probably the 1971-2000 mean temperature should be used as this is quite close to the pre-industrial Holocene mean.
Data is from Marcott et al 2013
Might be interesting to see what CO2 levels were like 2.7 million years ago.
Described at the Goldschmidt Conference in Paris by Yuzhen Yan, a graduate student at Princeton University, the ice revealed atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels that did not exceed 300 parts per million, well below today’s levels. Some models of ancient climate predict that such relatively low levels would be needed to tip Earth into a series of ice ages. But some proxies gleaned from the fossils of animals that lived in shallow oceans had indicated higher CO2 levels. If the new result holds up, says Yige Zhang, a paleoclimatologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, the proxies will need to be recalibrated. “We have some work to do.”
2.7-Million-Year-Old Ice from Allan Hills Blue Ice Areas, East Antarctica Reveals Climate Snapshots Since Early Pleistocene
Yan Y, Ng J, Higgins J, Kurbatov A, Clifford H, Spaulding N, Severinghaus J, Brook E, Mayewski P & Bender M
2.7-million-year-old ice from Allan
Hills Blue Ice Areas, East Antarctica
reveals climate snapshots since early
Pleistocene
Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ (*correspondence: yuzheny@princeton.edu) 2
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of
California, San Diego, CA 3
University of Maine, Climate Change Institute, Orono, ME 4
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
A tight coupling between atmospheric CO2 and global
climate over the last 800 thousand years (kyr) has been established by analyzing ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice cores. 1-million-year-old (Ma) ice has been found in Allan Hills Blue Ice Areas (AH BIAs), East Antarctica [1], a region where old ice flows along the rising bedrock and approaches the surface. Although the blue ice core is stratigraphically disturbed, it provides the first direct observations of pCO2 before 800 kyr as “climate snapshots”.
Here we report the discovery of clean, ancient, bubbly ice as old as 2.7±0.3 Ma at shallow depth from AH BIAs. The ice is dated by precisely measuring the isotopic composition of argon in the trapped air. Radiogenically produced by 40K in the solid Earth, 40Ar accumulates over time in the atmosphere.
By contrast 38Ar and 36Ar are primordial and have constant atmospheric burdens. A further benefit of our analytical procedures is the ability to measure Xe/Kr ratios in the same aliquot of extracted ice core gas, allowing the reconstruction of past mean ocean temperature.
The old ice can be binned into three age groups: 1 Ma, 1.5 Ma, and 2+ Ma, disturbed by layers of ≤800 ka ice. This age depth relationship indicates large-scale disturbance in the ice stratigraphy, reinforcing the concept of climate snapshots instead of time-series. Three climate proxies (Xe/Kr, δDice, and pCH4) fall within the range of variations in the in the recent
100-kyr glacial cycles, but with reduced variability.
Note to denialists, this does not disprove the current scientific consensus and does not bode well for those predicting a new ice age or even a reversal of the diminishing Arctic sea ice volume trend.
So far no one has even attempted to answer a question I posed previously. Explain how the Arctic which is receiving 45 w/m2 less solar radiation than it was 11,000 years ago is now melting from just a few w/m2 due to global warming.
The Arctic is a lot more complex than that, GoneFishing. It had similar insolation and similar CO2 levels in 1100 AD as in 1600 AD. In one case sea ice was very reduced and allowed the colonization of Greenland by Vikings, while in the other sea ice was so extended that it almost reached Scotland during the winters, isolating Iceland and driving the vikings out of Greenland. Other factors play an important role in Arctic climate. The climate of the Arctic starts at the stratosphere with the polar vortex, and ends with the variable strength and temperature of the North Atlantic current that enters the Arctic. The Arctic Oscillation plays a very important role.
So you basically have no idea.
Exactly. But I know that we don’t know and that calculating w/m2 will not give you the answer.
I see that you do not even comprehend the question. It’s a physics thing.
I have been wondering for a while, if the Islamization of the West is linked to peak oil and our dependency on Middle Eastern oil? Do the vendors of the lifeblood of our civilization demand that we adopt their culture and religion? Are there backroom deals about this?
All over the West we have now significant Muslim migration. Muslims enter our political arenas and halal food is ubiquitous in Australia. Sharia Law is creeping into our legal system.
What drives this and who is behind it? Any hard facts would be appreciated.
All over the West we have now significant Muslim migration. Muslims enter our political arenas and halal food is ubiquitous in Australia. Sharia Law is creeping into our legal system.
Don’t worry Craig, it’s just a temporary phase, as we transition to solar we will soon all be eating locust pizza, worshiping the sun and everyone will be walking like an Egyptian!
.
Since the sun is the driving force of the natural life system on this planet, I will join just as long as I don’t have to balance that ball on top of my head and walk around wearing a funny skirt (bad enough I do that when kayaking). 🙂
You balance a ball on top of your head when kayaking!?
I never tried that one… ?
I cheat, the ball is glued to the top of the helmet. It helps correct for the rock in my head so I don’t float around head downward.
” I gotta rock in my head and a roll in my boat.
But the roll keeps getting soggy. ”
Strum, strum …. strum strum (guitar music)
Highest I did was about 50 feet. The 20 footers are fun, some are so aerated that it’s like sitting down on a bed. Of course you plunge deep then.
Even a 50 footer can have bad problems due to aerodynamics taking over and possibility of hitting green water or landing flat.
A fellow I know who held the highest waterfall records for a while (up to 110 feet) would put jugs of water in the bow and fold over forward on the bow to prevent the bow from rising and prevent a broken back if the kayak went horizontal.
I have a personal relationship with God.
She hates me.
Think deeper. The demographic trends of MENA and OECD couldn’t be more different. Syria went from 6 million in 1960 to over 20 million before the war. Now they have more people outside the country than what they had inside 50 years ago.
History shows that when people want to move because they don’t find what they need, nothing can stop them. Do you feel a little like the Australian aborigines that couldn’t stop a wave that changed their world? That will do you good.
Seems more like an invasion, doesn’t it?
Craig,
If I was going to worry about a big culture trying to take over the Americas, or Australia, and assert its authoritarian and militaristic stranglehold over the people, well just remember that we are about 500 yrs into it now. Its called Christianity.
What we need is freedom of, and from, religion. All of them.
“The principle’s the same. The Mohmedans don’t come ’round here wavin’ bells at us! We don’t get Buddhists playing bagpipes in our bathroom! Or Hindus harmonizing in the hall! The Shintus don’t come here shattering sheet glass in the shithouse, shouting slogans.”
For many decades now, money going to Saudi Arabia — paying for oil — has been used by the Saudi Arabian princes to fund extremist right-wing fundamentalist (Wahhabbi) schools (madrassas) and mosques throughout the world. This flood of money to Wahabbis has been displacing and destroying more normal “live and let live” forms of Islam. It’s also been converting people (because people will follow well-funded cult leaders).
The first effect is actually the migration of *normal liberal* Muslims to the West, to escape the Wahhabis. These are people we should welcome. The second effect, of course, is that the Wahhabis try to force their twisted version of Islam on Muslims even in the west by claiming to be the “only true Muslims” — this is happening particularly in the UK.
All of this is made worse by funding Saudi Arabia, the most backwards, bigoted, regressive, evil government in the world. Without the oil money, the Wahhabis would have less influence than Pat Robertson (who is just as bad as they are, and in exactly the same way).
“…documents indicate an extensive apparatus inside the Saudi government dedicated to missionary activity that brings in officials from the Foreign, Interior and Islamic Affairs Ministries, the intelligence service and the office of the king.
Recent initiatives have included putting foreign preachers on the Saudi payroll, building mosques, schools and study centers, and undermining foreign officials and news media deemed threatening to the kingdom’s agenda.
At times, the king got involved, ordering an Iranian television station off the air or granting $1 million to an Islamic association in India.
“We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organizations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence because they are directly or indirectly funded by them,” said Usama Hasan, a senior researcher in Islamic studies at the Quilliam Foundation in London. “It has been a huge factor, and the Saudi influence is undeniable.”
While the documents do not show any Saudi support for militant activity, critics argue that the kingdom’s campaign against Shiites — and its promotion of a strict form of Islam — have eroded pluralism in the Muslim world and added to the tensions fueling conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
The Saudi government has made no secret of its international religious mission…
The Foreign Ministry relayed funding requests to officials in Riyadh, the Interior Ministry and the intelligence agency sometimes vetted potential recipients, the Saudi-supported Muslim World League helped coordinate strategy, and Saudi diplomats across the globe oversaw projects. Together, these officials identified sympathetic Muslim leaders and associations abroad, distributed funds and religious literature produced in Saudi Arabia, trained preachers and gave them salaries to work in their own countries.
One example of this is Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, an Indian Islamic scholar who was educated in Saudi Arabia and worked for the kingdom for four decades in Kenya and in Britain, where he helped found the Islamic Sharia Council, according to a cable from the Saudi Embassy in London whose contents were verified by his son, Mr. Hasan of the Quilliam Foundation.”
Cut-marked and broken human bones are a recurrent feature of Magdalenian (~17–12,000 years BP, uncalibrated dates) European sites. Human remains at Gough’s Cave (UK) have been modified as part of a Magdalenian mortuary ritual that combined the intensive processing of entire corpses to extract edible tissues and the modification of skulls to produce skull-cups. A human radius from Gough’s Cave shows evidence of cut marks, percussion damage and human tooth marks, indicative of cannibalism, as well as a set of unusual zig-zagging incisions on the lateral side of the diaphysis. These latter incisions cannot be unambiguously associated with filleting of muscles. We compared the macro- and micro-morphological characteristics of these marks to over 300 filleting marks on human and non-human remains and to approximately 120 engraved incisions observed on two artefacts from Gough’s Cave. The new macro- and micro-morphometric analyses of the marks, as well as further comparisons with French Middle Magdalenian engraved artefacts, suggest that these modifications are the result of intentional engraving. The engraved motif comfortably fits within a Magdalenian pattern of design; what is exceptional in this case, however, is the choice of raw material (human bone) and the cannibalistic context in which it was produced. The sequence of the manipulations suggests that the engraving was a purposeful component of the cannibalistic practice, implying a complex ritualistic funerary behaviour that has never before been recognized for the Palaeolithic period.
A sign of the future?
Life, itself, is one giant cannibal, so yes, an ongoing sign of the past, present and future, assuming no manufactured food. Soylent Green? Bah. That’s small potatoes. “Truth is stranger than fiction.” ~ Mark Twain.
Enjoy your burger.
That’s assuming you really give a fuck, such as beyond the crony-capitalist plutarchy profit-motive.
Currently, it is that system that derives alternative energy tech and it is not set up to ‘better people’s lives’ or other animals’, unless you are talking about the lives of some elite/limited number, and even then… Caelan MacIntyre
They are all really evil and go against everything that the Koch Brothers and Trump stand for!
BUT! This one in particular is especially evil!
SOLARKIOSK http://solarkiosk.eu/ is a social enterprise that distributes E-HUBBs: an energy-connectivity gateway and last-mile distribution network for underserved communities. A single E-HUBB can accommodate 40 kWp solar panels, a battery pack for 24/7 power supply, power monitoring capabilities, a wireless hotspot antenna, phone and computer charging, a printer, an LED TV, a solar fridge, a fan, an alarm, air conditioning, a water purification system, interior lighting as well as flood lights, medical equipment, and a minimum of 20 meters of shelving and storage space. The flexibility of the E-HUBB has been demonstrated by various specialty applications, including: an education center at the Kafa Biosphere Reserve in Ethiopia; a solar school unit for the displaced population at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan; a health clinic supporting the efforts of the Jordan Ministry of Health for displaced populations; a water purification E-HUBB in Kenya; and a banking kiosk that will bring financial tools to off-grid populations in Nigeria. E-HUBBs can be modified to provide spaces for gathering communities, education, health, retail, administration, water purification, and more. This project has grown very rapidly, meeting communities’ needs while empowering local entrepreneurs and boosting livelihoods. Ninety percent of the E-Hubb operators are women.
Gee! Next thing you know those uppity brown and black women will start wanting to have fewer children… Not sure we can allow that, now, can we!
“…cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting and imposing a culture, usually that of a politically powerful nation, over a less powerful society; in other words, the cultural hegemony of industrialized or economically influential countries which determine general cultural values and standardize civilizations throughout the world. The term is employed especially in the fields of history, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory. It is usually used in a pejorative sense, often in conjunction with calls to reject such influence. Cultural imperialism can take various forms, such as an attitude, a formal policy, or military action, insofar as it reinforces cultural hegemony.” ~ Wikipedia
Hi Fred,
So far as I have been able to determine, the idiot box aka television had as much or more to do with the extremely sharp and generally unanticipated drop in birth rates in Brazil.
It appears that when young Brazilian women who were already on the way to being in control of their own lives started watching tv, and seeing the women ON television living better in part because they had fewer or no children, that was all the trigger needed.
Since you have friends and maybe relatives as well there, it would be great to have your input in respect to the hows and whys of this dramatic drop in birth rates.
There ain’t no global warming! But try explaining that that to the salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Somehow they just don’t understand those graphs showing all that cooling…
Warm-water conditions in the Columbia and Snake Rivers are challenging cold water salmon and steelhead — and the problem is likely to get worse because of climate change.
At the end of the day it’s the biosphere, stupid! That’s where the rubber really hits the road and the denialists can cherry pick all the graphs they want to show how things are cooling, well, they just aren’t!
Salmon are tough beasts that since the Pleistocene have radiated over a wide geography, with brilliant adaptive capacity and an adventuresome proclivity to stray to colonize new habitats. But the Northwest salmon and steelhead nonetheless have genetics tuned for cold water, noted Jack Stanford, an emeritus professor of ecology with the University of Montana, affiliated with the Flathead Lake Biological Station.
In water warmer than 70 degrees, Stanford said, Pacific salmon and steelhead tend to slow down, or stop migrating altogether. Their susceptibility to disease goes way up.
Ice Age fish are not going to do well in the new “Where’s the Ice?” world.
Whadda ya think? Maybe we could introduce some tropical Piranhas into the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
Might be a little early for that.
You mean aquarium owners haven’t dumped them in already?
Got them up here in the rivers. The Muskies and Northern Pike love to eat them. Fishermen get startled when catching them, don’t know what they are and then they see the teeth.
Hopefully the local fish and game people will enact regulations that enable commercial fishermen to harvest as many as possible of these fish and sell them for whatever they’re good for.
If they taste like crap, they’ll still serve nicely as a protein supplement in livestock feed.
“The US economy’s deep systemic inequalities of income, wealth, power, and opportunity are part of global inequality trends, but US-style capitalism and public policy make inequalities more acute. Their observable and felt harm to our civic and economic life is corroborated by research from many disciplines. Yet, by the same token, moving toward a more egalitarian society would realign most aspects of economic and social life for the better. So how can we bring these changes about?
For starters, we must know what we are up against. These inequalities do not spring mainly from technological change and globalization, though both compound and complicate the rift. Instead, imbalances of power and agency embedded in our political and economic system are the main drivers and accelerators of inequality.
Reducing inequality requires a ‘next systems’ analysis and playbook. Here, we briefly examine our current inequality predicament and show how these inequalities undermine our democracy, economic stability, social cohesion, and other cherished values. We then explore the systemic causes, perpetuators, and superchargers of inequalities and, finally, evaluate policy interventions and pressure points for leveling them.”
“If the cutoff for being able to maintain a modern society is 10:1, as mentioned earlier, then wind and solar PV would both seem to fall far below the required EROI cutoff, if they are to be used in quantity.
If, as Hall believes, an EROI as low as 3:1 might be useful, then there is a possibility that some wind energy would be helpful, especially if a particular wind location has a very high capacity factor (can generate electricity a large share of the time), and if pricing problems can be handled adequately. The EROI of solar PV would probably still be too low in most applications. In any event, we need to be examining situations more closely, instead of simply assuming that hidden subsidies can be counted on indefinitely.”
The EROI of solar PV would probably still be too low in most applications. In any event, we need to be examining situations more closely, instead of simply assuming that hidden subsidies can be counted on indefinitely.”
Can’t you do any better than that? Citing Hall’s EROEI estimates for solar and wind, via Our Finite World, is about as poor and discredited a source as you can possibly get! Why don’t you cite a study from the Heartland Institute? But you are right about one thing, we should examine more closely the benefits of both solar and wind.
An interesting analysis about the side benefits of wind and solar from a slightly more reputable source than the one you cite.
The climate and air-quality benefits of wind and solar power in the United States
Dev Millstein, Ryan Wiser, Mark Bolinger & Galen Barbose
Abstract Wind and solar energy reduce combustion-based electricity generation and provide air-quality and greenhouse gas emission benefits. These benefits vary dramatically by region and over time. From 2007 to 2015, solar and wind power deployment increased rapidly while regulatory changes and fossil fuel price changes led to steep cuts in overall power-sector emissions. Here we evaluate how wind and solar climate and air-quality benefits evolved during this time period. We find cumulative wind and solar air-quality benefits of 2015 US$29.7–112.8 billion mostly from 3,000 to 12,700 avoided premature mortalities, and cumulative climate benefits of 2015 US$5.3–106.8 billion. The ranges span results across a suite of air-quality and health impact models and social cost of carbon estimates. We find that binding cap-and-trade pollutant markets may reduce these cumulative benefits by up to 16%. In 2015, based on central estimates, combined marginal benefits equal 7.3 ¢ kWh−1 (wind) and 4.0 ¢ kWh−1 (solar).
Solar PV and wind turbines are being installed because of economics, they are the better energy bargain. That is sad. Sad because the benefits are so far ranging above and beyond the simple economics of profit. Societies that focus on money will miss a tremendous opportunity to build a new energy infrastructure in time to avoid a lot of disruption, death and pain. Societies that promote this energy shift above and beyond the profit will thrive and be much more secure.
Absolutely true. But in the US, we missed our chance to promote the shift for reasons other than profit back during the oil-company coup against the elected President Gore, back in 2000.
Enough reality for the day.
Junior won- the vote was 5-4.
Societies that focus on money will miss a tremendous opportunity to build a new energy infrastructure in time to avoid a lot of disruption, death and pain.
So what to do about societies that allow the likes of the Koch brothers, who actually accept the scientific consensus about the causes and consequences of climate change, and don’t give a rat’s ass about the disruption, death and pain their activities cause the population at large?
EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s attacks on mainstream climate science are causing discomfort in a surprising corner — among many of the conservative and industry groups that have cheered his efforts to dismantle Barack Obama’s environmental regulations.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, political groups backed by the Koch brothers and the top lobbying organizations for the coal, oil, natural gas and power industries are among those so far declining to back Pruitt’s efforts to undermine the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, according to more than a dozen interviews by POLITICO. Some advocates privately worry that the debate would politically harm moderate Republicans, while wasting time and effort that’s better spent on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory rollback.
Note to climate change denialists: If even the Koch brothers officially accept the scientific consensus on climate change you might want to just shut up already and stop spouting your constant nonsense.
The climate movement has moved down to the state and local level for now. The federal level is having a nostalgia period back in the 19th century. So just keep nibbling at the edges.
Fred, did you catch this one from our resident anarchist?
“While it may be relatively easy to place a solar electric panel on every rooftop of the world’s 7+ billion people (my tongue in cheek), it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them. Ditto with an electric vehicle.”
How did you like the Venezuela part and my most recent comment about cultural imperialism?
…it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them.
My personal experience is that people living at the bottom of the economic ladder in low and middle income countries who have not previously had access to basic services such as electricity and cellphones, do not tend to break these things once they acquire them. To these people these are not toys or luxuries they are the difference between extreme hardship and poverty and having an opportunity to experience a much higher quality of life. If not the difference between life and death at least the difference between day and night.
It’s easy to be a proponent of fantasy anarchy when you have all the comforts and benefits of living in the first world while decrying alternative energy technology as being evil.
Try walking a few miles on an empty stomach, with a 5 gallon container of water on your head during a drought and then go light your home with an expensive and dirty kerosene lantern which keeps you a slave to fossil fuels!
It’s as if neither of you have ever heard of or considered vandalism from riots, social unrest/decay, war, or people being mowed down by vehicles.
Montreal police Cmdr. Sylvain Parent said the type of cars that were targeted, an Audi and a BMW, suggest an anti-gentrification motive for the arson. (CBC)
‘The fact it happens in Saint-Henri, with all the events that have happened before regarding gentrification, it’s one of our hypotheses, but it’s too early in the investigation’, he said.
‘BWM, Audi — they represent a certain high standing.’
A number of Saint-Henri businesses, mostly on Notre-Dame Street, have had been vandalized in recent years by people opposed to the historically working class neighbourhood’s shift towards condominiums and upscale restaurants and shops.
Vandals smash windows of Saint-Henri restaurant with diners inside. Anonymous group says it vandalized Saint-Henri restaurant…
…solving the crimes has been tricky because those responsible are ‘quite organized.’
…it’s hard to stop people who want to commit crimes.
Pierre Vérroneau, an 11-year resident of Saint-Henri, saw the torched cars as an escalation of that fight against gentrification.”
And this is in a relatively-stable place like Montreal, Canada, and at a time when the potential for social destabilization that oil depletion in part underpins and assorted, and often misguided, ill-advised, inequable, elite-based etc. attempts at ‘transition’ have yet to really kick in.
I guess it in part depends on who gets the solar electric panels and electric cars, etc., and who gets left out.
Pretty lame example. Now I have been at riots. Overturned police cars, burning buildings, gunfire, assault weapons, National guard and state police called in to stop it up. Fire fighters getting shot at, now that is insurrection.
Are you advocating insurrection?
It’s supposed to be a ‘lame’ example because as I already wrote with the item, ‘this is in a relatively-stable place like Montreal, Canada, and at a time when… attempts at ‘transition’ have yet to really kick in.’.
“I have been at riots. Overturned police cars, burning buildings, gunfire, assault weapons…” ~ GoneFishing
That helps make my point.
Yea, sounds like Isla Vista in 1969-70.
You knew when the Tak Squad was in your yard at in the morning, it was going to be a day of street fighting, and you were going to be gassed for sure, and hopefully not clubbed.
Might get to overturn a police car or two, which was always fun.
And hopefully someone has matches for the ROTC building.
I may have said this before, maybe on The Oil Drum, though, but if I was an anthropologist of the future– maybe as a member of a different species by then (a Permaean haha)– and had access to a time machine, I might choose to study this era.
Isla Vista sounds just so quaint by comparison, don’t you think?
I kind of regret taking the interior down to LA all the time, rather than the coast by the way.
Importantly, complex adaptive systems are always far from equilibrium.
That sums it up.
You made your point. Canada has a handful of semi-violent malcontents. The gentry are aghast and paranoid. “attacking cars is attacking individuals” give me a break. One BMW. Lame and hype.
It’s as if neither of you have ever heard of or considered vandalism from riots, social unrest/decay, war, or people being mowed down by vehicles.
Yeah, I was on the streets of Sao Paulo during many recent riots. I also was there as a kid during the Military coup. So What’s your point?!
“Vandalism in the region against renewable energy projects isn’t new. In the summer of 2011, wind projects saw eight acts of vandalism amounting to more than a half million dollars in damage. In those cases, guy wires were cut, felling and destroying meteorological towers. The perpetrators were not caught.”
“Vandals have smashed 14 solar panels and more than a dozen windows at Reynolds Secondary School — damage that will cost upwards of $28,000 to fix… So far, no witnesses have come forward.”
“The Yuma broadband seismic monitoring station run by AZGS was shot up a few weeks ago, with numerous bullet holes and one large blast through the station’s solar panel that provides power to the site.”
One more reason to take guns away from anarchists
How?
With the power of the state. You didn’t see them in Boston today did you ?
Actually, give them to the anarchists— For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown
Gee! There are vandals in the world and they do cause damage to all kinds of things including research stations, schools, hospitals, businesses, oil refineries, etc… And EVs like all other cars, are sometimes involved in accidents due to driver error. We live in a world where people sometimes fly airplanes into buildings on purpose. Are we all supposed to curl up in the fetal position because of all that and stop living?
Graffiti and graffiti cleaning is a multi-billion dollar industry. What gets me is the huge amount of money these people must be spending on spray paint.
…
It is simply an article I happened to catch that I thought to share, and seeing as Gail Tverberg was part of TOD group.
In any case, I’m not so sure as you seem to be that it is a ‘poor and discredited a source as you can possibly get’ and of course, we also have others raising similar issues, including the Mark Jacobson and Christopher Clack debate.
I just listened to an interview with Clack, incidentally. He seems pretty rational and reasonable.
As for your link, well that’s all fine and nice, but have you read the full paper? At your link, it appears to be behind a paywall. I’m often able to get around that kind of thing if I’m so motivated, but was just curious to know about you.
To the pseudorenewable energy camp, and with a glance in islandboy’s direction, I will leave you with this thought for today about ‘techno-transitional’ feasibility…
In their calculations of what’s possible, what the tech-focused analyses appear to often, if not entirely, neglect– to say nothing of their own sea changes required– are the ‘sociogeopolitical’ dynamics. The very process of transition– even its attempts– imply disruption, which implies certain levels of destabilization, which implies some undermining of efforts at transition by its very efforts.
While it may be relatively easy to place a solar electric panel on every rooftop of the world’s 7+ billion people (my tongue in cheek), it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them.
Maybe try to go into Venezuela aroundabout now and try to transition it with solar panels and electric cars.
Maybe try to go into Venezuela aroundabout now and try to transition it with solar panels and electric cars.
While I have never been to, or worked in Venezuela and have only once set foot on the African continent, I do have very strong ties with Brazil and can easily extrapolate my on the ground experience there, to imagine what other places around the world might be like. Especially when it comes to extremes between the haves and the have nots.
Your comment comes across as both ignorant and arrogant.
The truth of the matter is that I have lived and worked with underprivileged people who do not have access to electricity, clean water, medical services and at least have a clue as to what that kind of life is like.
Maybe I missed it, but nothing that you have ever commented gives me any reason to believe that you have done the same. So as far as I can tell at best you are an armchair quarterback with no real life experience of any kind of hardship. Maybe you should sign up for a stint doing some volunteer work in one of these countries yourself.
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11:42 / 45:11
A Different Path
Streamed live on Nov 18, 2016
Low-to-middle income (LMI) countries face a number of hurdles to developing a robust economy that works for everyone, but they do have a couple of aces up their sleeves. Firstly, they can learn from the mistakes of highly developed nations, not least by investigating how to design out waste of materials and energy, as well as giving a body swerve to the inherent structural waste found in these economies. Secondly, and this is a related point, they can use modern and emerging technology to help leapfrog some of the more painful stages of the historical development process. And, what’s more, they can make their economies more inclusive in the process.
In this live event at the Disruptive Innovation Festival, we’ll hear from three speakers who each have a wealth of knowledge about how modern technology is being applied in LMI nations. Camille van Gestel is the founder of Waka Waka, who make handheld solar energy devices that have helped more than 1,000,000 people gain access to electricity in the last three years alone. Kirsten Kramer, a Strategy Consultant at Accenture has worked with local communities in Brazil to help them develop local renewable energy solutions. And we’ll hear from Olayinka David-West, of the Lagos Business School, who is working on a project to bring digital financial technologies to millions of Nigerians, reducing barriers some people face to making payments and improving their lives, especially in rural areas. In all cases, technology is being applied to help reduce inequalities and offer new opportunities to those who might otherwise be denied them.
Get back to us when you have helped a few million people better their lives or done something as useful as what these people have done!
Yes I think you already agree, and have sufficiently demonstrated, that you’ve been ‘proudly’ psychologically/ideologically colonized/co-opted by the status-quo.
People in Venezuela and other places around the world need stuff like social stability, independence (like, to not be meddled with by foreign agents/powers), potable water and good food and things like that, not solar photovoltaic panels, electric cars or assorted ‘disruptive innovations’ from the operating systems, like legal and financial, and self-serving narratives, etc. of self-described leaders, saviors or imperialists running amok, and ‘helping millions of people’ (as blasted loud and clear in their adverts).
Most people don’t need their so-called help, except where they and their operating systems had a hand in demolishing traditional ways of life and the surrounding ecosystem that everything depends on. Conflict of interest? Racket?
Sometimes, if not far too often in some cases, the best ‘help’ is no ‘help’ at all, and staying put, like at home in one’s armchair.
Sometimes, if not far too often in some cases, the best ‘help’ is no ‘help’ at all, and staying put, like at home in one’s armchair.
Fortunately there are plenty of people out there who beg to differ!
Why do you use Hall’s crappy numbers again and again? The last time I pointed to the issues you simply shut up, now you assume the situation has changed because Gail uses the same numbers?
She is from a scientific POV a clown, so are you.
Provide arguments, why Hall’s numbers are correct or stop your nonsense.
Gail is EITHER a nincompoop, or a successful business woman with a brand that she sells and sells well, maybe earning a good bit of money from it. I’m not sure which, maybe a little of both.
I saw her at a conference once. She had an entirely “canned ” presentation, and had only canned answers to questions, and dodged any real questioning after finishing her dog and pony show.
She was ENTIRELY unwilling to engage in a little debate with ME, when she realized who I was, this being back in the days of TOD. Ask her a real question, and she acts like a deer in the headlights, freezing and then running.
What bothers me is they keep changing it. Everyone used 1980 for a long time but we won’t stay under 2C with that baseline – so suddenly they started talking about 1990 baseline, or 2000…. Who are they kidding?
The 1.5C or 2C limits were based on not letting all the arctic sea ice melt and kicking in other feedback loops. They were guesses, but here we are at 2C above the pre-industrial age and the arctic is nearly ice-free. Barrow Alaska, Iceland, Tiski Russia all saw huge spikes in CO2 at the end of last year – 415ppm. That’s called a tipping point and it’s just not factored in to the IPCC’s conservative models.
Hi Preston,
The IPCC uses a wide range of models from the peer reviewed literature, you can rely on blogs for your information if you like. You will be hard pressed to find peer reviewed literature supporting a 9 C increase in global temperatures in the next 10 years.
I will go with main stream science, you can believe what you wish, note that the second IPCC chart has two temperature scales, as we don’t have good global data before 1850, often 1850-1900 is used as a baseline, that scale is on the right side of the chart. On the 1951-1980 and 1961-1990 baselines, NASA chose the first and HADCRU chose the second, and the satellite data uses 1981-2000 (because it starts in 1979). It is not clear why they chose 1986-2005, maybe so nobody would like it. 🙂
We are not 2C above pre-industrial for Global land-ocean temperature maybe 1.4 C in 2016 (annual average) at most.
Hi Dennis,
I think it is a mistake to talk about “2C above pre-industrial” because it gives a sense of acceptable complacency to the future human global warming catastrophic problem. It’s like putting a frozen pork lion in the microwave for 5 minutes and saying it’s still frozen at the one minute mark. We need to be talking about taking the pork lion out of the microwave and putting it back into the freezer. Just because you and I will be dead before the microwave gets to the minute and half mark. Doesn’t make watching the timer acceptable because it might be 90 percent thawed out at the 2 minutes mark and starting to cook.
Food for thought
from that blog post:
“NASA data suggest that it was 1.48°C (or 2.664°F) warmer than in 1890-1910 for the period from November 2015 to April 2016. Note again that this 1890-1910 baseline is much later than pre-industrial times. The Paris Agreement had pledged to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. On land on the Northern Hemisphere, it was 1.99°C (or 3.582°F) warmer…”
Okay, so not quite 2C yet but maybe 1.8C if you add in the rise since 1750. Maybe you are right and it’s 1.4C but that’s already too high and June 2017 hit another new record. 8C additional rise in 10 years would be a disaster and I don’t want to believe it, not sure if I do, but the slow linear increase the IPCC is talking about doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.
Hi Preston,
The temperature is affected by changes in ocean currents such as AMO and by Alternating phases of a Pacific Ocean phenomenon called ENSO, there is also a lag in temperature increases due to the thermal inertia of the ocean. The Global climate models take all of this into account with scenarios of future emissions, the results as of 2013 are what I posted from the IPCC. I have no idea why they don’t stick with 1850 to 1900 temperatures as a mean, note that we don’t have a very good estimate of temperatures in 1750. Using Mann 2008, the 30 year average around 1750 is about 0.09 C below the 1850-1879 average temperature and also 0.09 C below the 1850-1899 average temperature.
Also using the Mann 2008 data the 1700-1899 mean is about 0.4 C below the 1951-1980 mean. Also using the Mann data if we take the 1000 to 1749 mean temperature it is 0.14C below the 1951-1980 mean.
Also using all data from 500 CE to 1900 CE, the average global temperature is 0.1 C below the 1951-1980 mean temperature. Chart below shows the Mann estimate from 515-1991 (31 year average.) Note that the Mann estimate takes 1961-1990 mean as zero, the 1951-1980 mean is -0.1 C relative to the 1961-1990 mean.
Yeah, the IPCC keeps underestimating the danger. Look at geology, the PETM, and the P-Tr extinction, you get a better picture of what we’re dealing with.
It is possible to reverse this but we really do have to start actively extracting CO2 from the air and water and fixing it as solid carbon. We have multiple known methods of doing so, starting with setting up massive algae blooms, but instead we’re still burning things and generating CO2. Insane, but there you are.
We have multiple known methods of doing so, starting with setting up massive algae blooms,
Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that plan, eh?!
Indeed. It does seem that this is the sort of process which brought CO2 levels down in the geologic past, though. Not so good for humans…
Yeah, the IPCC keeps underestimating the danger. Look at geology, the PETM, and the P-Tr extinction, you get a better picture of what we’re dealing with.
No you don’t. Being more alarmist than the alarmists doesn’t get you closer to reality.
You don’t know the first thing about reality.
For example, during the middle of the second warmest May on record,
In terms of your relationship with reality, it appears that you have a binary opposition disorder.
It is really hard to take anything seriously from Euan Mearns with his anti science denial of climate change and global warming.
I can see why our friend Javier hangs out there…
Javier is quite a prolific writer and commenter over at Juddith Curry too. I guess by some people Javier is considered a smart man.
I do tend to get things right when most people get them wrong.
And actually you and GoneFishing are a source of inspiration for my articles, Survivalist. Here is what I said in my last sea-ice article at WUWT when referring to volume alarmism:
“Apparently, alarmists believe that Arctic sea-ice is transforming from a pancake into a crepe of the same size.”
Directly from your words, thanks.
Everything is relative, Survivalist.
I already showed how since April temperatures have been lower that the preceeding 20 months. So yes, what I meant with that comment was that we were having a cool spring compared to a warmer winter, warmer autum, warmer summer, warmer spring, warmer winter, and warmer preceding summer. The coldest season since spring 2015.
Are you a denier that temperatures have been trending down since February 2016?
“The coldest season since spring 2015.” – Javier
Fail!
2017 was coldest spring since 2016. 2017 was a warmer spring than 2015. 2016 was hottest. 2017 was second hottest. 2015 was 3rd hottest.
Second hottest year on record, that was preceded by the hottest year on record, that was preceded by the third hottest year on record, means ‘trending down’ in Doc Javier’s scientific opinion. What a joke! Your silly little word games are a disgrace to science.
Top hottest 20 years as per global land temp anomaly: 2016, 2015, 2007, 2010, 2005, 2014, 2013, 1998, 2002, 2012, 2006, 2011, 2003, 2009, 2008, 2001, 2004, 1999, 1995, 1997.
Top hottest 20 years as per global land and ocean temp anomaly: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2010, 2013, 2005, 2009, 1998, 2012, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2002, 2004, 2011, 2001, 2008, 1997, 1995, 1999.
“July 2017 was statistically tied with July 2016 as the warmest July in the 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
Last month was about 0.83 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean July temperature of the 1951-1980 period. Only July 2016 showed a similarly high temperature (0.82 °C), all previous months of July were more than a tenth of a degree cooler.”
Since you are using Copernicus ERA interim data, I’ll show you with that data too (average 3 month data):
JAS 2015 0.4578
OND 2015 0.6442
JFM 2016 0.7900
AMJ 2016 0.5744
JAS 2016 0.5757
OND 2016 0.5615
JFM 2017 0.6416
AMJ 2017 0.4814
Past spring was coolest season since summer of 2015 in terms of anomaly according to ERA interim database.
Do you get it now, or do you need a graph to see it?
I posted this data over at OFW, and it was deleted.
Our Finite World has degraded itself into alt right boys club.
It is hard to take any of her (Gail Tverberg) analysis seriously at this point.
She is a denier, at it has hampered her work for quite some time.
I was a bit amused when NOAA was considered a propaganda sourse.
Javier represents himself as a scientist, and he does have a good grasp of quite a lot of science, so I guess he is.
But he has pretty close to zero credibility because he ignores the precautionary principle, which in other fields is taught as using basic common sense, even down to the level of common labor work.
You don’t just ignore the safety warning flags flown by just about everybody else in the world when it comes to something like climate.
Monday’s solar eclipse is a test bed for future events.
Utilities and grid operators have been planning for the event for years, calculating the timing and drop in output from solar, running simulations of the potential impact on demand, and lining up standby power sources. It promises a critical test of their ability to manage a sizeable swing in renewable power.
Solar energy now accounts for more than 42,600 megawatts (MW), about 5 percent of the U.S.’s peak demand, up from 5 MW in 2000, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a group formed to improve the nation’s power system in the wake of a 1964 blackout. When the next eclipse comes to the United States in 2024, solar will account for 14 percent of the nation’s power, estimates NERC.
For utilities and solar farms, the eclipse represents an opportunity to see how well prepared their systems are to respond to rapid swings in an era where variable energy sources such as solar and wind are climbing in scale and importance.
Seems, in only the last week, you changed your views about how solar power is actually an issue during a solar eclipse. No matter if the panels are in the total eclipse or the partial eclipse.
So you have heard of clouds and nighttime yet persist in promoting erroneous views about the upcoming predictable event.
Lets do the math:
“Ever heard of clouds, the planet is 70 percent covered with them and they dim the sun all the time. How about we compare that claimed “as much as 125 megawatts” to the 4600 megawatts of installed solar. Not much loss is there? Anyway, solar is less than 1 percent of the US power grid, so that is 3 percent of one percent, which is a loss of 0.03 percent of the power system. Hello? Not important at all.
Next let’s look at the “market will have to fill a gap of 6,008 megawatts” from that guy in California. There are ONLY 4600 megawatts of solar in the USA total and that is only that much at high noon on a very clear day.
Those articles are bogus, the power supplies will not be “wiped out” just momentarily reduced and still there afterward. It’s not a bomb destroyed them, it’s just the moon getting in front of the sun and putting a shadow on the earth.
Same thing happens during storms and cloudy days. How stupid are you?
They know exactly how much, when and how long it will last (unless it’s cloudy already), so WTF do they do when clouds show up and blow away?
Can’t wait for the next disastrous events to happen , 2024, 2045, 2078 and 2079.
If you add up all those events they might have the same effect as one partly cloudy day.”
Have you thought about what people that have solar PV on their roof do at night?
The earth blocks the sun an average of 12 hours a day.
The earth blocks the sun an average of 12 hours a day.
It’s amazing that plants and animals can survive till the next morning…
Ross Clark, journalist, met Al Gore to interview him about his favorite topic. But Ross broke the rules; he did some research. Clark even talked to a professor about the scenes of Florida being flooded. The prof explained that it’s not so much that the seas were rising fast, but that the land under Miami is sinking — and by an amazing 16-24cm in the last 80 years. (No wonder some residents are seeing water inundate new areas.)
“When I put all this to Al Gore and ask him whether his film would be stronger if it acknowledged the complexities of sea level rise — why it is rising in some places and not in others — I am expecting him to bat it away, saying that it doesn’t counter his central point and that there is a limit to what you can put into a film pitched at a mass audience, but his reaction surprises me. As soon as I mention Professor Wdowinski’s name, he counters: ‘Never heard of him — is he a denier?’ Then, as I continue to make the point, he starts to answer before directing it at me: ‘Are you a denier?’ When I say I am sure that climate change is a problem, but how big a one I don’t know, he jumps in: ‘You are a denier.’
That is a strange interpretation of the word ‘deny’, I try to say. But his PR team moves in and declares ‘Time’s up’, and I am left feeling like the guy in Monty Python who paid for a five-minute argument and was allowed only 30 seconds. On the way out, a frosty PR woman says to me: ‘Can I have a word with you?’ I wasn’t supposed to ask difficult questions, she says, because ‘this is a film junket, to promote the film’.
Surely if you are going to make a film claiming climate change to be a grave threat to the world, you ought to be prepared to answer detailed questions about it. – The Spectator”
It’s hard to slip one past a smart and experienced guy like Al Gore. He can see them coming a mile away. Doesn’t put up with BS. 3mm subsidence and 9 mm rise does not add up to no rise.
Fish – The 3mm subsidence seems like a pretty localized phenomena.
“South Florida is one of the most vulnerable areas to Sea Level Rise (SLR) due to its low elevation, large population concentration, and economic importance. Recently, the city of Miami has been identified as the economically most vulnerable city to SLR in the world (US National climate assessment). Heretofore, the effect of SLR has felt mostly in low-lying coastal communities, such as the City of Miami Beach. A recent flooding hazard study of Miami Beach have shown a significant increase in flooding frequency after 2006, in which the flooding frequency increased by 400% compare with flooding events during the previous decade (Wdowinski et al., 2016). This study attributed the flooding frequency increase to a decadal-scale accelerating rates of SLR. However, some of the increased flooding frequency might have caused due to local land subsidence, because some of the low elevation sections of the city were built on reclaimed swamps.”
Yes, I know the subsidence is limited in area. I just didn’t want to waste much time on this. There is differential rise all around the world due to various effects. They hit a high of 20 mm per year 2011 to 2015. Even in the slow rise case Miami will have to drink salty water due to infiltration underground. Wells will be contaminated by sea water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEhx-Q43Tfo
Miami will have to drink salty water due to infiltration underground. Wells will be contaminated by sea water.
As long as there is an ocean, I will always have water to drink!
I don’t buy the old saw about ‘water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink!’
I have built my own modular hexagonal passive solar desalinization units and filled them with 100% sea water and gotten at least enough water to fill my daily fresh water drinking needs. You can buy off the shelf units that will do the job for a couple hundred bucks. Any sailor worth his salt has one or more on his boat.
As for a city wide solution you could do something like this.
Freshwater from salt water using only solar energy
Modular, off-grid desalination technology could supply families, towns
Date:
June 19, 2017
Source:
Rice University
Summary: A federally funded research effort to revolutionize water treatment has yielded a direct solar desalination technology that uses energy from sunlight alone to heat salt water for membrane distillation. The technology could provide off-grid water treatment for some of the 1 billion people who lack access to clean water.
Yes, but what do you do for water during solar eclipses? 🙂
Why thank you for asking!
I keep a handy supply of freeze dried, vacuum packed, instant solar water.
All you do is add one liter of 100% pure, liquid H2O to one quarter teaspoon of instant solar water mix, stir or shake well and you instantly get a whole liter of the finest quality fresh water. It rivals or exceeds the quality of Poland Spring’s bottled water. Chill as needed, then keep refrigerated!
I’ve been thinking of marketing it under my private label. It even has all the health benefits of reverse homeopathy 😉
Fred, much easier to get by on bottled alcoholic beverages for those few hours. Or you can do what the birds do, go to sleep after singing. Then wake up, sing for a while and go on about your day. They all think they got an extra day. Very resilient creatures.
Us northerners store it as ice which seems to turn right back into water during most seasons if you leave it out of the freezer. 🙂
Fred, much easier to get by on bottled alcoholic beverages for those few hours.
LOL! You’ll get no argument from me on that!
Though my neighbors might not appreciate my singing 😉
Hang in there Fred, you could get some really great real estate deals right around your place and end up owning your own island. Wouldn’t that be fancy?
The Florida Alps (height 360′) have a future.
Make a good site for launching dive boats, to view all the good wreck diving in the surrounding area.
“It’s as if neither of you have ever heard of or considered vandalism from riots, social unrest/decay, war, or people being mowed down by vehicles.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre
“Yeah, I was on the streets of Sao Paulo during many recent riots. I also was there as a kid during the Military coup. So What’s your point?!” ~ Fred Magyar
Optimal design of and for transition for non-optimal outcomes.
LOL! Thank you Caelan! Brazil appreciates your kind words.
.
I designed it with you in mind. ^u^
I tried to get the sentence looking as simple and sweet as possible, like it came fresh out of the first few words of some sort of basic science and engineering textbook.
This is in part because reading much of your anecdotes in ostensibly-implicit support of the (greewashing of the) status-quo, while explicitly discouraging the opposite, made me think of you discouraging talk of some details of AGW…
“Most everyone here is already acutely aware ofall the shortcomings and injustices of our global industrial civilizationanthropogenic climate change. We don’t need you to tell us. ”
~ A Fred Magyar edit/remix by Caelan MacIntyre, with apologies in advance to Survivalist
Lol cheeky
‘u’
Hot day in Mould Bay (76N). Hit 8C yesterday.
Large portions of Canada have risen by about 2C since 1948.
Wet Bulb at 33 C — Human Hothouse Kills Nearly 800 in Pakistan
Human-forced warming of the global climate system is pushing sea surface temperatures in some areas to a maximum of 33 C. Extreme ocean warming that is increasing the amount of latent heat the atmosphere can deliver to human bodies during heatwaves. And near a 33 C sea surface hot zone, the past few days have witnessed extreme heat and related tragic mass casualties in Sindh, Pakistan.
Huber explained that humans and many mammals have an internal body temperature of approximately 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cannot tolerate a wet-bulb temperature above 95 degrees for longer than six hours. Humans cool themselves through the skin. Internal heat can dissipate when the external temperature is cooler than internal body temperature. But when the external wet-bulb temperature is 95 degrees or above, the body can’t cool itself and begins to experience hyperthermia. Extended hyperthermia is associated with ill health and eventually death.
For the analysis, the researchers looked at the wet-bulb temperature impacts on a fit, acclimated person who is naked, drinking unlimited amounts of water, in the shade, standing in front of giant fan, and not doing any labor. “We asked the question, what kind of conditions would be lethal to that person?” Huber said. The answer is that 100 percent relative humidity and a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit are likely to be lethal.
More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
— Woody Allen
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Seems to be happening every year now. Deadly heat waves from Pakistan to Vietnam are becoming a regular occurrence. Best to live at a higher altitude.
One of my favorite!
I understand wet bulb and the mechanisms by which we throw of excess heat and so forth.
I don’t believe a man in good health would die in front of a powerful fan at ninety five F so long as he is just taking it easy, even at very close to one hundred percent relative humidity.
Which brings up a question. I’m not that well versed in atmospheric sciences. I can’t find any reference to the humidity being measured at one hundred percent even in a dense fog, the sort that blocks out anything more than maybe a hundred feet away. All the figures I have run across are in the mid nineties at the most, taken as actual measurements.
We get 100%s here, usually associated with rain. 30+C with 90+ hummmidity is bad.
Sustainable Energy Grid Batteries Are Poised to Become Cheaper Than Natural-Gas Plants in Minnesota
A new report suggests the economics of large-scale batteries are reaching an important inflection point.
by Michael Reilly July 12, 2017
When it comes to renewable energy, Minnesota isn’t typically a headline-grabber: in 2016 it got about 18 percent of its energy from wind, good enough to rank in the top 10 states. But it’s just 28th in terms of installed solar capacity, and its relatively small size means projects within its borders rarely garner the attention that giants like California and Texas routinely get.
According to the University of Minnesota’s Energy Transition Lab, starting in 2019 and for the foreseeable future, the overall cost of building grid-scale storage there will be less than that of building natural-gas plants to meet future energy demand.
Ogurtsov, M., Lindholm, M., & Jalkanen, R. (2017). On the Possible Contribution of Natural Climatic Fluctuations to the Global Warming of the Last 135 Years. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 7(03), 256. http://file.scirp.org/pdf/ACS_2017070315503961.pdf
“This means that global warming (GW) of the last 135 years can unlikely be fully explained by inherent oscillations of the climatic system. It was found however, that natural fluctuations of climate may appreciably contribute to the GW. The return period of climatic episodes with 0.5 ̊C warming during the 135 years (half of the observed GW) was less than 500 years. The result testifies that the role of external factors (emission of greenhouse gases, solar activity etc.) in the GW could be less than often presumed.”
Half of the warming can be explained by natural variability. More with solar activity changes that are also natural.
Scientific Research Publishing?
Please, you are reaching a new low.
A Chinese predatory publishing house.
The company has been accused of being a predatory open access publisher[3] and of using email spam to solicit papers for submission.[1] In 2014 there was a mass resignation of the editorial board of one of the company’s journals, with the outgoing Editor-in-Chief saying of the publisher “For them it was only about making money. We were simply their ‘front’.”[4]
A typical source for rubbish articles.
Javier’s discourse:
Global warming is good.
There is no link betwen man made greenhouse gasses and global warming.
The best plan for humanity is to burn all the oil.
Clearly this is sock puppetry that suits the Koch agenda.
That’s a really poor representation of my discourse. You are good at raising strawmans to attack.
Let’s rephrase that to something I could endorse:
– Global warming is a fact we can’t change. It has drawbacks and benefits, but clearly the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for the moderate warming we are getting.
– Man made greenhouse gasses have very likely contributed to global warming. They have also contributed to the greening of the Earth and to the increase in precipitable water.
– The best plan for humanity is to develop a sound energy policy, based on every source and technology, taking into account costs, feasibility, environmental impact, and sustainability, without excluding ANY except on efficiency grounds. Obviously the energy policy cannot be the same everywhere, so keeping all our options open is very important.
Taking important decisions that exclude one or more sources of energy based on beliefs that are unsupported by evidence is a good way of shooting ourselves in the foot. We might not be able to undo the damage we can do to our civilization if our energy policy fails.
An interesting article from the BBC that may throw some light, err – pun not intended, on the uptake of solar power.
Seems that there are some people out there who are still trying to make steam and coal work…
Seriously though, it does add another layer of insight as to why some disruptive technologies might seem a bit slow to take off despite being obviously better. You have to change everything including the paradigms on which the previous systems were built. And that probably requires a quite literal dying out of the old guard.
I was thinking more of the ones on that page based on the rocket stove. Take a look at the Cocinado Limpio page too.
NAOM
PS Got some pinhole pics of the eclipse from my palm trees but they are not so clear – too much background light.
Interesting article, thanks.
Yep, civilization runs on the electron now but renewable energy will reform how we gather, deliver and use electric power. When Edison started powering cities with electricity his company had to invent, design and build just about everything. It was a huge learning curve. At least that won’t be true for renewable energy.
People worry about how PV and wind might not deliver in a continuous fashion. Storage will get around that but even if it doesn’t cover all circumstances the occasional loss of power is infinitely better than no power at all and living in a fully polluted world prior to that.
Could our civilization be running much of it’s technology on the remnants of destroyed neutron stars?
Precious elements may come from spinning neutron stars that have swallowed a tiny black hole and imploded. If true, this dramatically changes our understanding not only of how rare elements like gold are made, but also the nature of some dark matter.
The elements in question include all atoms heavier than bismuth, as well as some neutron-rich isotopes heavier than iron. They are forged in what is called the r-process (meaning ‘rapid’), which requires copious numbers of neutrons as well as densities ten billion times greater than those found in the Sun’s core to enable the rapid capture of those neutrons by atomic nuclei. Therefore, the r‑process can only take place in the most extreme environments.
The question of where elements like gold come from has been around for a long time. Many scientists have argued that supernova explosions were the source, but they may not be necessary if neutron star collisions produce elements heavier than iron. In about 2013(?) Hubble detected a distinct emission of infrared light, a signal separate from an explosion that resulted from the radioactive decay of heavy elements. This short duration burst was definitively linked with the collisions of two neutron stars.
Report: Trump’s travels have left the Secret Service unable to pay agents
(from a evolutionary point of view, does this bring genetic fitness?)
Yea, disaster capitalism: Last week, Swanson wrote a personal letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a Montana native, asking him to ease grazing restrictions on a nearby wildlife refuge. Two days later, he did so.
Hope everyone had a great eclipse experience! While I’m sure most people were fixated on the heavens, I was struck by the sunlight filtering through the leaves of a large Ficus tree onto the asphalt of a parking lot underneath it. As the eclipse progressed I saw thousands of little eclipses on the ground. I thought it was kind of amazing…
.
I wanted to stay in out of the heat and watch the eclipse on TV, but the moon used up all the solar power. 🙁 😈 😉
What?! You didn’t invest in battery backup?! That’s the punch line to a dumb Polack joke.
The solar eclipse is was a worthwhile educational experience in more ways than one.
It provided me with an opportunity to prove than a lot of otherwise reputable organizations are not above covering their asses by way of publishing inaccurate information and recommendations.
Just about every body published warnings against using welder’s helmets as viewing tools.
But all modern welding helmets filter out one hundred percent of the uv and even the infrared that might be damaging to the eyes.
And welding helmets are mostly manufactured and sold by companies with well known brand names , such as Lincoln, Miller, Hobart, etc, with long term reputations, and very deep pockets pickable by lawyers with a case, so they manufacture GOOD STUFF, and maintain GOOD quality control.
I will not be surprised to read about some people having eye problems resulting from using so called eclipse glasses, because in my estimation, at least some of them were manufactured to the same standards as Chinese dog food. Fatal standards.
“Q: What is the correct lens shade to use in my welding helmet to properly protect my eyes?
A: Many people mistakenly think that the lens shade number corresponds to the amount of protection that is provided to the eyes and hence the higher the number, the better the protection. But in reality, all well-constructed quality welding lenses, have a screen that filters out 100 percent of the harmful ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) wavelengths and provides protection to the eyes. The number just denotes the amount of darkness provided by that particular lens and should be used by operators as a guide to select the one that is most comfortable and yet provides good visibility for the particular application.
Of course, there are some suggested lens shade numbers that you can use as a guide if you are unsure what to select for your application. These correspond with the amperage being welded. Always select a shade that allows you to see the weld puddle clearest and that most aids your welding ability.
Welding Helmet Lens Shade Guide”
There’s no need to print the chart, but the various cya folks said only a shade fourteen would protect the eyes. I have been welding since I learned the abc’s in the tenth grade back in the dark ages, and have probably three or four years full time, in total, as a pro in the trade, and can say with some assurance that if you want a fourteen, you will have to order it, because hardly anybody actually stocks them. The sun is actually appears about as bright as a hundred watt light clear incandescent light bulb in a dark room , subjectively speaking, using a twelve. My old eyes adjust to it within a few seconds, like going from inside to outside on a bright day.
Of course I passed around my helmets to as many people as possible who didn’t have a helmet of their own. I would be more surprised by any of them having an eye problem as a result than I would have been by being hit by lightning while observing the eclipse.
We got ninety three percent locally, and lucked out with only a few big clouds blocking our view intermittently.
This week in Pump AND Dump Ponzi schemes:
“The Permian is best viewed as a near infinite resource – we will never produce the last drop of economic oil from the Basin.”
Again please, what’s the best guess for peak production of USA LTO? Once USA LTO rolls over the peak the a Wall Street Ponzi scam will lose its buyers/”investors” thereby causing the bubble to burst.
Not only is the entire global fossil fuel business one gigantic ponzi scheme but it should be clear to most rational thinkers, that sooner rather than later all fossil fuels and the entire extracting and refining infrastructure accompanying it will become stranded assets.
Not too long ago, investors (myself included), thought some of the best companies to invest in were those which controlled huge amounts of coal, oil, or gas. After all, a growing, energy-hungry world needs increasing amounts of these fossil fuels. Right?
And how well did that strategy work out?
Well… Peabody (BTU), the U.S.’s largest coal producer, went bankrupt. Canadian Oil Sands (OTCQX:COSWF), with its massive oil sand holdings, failed. Chesapeake Energy (CHK) has extensive natural gas acreage yet saw its stock fall 90%.
In retrospect, investing in energy companies which control large amounts of coal, oil, and gas was a terrible strategy. Only a few years ago, with Peak Oil thinking in vogue, who would’ve guessed?
Today, all three major fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — are priced below their 2009 Great Recession lows. This is especially surprising considering the huge central bank fueled monetary supply expansions since 2007. (Wasn’t that was supposed to be inflationary?)
I think that was rhetorical but my guess is 2020 to 2025 for peak US LTO output.
“The resulting solutions will require ‘long time-horizon investment: investments with no immediate payoff in terms of saleable products, no visible ROI (return on investment), no profit-making in the near-term. Such investment can be generated only in a non-market environment, in which payment is collective and financial profit is not the point.’
The only problem is that… the main incubator and agent of the non-market public economy is government — but government itself is playing a key role in dismantling, hollowing-out and privatizing the non-market public economy.
There is only one solution to this conundrum, however difficult it might seem:
Citizens themselves at all scales have an opportunity to work together to salvage and regenerate new public economies based on pooling their human, financial and physical assets and resources, to facilitate the emergence of more viable and sustainable economic structures…“
“…if we really look at the proposed green alternatives, it turns out that these sources of energy are also far from sustainable. The production of one of the more common types of photovoltaic cells (solar panels), for example, releases:
‘… fluorine, chlorine, nitrate, isopropanol, SO2, CO2, respirable silica particles and solvents… Fluorine and chlorine are also emitted to the water … [which] contribute to human toxicity, as does nitrate, which stems from neutralizing acids used in etching and texturing… Silica particles can be released in the mining and refining stage [which] may cause the lung disease silicosis. Emissions of solvents and alcohols [also] contribute to photochemical ozone formation and both direct (the solvents itself) and indirect (ozone) respiratory problems.’…
Even setting this aside for a moment, the various industrial devices that we would ideally power with the supposedly ‘clean’ energy are, as we have learned, also not sustainable to produce. These devices employ the very metals and plastics used in all industrial non-green technology and whose hideously toxic effects are selectively catalogued in the prior pages. Indeed, this fact is one of the biggest lacunae in the whole of the green technology paradigm.
The industrial economy has been around for less than 1% of the time that humans have existed, and in that short period it’s already facilitated our delivery into this sorry state of affairs. It has not only achieved this through grand headline-generating means like global climate change, but also through a multitude of small, mundane occurrences which have only become catastrophic through repetition.
So what are we supposed to do, then, if adopting green technology does not fix but perhaps even worsens the very crisis it claims to solve?
Well, this might come as a shock to some, but the vast majority of human life has been lived without any industrial technology… Life without industrial technology is not necessarily ‘nasty, brutish and short’. Many anthropologists have countered that, if anything, perhaps the opposite is true…
Few would argue with the notion that science, on the whole, has been somewhat deformed in the egomaniacal pursuit of mastery and control over nature, for profit, and so on. But under all of this built-up hubris still lies a few noble scientific principles worth heeding; one of these worthy understandings is Occam’s Razor…
Engaging with a proactive social movement… does have some obvious advantages. Of the current better-known movements for sustainability that we might interact with, permaculture is probably one of the least compromising and most influential… permaculture emphasizes a set of basic design principles that are broad enough to help guide the design and construction of a wide range of systems, both physical and social. Some of the horticultural and farming techniques pioneered by permaculturists might also prove to be extremely helpful when dealing with challenges presented by our current population numbers. For an up-to-date introduction to permaculture, see David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability or his website permacultureprinciples.com.”
Oh, fer crimminies sake! For someone who goes on and on about the evils of science and technology especially the renewable energy revolution and blabs endlessly about the wonders of permaculture to solve all our problems, you seem to know surprisingly little about plants, plant physiology, and microbiology. You seem to be even less aware that humanity is well on its way to having 9 to 10 billion inhabitants that will be by absolute necessity be living in highly concentrated urban centers. While I have nothing against permaculture technology, and yes it is a technology with pros and cons, like all technologies, there is no way it can sustainably scale to support 10 billion humans.
On the other hand it is possible to incorporate phytoremediation technologies to clean even heavy metals out of waste water such as that which might be a byproduct of alternative energy manufacturing processes. Hey maybe you and Javier could join forces and work on something like that, eh? There has been a lot of work done on that in Brazil, I could give you contacts of various scientists and universities already doing this kind of research….
Though I much prefer to listen to him in his native Hungarian here’s an interesting guy for you. Istvan Kenyeres. Ironically his last name means (Bread Maker)!
And If there are any native Hungarian speakers out there lurking…
Istvan Kenyeres https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJqiqGYw8Oc
Újragondolt városok és a Budapesti Állatkert: Kenyeres István at TEDxDanubia 2014
Caelan, in the last non petroleum thread you posted a comment to which you attached to two pictures taken from a music video, featuring the landfill of Kingston, the capital city of the Jamaica. The Google map coordinates (GPS?) of the center of the landfill are 18.009221, -76.854004 and below is a screenshot of the area of the city to the north east of the landfill with the north east section of the landfill in the lower left hand corner. The lower picture of the two in your comment was probably taken from this area in the corner of my screenshot which appears to be the used tyre cell of the landfill.
The area of the city adjacent to the landfill is called Riverton City, a notorious slum/shanty town/ghetto who’s residents largely survive by scavenging from the landfill. Among the things scavenged from the incoming garbage trucks, the most valuable are scrap metals with aluminum and copper being the most valuable scrap metals but, glass, recyclable plastics and anything else that can be re-sold or reused will also not escape the scavengers who often pounce on the incoming trucks before they dump their loads. One treat is when truckloads of edible items that have passed their “best by” date come in which I have been told has included ice cream and chicken meat which are either consumed by the residents or taken back into the main market areas and sold at bargain prices. An American Peace Corps volunteer made an interesting video “Riverton City Jamaica in which he looks at one of the cottage industries that has come out of the dump, aluminum casting.
Going back to the screenshot, the structure stretching from the upper left hand corner to the center of the lower edge is the main storm water drain for the city called Sandy Gully. The only bridge across the drain in the screenshot is for Spanish Town Road the main arterial road leading from the main downtown, market/commercial/industrial and waterfront financial areas of the city, to the central and western section of the island. Spanish Town Road is part of the route from the international airport serving Kingston to all points west of the capital. In the screenshot, the only “middle class” residential area is in the center of the shot, north of Sandy Gully and Spanish Town Road.
Everywhere else in the screen shot is either industrial/commercial property or “working class” (ghetto) type residential areas. In these areas, girls start having children at a young age and I suspect that it would be very hard to find a twenty year old woman who has no children. Case in point is an unemployed woman not quite 25 years old who has recently given birth to her fourth child and depends on the father of her last three children for sustenance. Her first child, which she gave birth to at the age of 17, before she had finished school, lives with the mother of that child’s father. That is an example of a fairly stable family, the opposite being women who have a different father for each child.
These areas contain large populations of individuals like this young woman, who depend on industrial agriculture for food in the form of wheat, corn, beans, sugar, cooking oils, meat, poultry and dairy products. Fruit and vegetables are luxuries except when in season and abundant (cheap). They also have access to television and in many cases internet and have become accustomed to a mostly North American diet of music and movies in addition to entertainment from the very vibrant local pop music industry. Are you suggesting that introducing these folks to permaculture is a solution? They are going to have to be introduced to a lot more and also receive some mental conditioning before wrapping their heads around the concepts involved, in other words, social engineering on a grand scale. If you can convince the owners of the content delivery services to do this you would have to be a hypnotist of the highest order. In case you are thinking it is any different outside of the capital, I have recently had reason to venture into some very poor areas outside Kingston, including one in the middle of a sugar cane growing area and my observations from the safety of the cab of my vehicle are lots and lots of young adults, children and infants.
A lot of what you espouse will only work after a significant die off of the planet’s current population and in any rapid die off scenario, I cannot guarantee that I will be among the survivors. As a result I am looking at stuff (technology) that might mitigate against a rapid die off happening in my life time and possibly ever. It appears to me that you favor a rapid die off scenario, in which case, how can you be sure you will be among the survivors?
Hi islandboy,
I’ll respond in a kind of point format, and have added a reply to your comment under another article/thread.
Poor is relative. Poor is what the system can make of some people, and their surrounds and planet. Like what is actually happening, even to the ‘rich’.
The whole planet is turning into a dump, like C02 dumped into the oceans and atmosphere.
That’s not the sense I get with permaculture, but the more we procrastinate with the current system, the greater appear the dangers.
Our little city of Halifax could plant a whole lot of fruit and nut trees on its lawn-covered parks and similar areas without blinking. Trees with edibles and that take up C02, etc., are crucial, PV panels and EV’s are not.
I have actually been thinking of running for local government on a greening-of-the-whole-city platform.
It’s the ‘elite’ that have the most to give up.
They/We can do it the hard way, or we can do it the less hard way. We are past doing it the easy way.
… …
“I find it curious that you seem to have a much greater fixation on new technology than on old technology…” ~ islandboy
Like hand-knitting, carpentry or permaculture?
If I fixate– whatever that means– on any new stuff, it’s probably because you and a few others do in a different way.
“At the same time you rail against corporations and government, I cant seem to get from you a clear statement on the current state of affairs as I see it.” ~ islandboy
As you see it? Why? Do you think I have a better vantage point from within your own head? ‘u^
“The thing is that, the corporations that have built their fortunes in fossil fuel extraction have become extremely comfortable with the status quo and are willing to spend a substantial amount of their income to maintain the current state of affairs.” ~ islandboy
Depending on the country, apparently ~90% of oil is nationally-owned, so the large majority are atypical corporations, yes?
“My fixation with the Koch brothers stems from the fact that they are probably the supreme example of capitalism gone mad. They have used some of their fortune to build a network of power and influence that is insidious and pervasive (in the US) and geared towards eliminating any threats to the profitability to their enterprise.” ~ islandboy
Yes I know, the Koch brothers are your posterboy whipping-boys.
“This is not true capitalism and does not strike me as ‘the American way’.” ~ islandboy
Do you really want those?
“… it is a prime example of the collusion between corporations and government that you so claim to abhor and with the most recent election, the manifestations are becoming increasingly evident yet, you choose disruptive industries that threaten the current hegemony as the targets of your vitriol?” ~ islandboy
Industry, whether greenwashed as ‘disruptive’ or not, doesn’t work either, not as it’s currently managed.
“The thing about renewables and solar in particular is that, they threaten to disrupt the current corporate/government stranglehold on society in ways not seen since the beginning of the industrial revolution.” ~ islandboy
I doubt the ‘disruption’ will be what you might think.
Oil depletion will disrupt anyway.
“More so than wind, sunshine is an almost universally available energy source and it works almost as well at small scales as it does at the utility scale.” ~ islandboy
So let it work the way it’s been working for billions of years. Let go of your systemic shackles, grab a mango and go to the beach, or that land you mentioned inheriting and maybe offer some of it as an ecovillage project for some of those impoverished people you mentioned.
“That means that individual households and businesses and even communities can harness solar energy almost as efficiently as a utility scale solar farm can.” ~ islandboy
And get dragged/enticed/duped and locked-in to the system, yes? With what money?
“Jack also sees EVs as a way of giving the middle finger to the man, in that he is designing his set up to be able to charge his EVs with electricity he generates on his own shop roof. What’s not to like?” ~ islandboy
Industry and government, that’s what.
That’s a cardboard cutout:
‘Put up solar panel, charge electric car.’
Reality often has different ideas, and we ignore them at our peril. So-called government is very much behind much of this. That, alone, speaks volumes of concern.
“The issue of how purchasing power came to be distributed, reflecting the power relationships in the economic and property system, is different by the end of the 19th century. The economists produced more apologetic ideas on this theme when their rich patrons came under political pressure. It is not, however, a theme to which most economists pay any deep attention. Distribution has been a question that could be mostly ignored because, eventually, with technical progress, everyone would be rich. As we have seen, the original roots of the property system, globally and nationally, lie in power, violence and theft. But a theft justified by the chrematistic religion of economics as ‘improvement’ from which everyone would benefit from… eventually… if they survived.” ~ Brian Davey, ‘Credo: Economic Beliefs In A World In Crisis
Poor is relative. Poor is what the system can make of some people, and their surrounds and planet.
No it fucking isn’t!! Have you ever been in a shanty town or slum or favela?!
Maybe you should visit Jamaica and ask Islandboy to give you a tour!
You just gave an example, though, in ‘shanty town’.
Poor can also be about not having access to potable water because a local chemical corporation used a local river to dump its chemical wastes into.
Or poor can be when the global industrial crony-capitalist plutarchy conducts its business-as-usual, whereby the planet is less viable for the existence of many species: ‘An impoverished planet’.
I think I see why we see things so differently
islandboy city of residence – Kingston Jamaica
population : 666,041 (2012)
area : 185.3 mi²
population density : 3594 per mi²
January temp and insolation : 25.60°C, 4.66 kWh/m²/day
June insolation : 6.65 kWh/m²/day
August temp : 27.17°C
Caelan MacIntyre city of residence : Halifax, Nova Scotia
population : 390,095 (2011)
area : 2,120 mi²
population density : 184 per mi²
January temp and insolation : -7.48 °C, 1.52 kWh/m²/day
June insolation : 5.23 kWh/m²/day
July temp : 21.38°C
So I live in a city with a population density twenty times greater than the city where Caelan lives. In my humid tropical climate heat dependent processes (rusting, rot, mould growth etc.) happen much faster all year round. Solar energy doesn’t count for much in the winter in Halifax when it would be most helpful. Probably lots of less obvious differences (air quality?) that help account for our different views. Perspective matters!
That’s why the pallet house idea would not work in my neck of the woods. It does not scale well and rot and termites would destroy the low quality wood typically used for pallets before the residents got fully accustomed to their “new” homes. Of course one could chemically treat the wood against pests and paint it to protect against rot and mould but, I don’t think that’s what Caelan had in mind.
Just saw that the link in my previous comment didn’t post so here it is again.
I never suggested the palette idea for Jamaica and know enough about residential architecture– and resilience/sustainability/relocalization– to know about designing for locality. How about you? Much of that is Peak Oil 101.
As for population counts/densities, obviously the area that is included, which can differ significantly, matters. Also, Jamaica seems to have a longer growing season and the soils here on the east coast are not the greatest.
In any case, it appears that food will have to be grown more locally and by more people. Therefore, there may be less people to work elsewhere and therefore make enough money for solar panels and electric cars, or even support an economy that can support the manufacture of said items.
Jeffrey Brown just emailed me the below post. I thought it worth posting here. Ron
The senators from Arizona are probably at the top of Trump’s hit list for several reasons, e.g., McCain cast the deciding vote that stopped the Obama Care repeal effort and Jeff Flake wrote a book that was very critical of Trump. But only Flake is up for reelection next year, and Trump has already endorsed Flake’s opponent in the primary. Trump called Flake “Toxic.”
So, it’s not a coincidence that Trump is holding a campaign style rally in Arizona tonight. It could be “Interesting.” Continuing with the not necessarily repeating, but rhyming, theme, there are all kinds of unpleasant parallels.
For example, Republican office holders who do not swear eternal loyalty to Trump are facing primary challengers in their districts and states, e.g., Flake, which of course sounds unpleasantly similar to the personal loyalty oath that Hitler required.
It’s also interesting to compare the video of a pro-Nazi rally in New York in early 1939 to the recent Neo-Nazi rally in Virginia. Youtube clips follow. Note that a Jewish protester rushed the stage in 1939.
Pro-Nazi rally in New York in February, 1939:
The head of the German American Bund complained about the Jewish controlled press.
Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gld84wPItqc
In Charlottesville, Neo-Nazis, among other things, chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Trump said that there were “Many fine people on both sides in Charlottesville.”
Following is a link to an article about one of Trump’s latest rants about “Fake news,” which sounds uncomfortably close to the German American Bund leader complaining about unfair coverage in the “Jewish controlled press.”
Trump: Fake news media is ‘out of control’ http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-fake-news-jerry-falwell-jr-241859
Trump also posted another tweet five minutes later to thank a follower that defended him, while using it as another opportunity to further his point.
“Thank you,” Trump said to the account admiring how he never backs down from people trying to take him down, “the very dishonest Fake News Media is out of control!”
If the “Fake News Media” is out of control, doesn’t that imply that the President of the United States is suggesting a need to bring the media under control?
To his credit, Senator Majority Leader McConnell is hitting back on Trump’s claims:
McConnell undercuts Trump’s claim: ‘Most news is not fake’ http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/mitch-mcconnell-trump-fake-news
However, it’s disturbing to read about the Neo-Nazi response to someone who simply and accurately reported what he saw regarding the Neo-Nazi who drove his car deliberately into counter-protesters:
How I Became Fake News
I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Then the conspiracy theories began.
By BRENNAN GILMORE
August 21, 2017
In any case, between the Neo-Nazis and the counter-protesters, it could be an “Interesting” night in Pheonix, Arizona.
Ron, I have stated on multiple occasions since back in the presidential campaign that there were very obvious parallels between what has been happening in the US and the rise of Nazism in Germany. I now think, given recent events, that it is worse than I ever imagined!
I’m glad there are a couple here who see and realize this issue. America has been transforming to an authoritarianism regime since Monica’s blue dress and Bush vs. Gore. Fox News would make Joseph Goebbels envious as a disinformation machine. Trump is running the Nazi Putin playbook. The only thing the Republicans have left is hate, racism, disinformation and gerrymandering. This is not your fathers America. Except the racism before the 60’s.
The more complex something becomes, the less control we have over it.
‘Americans’ haven’t been in control of ‘their’ ‘government’ since its inception and never will, until it dissolves.
Every year we seem to see an extra ‘click’ of the ratchet toward that, with maybe more clicks each year as time progresses.
Should be interesting to see what the next financial hit does and if the clicks set off some added surprises or even break the ratchet.
“The more complex something becomes, the less control we have over it”
Oh bullshit, what it does is expose the ignorant and losers. Who are more interest in tearing down the system from their lack of ability or interest in improving it.
“…all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to ‘social viscosity’ in a large-scale organization. [Accordingly] …democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.” ~ Wikipedia, Iron Law of Oligarchy
“Why do complex societies become vulnerable to the very kinds of stress which, at an earlier time in its history, the society in question would simply shrug off? Tainter’s answer lies with complexity, itself, and the law of diminishing returns. As a society becomes more complex, greater complexity becomes more costly. The escalation of complexity becomes increasingly difficult to maintain, until it finally becomes impossible.” ~ Jason Godesky
Sorry, HuntingtonBeach, but your ‘Oh bullshit’ just doesn’t cut the mustard. Better luck next time.
The Hoover Dam is a means of technology control and produces more food as a by product in a year than permaculture will in your life time. Try chewing on that again, because I’m sure you already have physically, just not mentally.
Hey great, then I guess our global population can continue to grow– the more, the merrier– thanks to technologies like the Hoover Dam.
Not a problem birth “control” technology can’t solve, if it wasn’t for your gardening stone age religious friends
Ya, that birth control tech is working really well. Only 7+ billion and counting.
I also have some issues with Bechtel Corporation–
but I’m not going there for undisclosed reasons.
Damn!
Damn Fool
Seriously, we are past the point of a perfect world. All the more reason to have regulations and an Environmental Protection Agency with the best knowledge. Life is full of compromise.
BECHTEL (BOO)
I’m done compromising.
Been there and it didn’t always work out very well for myself.
When you compromise you get Glen Canyon Dam and Hillary Clinton.
That is not acceptable.
Hi Ron,
What do you or Jeff make of Paul Craig Roberts’ takes?
“Robert Jackson has given a perfect description of what is happening to President Trump at the hands of special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Trump is vastly unpopular with the ruling establishment, with the Democrats, with the military/security complex and their bought and paid for Senators, and with the media for proving wrong all the smart people’s prediction that Hillary would win the election in a landslide.
From day one this cabal has been out to get Trump, and they have given the task of framing up Trump to Mueller. An honest man would not have accepted the job of chief witch-hunter, which is what Mueller’s job is.
The breathless hype of a nonexistent ‘Russian collusion’ has been the lead news story for months despite the fact that no one, not the CIA, not the NSA, not the FBI, not the Director of National Intelligence, can find a scrap of evidence. In desperation, three of the seventeen US intelligence agencies picked a small handful of employees thought to lack integrity and produced an unverified report, absent of any evidence, that the hand-picked handful thought that there might have been a collusion. On the basis of what evidence they do not say. “
“When Trump was elected I wrote that it was unlikely that he would be successful in accomplishing the three objectives for which he was elected—peace with Russia, the return home of offshored US jobs, and effective limits on non-white immigration—because these objectives conflicted with the interests of those more powerful than the president.
I wrote that Trump was unfamiliar with Washington and would fail to appoint a government that would support his goals. I wrote that unless the ruling oligarchy could bring Trump under its control, Trump would be assassinated.
Trump has been brought under control by assassinating him with words rather than with a bullet. With Steve Bannon’s dismissal, there is now no one in Trump’s government who supports him. He is surrounded by Russophobic generals and Zionists.
But this is not enough for the liberal/progressive/left. They want Trump impeached and driven from office.”
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” ~ Joseph Goebbels
Don’t forget about about his campaign statement than only he is qualified to bring a peace agreement to the Middle East, because he’s so good at ‘making deals’.
“When an American president stands on the steps of the White House alongside the prime minister of Lebanon and can’t find the words, ignorantly stuttering when he receives a simple question about Hezbollah, it’s not just a disgrace—it’s an occasion that calls for scorn and pity. Because Donald Trump, it turns out, has no clue about Hezbollah. The man who announced with great fanfare that he is the only person who can bring a peace agreement to the Middle East has no idea who’s fighting whom in the neighborhood. ”
The concern with Trump ‘deserving what he gets’ is that if/when he gets whatever it is, it adds a few more clicks of the ratchet, like for people in America and the rest of the world in general. I might be ok with some of it, being against the coercive state apparatus, but not with all of it of course.
What do you or Jeff make of Paul Craig Roberts’ takes?
WTF?! Do you really need Ron or Jeff to tell you that Paul Craig Roberts is a wacko conspiracy theorist?! Haven’t you learned to use Google yet and form your own damn opinions?! Seriously, even just based on what you copied and pasted! What next? Are you going to become a Nazi sympathizer because some of them are ‘fine people’ and practice permaculture?
Do you even realize how beyond ridiculous the analogy of the Salem Witch Trials is, in this context?
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. Five others (including two infant children) died in prison.
Source Wikipedia
Times two
“Nazi sympathizer because some of them are ‘fine people’ and practice permaculture?”
Pure gold
This is not about my opinion. If it was, I would have offered it.
Nevertheless, I do find it intriguing how Paul Craig Roberts’ opinions on the subject butt up against others’, as well as the idea of Trump being taken out of context or misinterpreted, etc..
While as Survivalist suggests, Trump may have his ‘limits’, so do others, like for example those who might take Tump out of context or misinterpret him, even deliberately, and then run with it (like as a published piece). Maybe like you on here sometimes, too, ay, Fred? ^u^
“idea of Trump being taken out of context or misinterpreted”
More gold, every time he sticks his foot in his mouth. His lackeys have to explain to us, “it was a joke”. When nothing is funny.
Trump is a bit of a distraction in any case.
Your not funny either Caelan
My not funny either what?
While as Survivalist suggests, Trump may have his ‘limits’, so do others, like for example those who might take Tump out of context or misinterpret him, even deliberately, and then run with it (like as a published piece). Maybe like you on here sometimes, too, ay, Fred? ^u^
Yo! Little Bro, let me make sure you don’t take me out of context or misinterpret me! My own family had Nazi sympathizers in it, back in Hungary during WWII, I know real well up close and personal what kind of shit went down because of it. So when I tell you there ain’t no fucking way to misinterpret TRump, I know exactly what I’m talking about! Do I make myself crystal clear you fucking little piece of shit?!!
Maybe Trevor Noah can help you a little with interpreting of current events!
The “Master Race” Needs to Play It Cool: The Daily Show
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
No need to reply to me, because I just hit the X next to your stupid name!
Nothing like lobbing ‘demonizing’ words, short of ‘Nazi’ (slippery slope, though, given enough people and time), at people one disagrees with; revealing on a blog like POB, one’s own family members as Nazi sympathizers; ostensibly confusing questions as some sort of support for, or defense of, that in question; ‘automating a facet of ignorance and announcing it’ and ‘running away’ to boot…
That oh-so-inimitable Fred Magyar-quality that we’ve come to expect. Let’s turn it into an echo-chamber.
May I suggest you change your screen name to CaeBuddy aka Nazi
The Inquisition is strong in this forum against anybody that dares to dissent from core beliefs. Weren’t you taught respect for diversity when young, or was it only certain types of diversity that deserve respect?
Javier aka POB Denier and Chief
“Don’t tell me you are so naive as to think” humans aren’t at risk of globe warming
I don’t believe on anything for which there is no clear evidence.
And there is clear evidence of several people in this blog trying to discourage dissent through personal attacks and insults.
Perhaps as your argument gets weaker and weaker you are becoming more sensitive? Regularly abusive people who also seek sympathy often have a personality disorder.
What, do you think I shouldn’t defend myself from the likes of you?
I enjoy polite discussion like I have with Dennis, but I don’t care the least about being bullied or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t give a damn about any sympathy. Just pointing that those that are taking the moral high ground in this forum are actually the worst offenders as usual.
When a few years pass and all this climate brouhaha comes down crumbling, I’ll remember back all these discussions and I will have a good laugh at your expense.
Run Fred Magyar– his comments over time on POB, maybe specifically the ones I’ve ‘highlighted’ (some doozies) including how he handles his dissenters, etc.– through a US President Simulation and see what spits out…
Perhaps we will find that President Magyar has more in common with his family members– or worse– than he might think, maybe worse than how Trump is viewed… including by Fred.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln(?)
Lets never forget that Paul Ryan has been a major enabler of this fascist movement. He has slapped trump on the wrist several times very gently, and then acted to collaborate with him.
Complicit.
I am at the point where I am ready to actively support dissolving the union.
I do not want to pay a dime of time to a republican government and all the cruel policies it promotes.
It’s because Trump and Ryan’s policies, beliefs and voter base are 95% the same
I’ve read fairly often along the lines of when empires or governments begin to ‘get in trouble’, they create a war. The problem with the American empire doing so now would seem to have too many large-scale global repercussions. So maybe ‘the next best thing’ is to help create an internal war or at least some serious internal distractions, and along some already-existing fault-lines, enough that, along with other distractions like sabre-rattling with North Korea, etc., they may lead to the dissolution of the Union.
I also very recently skimmed an article that suggested something to the effect that it would be dangerous to have Trump removed from office. So, ok, remove Trump, maybe as a last resort…
At which time as all the officials can then clock out, turn off the lights one final time, and go home.
Regarding image at link above. Red dashes indicate weekly values. Appears to be less slope in the annual CO2 decline. Perhaps in time we shall see the annual decline flatten out as NH summer becomes less of a sink.
Yesterday’s eclipse enthralled the nation, leaving two things in short supply: eclipse glasses and solar energy. But at least on the energy front, utilities successfully planned for the event, giving some insight into the growing reliability systems with large amounts of of intermittent energy.
“We were able to balance the Duke Energy system to compensate for the loss of solar power over the eclipse period,” Sammy Roberts, Duke Energy director of system operations, said in an emailed statement to Utility Dive. “Our system reacted as planned, and we were able to reliably and efficiently meet the energy demands of our customers in the Carolinas.”
Duke Energy has 2,500 MW of solar capacity connected to its system in North Carolina. Given the weather conditions yesterday, utility officials said they would normally expect 1,808 MW of solar output during the afternoon, but were getting only about 109 MW during the eclipse’s peak.
In the PJM territory, the grid experienced a drop of approximately 520 MW of wholesale solar generation from just before the eclipse reached its peak. The grid operator also estimated that electricity from behind-the-meter solar generation decreased by approximately 1,700 MW.
PJM Interconnection also said other factors made dealing with the drop-off of solar power easier. The operator said it had expected a reduction in power from rooftop panels, but several factors — including lower cooling loads, increased cloud cover and changes in behavior related to the eclipse — resulted in a net decrease in demand of about 5,000 MW throughout the eclipse.
Official data released by NEA states that 24.4 GW of new PV capacity was installed in China during the first half of 2017. On top of this, AECEA estimates that another 10.5 GW was added in July, bringing the total from Jan-July to 34.92 GW, around 380 MW ahead of 2016’s figure of 34.54 GW.
China’s cumulative capacity now stands at 112.34 GW, already around 7 GW ahead of the 2020 target of 105 GW outlined in the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), and current estimates predict that by 2020 China’s PV capacity could reach as much as 230 GW.
For this growth rate to be sustained through to 2020, China will need to double it’s PV manufacturing capacity by the end of next year and unless kerfless wafer technology (like that developed by 1366 Technologies) makes up the majority of that increase, raw silicon consumption will have to double as well. I’ll call that as highly unlikely, not impossible but highly unlikely. Limits to growth?
The most recent cover story in The Economist* announces, “The death of the internal combustion engine… it had a good run. But the end is in sight.”
In a remarkable account, The Economist reports that the internal combustion engine’s “days are numbered. Rapid gains in battery technology favour electric motors instead… Today’s electric cars, powered by lithium-ion batteries, can do much better.”
Recent developments are encouraging:
“Last month Britain joined a lengthening list of electric-only countries, saying that all new cars must be zero-emission by 2050. The shift from fuel and pistons to batteries and electric motors is unlikely to take that long. The first death rattles of the internal combustion engine are already reverberating around the world—and many of the consequences will be welcome.”
Already, there are “Mass-market vehicles with driving ranges close to that offered by a full tank of petrol, such as Tesla’s Model 3” that will be a catalyst for change. But sweeping changes ahead are fast-approaching. “Many forecasters reckon that the lifetime costs of owning and driving an electric car will be comparable to those for a fuel burner within a few years, leading sales of the electric cars to soar in the 2020s and to claim the majority sometime during the 2030s.”
In a comment on a the July 9 non-petroleum thread, I brought up the BNEF “more optimistic than previous” forecast. Below is as graphic containing three graphs, the one on the left is from the article above while the two to the right were taken from my comment in the July 9 thread. The economist graph appears to be based on work from BNEF and seems to be cumulative sales in comparison to the BNEF chart’s annual sales but, the far more pessimistic chart from the perspective of the oil and vehicle industries by far, is Seba’s.
Following Seba’s projections, the auto industry will be FUBAR by the middle of the next decade. Oil demand would also take a big hit since more than half of all passenger miles covered in 2026 would be covered using Transport as a Service rather than individually owned vehicles according to Figure 5 on page 30 of the report “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the ICE Vehicle and Oil Industries” at https://www.rethinkx.com/transportation. Seba’s projections should not be taken as rosy since they basically entail the end of the automobile industry as we know it. Even if his timing is off, his scenarios spell disaster for the incumbent auto industry. If his ideas get any traction within the auto industry, there will be wholesale panic amongst the incumbents. Those more aware of what is beginning to happen are getting uneasy but, there is no panic…..yet.
If the climate targets set by the Paris conference are to be achieved, CO2 emissions from traffic worldwide will have to be reduced 50% over the next four decades, and by at least 85% in the advanced economies
Achieving our future climate targets calls for other intelligent solutions apart from electromobility
in Europe by 2050 as a scheduled supplement to electrification could save up to 2.8 gigatons of CO2: three times Germany’s carbon-dioxide emissions in 2016.
China is the fastest-growing market in the world for new energy vehicles (NEVs). Ford expects the market for NEVs in China to grow to six million units per year by 2025, of which approximately 4 million vehicles will be all-electric.
Don’t tell me you are so naive as to think Paris accords amount to more than talk. Actually some of the worst offenders, like China and Germany, are the ones doing more talking.
And the data shows some of the countries are simply fooling the reports.
“Potent, climate-warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found.
Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy.
However, the Italian submission to the UN records just a tiny amount of the substance being emitted.
Levels of some emissions from India and China are so uncertain that experts say their records are plus or minus 100%.
These flaws posed a bigger threat to the Paris climate agreement than US President Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw, researchers told BBC Radio 4’s
A report in 2015 suggested one error in China’s statistics amounted to 10% of global emissions in 2013.
without good data as a basis, Paris essentially collapses. It just becomes a talkfest without much progress.”
A scam within a scam. The plot thickens.
Despite Europe being reported as using about half the energy per capita as the US it is plagued by horrific air pollution in the winter.
The scale of “cigarettes per day” is used to make the levels easiest to understand. They were calculated by comparing the known health risk of cigarettes to the known health risks of PM2.5 as estimated by the World Health Organization. Throughout much of Europe the pollution levels give a health effect equivalent to that of every man, woman and child smoking 5 cigarettes per day; in the worst regions of Europe, the level exceeds 7 cigarettes per day equivalent
“It was as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.” – George Eliot, Middlemarch
Cherry picking his years again to include those favorable to him while excluding those that are not.
Just a liar.
NAOM
No slowdown, no pause.
Michael Mann, John Fyfe, Ben Santer, Ed Hawkins, and many other climate scientists disagree with that:
Fyfe, J.C., Meehl, G.A., England, M.H., Mann, M.E., Santer, B.D., Flato, G.M., Hawkins, E., Gillett, N.P., Xie, S.P., Kosaka, Y. and Swart, N.C., 2016. Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown. Nature Climate Change, 6(3), pp.224-228.
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
I guess there is a schism in the Church of Global Warming and you are going with the fundamentalists. Not surprising, given your radical alarmism.
The members of the Church of See No Global Warming are screaming in the aisles over this one. Their Alter of Pause has been torn down.
NOAA got it right.
“The authors showed that the ocean buoys used to measure sea temperatures tend to report slightly cooler temperatures than the older ship-based systems.
Back in the 1990s, ship measurements made up the vast majority of the data, whereas now the more accurate and consistent buoys account for 85% of measurements. ”
Oh yes, when temperatures don’t show any warming you can always find a way of introducing more warming through adjustments to the data. No wonder it is called human global warming. We are certainly creating it.
Got you backed into the wall Javier. Name calling, labeling commenters and now the final sign of being boxed in ” the scientists are lying”. Poor Javier, all emotion and searches all the time for fringe element scientists to prove a point that over 97 percent of climate scientists agree is wrong. Plus the way you are so negative and present your case, even if there was some truth to some parts no one is going to think there is any. Keep grasping at straws, looking at every little short term natural deviation for proof of your beliefs but nature or scientists are not agreeing with you.
We all wish this was not happening but constant saying it is not happening will not change reality. Unless you believe in magic. A problem cannot be solved until it is recognized as existing. Disinformation and myth is holding people back from acting appropriately.
Yes, when the earth releases GHG’s, whether it be from natural or manmade sources, physics says it will get warmer. Doubling GHG’s in a couple of centuries will cause severe temperature and ecological changes. It’s simple, there is no magical solution around simple physics. Electromagnetic waves of certain frequencies interact with matter in certain ways. Warming causes other interactions.
Haven’t you ever used an infrared spectrometer or a UV/VIS spectrophotometer? Seen an actual spectrum? It’s not magic. Study some physics and chemistry, it’s all known and easily accessible/provable.
You got it all wrong GoneFishing. All. This is not a debate between you and me, and nobody has to believe a single word of what you, or I, or anybody else says.
All that matters is the evidence. I have shown evidence that can be checked by anybody, and I have shown scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals that can be checked by anybody. This is not a question of trust or credibility. So I don’t care whether I convince people or not because I am not trying to convince anybody.
Conviction is a personal think. Instead of following what they are told people have to examine the evidence themselves and decide by themselves what they think is going on. My only role here is to present an alternative view based on science so people know that it exists. They’ll become convinced when they see that the evidence fits better the non-alarmist view of climate change.
Scientists don’t deserve any more trust than politicians, priests, policemen, or doctors. Why should they? They all are known to have held collective views that were wrong in the past. The only arbiter is the evidence. It is already 10 years since Al Gore made his infamous movie that won him an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. We already know a lot of what he said in the movie was wrong, and none of his predictions have come true. He just released a second part that was a big flop. 10 years later people are just unconvinced and skepticism has grown, not abated. I was a believer then and are a skeptic now.
And people are not unconvinced because of “deniers” but because of lack of evidence. They have been told horror stories since the late 80’s about sea level rise, about Arctic melting, about hurricanes and tornadoes, and never ending droughts. And then reality is quite different so it is only logical that they remain largely unconvinced.
Climate change alarmism will not die from what people like me say, but from the years going by and turning into decades with the promised climate catastrophe failing to materialize.
It has been 30 years since the first doom predictions by Hansen. All we have got has been a moderate warming, a moderate sea level rise, and a decrease in Arctic ice. The climate has been stable and benign. The CO2 hypothesis of GHG climate control is on shaky ground due to its many assumptions, but the climate doom hypothesis is already a complete failure. As with any doom theory, believers like you will continue pushing the date forward as time goes by, and will become a more and more marginal group.
This year is another fail year. Temperatures are lower than past year, and Arctic sea ice has failed to decrease further. Next year is very likely to be more of the same. Temperatures lower than 2016, and probably 2017, and Arctic sea ice above 2007 levels.
An interesting question is if Arctic sea ice was growing year after year for the next 20 years, would you be happy about it? I guess not, because that would make you wrong. That makes you a hypocrite that is rooting for Arctic sea ice demise. Otherwise you should be celebrating with me that for the past 10 years Arctic sea ice hasn’t decreased.
Hi Javier,
You often say the future cannot be predicted based on past trends. That is especially true when one uses a trend for climate based on only 10 years of data, but probably true in general.
I have often stated that there is natural variability, quite obvious from the evidence, the physics suggests that there is an underlying anthropogenic signal that can be discerned from that natural variability. Variations in aerosols due to volcanoes, and solar output, and ocean currents are difficult to predict, but the underlying signal from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is confirmed by the evidence.
Dennis,
Nothing in the data suggests we are headed towards a warmageddon. All we have got and can determine from the past is a moderate mostly beneficial warming, an irrelevant sea level rise and a significant but of little importance melting of Arctic sea ice and glaciers.
And the conditions have been very favorable to warming, with high solar activity and few volcanic eruptions. We cannot guarantee that it is going to continue that way.
You should know that most of the warming from the CO2 hypothesis should come not from CO2, but from hypothetical feedbacks that are assumed to multiply the warming. Some of these feedbacks are very unknown, like clouds, that could actually limit warming instead of boosting it.
“You got it all wrong…” Javier
You have show nothing – only lies.
NAOM
When Javier posts the cartoon of the scientist holding the lighter to the thermometer you can bet that he’s foaming at the mouth and off his meds again. Get ready for about 6 miles of Javier’s inane blather in the comments section.
Just X him out for a while like I do.
So you can’t see Javier’s comments? That would seem to work more to Javier’s advantage.
What advantage? Everyone but you knows he is full of shit.
‘Everyone but you’ doesn’t wash, either, but, sure, go ahead, make Javier’s day.
He can’t stop the millions of scientific papers and letters from being published nor make a dent in anyone who understands science or is actually interested in the world.
So what advantage? He is a tranquilizer, a drug, full of belief in a world that does not exist, a fake paradise. I make people think about reality and probabilities.
Do you know what a trap is Caelan? I think you do and in your own way are railing against the traps of current civilization.
“The most dangerous men are patriots and other zealots.” They can never stop or quit and are locked in to their belief system. They do not believe reality, just some imagined version of it and they act as if that version is real and concrete. They are incapable of true change or actual understanding.
Sadly, for them, they will never actually see the world.
Hey, I think the X is the greatest addition to the comment section of this forum. People that can’t stand each other can now ignore each other, which works to everybody’s advantage, including the rest of people. I am ignoring a bunch of people that have nothing of interest to say. I just hope they do the same with me.
And, GoneFishing, I am not trying to stop any scientific article. I read more scientific papers than most people here. I am more interested in the science of climate change than most people here. I just have a dissenting opinion, that is fully based on science. And the way things are I might be right and you might be wrong.
Posts by co author Ed Hawkins regarding the paper linked above by Javier.
“Finally, we would like to emphasize that Karl et al. and Fyfe et al. agree on the most important scientific points. We agree that human influence on climate is real, is large, and is ongoing. We agree that this influence is primarily due to fossil fuel burning, and to the resulting human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases [16]. We agree that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases should lead – and do lead – to global-scale warming of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land surface [17]. We agree that we have identified large global warming signals in the observed surface temperature changes from the late 19th century to the present [18], in the satellite atmospheric temperature data that have featured prominently in recent Congressional hearings [19,20], and in ocean heat content measurements [21].”
(Notice they call it a slowdown and not a pause. That is likely because they know what those words mean and how to use them correctly in a sentence, like most people.)
The years you choose to show a hiatus start with an El Nino while you end or ignore the next El Nino as it messes up your hypothesis.
NAOM
There are hundreds of scientific articles about the hiatus. Nearly every climate scientist has wrote about it. You are simply an ignorant about the issue when you try to say that I define the hiatus by choosing the dates.
Lewandowsky et al 2015 (L2015) points out that in addition to two 2014 special issues/sections of Nature journals devoted to the “pause” or “hiatus” (Nature Climate Change, March 2014, No. 149; and Nature Geoscience, February 2014, No. 157), and with the IPCC adopting the term “hiatus” in its Fifth Assessment Report (Stocker et al., 2013), the number of scientific papers devoted to this alleged “hiatus” is large and growing rapidly (e.g., Allan et al., 2014, Balmaseda et al., 2013, Bao and Ren, 2014, Brown et al., 2014, Cazenave et al., 2014, Chen and Tung, 2014, Clement and DiNezio, 2014, Crowley et al., 2014, de Boisséson et al., 2014, Desbruyères et al., 2014, Dong and Zhou, 2014, Drijfhout et al., 2014, Easterling and Wehner, 2009, England et al., 2014, Estrada et al., 2013, Fyfe et al., 2013, Fyfe and Gillett, 2014, Goddard, 2014, Guemas et al., 2013, Haywood et al., 2014, Hawkins et al., 2014, Held, 2013, Huber and Knutti, 2014, Hunt, 2011, Kamae et al., 2014, Kaufmann et al., 2011, Kosaka and Xie, 2013, Laepple and Huybers, 2014, Lean and Rind, 2009, Lin et al., 2014, Lorentzen, 2014, Lovejoy, 2014, Lu et al., 2014, Macias et al., 2014, Maher et al., 2014, McGregor et al., 2014, Meehl et al., 2011, Meehl et al., 2013b, Meehl et al., 2014, Meehl and Teng, 2014, Palmer and Smith, 2014, Ridley et al., 2014, Risbey et al., 2014, Santer et al., 2011, Santer et al., 2014, Schmidt et al., 2014, Seneviratne et al., 2014, Sillmann et al., 2014, Smith, 2013, Solomon et al., 2010, Solomon et al., 2011, Tollefson, 2014, Trenberth, 2009, Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013, Trenberth et al., 2014, Triacca et al., 2014, Tung and Zhou, 2013, Watanabe et al., 2013, Watanabe et al., 2014 and Wayman, 2013).
L2015 does not claim that this list is exhaustive, and adds that ‘the IPCC represents the thoroughly vetted consensus view of the scientific community, and its treatment of the “hiatus” as a phenomenon worthy of explanation confirms that its existence has entered the mainstream scientific discourse.’
1 Strengthening of ocean heat uptake efficiency associated with the recent climate hiatus
Watanabe et al Geophysical, 2013
2 Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
England et al Nature Climate, 2014
3 Externally forced and internally generated decadal climate variability associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Meehl et al. J of Climate, 2013
Section 3 contrasts the signatures of surface climate during hiatus and accelerated warming decades in the model
4 Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods
Meehl et al. Nature Climate, 2011
There have been decades, such as 2000–2009, when the observed globally averaged surface-temperature time series shows little increase or even a slightly negative trend 1 (a hiatus period).
5 Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming
Meehl et al. Nature Climate Change, 2014
7 Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled
Huber & Knutti Nature Geoscience, 2014
8 Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008
Kaufmann et al. Proceedings of the National Acad Sciences, 2011
Another explanation for the recent hiatus in warming focuses on the internal variability of the climate system.
9 Contribution of natural decadal variability to global warming acceleration and hiatus
Watanabe et al. Nature Climate
10 Climate science: The cause of the pause
Held Nature, 2013
11 CMIP5 multimodel hindcasts for the mid1970s shift and early 2000s hiatus and predictions for 2016–2035
Meehl & Teng – Geophysical Research Letters, 2014
12 Drivers of decadal hiatus periods in the 20th and 21st centuries
Maher et al. – Geophysical Research, 2014
13 Observed and simulated temperature extremes during the recent warming hiatus
Sillmann et al. Environmental Research, 2014
14 Surface warming hiatus caused by increased heat uptake across multiple ocean basins
Drijfhout et al. Geophysical, 2014
15 Equilibrium climate sensitivity in light of observations over the warming hiatus
Johansson et al. Nature Climate, 2015
16 Quantifying the likelihood of a continued hiatus in global warming
Roberts et al. Nature Climate Change, 2015
17 Application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis Technique to Study the Recent Hiatus on the Global Surface Temperature Record
Macias et al. 2014
18 The global warming hiatus – a natural product of interactions of a secular warming trend and a multi-decadal oscillation
Yao et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 2015
19 Why the hiatus in global warming in the last decade?
Bala CURRENT SCIENCE, 2013
20 A link between the hiatus in global warming and North American drought
Delworth et al. J of Climate, 2015
In the meantime, Kevin Trenberth, who spent a lot of time looking for the missing heat in the oceans, has published a paper on Science entitled:
His bottom line: “The increasing gap between model expectations and observed temperatures provides further grounds for concluding that there has been a hiatus.”
Our results support previous findings of a reduced rate of surface warming over the 2001-2014 period – a period in which anthropogenic forcing increased at a relatively constant rate.
Newly identified observational errors do not, however negate the existance of a real reduction in the surface warming rate in the early twenty-first century relative to the 1970s-1990s.
This slowdown is evident in time series of GMST and in the global mean temperature of the lower troposphere.
97% of scientific papers published on the issue support the existence of the pause, that you think that I define the pause by picking dates is laughable. Go learn a little bit before showing everybody how ignorant you are.
Once again, cherry picked old reports and cherry picked charts.
NAOM
What a phenomenal resistance to melting by Arctic sea ice this year.
Despite huge alarmist reporting from November all over the press about Arctic sea ice and polar temperatures, widely echoed here at this blog forum, and great expectations at alarmist sea ice forums that this year could break the record of 2012, Nature is refusing to cooperate with alarmists.
The only remarkable thing about this melt season is that it is on its way to show one of the lowest sea ice melting of the past 10 years. Another year that contributes to the observed increase in Arctic sea ice since 2007. But this is happening on the wake of the three warmest years ever recorded, 2015-2017.
Most people will ignore the evidence and continue accepting the official version that the Arctic is rapidly and alarmingly melting, and that global average temperatures are responsible because of Arctic amplification. The truth is other. Arctic summers are getting shorter and cooler, and Arctic sea ice is slowly growing.
The explanation for why Arctic summers are getting shorter and cooler is known to scientists. It is just not being accepted by the climate establishment that defends the CO2 hypothesis. Arctic waters are getting cooler since at least 2004 according to Argo. This is simply and indication that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation that has contributed to global warming for the past decades is slowly turning and no longer contributes to the warming and sea ice melting.
So yes, some scientists know that Arctic sea ice is not going to melt and can even grow for the next decade or two, and I do too, while most scientists, alarmists like Survivalist or GoneFishing, and curve fitters like Tamino or Dennis, don’t have a clue.
We should ignore climate alarmists and their proposed solutions, because the evidence shows they don’t know what they talk about.
In areas that ice still exists, I would not expect SST and near surface temperatures to be much different than the melting point of ice. That is obvious.
However gateway areas to the Arctic Ocean have been showing significant warming.
Most boundary regions and marginal seas of the Arctic had anomalously warm SSTs in August 2015 compared to the 1982-2010 August mean (Fig. 5.1c). SSTs in these seas, which are mostly ice-free in August, are linked to the timing of local sea-ice retreat; anomalously warm SSTs (up to +3°C relative to 1982-2010) in August 2015 in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas were associated with low sea-ice extents and exposure of surface waters to direct solar heating (Fig. 5.1c; see also the essay on Sea Ice). The relationship between warm SSTs and reduced sea-ice is further apparent in a comparison between August 2015 and August 2014 SSTs: anomalously warm regions (including to the east of Svalbard, where SSTs were up to +3°C warmer than 1982-2010) are associated with relatively lower sea-ice extents in 2015 compared to 2014 (Fig. 5.1d). Although SSTs were warmer in general, August 2015 SSTs were cooler relative to the 1982-2010 average in some regions, e.g., along the southern boundaries of the Beaufort and East Siberian seas (Fig. 5.1c), where summer air temperatures were also below average (see Fig. 1.2d in the essay on Air Temperature).
Anomalously warm August 2015 SSTs in eastern Baffin Bay are notable this year, with values as much as +4°C warmer than the 1982-2010 August mean; SSTs over the region indicate a general warming trend of about 0.5°C/decade since 1982 (Fig. 5.2). If only the past two decades are considered, the linear warming trend in the surface waters of eastern Baffin Bay is about 1°C/decade (+0.10 ± 0.05°C/year). Along the boundaries of the Arctic Basin, the only marginal seas to exhibit statistically significant warming trends are the Chukchi and the Kara seas. Chukchi Sea August SSTs are warming at a rate of about +0.5°C/decade, commensurate with declining trends in summer sea-ice extent in the region. In the Kara Sea, August 2015 SSTs were also around +4°C warmer than the 1982-2010 August mean; SSTs in this sea have warmed by about +0.3°C/decade since 1982. In other marginal seas, warm August SST anomalies observed in 2015 are of similar magnitude to warm anomalies observed in past decades (shown in Arctic Report Card 2014, Fig. 5.3).
Argo is state of the art ocean temperature measurement, but only from 2004. Argo shows Arctic and North Atlantic are cooling. Perhaps they were doing different before, but now they are cooling.
As you yourself said: “whereas now the more accurate and consistent buoys account for 85% of measurements.”
For the Arctic the Gateway seas are more important than the North Atlantic click on “Arctic gateway seas (20W-40E. 70-80N) heat content 0-700 m depth” under the Oceans link at the left to find this. All three of these “Gateway seas” have been warming.
Also the Global Ocean has been warming since 1983, see chart below.
For the World’s Oceans we have the chart below.
What has been discovered lately is that the very deep ocean below our ARGO and other floats is gaining temperature. Autonomous probes are in the works to explore the true deeps and take more rigorous measurements than have been done so far.
There is a lot we do not know about the ocean, but a lot we do. SST are rising and the first 700 meters too. There are some localized cool areas but they are small compared to the heated region. Again, it’s physics, how electromagnetic waves interact with water.
I don’t know if you know that the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9°C. That’s very cold, and if ocean mixing got a little bit more efficient we would be in a serious problem. Sure the deep ocean can use some warming. That the ocean is so cold is a Quaternary Ice Age feature.
Oh, you really are reaching the bottom of the barrel bringing up that old hackneyed ploy. What next, the average temperature of the earth. You know the center is very hot and molten right? How about the average temperature of the atmosphere. It is very cold or very hot depending on altitude.
As a biologist of some sort you do realize life exists within a narrow realm on earth and the extremes of temperature elsewhere (like in volcanoes or at the bottom of the deep ocean or at the top of the atmosphere) are not even in the discussion. Unless you are predicting some fast overturn of the ocean. Haven’t heard that one yet.
Maybe you will find one more “scientific” paper saying how the surface temperature will suddenly drop from 17C to 3C due to the gravitational pull of Jupiter combining with the pull of Venus or some such claptrap.
“the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9°C. That’s very cold” – Javier
“Everything is relative” – Javier
Not exactly captain of the debate team, are you Doc?
This is not about debating skills. It is about evidence. The evidence doesn’t support what you say. The oceans are very cold and the average warming they are experiencing incredibly small. So small that it is within the measurement error of any thermometer.
So it is not as you are telling it.
Of course the ocean has warmed. The planet would not have warmed without the ocean. Only the top 100 m. can store more energy than the entire atmosphere.
Arctic gateway seas have not warmed within the Argo era. Their previous warming doesn’t melt today’s ice.
Hi Javier,
Anybody can look at the charts to see you are wrong. The gateway seas have warmed during the Argo period, just look at the charts I pointed to at climate4u.
Hi Dennis,
Argo data for the area shows cooling, not warming:
Look at the 65-80°N band. Do you see any warming there?
Hi Javier,
I only use the data to confirm hypotheses based on physics. If you consider this “curve fitting” fine, I would call it science. Though it is very basic science, not ground breaking stuff that could be published in a journal.
Below I test the annual temperature data against the natural log of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the AMO with a simple linear regression.
The relationship between atmospheric CO2 and radiative forcing is well known and a paper by Berkeley Earth suggests the amo is also important. The “CAMO” model (for Carbon and AMO) does a simple linear regression on temperature vs nat log of atm CO2 and AMO. The model matches Berkely Earth land ocean data fairly well from 1850 to 2015. The data is annual. The correlation coefficient is 0.956. Also note the regression was done on 1881-2010 data only so 1850-1880 and 2011 to 2015 are outside the model fit
Javier likes to claim there has been no acceleration in warming, but if we consider the trend from 1850 to 1969 (0.4 C per century) and 1970-2015 (1.7 C per century) there is about a fourfold increase in the rate of warming from one period to the next. Perhaps this rate will slow in the future, or it may accelerate further, it will depend on many factors including carbon emissions and future feedbacks to those emissions. The results are uncertain, but are likely to be within the range of Global Climate models (which show wide variation).
I have shown this chart from the Met Office that the BBC published before.
It shows the rate of warming has not increased. If anything the rate of cooling has decreased.
I like the Met Office better than Berkeley Earth. Berkeley Earth funding is unclear and its results controversial.
Hi Javier,
The main global data sets that go back to at least 1880 match very well with the Berkeley Earth data. So you only like data that confirms your hypothesis? Interesting. That is a very strange chart, typically one uses temperature rather than a plot of “trends”.
If you consider this “curve fitting” fine, I would call it science.
No offense intended, Dennis, but when you consider Arctic sea ice extent you only take into consideration the mathematical value of the points and insist in 30 years as criterion for consideration. The cause of the melting has to be considered, and 10 years is plenty to detect changes. Thousands of scientists write thousands of articles over phenomena that has been studied for much less than 10 years.
The cause of the lack of melting for the past 10 years does exist, as everything has a cause, and it has to be investigated. It shows that for the past 10 years neither global average temperatures nor CO2 have had much effect on Arctic sea ice. An alternative explanation is available that not only fits current data but extends the explanation back hundreds of years, long before any significant change in CO2.
A possible cause for the good fit between temperatures and CO2 is that temperatures have been adjusted to CO2.
Ok,
If you want to argue that the scientists have adjusted the data to fit their hypothesis and they are all conspiring to fool the public, be my guest.
A foolish hypothesis in my view.
There is a simple explanation for changes in the rate that the ice melts from year to year. It is natural variability. The system is chaotic and non-linear and in other places you have claimed that the long term trends tend to be relatively stable, I am suggesting from decade to decade there may be variation in the rate that the ice melts, and of course a casual glance at the evidence shows that the amount of ice varies up and down year to year. This will depend on wind, ocean currents, temperature and cloudiness all of which will vary day to day, month to month and year to year.
Would you agree that 2 or three years would tell us very little (if we take them in isolation)?
I am not deducing any intention, but it is a fact that temperatures have become a lot better correlated with successive adjustments and station selections. This is hard to explain as we know how to measure temperatures since well over a hundred years ago. But regardless of explanations the good correlation comes from a recent interpretation of old data.
This is a graph I made from the official GISS temperature graphs for 2000 and 2015. Between those years 0.4°C of warming have been introduced. This is a fact, and it has not been explained, nor do I think can be explained. To say that a great deal of the warming is human in origin, and more properly produced by climate scientists is not an exaggeration.
Hi Javier,
A paper published by Berkeley Earth explains their methodology. My guess is their are similar papers for GISS data.
Oh and read your chart more carefully, it is 0.2 C of a difference not 0.4 C as the scale is shifted on the chart.
Also charts are not a good way to do this, you have to look at the data.
When the 2002 data is compared with the 2017 data and the 1880 to 1909 mean is set to zero for both data sets, the difference between the 1993-2002 mean for the two data sets is 0.136, over a 100 year period this amounts to 0.00136 C per year. The difference in the trends is in fact 0.0013 C/year.
Those are not Arctic Oceans, that is the ocean south of the Arctic. The Arctic Ocean is 65N-90N.
Ocean temperature is not measured below the ice.
Yes it is. ARGO does it, tethered floats do it. Actually about half a dozen ways it is directly measured.
You are correct, but I haven’t found the data on temperatures for the tethered profilers, just on oxygen and salinity, and as they drift randomly and there are few, they are not fit for temperature determination over time.
Hi Dennis,
This is the latitudinal temperature profile for Argo. You are just trying hard not to see what it is the obvious explanation for the Arctic sea ice lack of melting for the last decade. The water is getting colder and the water is a lot more important for ice melting than the air.
Any year now we are going to have a lot of fun with Arctic sea ice. We are going to have a really good ice year and September extent will go above 5 million sq. km. Then the scientific articles and press articles on the ice pause will start. You are just getting advanced warning by me here.
Hi Javier,
Well the Arctic Gateway seas have been Warming. In addition the surface Ocean temperatures (37 month average) from 0 to 2.5 meters deep have been stable. It is the heating from the solar radiation that does most of the melting from above along with higher air temperatures that result in more melting. Changes in the Jet stream have made the summers variable in the amount of warmth. So which is it, you seem to be saying both that we know the Arctic ocean is warmer and that we don’t have accurate measurements? It cannot be both, either we know the temperature or we don’t.
I have shown you the Argo map, and the latitudinal graph, and both clearly show no warming but cooling in the Arctic and adjacent areas. Argo is the best system to measure ocean temperatures and everybody agrees on that.
Your proposal that solar radiation does most of the melting is quite irrelevant. Solar radiation essentially doesn’t change from year to year except from cloud variability, and if anything albedo changes should promote more melting, not the less melting we are seeing. And the air has seen increased warming not decreased.
A factor that clearly can influence melting is water temperature and the best information we have is that water temperature is decreasing, and should contribute to the increase in Arctic sea ice observed.
Hi Javier,
The ice is on the surface, the temperature of the water at the surface is unchanged.
The amount of warming on the surface changes depending upon the surface conditions and albedo at the surface as well as the air temperature near the surface.
Clouds and humidity will affect the net radiative forcing on the surface, of course the solar input is relatively unchanged year to year (though there are slight variations in solar output the changes are small).
Obviously expect complete silence from the press about the Arctic not melting for the past 10 years. It is very telling so many articles about the coming Arctic melting during the Arctic winter, and none about the observed melting during the Arctic summer.
At least you have been informed here. You cannot claim that you have been fooled by the press and alarmist scientists.
Looks like Javier is off his meds again. It was so peaceful here a couple months ago when his comments had dried up.
You mean you could spread all sort of climate alarmist exaggerations without anybody checking on you, don’t you?
All I have done is post data. It’s unfortunate that you choose to label anyone who posts data that contradicts your propaganda as alarmist. Not exactly captain of the debate team, are you? I’m not alarmed at all. I’m actually quite cool, calm and collected (the 3 C’s) about the whole thing. It appears to be you who is alarmed, as your failed predictions, propaganda and bullshit arguments collide head on with reality.
Actually climate evidence is supporting my views. That’s why I feel reinforced in my conviction that I am interpreting the evidence correctly.
– No significant warming lately except for El Niño
– No decline in Arctic sea ice since 2007
– No big increase in sea level rise
– No increase in extreme weather phenomena
My predictions are not failing and I am not alarmed. Quite the contrary, I thing we are enjoying what climate scientists used to call a climate optimum. I don’t foresee any significant warming or cooling for the next decades, so everything is perfect in that regard.
Hi Javier,
It is not likely that the rate of warming will be constant. Since 1979 using the wood for trees index (average of 2 satellite data sets and 2 thermometer data sets) the rate of increase in global temperatures has been 1.58 C per century. This rate could increase or decrease in the future, it will depend in part on climate emissions and on future feedbacks as albedo changes and permafrost melts and the effect of warming on cloudiness.
1.58°C/decade means 0.5°C more by 2050.
If we get that it means warming is not accelerating, and that is not consistent with CO2 driving the warming.
If we get less, well that means we have seriously misunderstood climate change.
Only if we get significantly more than 0.5°C increase by 2050 the hypothesis can be said to agree with the evidence.
We just have to wait and see, but in my opinion we are not going to get even +0.5°C by 2050 showing that the hypothesis is not consistent with the evidence.
That is if they don’t keep adding 0.4°C every 15 years.
Hi Javier,
The Woodfortrees index is based on 4 independent data sets and the GISS only changes from the 2002 to 2017 data sets by 0.09 C if we use the 1981-2000 mean as zero for the two data sets (as in Wood for trees).
The current GISS data set has a slope of 0.017 C/year from 1979 to 2016.
How much warming there will be over the next 50 years will depend in part on atmospheric CO2. If atmospheric CO2 rises to 500 ppm in 49 years that implies another 0.7 C of warming above 2015 temperature. This assumes a simple linear relation ship between the change in the natural log of atmospheric CO2 and changes in temperature. Reality is far more complex and the relationship may be non-linear, up to 520 ppm this may be a fairly good approximation over the next 100 years.
For those interested in a more nuanced assessment:
This link shows extent and concentration on one tab, and thickness and volume on another. Clearly ice has in fact been melting.
One thing I find particularly interesting is the negative feedbacks to arctic ice reduction. This year Arctic low pressure areas with persistent cyclonic conditions (“cool”/cloudy) over the central Arctic have prevented much of the usual ice export through the Fram Straight. While ice has indeed been melting, as can be seen by viewing animations at link above, the export has been virtually nil.
Arctic circulation regimes and impact on ice export is quite interesting. Although I’m sure Javier would rather talk solar cycles over at Juddith Curry.
Yes in climate scientists’ computers, but not in the Arctic.
Satellite pictures pixels show no melting for ten years. And that one is going to be tough to adjust. The pictures cannot be changed and the measurements are done by Europeans and Japanese too.
Looks like it’s getting very broken up to me and NSIDC.
A closer look.
Javier focuses on extent. Volume is an illusion according to Javier. And concentration is a feature of sea ice that he has never mentioned before. Likely because doing so would not help his pathetic excuse for an analysis.
Both JAXA and NSIDC currently have arctic sea ice extent in 5th place for lowest extent. In a few weeks we’ll know the final outcome for the year.
Javier has very little to go on these days. I guess 5th lowest on record is a big win in his eyes. After all his failed predictions he’s getting desperate. I guess Javier feels that 2017 not being a record low Arctic sea ice extent vindicates his argument. Kinda pathetic really.
Desperate? You’ve got to be kidding.
The evidence continues to support my interpretation. Arctic sea ice is not decreasing one more year, temperatures are slowly returning towards pre-El Niño values, sea level rise continues being the same, every alarmist prediction is turning out dead wrong.
It is the alarmists that are getting desperate, as their lies and exaggerations are being uncovered. You have a rough time ahead.
“You have a rough time ahead.” – Javier
Could you be more specific? Perhaps offer me one of your soon to be failed predictions perhaps?
Yes. I predict you are going to be very disappointed by climate change over the next few years. It is not going to support your beliefs very much. Perhaps you will even have doubts that you got this one right.
Working night shift Javier?
NAOM
Hey Survivalist, I have pointed out both many times and he (them)?
Anyway ge pays no attention. He is his own echo chamber trying to drown us out with his volume.
Anyway we know the ice is melted from both underneath and above, thus breaking and thinning it. The majority of winter ice is first year ice now and that is increasing. Even if the Arctic has several exceptionally cold winters in a row, it will not be enough to stop the progression. There is too much heat coming in from sky, fresh water and ocean currents. Most of the land around the Arctic Ocean will be above freezing for at least the next week according to weather predictions. Some places hitting over 50F.
Looks like it’s getting very broken up to me
You mean you tell by eye? Ha-ha, you are funny.
Hi Javier,
One could easily take the concentration data and estimate ice volume and that’s what PIOMAS does. And also DMI
DMI does not show 2012, but 2017/8/22 is third lowest on the DMI volume chart and below the 2014 to 2013 mean volume.
Which doesn’t mean that the estimate is correct, does it?
For the last 10 years volume shows decrease, extent doesn’t. One is wrong. One is estimated the other is measured. I wonder which one.
How do you know one is wrong? Is it not plausible that they could both be right? Is it not possible that volume can decline while extent does not?
Very weak tea Doc. Pathetic really.
Yeah. Keep dreaming. Your pathetic ice pancake into crepe conjecture. The problem with alarmists is that they are willing to believe anything that supports their beliefs even in the absence of any evidence. The lack of religion really has left a big hole in weak minds.
Hi Javier,
They can both be correct. If extent is unchanged and thickness decreases, then volume decreases.
Not very difficult to understand.
You do know that the satellite temperature is not a “temperature measurement”, it is based on a “model” so it cannot be believed 🙂 Or some might make such a spurious claim. I am kidding, but there do seem to be problems with the satellite temperature data.
Hi Dennis,
Except that the thinner the ice the easier it melts during the melting season, so it is not believable that the ice can get thinner and thinner for years without melting.
Hi Javier,
I suppose if one imagines the ice is of uniform thickness that would be correct.
I make no such assumption. There is natural variation in wind and ocean currents as well as summer weather differences affecting cloudiness and precipitation, thus the movement and breakup of the ice is very different from year to year.
Which part of natural variability do you find difficult to understand? 🙂
Both are estimates. Either could be wrong and both could be right.
Yes, it’s color coordinated to the chart on the right. Are you color blind as well as logically impaired?
“Evidently Javier was unhappy about NSIDC using daily data on sea ice extent to show that this year had the 2nd-lowest annual minimum on record. So, he decided to go with the September monthly averages for each year, and to start with 2007 to show a “trend” which, he says, shows “that Arctic sea ice has been increasing since that fateful September of 2007.”
Gosh, Javier, what was that you were saying about “The trend is always determined by the choice of starting point and ending point“? Didn’t you “Do your homework“?
Of course the trend isn’t determined by the choice of start and end points, but it’s strongly influenced by it. That’s especially true if you start (or end) with an extreme, which I discussed here. And that’s exactly what Javier has done: start, not just with the most extreme September average in the record, but one so extreme he himself refers to it as “fateful.”
Javier has also resorted to another denier favorite: computing a “trend” based on a time span that’s way to short. Way too short. Ten years, from 2007 to 2016. And, in classic fashion, he omits to estimate any uncertainty with that “trend.”
Let’s do the math for him.
Using September average sea ice extent from NSIDC, and using only the data from 2007 through 2016, the estimated trend by linear regression is +18 thousand km^2 per year. Upward!!! But, the “margin of error” (95% confidence interval) for that figure is somewhere between +142 thousand km^2/yr and -105 thousand km^2/yr. Downward 🙁
Apparently that’s the best he could do, despite cherry-picking an extreme starting point. Of course he follows this keen trend analysis with what I can only call “mathturbation” to support a claim of trend change … and rather crude mathturbation, in my opinion.”
He uses levelized graphs (data with trend removed to study variance) to show no trend.
Tamino is shown wrong one more year. He’ll have to eat crow. Every passing year he is going to look more ridicule. His statistics aren’t going to tell him anything about Arctic sea ice dynamics. His lack of understanding cannot be covered by statistics.
Meds Doc. Get back on them.
Yes Javier. In the Arctic. Ice has been melting. Perhaps you think you’re smarter than the US Navy, who it would do you no harm to know actually take quite a keen interest in Arctic ice.
“Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
“So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
Professor Maslowski’s group, which includes co-workers at Nasa and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams.”
What a bunch of crap. 2013 was 4 years ago, and we have more Arctic sea ice than when this looser made his crappy prediction and said it was too conservative. Certainly some of those dumbasses need smarting up.
Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3 (Kwoketal.2009), one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer.
So the prediction was 2013 to 2019 for “nearly ice free”.
They go on to say:
Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover.
I would note that the slope projection is -1120 km3/year with a standard deviation of 2353 km3/year. So it is not clear where they get the +/-3 years, a better prediction would have been no prediction with this level of uncertainty, in my opinion.
Or if all the data from 1979 to 2004 had been used a projection of 2033 might be more reasonable with maybe +/-17 years for an uncertainty range so 2016 to 2050 with maybe a 2/3 chance of it falling in that range.
Easier to say in hindsight of course, the paper was published in May 2012.
Hi Dennis,
So the prediction was 2013 to 2019 for “nearly ice free”.
That was his 2012 prediction. His 2007 prediction was 2013 as it was clearly reflected in the press and used by Al Gore. Gore spoke of Maslowski’s prediction in his Nobel discourse. “Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.” http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html
Obviously by 2011 he had realized his prediction was going to fail as sea ice grew between 2007 and 2011. He did what all doomers do. He postponed the date of his prediction.
Hi Javier,
Or as most scientists do he changes his theory based on evidence. I would need to see the 2007 paper that you refer to, often non-scientists will exaggerate, I don’t get my science from politicians.
Survivalist – there wasn’t much transport into the Greenland Sea and as a consequence that has lost almost all it’s cover, including the remaining fast ice, for the first time. Also all the multi year ice along northern Greenland and the archipelago got separated from land and smashed up. Be interesting to see how that effects things next year. I think the Atlantic margin seems to be gradually getting warmer every year and, depending on all the other trends going on, is gradually pushing the ice limit back bit by bit. Like you say it’s pretty fascinating, and more so as it’s all likely never to be repeated (and also has resulted in me learning how to spell archipelago – no mean feat).
We may be at an inflection point in some markets/drivers where its make more sense to add an additional Battery capacity than the messy complexities an Hybrid ICE Motor. Asian Pure EV’s taking over Hybrids now. It’s just not just the stinking ICE either, as there are also hundreds of parts for just the Fuel System required to meet North American Pollution / Safety requirements. A YUGH deal for Global Battery Production ramp up. Also of Interest is the 190,000 Asian Commerical EV’s for 2016.
Good news. China is a growing market for vehicles and the growth of EV’s is important to them, they have very bad pollution problems. The US citizens have higher expectations for their cars and pay more for it, so they will not fully embrace the pure EV until a reasonably useful network of charging systems has been installed. That is why Tesla rolled out it’s charging systems early.
Another five to ten years and the EV will be the mainstay of passenger cars sold worldwide.
Right now, unless one can afford a Tesla, the best option for much of the US is the plug in hybrid. If you hardly ever travel far, the EV is a great vehicle with no or little hassles. Remember though that winter driving range is shorter and even a Tesla will not start if it is cold enough.
“Pungoteague_Dave | October 28, 2013
I now keep our heated garages warmer because of this factor. Our excess solar generation allows this with minimal cost. However, we find that range drops about 20% when driving in temperatures below 40F and more than that below 30. I don’t think this matters as much in the EU, where distances are often shorter and charging opportunities more frequent, but for us it makes driving the S85 190 miles between our homes a bit risky. We range charge twice per week to make the round trip, but as the car ages it will likely become impossible. It is already impossible with a standard charge.” https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cold-weather-battery-warming-question
Recent post by NSIDC
“On August 21, 2017, ice extent stood at 5.27 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles). This was 1.82 million square kilometers (703,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 median extent for the same day, and 804,000 square kilometers (310,000 square miles) and 221,000 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) above the 2012 and 2007 extents for the same day, respectively”
Looks like extreme warm years over the Arctic occur about two to three times per decade now. The highs over the Arctic will be changing to lows soon. A high pressure region will move northward over Greenland.
I’m interested to see how ice export might resume as the high pressure moves over the central Arctic. Interesting times! Like watching a slow motion car wreck. That you’re in.
Recent post by Copernicus. Nice graphics too.
“Sea-ice was much less widespread in July 2017 than in the average for July from 1981 to 2010.
Arctic sea-ice cover was either absent or much lower than normal off much of the northern coastline of Russia, Alaska and the Yukon. It was generally lower than normal elsewhere, and above average only in small regions, most notably south of Baffin Bay.
Antarctic sea-ice cover was also lower than average overall. It extended less to the north than is normal for July in all but one sector, although concentrations further south were higher than average in some other sectors also.”
The Antarctic looks like something about to hit resonance frequency. That’s a good site, and will still be there despite Trump’s best efforts, I wonder how many US scientists will move over to it (or already have).
Define your average as for the last ten years as NOAA does and then suddenly what you have is average sea ice.
The past 10 years have not been normal in the Arctic so that would be a strange mean to use. Maybe they should call 2012 the mean 🙂
Hi Dennis,
Normal is a human definition that depends on the period considered, the ice knows nothing about that. There have been periods with more ice and with less ice in the Arctic. What we have is the new normal for the 21st century so far. Much better than what was predicted 10 years ago.
Hi Javier,
There probably have not been 10 years with less ice in the arctic than 2007-2016 in the past 4000 years. So lets say since the development of human civilization.
Hi Dennis,
How could you possibly know that? Sea ice proxies are in their infancy, so we have absolutely no idea how Arctic sea ice was during the prolonged Roman warm period. We don’t even know the sea ice extent 100 years ago, much less 2000 years ago.
Hi Javier,
Some research suggests its been about 2 million years since the Arctic was ice free.
YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska — The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.
We have lost about 3/4 of the September sea ice volume in the Arctic since 1980 and are losing the permafrast. Once Arctic sea ice and permafrost become annual, the energy effect changes. Ice has been a buffer for global warming, but as it is lost the buffer goes away to be replaced by easily melted ice or none at all. More energy will be available for heating.
When do you expect that to happen? By 2013 like Maslowski?
Poor, poor Javier, jabbering nonsense.
The decline of Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2016 has been from 7.22 to 4.74 million sq. km. That represents a loss of 34%. The loss took place mainly between 1996 with 7.91 million sq. km. and 2007 with 4.32 million sq. km.
The idea that the Arctic ice loss has been linear and we can extrapolate it is wrong. Most of the ice loss coincided with a period known to scientists as the pause due to its low rate of warming. This indicates that either there is a very long delay between global warming and ice melting, or both are unrelated.
In any case the conservative expectation is a continuation of the recent trend of no melting. Whether there will be a period of accelerated melting again in the future or not is currently unknown. Since we cannot explain ice behavior, we cannot predict future ice. Apparently you think you can, therefore you are the one speaking jabbering nonsense.
In 1996 nobody could say that there was a problem with Arctic sea ice. By 2007, just 11 years later, the entire drop had materialized and sea ice experts were all running around shitless. That’s the origin of the Arctic scare that first Al Gore and then Greenpeace have taken advantage so well. 10 years later there hasn’t been any further loss. It is time to reassess and get a more rational approach to Arctic sea ice loss. If there is no further loss of ice for the next 10 years, or even some gain, it is going to be very difficult to explain people that they were lied for 20 years with Arctic stories when the ice was not declining.
The entrenchment into the position that we are not seeing the loss in ice extent but it is still happening in unseen volume will backfire spectacularly against scientists. People don’t like being lied. It is always better to come out truthful and say things as they are.
Javier,
Perhaps it is too early to tell. There is data that shows the Arctic ice was relatively stable for many decades, though the data may not be as good as the data since 1979. If we look at the data we have a linear trend fits pretty well, though no doubt there may be some variation above and below the linear trend, perhaps the relationship is a negative exponential. Hard to say at this point.
Javier – I didn’t read what you wrote but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t comment on anything I write, take your dumbass, putrid, needy narcissism and fuck off somewhere else.
Javier reminds me of a Jehovah Witness; mindless automation spouting endless volumes of total crap.
Always a good source:
Hollow spaces make great echo chambers and after a little while all you hear is yourself.
Preparing for the future, Swiss planting warmer climate trees to replace those that are heat sensitive.
Cute Fred. Looks like my area in winter, but the palm trees are plastic. 🙂
Fred, if you know, maybe you could give us some perspective on a large portion of the preserved Amazon rain forest losing protection and being turned over to mining interests in Brazil. I had heard that the rate of deforestation had slowed for a while, but will this turn out to just be a blip with the new push toward usage of the Amazon by the government and destruction of biological reserves as well as incursion into indigenous population areas?
Actually those palms are real and that’s a pict of the beach in Ft. Lauderdale 😉
Re Amazon rainforest: I wish the deforestation had slowed but it seems the current administration has decided to cut back (no pun intended) environmental regulations, protecting the forest and allowing slash and burn agricultural practices and cattle ranching to encroach on sensitive areas. So it has been one step forward and two steps back. Brazil is currently under the control of a right wing, authoritarian, anti science regime, much like the Trump administration. Hopefully he, Temer, will be impeached soon.
BRASILIA (Reuters) – The world’s largest meatpacker, Brazil’s JBS SA, has for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land, turning a blind eye to regulations meant to protect the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s environmental regulator has alleged.
The accusation comes even as JBS and other meatpackers in Brazil, the top global exporter of beef, are reeling from a corruption scandal. Police allege bribery of health inspectors to overlook unsanitary conditions and forgo inspections. JBS has denied wrongdoing and sought to assure consumers that its products meet rigorous quality standards.
Earlier this month, the environmental agency, IBAMA, ordered the suspension of two JBS meat packing plants and 13 others in southwest Pará state for buying cattle raised on pastures cleared by slashing and burning the forest. It fined the company 24 million reais ($7.7 million).
Then we have the environmental effects of large hydroelectric dams such as the Belo Monte Dam, and road building through the forest coupled with mining etc… Unfortunately most of Brazil is currently stuck in the global growth paradigm to solve all it’s problems which are mostly created by that very same growth paradigm in a never ending spiral or the case of the snake eating its own tail.
Back in the late 70’s and 80’s I used to fly a lot up to Belem and Amapa state as a contractor for Petrobras, that was our jump off point for flying out to the oil rigs. I was back in the Amazon two years ago and took a flight from Sao Paulo to Manaus at night and was struck by the number of lit up towns that I could see everywhere I looked as I flew over previously uninhabited territory. Those 7.5 plus billion humans are definitely having an impact.
Biological Conservation
Volume 206, February 2017, Pages 161-168
Biological Conservation
Discussion
Environmental impact assessment in Brazilian Amazonia: Challenges and prospects to assess biodiversity
Abstract Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has the goal of providing decision makers with an indication of the likely environmental consequences of planned actions risking environmental changes and, when necessary, allowing revision of these actions to mitigate adverse impacts. Here we provide an overview of the efficiency of EIA with emphasis on Brazilian Amazonia and discuss the problems and challenges with this type of assessment in highly diverse ecosystems. We concentrate on the methodology and performance of EIAs for three of the most recent and largest infrastructure projects in Amazonia: the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, the BR-319 Highway, and the Juruti bauxite mine. We conclude that all of these EIAs fall short of properly assessing the expected impact of infrastructure development in situ, and that their results had little or no effect on policy decisions. To improve the reliability and usefulness of EIAs in biologically diverse ecosystems, we suggest three relatively fast and cost-effective complementary approaches for assessing biodiversity: remote sensing, reflectance spectroscopy, and DNA meta-barcoding. We discuss how these emerging cutting-edge techniques can help in identifying environmental threats and the consequences of different activities in Amazonia. The ability to monitor the state of the environment and the likely impacts of human activities on natural resources is fundamental to evidence-based decisions on development choices, to the design of appropriate management strategies, and to mitigate biological and ecological consequences.
Fred – I’m sure you’ll agree, this is very depressing stuff.
WORRISOME TREND FOR HEALTH OF WILD DOLPHINS
Between 2003-2005, researchers saw a jump in the prevalence of disease, with the percentage of “definite disease” rising from 9 percent to 33 percent for the CHS population and from 28.6 percent to 50 percent in the IRL population. As of 2015, 32.5 percent of all IRL dolphins assessed by HERA were classified as “definite disease.”
“Today, fewer than half of the dolphins we are seeing as part of our health assessments can be classified as healthy,” said Dr. Bossart. “While this number has remained relatively stable since 2005, it is clear these populations are experiencing a health burden largely driven by infectious disease and environmental exposures.”
Yeah that sucks!
The links I provided above about the destruction of the Brazilian Amazonian ecosystems includes one of my favorite dolphins, the pink river dolphin.
Brazil opens mammoth Amazon reserve twice the size of New Jersey to mining The Brazilian government has dismantled an Amazonian national reserve twice the size of New Jersey.
The area, thought to be rich in minerals, will be opened up to mining. The region has been preserved as a national reserve for more than three decades.
What these greedy idiots do not grasp, is that the intact ecosystem of that reserve is worth multiple times what they could possibly extract in minerals. The people currently in power in Brazil may not be there for long, hopefully the next administration regains a proper sense of perspective and turns out to be better stewards of the environment.
Yes, that is what I was asking about up above. I heard it on NPR early this morning, they had a discussion about the loss of protection to some natural reserves in the northern Amazon. Not being that familiar with the area I put it to you.
You are right about people not properly valuing the natural systems. They value extremely short term industrial and profit systems that destroy the natural areas. There is little perspective in the civilized world.
We value the wrong things now and by the time we have the knowledge and wisdom to value natural areas properly, they will be mostly destroyed, so iPhones and other gadgets can sit in a landfill somewhere for that is their destiny.
. All that biological treasure will be up in smoke, clear cut and polluted. We may have Smartphones but we need to smarten up quickly or we may join the iPhones, a marriage made in corporation.
There is little perspective in the civilized world.
We value the wrong things now and by the time we have the knowledge and wisdom to value natural areas properly, they will be mostly destroyed, so iPhones and other gadgets can sit in a landfill somewhere for that is their destiny.
Which is why I’m a strong proponent of the concept of a ‘Circular Economy’! To be clear a circular economy isn’t about recycling. It is the application of systems and design thinking to completely reinvent all our systems be they social, economic, political, educational, technological, etc… from scratch.
It’s a fight against the entrenched linear thinking that is the foundation of what some of us call BAU.
I meant the palm trees in my area, not yours. Was that 1985?
Yeah, I got that. I was making a reference to the coming ice age and my snow plowing business venture in South Florida.
1985? Dunno cause back then I was recently married and living in NYC and any palm trees I had, would have definitely been of the plastic variety. Along with the pink flamingo I had, which was decorated with Christmas lights. 😉
Snow plowing is fine for Floridians but up here I would start a business designing and building geodesic igloos. Windows made of ice. Refrigerator and freezer come built in. Wolves at the door are free. 🙂
Nobody snowplows when the snow never melts.
You do realize it will be a really long walk to the ocean?
Heck I’m a bit tired of waiting for the ice age to come to me.
I was always interested in tensegrity structures, spherical trigonometry, and even built some geodesics for my son when he was still young enough not criticize me…
I even made icosahedronic aquariums! If you look head on into a pentagonal vertex where five equilateral triangles come together you see each fish multiplied by five and it looks like a whole school of fish.
So who knows, I might even consider a career move to some far northern clime and end up being a contractor building geodesics igloos with ice windows. 😉
Oh no, competition. Think I will just grow ice flowers then.
“The largest B.C. wildfire season on record has emitted an estimated 190 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — a total that nearly triples B.C.’s annual carbon footprint. Smith says the official wildfire emissions total won’t be available until next year; when researchers are able survey the all of the damage. To date, an estimated 1 million hectares [3861 square miles] of forest have been burned by over 1,000 different fires. Werner Kurz, a senior research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, says the emissions are part of an ‘alarming’ feedback loop, fuelled in large part by climate change.”
In that case, human cut backs mean little. We are losing control. Shades of things to come? I remember Joe Romm warning the US congress about loss of forests in the southwest if they did not take action right away. Guess same also goes for other areas.
Meanwhile the land is heating up fast, not just in the Arctic but everywhere.
When it comes to climate and CO2 the big question, as I see it, is do we have enough definitive evidence now to alter policy in a major way?
I don’t think so, but I do think that there is a high probability that the evidence will become crystal clear within one to two decades.
By that time, the damage will heavy.
Do we select planned damage to the economy and adaptation (winners and losers), or just go blindly, take our risks and mourn for those who will randomly suffer.
Those who advocate for major policy change ahead of the damaging evidence are saying that the probability of a very bad outcome with the ‘business as usual’ course is high, and those like Javier are in effect saying that the probability of bad outcome from CO2/methane release by humans is low.
The future is all speculation, guesswork, theory and modeling. Not all that accurate. But its all we have, other than playing drunken ostrich.
Perhaps it is more fruitful to focus on adaptation that gives sustainability, energy supply stability and decentralization. That, and learning how to have a civilization that can ‘work’ in the midst of the great downsizing that is on the horizon (for most of the world).
I would vote for heavy implementation of a carbon tax that would fund a massive solar and wind buildout.
That would address several issues at once. And I acknowledge that any policy change like this will create winners and losers. The question is- whats best for the common good?
Secondly, we need to start moving infrastructure out of the flood plains (tidal and riverbank), and stop insuring flood-zone building with public money. Time to move uphill about 10 feet. That helps by many billions regardless of climate change severity.
What else?
We are not going to turn around or stop industrial civilization.
The survivors (if any) are going to have to sort it out on the other side of the wall we will be crashing into.
I agree we are not going to stop industrial civilization- but we are in deep overshoot and some way or another we are going to experience a grinding down.
It is rational to attempt to ride the wave (manage it), rather than just twirl around in the turbulence (whether you are at Smith Rock or Guerneville).
Probably both.
Smith Rock next week for sure.
Population overshoot, mass extinction, runaway climate change, economic uncertainty, ecocide—-
Just to name a few.
One thing I just do not understand is the adherence to the old economic model while there are massive opportunities by switching to a new one.
WOW!! That was absolutely awesome! A perfect launch, deployment of payload, a satellite into orbit and a perfect recovery of the first stage rocket by landing fin first on the drone ship in the Pacific. They made it look so easy! Congrats to all the scientists, technologists and engineers who made that happen.
Here is a large study of the break-up time of frozen arctic lakes. The study was performed across Northern Europe, Central Siberia and Northern Canada over a 14 year time span.
Arctic lakes show strong decadal trend in earlier spring ice-out
To date, records of ice phenology have differed in length and are relatively few, hampering detection of persistent, regional-scale trends, if they exist. In this study, we examined over 13,300 lakes over a 14-year period, a robust dataset that illustrates remarkably fast changes in arctic-wide ice phenology. This study is the first attempt to provide a detailed spatial analysis of changes in lake-ice break-up for multiple arctic regions at an inter-annual scale. In contrast to earlier studies, the current analysis considered all lakes with a surface area greater or equal to 1 km2 in five sampling regions across the Arctic (Fig. 1). It utilized the high spatial and temporal resolution of freely available remote sensing data. We developed a method to estimate break-up dates using time series of surface reflectance data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite sensor and to generate a standardised estimate for over 13,300 lakes. Four key variables were extracted for each lake: 1) the date when ice is first detected, referred to as freeze-up start (FUS); 2) the date when there is no longer any detectable open water on the lake, referred to as freeze-up end (FUE); 3) the date when the first ice-free water appears, referred to as break-up start (BUS); 4) the date when the lake is completely free of ice, referred to as break-up end (BUE). However, only BUS and BUE have been analysed further due to unreliability of extracted FUS and FUE dates (see below).
Full paper:
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep38449
Single molecules can work as reproducible transistors — at room temperature
Researchers are first to reproducibly achieve the current blockade effect using atomically precise molecules at room temperature, a result that could lead to shrinking electrical components + boosting data storage + computing power
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170814120959.htm
Power-to-liquid: 200 liters of fuel from solar power and the air’s carbon dioxide
Production of fuels from regenerative electric power is a component of the energy turnaround. The first 200 l of synthetic fuel have now been produced from solar energy and the air’s carbon dioxide under the SOLETAIR project. The mobile chemical pilot plant that can be used decentrally produces gasoline, diesel, and kerosene from regenerative hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170808182423.htm
A bit misleading since they’re starting with hydrogen. We may have to start doing stuff like this to sequester carbon but I strongly suspect there are more cost-effective ways to sequester carbon. We certainly will never use this to produce fuels, since burning liquid fuels is on its way out anyway.
And why’s that? If you don’t support your points, then they’re essentially moot.
Also, it’s a very rough draft and more of a brainstorm and just to get it out there, but at least I have one and am willing to share it. How about you? Nothing?
The manifesto is also open to suggestions/recommendations/etc., including from you, but it nevertheless contains much that others recommend anyway.
In any case, Permaeans don’t have to be everyone. That would seem to go without saying.
Species branch anyway. That’s how we get new ones. Some survive, such as from their branching, while others get caught in evolutionary dead ends, such as from not branching, and vice-versa.
+10C by 2026?
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Even the very conservative IPCC estimates have something like this happening by 2100 for a BAU case. 2026 seems too soon to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 2050 was this bad.
I think what is needed here is to actually put the so called global warming projections into perspective. So, here they are, assuming we wiped out all the carbon sources today, eliminated all the cows farting methane and so on, the 100% effort temperature rise would be limited to…just 4.9985 degrees F. Meanwhile, the do nothing “business as usual” temperature rise would be just 5.0000 degrees F. Not only is this difference as about as trivial as trivial can be, it’s also well under our ability to even measure.
Point is, climate is going to change regardless of what we as humans do or don’t do. This has been the case of the world’s climate ever since the beginning of time, before there was just even one human inhabiting the place. Climate scientists by now know there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change the course of earth’s climate, yet they still want us taxpayers to keep on funding their career choice for as many decades as they can get.
yep
George, the degree of precision of your forecasts is amazing.
The world’s only genius with an IQ below 70.
You mean like 69.9999? It’s truly amazing how precise IQ tests have become, these days, eh?
George Harmon – 1) were you at one time turned down for a job, maybe janitor, at a climate research institute and still bear the scar (or are you just jealous that they get to do interesting work, maybe an occasional exciting field trip and you’re stuck in the commute cue with just your (apparently malfunctioning) calculator for company? 2) As you like a lot of significant figures maybe you could work out the ratio of military spending to that spent on climate research.
A 10C rise? That means that it probably won’t get below zero F around here anymore in the winter, maybe. Snow shovels might go into semi-retirement until the AMOC stalls out.
Couple weeks in the summer would really suck, probably go up the mountain for that period of time.
OFM better start watching for gators though and the Brits will be agape at the Hippos in the Thames.
The Canadians might like it though. They won’t have to go to Florida in the winter, maybe only down to Virginia to see the gators and the palm trees.
I am not worried though, we get 10C temperature rises here every year, then the ice melts. Certainly won’t be much hotter than Florida. I think the mosquitos will get bigger, which means the swallows and dragonflies will increase in size too. Just as long as it’s not those tiger mosquitos. Nasty things.
Do wonder where the winter Olympics will be held. Probably Antarctica in the dark. Can make some money selling headlamps.
I think the mosquitos will get bigger, which means the swallows and dragonflies will increase in size too. Just as long as it’s not those tiger mosquitos. Nasty things.
Don’t worry too much, given that it is likely that atmospheric O2 content seems to be decreasing.
For giant insects to function the limiting factor isn’t necessarily temperature. They either need to evolve lungs with alveoli or the O2 concentration needs to return to levels where they were during the Carboniferous and Permian, when O2 made up over 30% of the atmosphere. Side note to George Harmon, we actually are able to know that to a high degree of confidence!
Though if you’ve ever had to deal with No-See-Ums, which are minuscule, maybe giant mosquitoes aren’t so bad! At least you can see them and shoot them down… 😉
I remember the times spent in the north country during spring where it might have been days before I realized there were also mosquitos. There were also times when I did not take off my wet suit until after getting in the tent. They can’t bite through rubber. Black flies are beyond annoying.
It was the larvae growing super-large to prevent oxygen poisoning that made the big insects. The adults can control the amount of oxygen they take in but the larvae often breathe through the skin and have no control over oxygen intake.
At 30 percent oxygen, the lightning induced fires must have been something. Best to live in a swamp.
Best to live in a swamp.
Methane Burp + High O2 + Lightning Strike = Really Big Kaboom
Lot’s of large fried insects falling from the sky, manna from heaven… 😉
Which is exactly why dragonflies don’t have eyebrows and their eyes bug out. 🙂
It was the larvae growing super-large to prevent oxygen poisoning that made the big insects. The adults can control the amount of oxygen they take in but the larvae often breathe through the skin and have no control over oxygen intake.
Actually it has a lot to do with how insects breathe through tracheal tubes.
https://www.wired.com/2010/11/huge-dragonflies-oxygen/
High Oxygen Levels Spawn Monster Dragonflies
“As you become a larger insect, more of your body is taken up by tracheal tubes. Eventually you reach a limit to how big you can be,” VandenBrooks said. “The more oxygen that is available, the smaller that system needs to be and the bigger you can grow.”
Fred, that article is full of air. Dragonflies spend up to five years in the water and only a few weeks as flying adults. Their growth occurs in the water not in the air. They only eat to mature their sex organs, change coloration, mate and lay eggs.
Read this and take a deep breath. 🙂
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110808-ancient-insects-bugs-giants-oxygen-animals-science/
There are other ideas out there which make sense. The idea that the giant dragonfly would need a much denser atmosphere to fly. Of course higher density would provide an even more efficient breathing mechanism.
Say the dragonfly wingspan is increased by 7 times, it’s wing area will be about 49 times greater. However, if other parts such as the body are kept proportional, then it
s mass would increase by approximately 343 times. This would increase wing loading by almost 6 times over a smaller dragonfly. So they would have had to be extremely fast and powerful or maybe the air was just denser. Would have ruined their ability to hover and fly backwards/sideways.
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/jexbio/201/8/1043.full.pdf
Fred, that article is full of air. Dragonflies spend up to five years in the water and only a few weeks as flying adults. Their growth occurs in the water not in the air.
That is certainly correct! However one has to take into consideration evolutionary pressures of building those giant dragonflies that would then have to fly in O2 enriched air and then reproduce to produce viable aquatic larvae. Not to mention that if the atmosphere had a higher O2 concentration so too would the shallow ponds where those larvae developed.
While the science is not 100% settled, (ever hear that before 🙂 ) There seems to be a high degree of correlation between larger insect sizes and greater atmospheric O2 levels
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2880098/
Atmospheric oxygen level and the evolution of insect body size
Jon F. Harrison,1,* Alexander Kaiser,2 and John M. VandenBrooks1
Author information ► Article notes ► Copyright and License information ►
Abstract
Insects are small relative to vertebrates, possibly owing to limitations or costs associated with their blind-ended tracheal respiratory system. The giant insects of the late Palaeozoic occurred when atmospheric PO2 (aPO2) was hyperoxic, supporting a role for oxygen in the evolution of insect body size. The paucity of the insect fossil record and the complex interactions between atmospheric oxygen level, organisms and their communities makes it impossible to definitively accept or reject the historical oxygen-size link, and multiple alternative hypotheses exist. However, a variety of recent empirical findings support a link between oxygen and insect size, including: (i) most insects develop smaller body sizes in hypoxia, and some develop and evolve larger sizes in hyperoxia; (ii) insects developmentally and evolutionarily reduce their proportional investment in the tracheal system when living in higher aPO2, suggesting that there are significant costs associated with tracheal system structure and function; and (iii) larger insects invest more of their body in the tracheal system, potentially leading to greater effects of aPO2 on larger insects. Together, these provide a wealth of plausible mechanisms by which tracheal oxygen delivery may be centrally involved in setting the relatively small size of insects and for hyperoxia-enabled Palaeozoic gigantism.
I’m in the higher PO2, smaller overall tracheal system, therefore bigger insect body size, school of thought. Cockroaches being a notable exception to this general rule. Seems even 300 million years ago they were already planning to take over after the end of the Anthropocene 😉
The only interesting question is why do you guys believe all these nutty alarmist predictions, when the previous ones have all failed, and when they are clearly crazy. Is this some sort of Judeo-Christian tradition where we should be expecting the Apocalypse?
2016 was warmer because it was an El Niño year. 2017 will be slightly less warm, and 2018 is likely to be slightly less warm than 2017. So that graph is going to be totally wrong from its first year, but you guys won’t even remember it, as you will still have total faith on the impending climate doom is about to befall on the faithful and unbelievers alike.
The problem with getting rid of religions is that the void is immediately filled by all sort of nutty beliefs, like climate doom.
By the way, the BAU case is not BAU at all. Nobody here has an excuse for not knowing that fossil fuels are limited and its consumption cannot increase linearly much longer. Get real.
Yesterday I had a job interview at the British Antarctic Survey. Nobody there has time for this kind of nutty alarmist prediction. The real science by people on the ground is quite frightening enough.
Unfortunately the BAS is a classic British quango, a bunch of scientists dedicated to finding out the truth constantly stymied by an impenetrable bureaucracy and high level politics which drips feeds money into whichever photo opportunity or geopolitical or cash cow project the government minister is backing this week. Recently this has resulted in a big injection of cash for new research vessel, etc., but it is a very thin veil over projecting continued claims to sovereignty over the Falklands/Malvinas, and the oil fields in the surrounding ocean.
If the politicians and other leaders do not understand the value of what scientific research provides, then the scientists have not properly presented their case.
Of course it is always possible that the politicians and leaders have some idea of the actual value of the research they are funding.
Politicians often do not *want* the truth; it is not in the best interests of the politicians to tell the truth to the public.
Remember Al Gore. He very consistently told the truth. Not very good for getting elected. Also Walter Mondale.
The smarter and cannier politicians want the scientific research to be available to *them* but not necessarily to the general public. They will set up funding for scientific research but disguise it as something else. But they will be opposed by the stupider and more short-term politicians who don’t understand the value of it even to themselves.
The only question is why the owners of the website have not banned Javier yet. He stinks up the comments sections with his turds.
While Javier doesn’t have a leg to stand on, as a scientist, because he utterly ignores the precautionary principle, thereby effectively defining himself as a troll, he DOES make a valid point occasionally.
We won’t be burning ever increasing amounts of oil and gas very many more years. Depletion, rising prices, substitution of renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency technologies all combined virtually guarantee that we will experience peak oil and gas within the easily foreseeable future.
Hi Preston,
The IPCC AR5 has a different forecast, note that RCP4.5 is the most likely scenario due to limited fossil fuels.
This is what the experts think.
From page 981 at link below
http://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter11_FINAL.pdf
another chart from IPCC AR5 Chap 11. Note that this includes the unrealistic cornucopian RCP6 and RCP8.5 scenarios making the high end unrealistic, but the low end might be realistic if the projections of Tony Seba are correct (which might match RCP2.6).
Hi Dennis,
The lower end of IPCC predictions does not support alarmist views. We could continue as we have done and wait for fossil fuels to phase out due to depletion without the climate turning sour on us.
Hi Javier,
Much is unknown, there may be a lot of coal and natural gas, enough to cause problems, climate sensitivity is also not known, so better for both the environment and lower risk to reduce fossil fuel, in any case there might not be enough fossil fuels in which case that may create economic risk so we should pursue whatever non-fossil fuel energy will work best, keeping all options on the table (including nuclear and using some natural gas as a transition fuel).
On that I agree. Looks to me that we either go the gas + nuclear path or we are going to have a very serious energy problem.
Anyway nearly all the CO2 reduction has been from a coal to gas transition. Those that have stuck to coal, like Germany, have not reduced their CO2 emissions.
“Anyway nearly all the CO2 reduction has been from a coal to gas transition.”
Not in California
Shift towards renewables behind decline in California gas demand
Dive Insight:
As the price of natural has risen above last year’s lows, coal has made a comeback. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal-fired generation will exceed gas this year and next.
But that trend is nationwide, and while gas demand is down in California, it isn’t because of coal-fired power plants. The state has expanded its use of battery storage to help integrate more renewables, and the results are showing in pipeline flows.
SoCal Citygates averaged 2.3 Bcf/day during the past two months, a decline of 5% to 7% compared with the same months last year. And PG&E Citygate flows averaged 1.5 Bcf/d in June — a decline of 16% from June 2016, according to Ventyx data.
It might be that California (~10% from solar) is a bellwether for the energy transition as may be the case for leading solar countries like Germany (>6.2%), Italy (>7%) and the UK (3.4%).
“On that I agree. Looks to me that we either go the gas + nuclear path or we are going to have a very serious energy problem.”
How soon do you think we are going to have this “very serious energy problem”? Below are two charts I generated from the same data used to prepare my report on the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly. The top chart shows the percentage of annual US electricity generated by solar up to 2016 and the lower one shows the monthly variation. It would appear that the US is on track to generate 10% of it;s electricity from solar by 2022 if the growth rate is not less than the growth rate between 2012 and 2017 when the percentage of electricity generated by solar grew from 0.1% to >1%.
It would also appear that the growth of solar may be accelerating since the percentage generated by solar in May 2017 was in the order of 60% more than for the same month in 2016, in contrast to the two previous years when the year on year increase was on the order of 45%. If solar were to continue growing at recent growth rates for the next ten years, it would generate 100% of US electricity by 2027.
The next edition of the EPM should be released in less than a week as at the time of this post.
I am not too fond of linear extrapolations. Thinks grow or decrease until they don’t.
See figure 2 here:
Worldwide investment in renewable energy reaches US$ 4 trillion – with little to show for it
I was just trying to point out some potentially disruptive alternatives to your “gas + nuclear path” but, I guess I am wasting my time. Feel free to invest your money in the “gas + nuclear path” but, IMO the would be quite unwise. Incidentally my extrapolations were not linear but exponential (>40% per annum) a la Tony Seba’s exponentially improving technologies.
Below is the other renewable that is giving team Koch nightmares, wind.
Hi Islandboy,
My view is different from that of Javier who seems to favor natural gas and nuclear. I think we should use natural gas as little as possible as a transition fuel to get us to nearly 100% non-fossil fuel energy sources.
I also think we should use all non-fossil fuel options solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave, and nuclear and pick the least cost option when all externalities are considered.
Euan Mearns is a pretty smart guy, and he’s smart enough to understand that he is misrepresenting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for reasons that are not clear to me.
Maybe he will reply here and have something to say about MY interpretation of the facts.
He virtually IGNORES the ecological/ environmental/ public health costs associated with the fossil fuel industries and the use of fossil fuels.
He ignores that a substantial portion of the money spent upgrading the grid, etc, would have necessarily been spent anyway.
Most of the investment in renewables has gone into research and development, and in salaries for people doing actual manufacturing and installations.
We spend megabucks on infrastructure that actually returns very little, or nothing, of lasting value , to the people of the world as a whole, from sports stadiums to highways to nowhere to urban renewal projects that sometimes arguably leave cities WORSE off than if they were never implemented.
The cost of R and D has been partially recovered already, and most or all of the remainder of it will be recovered over the next few decades.
The cost of actual infrastructure has been falling like a rock, and gives promise of continuing to fall fast for quite some time yet. It’s my personal opinion that the prices used in projecting the cost of renewable electricity, compared to the costs of gas and coal fired electricity, are substantially slanted in favor of the gas and coal industries. Inflation alone may drive the cost of gas up much faster than estimated by those making the comparison, and we don’t know for sure that depletion won’t result in the price necessarily going up even faster, as it becomes necessary to turn to ever less desirable resources in the ground. Smaller, deeper, more isolated fields are going to cost a lot more to produce.
Renewable energy means local control over local economies, and renewable energy means greater national security in the case of energy importing countries. The less energy a country must import, the less need it has for a large standing military establishment, which returns almost nothing of value to the people who must pay for it, UNLESS it’s actually put to use of course.
Renewable energy means that fossil fuels are somewhat cheaper, because any time any factor suppresses the sale of a commodity, the price of it tends to fall, everything else held equal.
Cheaper coal, oil, and gas mean cheaper food, cheaper electricity, cheaper heat and air conditioning, cheaper steel, cheaper everything, right across the board.
Hard figures are hard to come by, but I strongly suspect that every dime that we spend on renewable energy subsidies is returned to us,in short order, collectively, by way of reducing what we spend on the fossil fuels we collectively use for all purposes.
If the electric car industry takes off as most of us here in this forum believe it will do, and the wind and solar electricity industries continue to grow as they have in recent years, we will be able to cut our per capita consumption use of oil by as much as a third, within the next decade or two. Everything else held equal, this means that oil will likely be SUBSTANTIALLY cheaper than it would be OTHERWISE, meaning I as a farmer can sell everything from beans to beef for less.
We Yankees will be getting twenty percent of our electricity from the wind and the sun within the easily foreseeable future. We will suffer less asthma, fewer heart attacks, fewer strokes. Our forests will be more productive, our farm land will be more productive , because we will suffer less from the effects of acid rain. We will be spending less on water treatment plants, because we will be dumping less mining wastes into streams.
I maintain that renewable energy is the biggest bargain of the twenty first century, up until now, and that it is likely to remain the biggest bargain of the century for some time to come.
None of this however is to say that we won’t need a lot of fossil fuel fired electricity for quite some time to come, probably for at least three or four more decades at the minimum.
OFM- agree. Some have speculated that E. Mearns is not a trustworthy/unbiased source of analysis on energy issues because he has financial interests or backing directly from/by the fossil fuel industry. I’m not sure about that, but it certainly would explain his heavily biased stance.
Absolutely amazing. The observational data used shows almost no increase in global surface temperature for the late 1990’s onward. NASA has about 0.5C rise for that same period.
Hi Gone Fishing,
I like the data from Berkeley (BEST).
Here is their data from 1986 to 2011 (the data in the IPCC chart is based on four data sets). From 1997 to 2011 the annual temperature increased by 0.12 C.
http://berkeleyearth.org/data/
I used Land ocean data annual summary with air temperature above sea ice.
Dennis, look again. You are sure you are reading that graph correctly?
Hi Gone Fishing,
Here is the BEST data.
1997 0.434
1998 0.581
1999 0.348
2000 0.362
2001 0.501
2002 0.581
2003 0.568
2004 0.47
2005 0.652
2006 0.599
2007 0.607
2008 0.468
2009 0.593
2010 0.675
2011 0.557
I get 0.557 – 0.434 = 0.123 C
Look at the graphs below. Huge differences depending on who produces the graphs. No wonder the politicians are no on fire to listen and no wonder the deniers have traction.
I go with NASA. They have a very wide range of planetary climate experience.
Hi gone fishing,
The IPCC chart uses annual data from 1986 to 2011 for the observations, from 1997 to 2011 the annual data from NASA shows a 0.1K increase in temperature, the BEST data is slightly higher at 0.12 K for the same period.
It is not very clear what your complaint is, the IPCC in 2013 did not have data for anything beyond 2011 (it takes years to prepare the report) so I have shown what the BEST and NASA data show for the 1986 to 2011 period and it is essentially the same.
Here is GISTEMP data (annual) from
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
“Global Mean Surface Temperature Change”
From 1997 to 2011 the temperature increases by 0.1 C for this data set.
The temperature trend over the 25 year period from 1986 to 2011 for GISTEMP is 0.16 C per decade. When the data set is extended from 1986 to 2016 the trend increased to 0.18 C per decade. The long term trend from 1970 to 2016 is 0.178 C per decade. These are all for the GISS data, for BEST the 1970 to 2016 trend is 0.18 C per decade.
BEST data also Land Ocean Global Temperature anomaly with 1951-1980 mean set to zero.
NASA global mean temperature anomaly land and ocean data.
using annual data from that GISS chart from 1997 to 2011 (2011 is where the IPCC data ends for the 2013 AR5)
1996, 0.33
1997, 0.47
1998, 0.62
1999, 0.4
2000, 0.4
2001, 0.53
2002, 0.62
2003, 0.61
2004, 0.53
2005, 0.67
2006, 0.62
2007, 0.64
2008, 0.52
2009, 0.64
2010, 0.7
2011, 0.57
0.57-0.47=0.1
Dennis, I am REALLY TIRED of having to scroll the comment sections past Javier’s crap. I know you enjoy debunking his crap, but it is actually rendering the site much less useful.
There is a reason for banning trolls. This is it. You should do it.
Just click on the little X next to his name and you will experience the bliss of not having to read his comments…
My feeling is NH land temps are what matters the most. The reason I feel this way is because that is where most of the food is grown. The reason warming is important to me is for its impacts. The impacts are likely to be felt most in terms of future food production. Anomaly and which baseline to use are semantics. What matters here is plant physiology, future temps, and the NH jetstream/suitable weather for farming.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vnh/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:12/plot/crutem4vnh/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend
I think it’s the frequency and size of anomaly of extreme events that is more important than the average, although that is the biggest influence on the excursions, but just saying x degrees warmer is much blander than saying y% crop yield lost every z years on average. There was an article in last month’s Nature Climate Change that shows extreme El Nino frequency will double with a warming of 1.5 K (and the frequency increases linearly with GMT so as we aren’t going to stop at 1.5 K it could end up every 4 or 5 years, and likely extreme would become ultra-extreme or something). Extreme La Nina events don’t increase in frequency though. And within each El Nino year there can be natural variability in time and location so the extreme 3 sigma and above events become significantly more likely.
How much warmer is it getting in each month of the year?
There hasn’t been any warming from the late 1990’s onward except for the recent El Niño. That’s why it is called the Pause: “A temporary stop in action or speech.”
So far nobody has been able to successfully predict future temperatures. It is a mass delusion to think that we know how temperatures are going to be in 20, 50, 100 years. Past periods of cooling, warming, or pause, have always surprised the “experts.”
“There hasn’t been any warming from the late 1990’s onward except for the recent El Niño.” – Javier
Fail
Top hottest 10 years as per global land surface temp anomaly:
2016, 2015, 2007, 2010, 2005, 2014, 2013, 1998, 2002, 2012.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/12/12/1880-2016?trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1880&lasttrendyear=2017
Top hottest 10 years as per global land and ocean surface temp anomaly:
2016, 2015, 2014, 2010, 2013, 2005, 2009, 1998, 2012, 2003.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/12/1880-2016?trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1880&lasttrendyear=2017
So far this year it looks like 2017 will squeeze in between 2016 and 2015 and become the new second place.
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-2nd-hottest-globally.html
“So far it looks 2017 will be no close to record warm year” – Javier
http://euanmearns.com/blowout-week-176/#comment-28996
Fail. Again.
Second place is as close as it gets to first place, aka being a record warm year. Your predictions are all so far total failures. Every single one of them.
Hi Javier,
Here is BEST and GISS and the average of the two, annual data from 1995 to 2014 (leaving off el Nino from 2015 and 2016).
There seems to be a positive trend of 0.136 C per decade. Slightly above the 100 year trend of 0.085 C per decade, but less than the 50 year trend of 0.159 C per decade. Also note if we check the trend from the last strong El Nin0 in 1998 to the most recent strong El Nino in 2016 the trend is 0.174 C per decade.
I imagine the 50 year trend might be followed, but this depends on many factors such as greenhouse gas emissions, ENSO, AMO, and volcanic eruptions all of which are difficult to predict.
You are certainly correct that climate knowledge is imperfect as is our ability to predict future events before they have occurred.
This is self-evident to some people.
chart below
Dennis,
Your mileage varies depending on the database of choice. For example UAH 6.0 will give you a slope of 0.0106979 °C per decade.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1995/to:2014/plot/uah6/from:1995/to:2014/trend
If you choose RSS slope = 0.0312593 °C per decade
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2014/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2014/trend
HadCrut4 slope = 0.104175 °C per decade
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1995/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1995/to:2014/trend
So we go from a low end of 0.01 for UAH to a high end of 0.13 for GISTEMP LOTI.
Two observations:
– At present rate it would take nearly a century to raise 1°C.
– There is no indication of acceleration, unless you want to propose that El Niño warming is due to CO2.
I readily accept that the world has been and is warming and that present temperatures are highest recorded by thermometers. I just don’t see that warming with CO2 is much faster than warming prior to CO2. The effect of CO2 appears small and we can adapt to it as we have adapted to the warming that has been taking place since the end of the Little Ice Age. Adapting to warming supposes a lot less problem than adapting to cooling.
Hi Javier,
I disagree, too much warmth is harder to adapt to, you can only take off clothes until naked.
The BEST data is best in my view, the satellite temperatures depend on models which may be inaccurate.
At present rate it would take 88 years to reach 2 C above long term Holocene average temperature.
Also I would use the long term average temperature
Dennis,
You are welcome to choose the database of your choice, just don’t put too much trust on it being better than others. One of the problems with temperature records is that they are a moving target. Temperatures of the past keep changing all the time way more than their supposed error bars due to continuous adjustments. It is impossible to do proper science on data that is changed continuously.
One of the problems with using a single number to represent climate change is that most people don’t really understand what it represents. That the temperature of the planet has been increasing doesn’t mean that everywhere every time it has warmed the same. The warming has occurred preferentially in the Arctic and high latitudes, preferentially through increasing minimum temperatures, more in winter than in summer, and more at night that during the day. The main effect has been that the coldest places in the planet (except Antarctica) have got less cold. Maximum temperatures at the tropics have not increased much, so nobody has had to take clothes off. The planet has become a nicer place due to global warming.
Another effect is that due to the reduction in the meridional temperature gradient the climate has less extreme weather manifestations. It is not by chance that the number of strong hurricanes has got so low. The same goes for tornadoes and severe droughts.
Hi Javier,
Increasing temperatures may become a problem over the long term, it will depend in part on the rate of increase and how well plants and animals can adapt. There might also be a negative effect on agriculture as warmer is not always better and rainfall may also be affected in a warming world.
We cannot predict the effects very well, you believe they will only be positive, I would say we don’t really know so why experiment with the planet.
Hi Dennis,
So you think we can predict climate change but not its effects. You have it backwards. We cannot predict climate change, but we know the effects of both warming or cooling.
And it is well known between paleo scientists that warming beats the hell out of cooling in terms of positive effects.
The increase in biodiversity and ecosystem productivity with the decrease in latitude is known since the late 18th century. As the planet becomes more tropical (the tropics expand) the productivity of the whole planet increases, and we are already taking advantage of that.
As the warming comes with increased humidity, the effect is double goodness. A 14% greening of the planet has been measured since 1980, mainly from semi-arid regions, while forests are expanding in many areas.
Not every effect will be positive, but the positives are going to seriously dominate over the negatives.
And a dominant species like ours is a planetary experiment by definition, as are ants. We are doing many changes to the planet, and probably most of them are bad, but increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is one of the good changes. I am quite sure it will be recognized as such in the future when we are over the global warming scare.
Hi Javier,
If one reads a very limited set of scientists, I suppose one could conclude what you have.
You are correct that we cannot predict precisely either future climate or the effects.
Global average temperature has not varied very much over the past 11,000 years varying within about a 1 C range, over all but the past 100 years atmospheric CO2 was between 260 and 295 ppm, the models do a fairly good job of reproducing the past.
Your dual claims that we do not know what will happen, but that mostly positive things will happen seem to be mutually exclusive.
We have experienced colder temperatures than the past 11,000 years during Glacial maximums and the flora and fauna of the planet survived, note that Global temperatures were about 4 C less than the HCO during the LGM.
It has been millions of years since the planet has experienced Global average temperatures above the HCO, your claim that you know that high temperatures will be more positive than negative seems specious. The planet has indeed greened, it does not follow that more warming will mean more greening, it did not work that way for the Sahara. The fact is we don’t know how much the Earth will warm (climate sensitivity is not known precisely, but based on the evidence is likely between 2.5 and 4 C) nor do we know what the effects will be. Better not to experiment with the only planet we have in my opinion any more than we have already done.
As you often point out, past performance does not predict future performance, I agree non-linearity is far more likely, along with chaotic effects making prediction a problem.
So why do you feel confident that you can predict what will happen? Everyone is wrong but you? Is that your claim?
Hi Dennis,
“If one reads a very limited set of scientists, I suppose one could conclude what you have.”
Due to my scientific background I have done a deliberate effort at reading both positions and try to determine as neutrally as possible what position is best supported by evidence. I have no skin in this game. It would be the same to me that it was all due to CO2. It simply doesn’t appear to be supported by the evidence.
“Your dual claims that we do not know what will happen, but that mostly positive things will happen seem to be mutually exclusive.”
That’s what the evidence supports. The 350 year long global warming has been a blessing to the world. The LIA sucked big time both to humans and ecosystems. There is no evidence that the advantages of warming are close to disappear and the disadvantages become dominant. There is a limit, no doubt, but we have no information on where it lies, and temperatures are heavily regulated in this planet, so we have no evidence that it is even possible to reach it.
“We have experienced colder temperatures than the past 11,000 years during Glacial maximums and the flora and fauna of the planet survived, note that Global temperatures were about 4 C less than the HCO during the LGM.”
We have lots of evidence that the glacial period was very stressful to most temperate species, and that the lack of CO2 might have limited plant productivity. Such a world would only support a fraction of current human population.
“It has been millions of years since the planet has experienced Global average temperatures above the HCO”
Not true. The Eemian was significantly warmer than the Holocene and sea levels reached 6 meters above present. That was about 125,000 years ago.
“So why do you feel confident that you can predict what will happen? Everyone is wrong but you? Is that your claim?”
It has been demonstrated that conservative predictions tend to be better than radically different predictions. This is because things tend to continue being as they have been more often than not.
Not everybody is making alarmist climate predictions for the next 50 years. Those that do are certainly wrong.
The best prediction according to the conservative rule is that global warming will continue at the pace we have observed for the past 50 years and that did not cause us any serious problem. Next in probability is that global warming will not take place for the next 50 years. The chances that climate is going to get into a warming run away are very low, because it is not supported by evidence and based on shaky assumptions.
Just wait and see. At some point the lack of evidence of significant warming is going to become impossible to ignore.
Hi Javier,
You are correct, the Eemian was warmer, maybe about 1 C higher than the 1951-1980 mean global temperature. With 6 meters of sea level rise this could be a problem, though we don’t have a great handle on the rate of sea level rise as far as I know during the Eemian.
Dennis,
The graph is relative to 2005? They keep moving the goal post. If you go back and start from 1750 then 2016 was already at 2C. The IPCC is clearly kidding themselves…. We can’t avoid a tipping point just by moving the starting point.
Speaking of tipping points, CO2 is spiking all around the arctic. GeorgeH is likely right about one thing, changes in emissions cant stop CO2 from continuing to rise. It’s too late to stop it now.
Hi Preston,
It all depends how one defines pre-industrial temperature. Some people use 1850-1900, which was a relatively cold period. If we take 10,000 BP to 200 BP (where P=1950), it is fairly close to the 1985-2005 average used in AR5.
Now if you think 1850-1900 is special in the 10,000 year Holocene, you can use that as your baseline which is about 0.5 C less than the 1986-2005 mean.
In any case the 10 C warming by 2026 is very far-fetched and does not match the science.
Wait a minute, you want to base things on a single year? What is so special about 1750?
There are another 9800 years before that in the Holocene that you could choose, most of which were warmer than 1750.
Temperature was descending during the time period you mention. 1750 is good because it is the approximate start of the industrial revolution. Just far enough back to be a good baseline point without getting into the long term natural cooling.
I see though from the data being presented that anyone can choose just about any result that they like. So there is no point other than in watching the gross natural changes that are occurring.
No wonder so many people are not paying much attention to climate change. All this varying data sure gives the deniers a huge amount of traction.
The migrating birds, melting Arctic and dead coral have their own tales but they are quiet and don’t self publish. I guess some large methane hydrate burps might convince some people but if they don’t cause huge devastation quickly then they will be whitewashed and ignored.
“Experts” will come forward to say how this has all happened in the past and is nothing to worry about, that it is good for us in some twisted way.
At least the Lilliputians all agreed that it was an egg they were talking about. We can’t even seem to do that.
Hi Gone fishing,
I am not denying that temperature has increased, it most surely has, it has just not really been clear how the 2 C limit was decided and what is meant by pre-industrial temperature.
Over the past 11,000 years Global temperatures have varied by about 1 C, that is the temperature range within which human civilization developed, the average over that period has been about 0.2 C relative to the 1961-1990 Global average temperature. We don’t have a very good estimate of the temperature in 1750, but this was a relatively cool period in human history (about 0.4 C below the 1961-1990 average and 0.6 C below the average of the past 11,000 years.)
Note the recent data on the chart is the 21 year centered average temperature and ends in 2005 at 0.6 C, temperatures are relative to the 1961-1990 average temperature (set at zero).
With the temperature falling for 6000 years, why make up some arbitrary zero point, why not just use the data?
Source? Land data? Ocean data? Both? Neither?
Hi Gone fishing,
I am using science (by Marcott et al) to estimate global temperatures for the past 11,000 years.
Human civilization thrived and developed during the HCO, perhaps any temperatures above that would be catastrophic, in any case 1.5 C above the 1850-1900 average temp (we don’t have very good data before this) would be about 1.14K above the 1951-1980 average and 0.64 K above the peak warmth of the HCO about 7000 BP.
In any case my main point was that a 9 C increase in Global temperatures from 2016 to 2026 is highly unlikely.
Do you disagree with that proposition?
As I said why set zero at a modern temperature? Why not just use the actual data. That 0.7 degree fall over seven thousand years is 1/50 or less of the modern rise rate (low resolution of the graph inhibits accuracy but then again the data probably has a wide error range).
Latest rates of rise show +2.5C/century which should accelerate due to various increasing factors.
As far as the 9C by 2026, I was trained to look at boundary values and do not like to suppress thoughtful results. One must first look at a problem as if it could exist, measure it, find the sources of energy change involved and see if it fits anywhere within a possible distribution of results. With the large number of knowns with unassigned coefficients and unknown interactions, it might be possible.
Paleo evidence shows it has happened before.
Hi Gone fishing,
Does the Paleo evidence suggest a 9 C change in temperature over 10 years?
Can you point me to the evidence that suggests Global average temperatures have changed by 10 C in 10 years in the past 800,000 years?
The temperature data is from Marcott et al 2013 through 1740 and then the 21 year average of Berkeley Earth annual land ocean temperature data from 1851 to 2005.
Again I will go with the IPCC Global Climate models which suggest a mean change of about 1.2 C from the 1986-2005 mean until 2050 for RCP4.5 which is the most likely emissions scenario from a peak fossil fuels perspective (and note that my scenarios are considered very optimistic by many here and are mostly consistent with RCP4.5). Even the cornucopian RCP8.5 with carbon emissions 3 times larger than my medium scenarios results in less than 3 C of warming above the 1850-1900 mean for the highest climate sensitivity models.
The 10 C warming by 2026 is nearly 5 times that level and also twice as high as the change from the LGM to today (about 4.5C difference in Global average temperatures based on Shakun et al 2012.
http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/mcintyre/shakun-co2-temp-lag-nat12.pdf
Marcott et al2013
http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Economics%207004/Marcott_Global%20Temperature%20Reconstructed.pdf
Hi Gone fishing,
I will continue to go with what the mainstream climate science says, especially over the short term, longer term permafrost and ice sheet melt could be a problem. Snow cover is already included in the climate models along with the associated albedo effects, reduced aerosols is also covered (especially in RCP 2.6).
With a transition to solar, wind, and nuclear and depletion of fossil fuels and sane policy (as in the EU) a scenario roughly between RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 is most likely, best if we were closer to RCP2.6, but that might require the scenarios presented by Tony Seba to be correct.
The problem with claims that 8 C of warming between 2016 and 2026 is a likely outcome is that such claims look foolish after the fact. The most warming expected (not accounting for permafrost and ice sheet effects) from RCP6 or lower is about 5C of warming from the 1850-1900 mean to 3000 CE, this assumes constant ARF (anthropogenic radiative forcing) from 2300 to 3000 at 6 W/m2. In reality ARF will slowly decrease as emission will have stopped and greenhouse gases will gradually be sequestered over 700 years so ARF will decrease a bit.
Fig below from AR5WG1 Chapter 12 Fig 12.43
Dennis,
I think I already told you that. It came from a document from the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), essentially pulled out of thin air. There is really no scientific reason to think there is any limit that we can determine to warming that can divide it between safe and unsafe.
“The late Quaternary period has shaped our present-day environment, with the lowest temperatures occurring in the last ice age (mean minimum around 10.4°C) and the highest temperatures during the last interglacial period (mean maximum around 16.1°C). If this temperature range is exceeded in either direction, dramatic changes in the composition and function of today’s ecosystems can be expected. The tolerable temperature window is therefore 10.4˚C to 16.1˚C. If we extend the tolerance range by a further 0.5°C at either end, then the tolerable temperature window extends from 9.9°C to 16.6°C. Today’s global mean temperature is around 15.3°C, which means that the temperature span to the tolerable maximum is currently only 1.3°C (~2˚C above the pre-industrial global mean).”
German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
http://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/sondergutachten/sn1995/wbgu_sn1995_engl.pdf
Huffington Post:What’s So Special About 2 Degrees Celsius?
Pure madness to think that half a degree below the ice age mean minimum temperature is tolerable. At that temperature a great part of the Northern Hemisphere becomes covered in ice sheets. These people appear not to know what they talk about.
Hi Javier,
It seems to me that for the flora and fauna of the planet that are well adapted to the range of temperatures experienced in the last 100,000 years or so that there is some optimum temperature range.
For the past 11,000 years mean global temperatures have averaged about 14.9 C with a range of 14.4 C to 15.3 C through the end of the 20th century. I imagine there is an upper limit to what is a safe upper limit and I tend to defer to those ecologists and biologists that have studied the issue.
Is your claim that there is no upper limit?
My guess is that average global temperatures of 20 C would be a serious problem.
Dennis,
There is no way of getting to a 20°C average. The climate is full of negative feedbacks and we are at the bottom of the Quaternary Ice Age. The oceans are incredibly cold (~ 3.9°C). The thermal inertia of the planet is huge. Only to get out of the Ice Age might take several million years of warming. At present we are hanging on to a finishing interglacial ready to go back to the default glacial period state. That we are worried about warming is hopelessly funny.
Global warming is 350 years old, and the Holocene is full of multi-centennial warming and cooling periods. Global warming will eventually end and will be substituted by global cooling, as it always has. It is unlikely though that we will be alive when that happens.
After 650 million years of life-compatible tightly regulated temperatures, if it was possible to have a runaway warming or cooling it would have already taken place. The planet has seen things we can’t even imagine.
Hi Preston,
Global data goes back to about 1850 for Land and Ocean in 1850 it was -0.48 C and in 2016 it was 0.946 C, so a change of 1.4 C.
For the Holocene before 1750 the average temperature was 0.15 C relative to the 1951-1980 mean from 11,000 BP to 200 BP (1750 CE).
For about 5000 years, the temperature was close to the 1986-2005 mean temperature of 0.36 C (from about 10,000 BP to 5000 BP.)
Probably the 1971-2000 mean temperature should be used as this is quite close to the pre-industrial Holocene mean.
Data is from Marcott et al 2013
Might be interesting to see what CO2 levels were like 2.7 million years ago.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/record-shattering-27-million-year-old-ice-core-reveals-start-ice-ages
Described at the Goldschmidt Conference in Paris by Yuzhen Yan, a graduate student at Princeton University, the ice revealed atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels that did not exceed 300 parts per million, well below today’s levels. Some models of ancient climate predict that such relatively low levels would be needed to tip Earth into a series of ice ages. But some proxies gleaned from the fossils of animals that lived in shallow oceans had indicated higher CO2 levels. If the new result holds up, says Yige Zhang, a paleoclimatologist at Texas A&M University in College Station, the proxies will need to be recalibrated. “We have some work to do.”
https://goldschmidt.info/2017/abstracts/abstractView?id=2017004920
2.7-Million-Year-Old Ice from Allan Hills Blue Ice Areas, East Antarctica Reveals Climate Snapshots Since Early Pleistocene
Yan Y, Ng J, Higgins J, Kurbatov A, Clifford H, Spaulding N, Severinghaus J, Brook E, Mayewski P & Bender M
2.7-million-year-old ice from Allan
Hills Blue Ice Areas, East Antarctica
reveals climate snapshots since early
Pleistocene
Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ (*correspondence: yuzheny@princeton.edu) 2
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of
California, San Diego, CA 3
University of Maine, Climate Change Institute, Orono, ME 4
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
A tight coupling between atmospheric CO2 and global
climate over the last 800 thousand years (kyr) has been established by analyzing ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice cores. 1-million-year-old (Ma) ice has been found in Allan Hills Blue Ice Areas (AH BIAs), East Antarctica [1], a region where old ice flows along the rising bedrock and approaches the surface. Although the blue ice core is stratigraphically disturbed, it provides the first direct observations of pCO2 before 800 kyr as “climate snapshots”.
Here we report the discovery of clean, ancient, bubbly ice as old as 2.7±0.3 Ma at shallow depth from AH BIAs. The ice is dated by precisely measuring the isotopic composition of argon in the trapped air. Radiogenically produced by 40K in the solid Earth, 40Ar accumulates over time in the atmosphere.
By contrast 38Ar and 36Ar are primordial and have constant atmospheric burdens. A further benefit of our analytical procedures is the ability to measure Xe/Kr ratios in the same aliquot of extracted ice core gas, allowing the reconstruction of past mean ocean temperature.
The old ice can be binned into three age groups: 1 Ma, 1.5 Ma, and 2+ Ma, disturbed by layers of ≤800 ka ice. This age depth relationship indicates large-scale disturbance in the ice stratigraphy, reinforcing the concept of climate snapshots instead of time-series. Three climate proxies (Xe/Kr, δDice, and pCH4) fall within the range of variations in the in the recent
100-kyr glacial cycles, but with reduced variability.
Note to denialists, this does not disprove the current scientific consensus and does not bode well for those predicting a new ice age or even a reversal of the diminishing Arctic sea ice volume trend.
So far no one has even attempted to answer a question I posed previously. Explain how the Arctic which is receiving 45 w/m2 less solar radiation than it was 11,000 years ago is now melting from just a few w/m2 due to global warming.
The Arctic is a lot more complex than that, GoneFishing. It had similar insolation and similar CO2 levels in 1100 AD as in 1600 AD. In one case sea ice was very reduced and allowed the colonization of Greenland by Vikings, while in the other sea ice was so extended that it almost reached Scotland during the winters, isolating Iceland and driving the vikings out of Greenland. Other factors play an important role in Arctic climate. The climate of the Arctic starts at the stratosphere with the polar vortex, and ends with the variable strength and temperature of the North Atlantic current that enters the Arctic. The Arctic Oscillation plays a very important role.
So you basically have no idea.
Exactly. But I know that we don’t know and that calculating w/m2 will not give you the answer.
I see that you do not even comprehend the question. It’s a physics thing.
I have been wondering for a while, if the Islamization of the West is linked to peak oil and our dependency on Middle Eastern oil? Do the vendors of the lifeblood of our civilization demand that we adopt their culture and religion? Are there backroom deals about this?
All over the West we have now significant Muslim migration. Muslims enter our political arenas and halal food is ubiquitous in Australia. Sharia Law is creeping into our legal system.
What drives this and who is behind it? Any hard facts would be appreciated.
All over the West we have now significant Muslim migration. Muslims enter our political arenas and halal food is ubiquitous in Australia. Sharia Law is creeping into our legal system.
Don’t worry Craig, it’s just a temporary phase, as we transition to solar we will soon all be eating locust pizza, worshiping the sun and everyone will be walking like an Egyptian!
.
Since the sun is the driving force of the natural life system on this planet, I will join just as long as I don’t have to balance that ball on top of my head and walk around wearing a funny skirt (bad enough I do that when kayaking). 🙂
You balance a ball on top of your head when kayaking!?
I never tried that one… ?
I cheat, the ball is glued to the top of the helmet. It helps correct for the rock in my head so I don’t float around head downward.
” I gotta rock in my head and a roll in my boat.
But the roll keeps getting soggy. ”
Strum, strum …. strum strum (guitar music)
Things I used to do when a decade or more younger.
Everybody learned from these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g5AveMsI3Q
This one was a lot of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIM-TQthxTM
Did this one at higher water -nasty limestone tunnels under the water for the swimmers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S3_MwsQ3yE
One of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeUiS_Zi_6w
Try this… And no, there is no way in hell, I would have done it even in my wildest moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNXh9gXDd2Y
Highest I did was about 50 feet. The 20 footers are fun, some are so aerated that it’s like sitting down on a bed. Of course you plunge deep then.
Even a 50 footer can have bad problems due to aerodynamics taking over and possibility of hitting green water or landing flat.
A fellow I know who held the highest waterfall records for a while (up to 110 feet) would put jugs of water in the bow and fold over forward on the bow to prevent the bow from rising and prevent a broken back if the kayak went horizontal.
I have a personal relationship with God.
She hates me.
Think deeper. The demographic trends of MENA and OECD couldn’t be more different. Syria went from 6 million in 1960 to over 20 million before the war. Now they have more people outside the country than what they had inside 50 years ago.
History shows that when people want to move because they don’t find what they need, nothing can stop them. Do you feel a little like the Australian aborigines that couldn’t stop a wave that changed their world? That will do you good.
Seems more like an invasion, doesn’t it?
Craig,
If I was going to worry about a big culture trying to take over the Americas, or Australia, and assert its authoritarian and militaristic stranglehold over the people, well just remember that we are about 500 yrs into it now. Its called Christianity.
What we need is freedom of, and from, religion. All of them.
“The principle’s the same. The Mohmedans don’t come ’round here wavin’ bells at us! We don’t get Buddhists playing bagpipes in our bathroom! Or Hindus harmonizing in the hall! The Shintus don’t come here shattering sheet glass in the shithouse, shouting slogans.”
“Well, you could always use the number 14-St. Joseph-the-somewhat- divine-on-the-hill ballistic missile. It’s in the attic. ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBlRB1HH2g
Craig — it’s pretty simple.
For many decades now, money going to Saudi Arabia — paying for oil — has been used by the Saudi Arabian princes to fund extremist right-wing fundamentalist (Wahhabbi) schools (madrassas) and mosques throughout the world. This flood of money to Wahabbis has been displacing and destroying more normal “live and let live” forms of Islam. It’s also been converting people (because people will follow well-funded cult leaders).
The first effect is actually the migration of *normal liberal* Muslims to the West, to escape the Wahhabis. These are people we should welcome. The second effect, of course, is that the Wahhabis try to force their twisted version of Islam on Muslims even in the west by claiming to be the “only true Muslims” — this is happening particularly in the UK.
All of this is made worse by funding Saudi Arabia, the most backwards, bigoted, regressive, evil government in the world. Without the oil money, the Wahhabis would have less influence than Pat Robertson (who is just as bad as they are, and in exactly the same way).
“…documents indicate an extensive apparatus inside the Saudi government dedicated to missionary activity that brings in officials from the Foreign, Interior and Islamic Affairs Ministries, the intelligence service and the office of the king.
Recent initiatives have included putting foreign preachers on the Saudi payroll, building mosques, schools and study centers, and undermining foreign officials and news media deemed threatening to the kingdom’s agenda.
At times, the king got involved, ordering an Iranian television station off the air or granting $1 million to an Islamic association in India.
“We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organizations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence because they are directly or indirectly funded by them,” said Usama Hasan, a senior researcher in Islamic studies at the Quilliam Foundation in London. “It has been a huge factor, and the Saudi influence is undeniable.”
While the documents do not show any Saudi support for militant activity, critics argue that the kingdom’s campaign against Shiites — and its promotion of a strict form of Islam — have eroded pluralism in the Muslim world and added to the tensions fueling conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
The Saudi government has made no secret of its international religious mission…
The Foreign Ministry relayed funding requests to officials in Riyadh, the Interior Ministry and the intelligence agency sometimes vetted potential recipients, the Saudi-supported Muslim World League helped coordinate strategy, and Saudi diplomats across the globe oversaw projects. Together, these officials identified sympathetic Muslim leaders and associations abroad, distributed funds and religious literature produced in Saudi Arabia, trained preachers and gave them salaries to work in their own countries.
One example of this is Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, an Indian Islamic scholar who was educated in Saudi Arabia and worked for the kingdom for four decades in Kenya and in Britain, where he helped found the Islamic Sharia Council, according to a cable from the Saudi Embassy in London whose contents were verified by his son, Mr. Hasan of the Quilliam Foundation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/world/middleeast/wikileaks-saudi-arabia-iran.html?_r=0
Offshore aquaculture could produce large quantities of food- mapping the potential article from “Nature”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0257-9.epdf?author_access_token=pGhG7Rv4efNxiL9xsvawndRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NiqWno_IO8OJR-USQrcrtnm-X4iOubmm48hsiXqQwb5Lv6fpUNSmTm-yS2s_Q2TwLUpD-FQFqDFeGEjRtp-Px0cgW-3Ik5COQ3MNgQ92nAbA%3D%3D
Cut-marked and broken human bones are a recurrent feature of Magdalenian (~17–12,000 years BP, uncalibrated dates) European sites. Human remains at Gough’s Cave (UK) have been modified as part of a Magdalenian mortuary ritual that combined the intensive processing of entire corpses to extract edible tissues and the modification of skulls to produce skull-cups. A human radius from Gough’s Cave shows evidence of cut marks, percussion damage and human tooth marks, indicative of cannibalism, as well as a set of unusual zig-zagging incisions on the lateral side of the diaphysis. These latter incisions cannot be unambiguously associated with filleting of muscles. We compared the macro- and micro-morphological characteristics of these marks to over 300 filleting marks on human and non-human remains and to approximately 120 engraved incisions observed on two artefacts from Gough’s Cave. The new macro- and micro-morphometric analyses of the marks, as well as further comparisons with French Middle Magdalenian engraved artefacts, suggest that these modifications are the result of intentional engraving. The engraved motif comfortably fits within a Magdalenian pattern of design; what is exceptional in this case, however, is the choice of raw material (human bone) and the cannibalistic context in which it was produced. The sequence of the manipulations suggests that the engraving was a purposeful component of the cannibalistic practice, implying a complex ritualistic funerary behaviour that has never before been recognized for the Palaeolithic period.
A sign of the future?
Life, itself, is one giant cannibal, so yes, an ongoing sign of the past, present and future, assuming no manufactured food. Soylent Green? Bah. That’s small potatoes. “Truth is stranger than fiction.” ~ Mark Twain.
Enjoy your burger.
Finally – the “global eclipsing” hoax exploded.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/do-you-believe-the-eclipse-is-going-to-happen/537090/
#fakescience
That’s assuming you really give a fuck, such as beyond the crony-capitalist plutarchy profit-motive.
Currently, it is that system that derives alternative energy tech and it is not set up to ‘better people’s lives’ or other animals’, unless you are talking about the lives of some elite/limited number, and even then…
Caelan MacIntyre
Here are some great examples of what that evil crony-capitalist plutarchy profit-motive is capable of doing…
ANNOUNCING THE 2017 FULLER CHALLENGE SEMIFINALISTS
https://www.bfi.org/dymaxion-forum/2017/08/announcing-2017-fuller-challenge-semifinalists
They are all really evil and go against everything that the Koch Brothers and Trump stand for!
BUT! This one in particular is especially evil!
SOLARKIOSK http://solarkiosk.eu/ is a social enterprise that distributes E-HUBBs: an energy-connectivity gateway and last-mile distribution network for underserved communities. A single E-HUBB can accommodate 40 kWp solar panels, a battery pack for 24/7 power supply, power monitoring capabilities, a wireless hotspot antenna, phone and computer charging, a printer, an LED TV, a solar fridge, a fan, an alarm, air conditioning, a water purification system, interior lighting as well as flood lights, medical equipment, and a minimum of 20 meters of shelving and storage space. The flexibility of the E-HUBB has been demonstrated by various specialty applications, including: an education center at the Kafa Biosphere Reserve in Ethiopia; a solar school unit for the displaced population at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan; a health clinic supporting the efforts of the Jordan Ministry of Health for displaced populations; a water purification E-HUBB in Kenya; and a banking kiosk that will bring financial tools to off-grid populations in Nigeria. E-HUBBs can be modified to provide spaces for gathering communities, education, health, retail, administration, water purification, and more. This project has grown very rapidly, meeting communities’ needs while empowering local entrepreneurs and boosting livelihoods. Ninety percent of the E-Hubb operators are women.
Gee! Next thing you know those uppity brown and black women will start wanting to have fewer children… Not sure we can allow that, now, can we!
Hi Fred,
So far as I have been able to determine, the idiot box aka television had as much or more to do with the extremely sharp and generally unanticipated drop in birth rates in Brazil.
It appears that when young Brazilian women who were already on the way to being in control of their own lives started watching tv, and seeing the women ON television living better in part because they had fewer or no children, that was all the trigger needed.
Since you have friends and maybe relatives as well there, it would be great to have your input in respect to the hows and whys of this dramatic drop in birth rates.
There ain’t no global warming! But try explaining that that to the salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Somehow they just don’t understand those graphs showing all that cooling…
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/steelhead-struggling-home-in-record-low-numbers/
Warm-water conditions in the Columbia and Snake Rivers are challenging cold water salmon and steelhead — and the problem is likely to get worse because of climate change.
At the end of the day it’s the biosphere, stupid! That’s where the rubber really hits the road and the denialists can cherry pick all the graphs they want to show how things are cooling, well, they just aren’t!
Salmon are tough beasts that since the Pleistocene have radiated over a wide geography, with brilliant adaptive capacity and an adventuresome proclivity to stray to colonize new habitats. But the Northwest salmon and steelhead nonetheless have genetics tuned for cold water, noted Jack Stanford, an emeritus professor of ecology with the University of Montana, affiliated with the Flathead Lake Biological Station.
In water warmer than 70 degrees, Stanford said, Pacific salmon and steelhead tend to slow down, or stop migrating altogether. Their susceptibility to disease goes way up.
Ice Age fish are not going to do well in the new “Where’s the Ice?” world.
Whadda ya think? Maybe we could introduce some tropical Piranhas into the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
Might be a little early for that.
You mean aquarium owners haven’t dumped them in already?
Got them up here in the rivers. The Muskies and Northern Pike love to eat them. Fishermen get startled when catching them, don’t know what they are and then they see the teeth.
Better to introduce these, nature’s answer to sport fishermen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iBL-I4xdk
Hopefully the local fish and game people will enact regulations that enable commercial fishermen to harvest as many as possible of these fish and sell them for whatever they’re good for.
If they taste like crap, they’ll still serve nicely as a protein supplement in livestock feed.
Reversing Inequality
Researchers have been underestimating the cost of wind and solar
The EROI of solar PV would probably still be too low in most applications. In any event, we need to be examining situations more closely, instead of simply assuming that hidden subsidies can be counted on indefinitely.”
Can’t you do any better than that? Citing Hall’s EROEI estimates for solar and wind, via Our Finite World, is about as poor and discredited a source as you can possibly get! Why don’t you cite a study from the Heartland Institute? But you are right about one thing, we should examine more closely the benefits of both solar and wind.
An interesting analysis about the side benefits of wind and solar from a slightly more reputable source than the one you cite.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017134
The climate and air-quality benefits of wind and solar power in the United States
Dev Millstein, Ryan Wiser, Mark Bolinger & Galen Barbose
Abstract
Wind and solar energy reduce combustion-based electricity generation and provide air-quality and greenhouse gas emission benefits. These benefits vary dramatically by region and over time. From 2007 to 2015, solar and wind power deployment increased rapidly while regulatory changes and fossil fuel price changes led to steep cuts in overall power-sector emissions. Here we evaluate how wind and solar climate and air-quality benefits evolved during this time period. We find cumulative wind and solar air-quality benefits of 2015 US$29.7–112.8 billion mostly from 3,000 to 12,700 avoided premature mortalities, and cumulative climate benefits of 2015 US$5.3–106.8 billion. The ranges span results across a suite of air-quality and health impact models and social cost of carbon estimates. We find that binding cap-and-trade pollutant markets may reduce these cumulative benefits by up to 16%. In 2015, based on central estimates, combined marginal benefits equal 7.3 ¢ kWh−1 (wind) and 4.0 ¢ kWh−1 (solar).
Solar PV and wind turbines are being installed because of economics, they are the better energy bargain. That is sad. Sad because the benefits are so far ranging above and beyond the simple economics of profit. Societies that focus on money will miss a tremendous opportunity to build a new energy infrastructure in time to avoid a lot of disruption, death and pain. Societies that promote this energy shift above and beyond the profit will thrive and be much more secure.
Absolutely true. But in the US, we missed our chance to promote the shift for reasons other than profit back during the oil-company coup against the elected President Gore, back in 2000.
Enough reality for the day.
Junior won- the vote was 5-4.
Societies that focus on money will miss a tremendous opportunity to build a new energy infrastructure in time to avoid a lot of disruption, death and pain.
So what to do about societies that allow the likes of the Koch brothers, who actually accept the scientific consensus about the causes and consequences of climate change, and don’t give a rat’s ass about the disruption, death and pain their activities cause the population at large?
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/09/pruitt-climate-science-challenge-splits-conservative-allies-241426
EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s attacks on mainstream climate science are causing discomfort in a surprising corner — among many of the conservative and industry groups that have cheered his efforts to dismantle Barack Obama’s environmental regulations.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, political groups backed by the Koch brothers and the top lobbying organizations for the coal, oil, natural gas and power industries are among those so far declining to back Pruitt’s efforts to undermine the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, according to more than a dozen interviews by POLITICO. Some advocates privately worry that the debate would politically harm moderate Republicans, while wasting time and effort that’s better spent on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory rollback.
Note to climate change denialists: If even the Koch brothers officially accept the scientific consensus on climate change you might want to just shut up already and stop spouting your constant nonsense.
The climate movement has moved down to the state and local level for now. The federal level is having a nostalgia period back in the 19th century. So just keep nibbling at the edges.
Fred, did you catch this one from our resident anarchist?
“While it may be relatively easy to place a solar electric panel on every rooftop of the world’s 7+ billion people (my tongue in cheek), it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them. Ditto with an electric vehicle.”
How did you like the Venezuela part and my most recent comment about cultural imperialism?
…it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them.
Really?! What a moronic point of view!
See my comment and watch the video in the link below
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-aug17-2017/#comment-612434
My personal experience is that people living at the bottom of the economic ladder in low and middle income countries who have not previously had access to basic services such as electricity and cellphones, do not tend to break these things once they acquire them. To these people these are not toys or luxuries they are the difference between extreme hardship and poverty and having an opportunity to experience a much higher quality of life. If not the difference between life and death at least the difference between day and night.
It’s easy to be a proponent of fantasy anarchy when you have all the comforts and benefits of living in the first world while decrying alternative energy technology as being evil.
Try walking a few miles on an empty stomach, with a 5 gallon container of water on your head during a drought and then go light your home with an expensive and dirty kerosene lantern which keeps you a slave to fossil fuels!
It’s as if neither of you have ever heard of or considered vandalism from riots, social unrest/decay, war, or people being mowed down by vehicles.
Police investigating anti-gentrification link after luxury cars torched in Saint-Henri
And this is in a relatively-stable place like Montreal, Canada, and at a time when the potential for social destabilization that oil depletion in part underpins and assorted, and often misguided, ill-advised, inequable, elite-based etc. attempts at ‘transition’ have yet to really kick in.
I guess it in part depends on who gets the solar electric panels and electric cars, etc., and who gets left out.
I’ll bet it’s the anarchist who gets left out.
I hate when that happens.
Pretty lame example. Now I have been at riots. Overturned police cars, burning buildings, gunfire, assault weapons, National guard and state police called in to stop it up. Fire fighters getting shot at, now that is insurrection.
Are you advocating insurrection?
It’s supposed to be a ‘lame’ example because as I already wrote with the item, ‘this is in a relatively-stable place like Montreal, Canada, and at a time when… attempts at ‘transition’ have yet to really kick in.’.
That helps make my point.
Yea, sounds like Isla Vista in 1969-70.
You knew when the Tak Squad was in your yard at in the morning, it was going to be a day of street fighting, and you were going to be gassed for sure, and hopefully not clubbed.
Might get to overturn a police car or two, which was always fun.
And hopefully someone has matches for the ROTC building.
I’m just about to read The Complexity of Cultural Evolution.
I may have said this before, maybe on The Oil Drum, though, but if I was an anthropologist of the future– maybe as a member of a different species by then (a Permaean haha)– and had access to a time machine, I might choose to study this era.
Isla Vista sounds just so quaint by comparison, don’t you think?
I kind of regret taking the interior down to LA all the time, rather than the coast by the way.
Importantly, complex adaptive systems are always far from equilibrium.
That sums it up.
You made your point. Canada has a handful of semi-violent malcontents. The gentry are aghast and paranoid. “attacking cars is attacking individuals” give me a break. One BMW. Lame and hype.
It’s as if neither of you have ever heard of or considered vandalism from riots, social unrest/decay, war, or people being mowed down by vehicles.
Yeah, I was on the streets of Sao Paulo during many recent riots. I also was there as a kid during the Military coup. So What’s your point?!
See below.
$100,000 Vandalism at the First Solar/Exelon Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One
Solar panels and windows smashed in vandalism spree at Reynolds school
Yuma earthquake monitoring station vandalized
One more reason to take guns away from anarchists
How?
With the power of the state. You didn’t see them in Boston today did you ?
Actually, give them to the anarchists—
For the anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is influenced by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown
May I recommend a reading that will increase the basic literacy on the subject, something that is obviously lacking on this blog?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism:_From_Theory_to_Practice
Gee! There are vandals in the world and they do cause damage to all kinds of things including research stations, schools, hospitals, businesses, oil refineries, etc… And EVs like all other cars, are sometimes involved in accidents due to driver error. We live in a world where people sometimes fly airplanes into buildings on purpose. Are we all supposed to curl up in the fetal position because of all that and stop living?
Graffiti and graffiti cleaning is a multi-billion dollar industry. What gets me is the huge amount of money these people must be spending on spray paint.
…
It is simply an article I happened to catch that I thought to share, and seeing as Gail Tverberg was part of TOD group.
In any case, I’m not so sure as you seem to be that it is a ‘poor and discredited a source as you can possibly get’ and of course, we also have others raising similar issues, including the Mark Jacobson and Christopher Clack debate.
I just listened to an interview with Clack, incidentally. He seems pretty rational and reasonable.
As for your link, well that’s all fine and nice, but have you read the full paper? At your link, it appears to be behind a paywall. I’m often able to get around that kind of thing if I’m so motivated, but was just curious to know about you.
To the pseudorenewable energy camp, and with a glance in islandboy’s direction, I will leave you with this thought for today about ‘techno-transitional’ feasibility…
In their calculations of what’s possible, what the tech-focused analyses appear to often, if not entirely, neglect– to say nothing of their own sea changes required– are the ‘sociogeopolitical’ dynamics. The very process of transition– even its attempts– imply disruption, which implies certain levels of destabilization, which implies some undermining of efforts at transition by its very efforts.
While it may be relatively easy to place a solar electric panel on every rooftop of the world’s 7+ billion people (my tongue in cheek), it may be equally easy to deliberately take them back down again, or smash them.
Maybe try to go into Venezuela aroundabout now and try to transition it with solar panels and electric cars.
Maybe try to go into Venezuela aroundabout now and try to transition it with solar panels and electric cars.
While I have never been to, or worked in Venezuela and have only once set foot on the African continent, I do have very strong ties with Brazil and can easily extrapolate my on the ground experience there, to imagine what other places around the world might be like. Especially when it comes to extremes between the haves and the have nots.
Your comment comes across as both ignorant and arrogant.
The truth of the matter is that I have lived and worked with underprivileged people who do not have access to electricity, clean water, medical services and at least have a clue as to what that kind of life is like.
Maybe I missed it, but nothing that you have ever commented gives me any reason to believe that you have done the same. So as far as I can tell at best you are an armchair quarterback with no real life experience of any kind of hardship. Maybe you should sign up for a stint doing some volunteer work in one of these countries yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pJR6o0aKZM
A Different Path
Disruptive Innovation Festival
Search
11:42 / 45:11
A Different Path
Streamed live on Nov 18, 2016
Low-to-middle income (LMI) countries face a number of hurdles to developing a robust economy that works for everyone, but they do have a couple of aces up their sleeves. Firstly, they can learn from the mistakes of highly developed nations, not least by investigating how to design out waste of materials and energy, as well as giving a body swerve to the inherent structural waste found in these economies. Secondly, and this is a related point, they can use modern and emerging technology to help leapfrog some of the more painful stages of the historical development process. And, what’s more, they can make their economies more inclusive in the process.
In this live event at the Disruptive Innovation Festival, we’ll hear from three speakers who each have a wealth of knowledge about how modern technology is being applied in LMI nations. Camille van Gestel is the founder of Waka Waka, who make handheld solar energy devices that have helped more than 1,000,000 people gain access to electricity in the last three years alone. Kirsten Kramer, a Strategy Consultant at Accenture has worked with local communities in Brazil to help them develop local renewable energy solutions. And we’ll hear from Olayinka David-West, of the Lagos Business School, who is working on a project to bring digital financial technologies to millions of Nigerians, reducing barriers some people face to making payments and improving their lives, especially in rural areas. In all cases, technology is being applied to help reduce inequalities and offer new opportunities to those who might otherwise be denied them.
Get back to us when you have helped a few million people better their lives or done something as useful as what these people have done!
Yes I think you already agree, and have sufficiently demonstrated, that you’ve been ‘proudly’ psychologically/ideologically colonized/co-opted by the status-quo.
People in Venezuela and other places around the world need stuff like social stability, independence (like, to not be meddled with by foreign agents/powers), potable water and good food and things like that, not solar photovoltaic panels, electric cars or assorted ‘disruptive innovations’ from the operating systems, like legal and financial, and self-serving narratives, etc. of self-described leaders, saviors or imperialists running amok, and ‘helping millions of people’ (as blasted loud and clear in their adverts).
Most people don’t need their so-called help, except where they and their operating systems had a hand in demolishing traditional ways of life and the surrounding ecosystem that everything depends on. Conflict of interest? Racket?
Sometimes, if not far too often in some cases, the best ‘help’ is no ‘help’ at all, and staying put, like at home in one’s armchair.
Sometimes, if not far too often in some cases, the best ‘help’ is no ‘help’ at all, and staying put, like at home in one’s armchair.
Fortunately there are plenty of people out there who beg to differ!
Threw it on the Ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYL5H46QnQ&list=PLo29lWOHJKrzZt2AQ-sYAr716gIyaUmr3&index=1
Why do you use Hall’s crappy numbers again and again? The last time I pointed to the issues you simply shut up, now you assume the situation has changed because Gail uses the same numbers?
She is from a scientific POV a clown, so are you.
Provide arguments, why Hall’s numbers are correct or stop your nonsense.
Gail is EITHER a nincompoop, or a successful business woman with a brand that she sells and sells well, maybe earning a good bit of money from it. I’m not sure which, maybe a little of both.
I saw her at a conference once. She had an entirely “canned ” presentation, and had only canned answers to questions, and dodged any real questioning after finishing her dog and pony show.
She was ENTIRELY unwilling to engage in a little debate with ME, when she realized who I was, this being back in the days of TOD. Ask her a real question, and she acts like a deer in the headlights, freezing and then running.
What bothers me is they keep changing it. Everyone used 1980 for a long time but we won’t stay under 2C with that baseline – so suddenly they started talking about 1990 baseline, or 2000…. Who are they kidding?
The 1.5C or 2C limits were based on not letting all the arctic sea ice melt and kicking in other feedback loops. They were guesses, but here we are at 2C above the pre-industrial age and the arctic is nearly ice-free. Barrow Alaska, Iceland, Tiski Russia all saw huge spikes in CO2 at the end of last year – 415ppm. That’s called a tipping point and it’s just not factored in to the IPCC’s conservative models.
Hi Preston,
The IPCC uses a wide range of models from the peer reviewed literature, you can rely on blogs for your information if you like. You will be hard pressed to find peer reviewed literature supporting a 9 C increase in global temperatures in the next 10 years.
I will go with main stream science, you can believe what you wish, note that the second IPCC chart has two temperature scales, as we don’t have good global data before 1850, often 1850-1900 is used as a baseline, that scale is on the right side of the chart. On the 1951-1980 and 1961-1990 baselines, NASA chose the first and HADCRU chose the second, and the satellite data uses 1981-2000 (because it starts in 1979). It is not clear why they chose 1986-2005, maybe so nobody would like it. 🙂
We are not 2C above pre-industrial for Global land-ocean temperature maybe 1.4 C in 2016 (annual average) at most.
Hi Dennis,
I think it is a mistake to talk about “2C above pre-industrial” because it gives a sense of acceptable complacency to the future human global warming catastrophic problem. It’s like putting a frozen pork lion in the microwave for 5 minutes and saying it’s still frozen at the one minute mark. We need to be talking about taking the pork lion out of the microwave and putting it back into the freezer. Just because you and I will be dead before the microwave gets to the minute and half mark. Doesn’t make watching the timer acceptable because it might be 90 percent thawed out at the 2 minutes mark and starting to cook.
Food for thought
from that blog post:
“NASA data suggest that it was 1.48°C (or 2.664°F) warmer than in 1890-1910 for the period from November 2015 to April 2016. Note again that this 1890-1910 baseline is much later than pre-industrial times. The Paris Agreement had pledged to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. On land on the Northern Hemisphere, it was 1.99°C (or 3.582°F) warmer…”
Okay, so not quite 2C yet but maybe 1.8C if you add in the rise since 1750. Maybe you are right and it’s 1.4C but that’s already too high and June 2017 hit another new record. 8C additional rise in 10 years would be a disaster and I don’t want to believe it, not sure if I do, but the slow linear increase the IPCC is talking about doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.
Hi Preston,
The temperature is affected by changes in ocean currents such as AMO and by Alternating phases of a Pacific Ocean phenomenon called ENSO, there is also a lag in temperature increases due to the thermal inertia of the ocean. The Global climate models take all of this into account with scenarios of future emissions, the results as of 2013 are what I posted from the IPCC. I have no idea why they don’t stick with 1850 to 1900 temperatures as a mean, note that we don’t have a very good estimate of temperatures in 1750. Using Mann 2008, the 30 year average around 1750 is about 0.09 C below the 1850-1879 average temperature and also 0.09 C below the 1850-1899 average temperature.
Also using the Mann 2008 data the 1700-1899 mean is about 0.4 C below the 1951-1980 mean. Also using the Mann data if we take the 1000 to 1749 mean temperature it is 0.14C below the 1951-1980 mean.
Also using all data from 500 CE to 1900 CE, the average global temperature is 0.1 C below the 1951-1980 mean temperature. Chart below shows the Mann estimate from 515-1991 (31 year average.) Note that the Mann estimate takes 1961-1990 mean as zero, the 1951-1980 mean is -0.1 C relative to the 1961-1990 mean.
Yeah, the IPCC keeps underestimating the danger. Look at geology, the PETM, and the P-Tr extinction, you get a better picture of what we’re dealing with.
It is possible to reverse this but we really do have to start actively extracting CO2 from the air and water and fixing it as solid carbon. We have multiple known methods of doing so, starting with setting up massive algae blooms, but instead we’re still burning things and generating CO2. Insane, but there you are.
We have multiple known methods of doing so, starting with setting up massive algae blooms,
Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that plan, eh?!
http://climate.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/bennett_algalblooms-1.pdf
Algae, Cyanobacteria Blooms,
and Climate Change
Lauren Bennett
April 2017
Indeed. It does seem that this is the sort of process which brought CO2 levels down in the geologic past, though. Not so good for humans…
No you don’t. Being more alarmist than the alarmists doesn’t get you closer to reality.
You don’t know the first thing about reality.
For example, during the middle of the second warmest May on record,
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/may-2017
,which was preceded by the second warmest April on record,
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/april-2017
,which was preceded by the second warmest March on record,
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/march-2017
,you will come out and say something like this:
“We are having a cool spring” – Javier
http://euanmearns.com/blowout-week-176/#comment-28996
In terms of your relationship with reality, it appears that you have a binary opposition disorder.
It is really hard to take anything seriously from Euan Mearns with his anti science denial of climate change and global warming.
I can see why our friend Javier hangs out there…
Javier is quite a prolific writer and commenter over at Juddith Curry too. I guess by some people Javier is considered a smart man.
I do tend to get things right when most people get them wrong.
And actually you and GoneFishing are a source of inspiration for my articles, Survivalist. Here is what I said in my last sea-ice article at WUWT when referring to volume alarmism:
“Apparently, alarmists believe that Arctic sea-ice is transforming from a pancake into a crepe of the same size.”
Directly from your words, thanks.
Everything is relative, Survivalist.
I already showed how since April temperatures have been lower that the preceeding 20 months. So yes, what I meant with that comment was that we were having a cool spring compared to a warmer winter, warmer autum, warmer summer, warmer spring, warmer winter, and warmer preceding summer. The coldest season since spring 2015.
Are you a denier that temperatures have been trending down since February 2016?
“The coldest season since spring 2015.” – Javier
Fail!
2017 was coldest spring since 2016. 2017 was a warmer spring than 2015. 2016 was hottest. 2017 was second hottest. 2015 was 3rd hottest.
Second hottest year on record, that was preceded by the hottest year on record, that was preceded by the third hottest year on record, means ‘trending down’ in Doc Javier’s scientific opinion. What a joke! Your silly little word games are a disgrace to science.
Top hottest 20 years as per global land temp anomaly: 2016, 2015, 2007, 2010, 2005, 2014, 2013, 1998, 2002, 2012, 2006, 2011, 2003, 2009, 2008, 2001, 2004, 1999, 1995, 1997.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land/12/12/1880-2016?trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1880&lasttrendyear=2017
Top hottest 20 years as per global land and ocean temp anomaly: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2010, 2013, 2005, 2009, 1998, 2012, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2002, 2004, 2011, 2001, 2008, 1997, 1995, 1999.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/12/12/1880-2016?trend=true&trend_base=10&firsttrendyear=1880&lasttrendyear=2017
So far this year it looks like 2017 will squeeze in between 2016 and 2015, thereby becoming the new second place.
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-2nd-hottest-globally.html
“I already showed how since April temperatures have been lower that the preceeding 20 months” – Javier
Fail!
Second hottest April on record.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/april-2017
Second hottest May on record.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/may-2017
Second hottest June on record.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/june-2017
Second hottest July on record.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/resources/data-analysis/average-surface-air-temperature-analysis/monthly-maps/surface-air
“July 2017 was statistically tied with July 2016 as the warmest July in the 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
Last month was about 0.83 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean July temperature of the 1951-1980 period. Only July 2016 showed a similarly high temperature (0.82 °C), all previous months of July were more than a tenth of a degree cooler.”
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2618/july-2017-equaled-record-july-2016/
“Everything is relative” – Javier
Get a grip on reality Doc.
Sheesh, you are so dumb.
Since you are using Copernicus ERA interim data, I’ll show you with that data too (average 3 month data):
JAS 2015 0.4578
OND 2015 0.6442
JFM 2016 0.7900
AMJ 2016 0.5744
JAS 2016 0.5757
OND 2016 0.5615
JFM 2017 0.6416
AMJ 2017 0.4814
Past spring was coolest season since summer of 2015 in terms of anomaly according to ERA interim database.
Do you get it now, or do you need a graph to see it?
How about a graph?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/12/the-most-popular-deceptive-climate-graph/
I posted this data over at OFW, and it was deleted.
Our Finite World has degraded itself into alt right boys club.
It is hard to take any of her (Gail Tverberg) analysis seriously at this point.
She is a denier, at it has hampered her work for quite some time.
I was a bit amused when NOAA was considered a propaganda sourse.
Javier represents himself as a scientist, and he does have a good grasp of quite a lot of science, so I guess he is.
But he has pretty close to zero credibility because he ignores the precautionary principle, which in other fields is taught as using basic common sense, even down to the level of common labor work.
You don’t just ignore the safety warning flags flown by just about everybody else in the world when it comes to something like climate.
Monday’s solar eclipse is a test bed for future events.
Utilities and grid operators have been planning for the event for years, calculating the timing and drop in output from solar, running simulations of the potential impact on demand, and lining up standby power sources. It promises a critical test of their ability to manage a sizeable swing in renewable power.
Solar energy now accounts for more than 42,600 megawatts (MW), about 5 percent of the U.S.’s peak demand, up from 5 MW in 2000, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a group formed to improve the nation’s power system in the wake of a 1964 blackout. When the next eclipse comes to the United States in 2024, solar will account for 14 percent of the nation’s power, estimates NERC.
For utilities and solar farms, the eclipse represents an opportunity to see how well prepared their systems are to respond to rapid swings in an era where variable energy sources such as solar and wind are climbing in scale and importance.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-eclipse-usa-grid-idUSKCN1AZ0E8
Seems, in only the last week, you changed your views about how solar power is actually an issue during a solar eclipse. No matter if the panels are in the total eclipse or the partial eclipse.
You, before, “That Cat has not heard of clouds or nighttime. Also, people don’t seem to know simple math.” http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-july-edition-with-data-for-may/#comment-611549.
Care to apologize?
So you have heard of clouds and nighttime yet persist in promoting erroneous views about the upcoming predictable event.
Lets do the math:
“Ever heard of clouds, the planet is 70 percent covered with them and they dim the sun all the time. How about we compare that claimed “as much as 125 megawatts” to the 4600 megawatts of installed solar. Not much loss is there? Anyway, solar is less than 1 percent of the US power grid, so that is 3 percent of one percent, which is a loss of 0.03 percent of the power system. Hello? Not important at all.
Next let’s look at the “market will have to fill a gap of 6,008 megawatts” from that guy in California. There are ONLY 4600 megawatts of solar in the USA total and that is only that much at high noon on a very clear day.
Those articles are bogus, the power supplies will not be “wiped out” just momentarily reduced and still there afterward. It’s not a bomb destroyed them, it’s just the moon getting in front of the sun and putting a shadow on the earth.
Same thing happens during storms and cloudy days. How stupid are you?
They know exactly how much, when and how long it will last (unless it’s cloudy already), so WTF do they do when clouds show up and blow away?
Can’t wait for the next disastrous events to happen , 2024, 2045, 2078 and 2079.
If you add up all those events they might have the same effect as one partly cloudy day.”
Have you thought about what people that have solar PV on their roof do at night?
The earth blocks the sun an average of 12 hours a day.
The earth blocks the sun an average of 12 hours a day.
It’s amazing that plants and animals can survive till the next morning…
Meow
US average wind speed maps.
https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/average-wind-speeds-map-viewer
Al Gore creates more skeptics everyday
Ross Clark, journalist, met Al Gore to interview him about his favorite topic. But Ross broke the rules; he did some research. Clark even talked to a professor about the scenes of Florida being flooded. The prof explained that it’s not so much that the seas were rising fast, but that the land under Miami is sinking — and by an amazing 16-24cm in the last 80 years. (No wonder some residents are seeing water inundate new areas.)
“When I put all this to Al Gore and ask him whether his film would be stronger if it acknowledged the complexities of sea level rise — why it is rising in some places and not in others — I am expecting him to bat it away, saying that it doesn’t counter his central point and that there is a limit to what you can put into a film pitched at a mass audience, but his reaction surprises me. As soon as I mention Professor Wdowinski’s name, he counters: ‘Never heard of him — is he a denier?’ Then, as I continue to make the point, he starts to answer before directing it at me: ‘Are you a denier?’ When I say I am sure that climate change is a problem, but how big a one I don’t know, he jumps in: ‘You are a denier.’
That is a strange interpretation of the word ‘deny’, I try to say. But his PR team moves in and declares ‘Time’s up’, and I am left feeling like the guy in Monty Python who paid for a five-minute argument and was allowed only 30 seconds. On the way out, a frosty PR woman says to me: ‘Can I have a word with you?’ I wasn’t supposed to ask difficult questions, she says, because ‘this is a film junket, to promote the film’.
Surely if you are going to make a film claiming climate change to be a grave threat to the world, you ought to be prepared to answer detailed questions about it. – The Spectator”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/question-al-gore-on-climate-change-and-hell-call-you-a-denier/
Remember I talked about Professor Wdowinski’s research a couple of weeks ago:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-august-2-2017/#comment-611252
It’s hard to slip one past a smart and experienced guy like Al Gore. He can see them coming a mile away. Doesn’t put up with BS. 3mm subsidence and 9 mm rise does not add up to no rise.
Fish – The 3mm subsidence seems like a pretty localized phenomena.
“South Florida is one of the most vulnerable areas to Sea Level Rise (SLR) due to its low elevation, large population concentration, and economic importance. Recently, the city of Miami has been identified as the economically most vulnerable city to SLR in the world (US National climate assessment). Heretofore, the effect of SLR has felt mostly in low-lying coastal communities, such as the City of Miami Beach. A recent flooding hazard study of Miami Beach have shown a significant increase in flooding frequency after 2006, in which the flooding frequency increased by 400% compare with flooding events during the previous decade (Wdowinski et al., 2016). This study attributed the flooding frequency increase to a decadal-scale accelerating rates of SLR. However, some of the increased flooding frequency might have caused due to local land subsidence, because some of the low elevation sections of the city were built on reclaimed swamps.”
http://www.ces.fau.edu/arctic-florida/pdfs/fiaschi-wdowinski.pdf
Yes, I know the subsidence is limited in area. I just didn’t want to waste much time on this. There is differential rise all around the world due to various effects. They hit a high of 20 mm per year 2011 to 2015. Even in the slow rise case Miami will have to drink salty water due to infiltration underground. Wells will be contaminated by sea water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEhx-Q43Tfo
Miami will have to drink salty water due to infiltration underground. Wells will be contaminated by sea water.
As long as there is an ocean, I will always have water to drink!
I don’t buy the old saw about ‘water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink!’
I have built my own modular hexagonal passive solar desalinization units and filled them with 100% sea water and gotten at least enough water to fill my daily fresh water drinking needs. You can buy off the shelf units that will do the job for a couple hundred bucks. Any sailor worth his salt has one or more on his boat.
As for a city wide solution you could do something like this.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170619165423.htm
Freshwater from salt water using only solar energy
Modular, off-grid desalination technology could supply families, towns
Date:
June 19, 2017
Source:
Rice University
Summary:
A federally funded research effort to revolutionize water treatment has yielded a direct solar desalination technology that uses energy from sunlight alone to heat salt water for membrane distillation. The technology could provide off-grid water treatment for some of the 1 billion people who lack access to clean water.
Yes, but what do you do for water during solar eclipses? 🙂
Why thank you for asking!
I keep a handy supply of freeze dried, vacuum packed, instant solar water.
All you do is add one liter of 100% pure, liquid H2O to one quarter teaspoon of instant solar water mix, stir or shake well and you instantly get a whole liter of the finest quality fresh water. It rivals or exceeds the quality of Poland Spring’s bottled water. Chill as needed, then keep refrigerated!
I’ve been thinking of marketing it under my private label. It even has all the health benefits of reverse homeopathy 😉
Fred, much easier to get by on bottled alcoholic beverages for those few hours. Or you can do what the birds do, go to sleep after singing. Then wake up, sing for a while and go on about your day. They all think they got an extra day. Very resilient creatures.
Us northerners store it as ice which seems to turn right back into water during most seasons if you leave it out of the freezer. 🙂
Fred, much easier to get by on bottled alcoholic beverages for those few hours.
LOL! You’ll get no argument from me on that!
Though my neighbors might not appreciate my singing 😉
I quite like solar stills. Easy enough to build but also a few commercial products on the market.
http://www.solaqua.com/solstils1.html
Yep those work just fine but I was thinking more along the lines of this design that floats on the water.
http://www.landfallnavigation.com/memss.html
Hang in there Fred, you could get some really great real estate deals right around your place and end up owning your own island. Wouldn’t that be fancy?
The Florida Alps (height 360′) have a future.
Make a good site for launching dive boats, to view all the good wreck diving in the surrounding area.
Optimal design of and for transition for non-optimal outcomes.
LOL! Thank you Caelan! Brazil appreciates your kind words.
.
I designed it with you in mind. ^u^
I tried to get the sentence looking as simple and sweet as possible, like it came fresh out of the first few words of some sort of basic science and engineering textbook.
This is in part because reading much of your anecdotes in ostensibly-implicit support of the (greewashing of the) status-quo, while explicitly discouraging the opposite, made me think of you discouraging talk of some details of AGW…
Lol cheeky
‘u’
Hot day in Mould Bay (76N). Hit 8C yesterday.
Large portions of Canada have risen by about 2C since 1948.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16-002-x/2011001/ct017-eng.htm
At least you don’t live in South East Asia…
https://robertscribbler.com/tag/wet-bulb-temperatures-35-c/
Wet Bulb at 33 C — Human Hothouse Kills Nearly 800 in Pakistan
Human-forced warming of the global climate system is pushing sea surface temperatures in some areas to a maximum of 33 C. Extreme ocean warming that is increasing the amount of latent heat the atmosphere can deliver to human bodies during heatwaves. And near a 33 C sea surface hot zone, the past few days have witnessed extreme heat and related tragic mass casualties in Sindh, Pakistan.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/health-effects-of-heat-waves.html#.WZmj7yiGOM8
The Health Effects of Hotter Days and Nights
Huber explained that humans and many mammals have an internal body temperature of approximately 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cannot tolerate a wet-bulb temperature above 95 degrees for longer than six hours. Humans cool themselves through the skin. Internal heat can dissipate when the external temperature is cooler than internal body temperature. But when the external wet-bulb temperature is 95 degrees or above, the body can’t cool itself and begins to experience hyperthermia. Extended hyperthermia is associated with ill health and eventually death.
For the analysis, the researchers looked at the wet-bulb temperature impacts on a fit, acclimated person who is naked, drinking unlimited amounts of water, in the shade, standing in front of giant fan, and not doing any labor. “We asked the question, what kind of conditions would be lethal to that person?” Huber said. The answer is that 100 percent relative humidity and a wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit are likely to be lethal.
More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
— Woody Allen
One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Then again, maybe all roads lead to Rome…
https://www.clubofrome.org/
Seems to be happening every year now. Deadly heat waves from Pakistan to Vietnam are becoming a regular occurrence. Best to live at a higher altitude.
One of my favorite!
I understand wet bulb and the mechanisms by which we throw of excess heat and so forth.
I don’t believe a man in good health would die in front of a powerful fan at ninety five F so long as he is just taking it easy, even at very close to one hundred percent relative humidity.
Which brings up a question. I’m not that well versed in atmospheric sciences. I can’t find any reference to the humidity being measured at one hundred percent even in a dense fog, the sort that blocks out anything more than maybe a hundred feet away. All the figures I have run across are in the mid nineties at the most, taken as actual measurements.
We get 100%s here, usually associated with rain. 30+C with 90+ hummmidity is bad.
NAOM
Interesting report, might just be another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. See embedded PDF link for full report.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608273/grid-batteries-are-poised-to-become-cheaper-than-natural-gas-plants-in-minnesota/
Sustainable Energy
Grid Batteries Are Poised to Become Cheaper Than Natural-Gas Plants in Minnesota
A new report suggests the economics of large-scale batteries are reaching an important inflection point.
by Michael Reilly July 12, 2017
When it comes to renewable energy, Minnesota isn’t typically a headline-grabber: in 2016 it got about 18 percent of its energy from wind, good enough to rank in the top 10 states. But it’s just 28th in terms of installed solar capacity, and its relatively small size means projects within its borders rarely garner the attention that giants like California and Texas routinely get.
A new report on the future of energy in the state should turn some heads (PDF).
http://energytransition.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Workshop-Report-Final.pdf
According to the University of Minnesota’s Energy Transition Lab, starting in 2019 and for the foreseeable future, the overall cost of building grid-scale storage there will be less than that of building natural-gas plants to meet future energy demand.
Ogurtsov, M., Lindholm, M., & Jalkanen, R. (2017). On the Possible Contribution of Natural Climatic Fluctuations to the Global Warming of the Last 135 Years. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 7(03), 256.
http://file.scirp.org/pdf/ACS_2017070315503961.pdf
“This means that global warming (GW) of the last 135 years can unlikely be fully explained by inherent oscillations of the climatic system. It was found however, that natural fluctuations of climate may appreciably contribute to the GW. The return period of climatic episodes with 0.5 ̊C warming during the 135 years (half of the observed GW) was less than 500 years. The result testifies that the role of external factors (emission of greenhouse gases, solar activity etc.) in the GW could be less than often presumed.”
Half of the warming can be explained by natural variability. More with solar activity changes that are also natural.
Scientific Research Publishing?
Please, you are reaching a new low.
A Chinese predatory publishing house.
The company has been accused of being a predatory open access publisher[3] and of using email spam to solicit papers for submission.[1] In 2014 there was a mass resignation of the editorial board of one of the company’s journals, with the outgoing Editor-in-Chief saying of the publisher “For them it was only about making money. We were simply their ‘front’.”[4]
A typical source for rubbish articles.
Javier’s discourse:
Global warming is good.
There is no link betwen man made greenhouse gasses and global warming.
The best plan for humanity is to burn all the oil.
Clearly this is sock puppetry that suits the Koch agenda.
That’s a really poor representation of my discourse. You are good at raising strawmans to attack.
Let’s rephrase that to something I could endorse:
– Global warming is a fact we can’t change. It has drawbacks and benefits, but clearly the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for the moderate warming we are getting.
– Man made greenhouse gasses have very likely contributed to global warming. They have also contributed to the greening of the Earth and to the increase in precipitable water.
– The best plan for humanity is to develop a sound energy policy, based on every source and technology, taking into account costs, feasibility, environmental impact, and sustainability, without excluding ANY except on efficiency grounds. Obviously the energy policy cannot be the same everywhere, so keeping all our options open is very important.
Taking important decisions that exclude one or more sources of energy based on beliefs that are unsupported by evidence is a good way of shooting ourselves in the foot. We might not be able to undo the damage we can do to our civilization if our energy policy fails.
An interesting article from the BBC that may throw some light, err – pun not intended, on the uptake of solar power.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40673694
NAOM
Seems that there are some people out there who are still trying to make steam and coal work…
Seriously though, it does add another layer of insight as to why some disruptive technologies might seem a bit slow to take off despite being obviously better. You have to change everything including the paradigms on which the previous systems were built. And that probably requires a quite literal dying out of the old guard.
Thought you might like this one as well
http://delher.com/diseno/
some interesting stove designs here aimed at tackling a big problem in underdeveloped areas.
NAOM
That first one looks a lot like the one we have in my home in Brazil
https://www.brastemp.com.br/produto/fogao-brastemp-clean-4-bocas-piso/
I was thinking more of the ones on that page based on the rocket stove. Take a look at the Cocinado Limpio page too.
NAOM
PS Got some pinhole pics of the eclipse from my palm trees but they are not so clear – too much background light.
Interesting article, thanks.
Yep, civilization runs on the electron now but renewable energy will reform how we gather, deliver and use electric power. When Edison started powering cities with electricity his company had to invent, design and build just about everything. It was a huge learning curve. At least that won’t be true for renewable energy.
People worry about how PV and wind might not deliver in a continuous fashion. Storage will get around that but even if it doesn’t cover all circumstances the occasional loss of power is infinitely better than no power at all and living in a fully polluted world prior to that.
Could our civilization be running much of it’s technology on the remnants of destroyed neutron stars?
Precious elements may come from spinning neutron stars that have swallowed a tiny black hole and imploded. If true, this dramatically changes our understanding not only of how rare elements like gold are made, but also the nature of some dark matter.
The elements in question include all atoms heavier than bismuth, as well as some neutron-rich isotopes heavier than iron. They are forged in what is called the r-process (meaning ‘rapid’), which requires copious numbers of neutrons as well as densities ten billion times greater than those found in the Sun’s core to enable the rapid capture of those neutrons by atomic nuclei. Therefore, the r‑process can only take place in the most extreme environments.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2017/aug/17/rare-elements-could-be-forged-by-neutron-stars-eaten-by-black-holes
The question of where elements like gold come from has been around for a long time. Many scientists have argued that supernova explosions were the source, but they may not be necessary if neutron star collisions produce elements heavier than iron. In about 2013(?) Hubble detected a distinct emission of infrared light, a signal separate from an explosion that resulted from the radioactive decay of heavy elements. This short duration burst was definitively linked with the collisions of two neutron stars.
Report: Trump’s travels have left the Secret Service unable to pay agents
(from a evolutionary point of view, does this bring genetic fitness?)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/21/secret-service-cant-pay-agents-because-trumps-frequent-travel-large-family/529075001/
B.C. surpasses worst wildfire season on record — and threat is far from over….
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-surpasses-worst-wildfire-season-on-record-and-threat-is-far-from-over-1.4249435
Flash Drought and burning grain.
http://grist.org/food/flash-drought-could-devastate-half-the-high-plains-wheat-harvest/
Yea, disaster capitalism:
Last week, Swanson wrote a personal letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a Montana native, asking him to ease grazing restrictions on a nearby wildlife refuge. Two days later, he did so.
Hope everyone had a great eclipse experience! While I’m sure most people were fixated on the heavens, I was struck by the sunlight filtering through the leaves of a large Ficus tree onto the asphalt of a parking lot underneath it. As the eclipse progressed I saw thousands of little eclipses on the ground. I thought it was kind of amazing…
.
I wanted to stay in out of the heat and watch the eclipse on TV, but the moon used up all the solar power. 🙁 😈 😉
What?! You didn’t invest in battery backup?! That’s the punch line to a dumb Polack joke.
The solar eclipse is was a worthwhile educational experience in more ways than one.
It provided me with an opportunity to prove than a lot of otherwise reputable organizations are not above covering their asses by way of publishing inaccurate information and recommendations.
Just about every body published warnings against using welder’s helmets as viewing tools.
But all modern welding helmets filter out one hundred percent of the uv and even the infrared that might be damaging to the eyes.
And welding helmets are mostly manufactured and sold by companies with well known brand names , such as Lincoln, Miller, Hobart, etc, with long term reputations, and very deep pockets pickable by lawyers with a case, so they manufacture GOOD STUFF, and maintain GOOD quality control.
I will not be surprised to read about some people having eye problems resulting from using so called eclipse glasses, because in my estimation, at least some of them were manufactured to the same standards as Chinese dog food. Fatal standards.
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us/support/welding-solutions/Pages/helmets-eye-protection-detail.aspx
“Q: What is the correct lens shade to use in my welding helmet to properly protect my eyes?
A: Many people mistakenly think that the lens shade number corresponds to the amount of protection that is provided to the eyes and hence the higher the number, the better the protection. But in reality, all well-constructed quality welding lenses, have a screen that filters out 100 percent of the harmful ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) wavelengths and provides protection to the eyes. The number just denotes the amount of darkness provided by that particular lens and should be used by operators as a guide to select the one that is most comfortable and yet provides good visibility for the particular application.
Of course, there are some suggested lens shade numbers that you can use as a guide if you are unsure what to select for your application. These correspond with the amperage being welded. Always select a shade that allows you to see the weld puddle clearest and that most aids your welding ability.
Welding Helmet Lens Shade Guide”
There’s no need to print the chart, but the various cya folks said only a shade fourteen would protect the eyes. I have been welding since I learned the abc’s in the tenth grade back in the dark ages, and have probably three or four years full time, in total, as a pro in the trade, and can say with some assurance that if you want a fourteen, you will have to order it, because hardly anybody actually stocks them. The sun is actually appears about as bright as a hundred watt light clear incandescent light bulb in a dark room , subjectively speaking, using a twelve. My old eyes adjust to it within a few seconds, like going from inside to outside on a bright day.
Of course I passed around my helmets to as many people as possible who didn’t have a helmet of their own. I would be more surprised by any of them having an eye problem as a result than I would have been by being hit by lightning while observing the eclipse.
We got ninety three percent locally, and lucked out with only a few big clouds blocking our view intermittently.
This week in Pump AND Dump Ponzi schemes:
“The Permian is best viewed as a near infinite resource – we will never produce the last drop of economic oil from the Basin.”
https://www.aei.org/publication/we-should-view-americas-most-prolific-oil-field-the-permian-basin-as-a-permanent-near-infinite-resource/
Magic porridge pot.
Again please, what’s the best guess for peak production of USA LTO? Once USA LTO rolls over the peak the a Wall Street Ponzi scam will lose its buyers/”investors” thereby causing the bubble to burst.
Not only is the entire global fossil fuel business one gigantic ponzi scheme but it should be clear to most rational thinkers, that sooner rather than later all fossil fuels and the entire extracting and refining infrastructure accompanying it will become stranded assets.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4085441-fossil-fuels-becoming-stranded-assets
Big price declines in fossil fuels
Not too long ago, investors (myself included), thought some of the best companies to invest in were those which controlled huge amounts of coal, oil, or gas. After all, a growing, energy-hungry world needs increasing amounts of these fossil fuels. Right?
And how well did that strategy work out?
Well… Peabody (BTU), the U.S.’s largest coal producer, went bankrupt. Canadian Oil Sands (OTCQX:COSWF), with its massive oil sand holdings, failed. Chesapeake Energy (CHK) has extensive natural gas acreage yet saw its stock fall 90%.
In retrospect, investing in energy companies which control large amounts of coal, oil, and gas was a terrible strategy. Only a few years ago, with Peak Oil thinking in vogue, who would’ve guessed?
Today, all three major fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — are priced below their 2009 Great Recession lows. This is especially surprising considering the huge central bank fueled monetary supply expansions since 2007. (Wasn’t that was supposed to be inflationary?)
I think that was rhetorical but my guess is 2020 to 2025 for peak US LTO output.
Inside the New Economic Science of Capitalism’s Slow-Burn Energy Collapse
The False Promise of Green Technology
Oh, fer crimminies sake! For someone who goes on and on about the evils of science and technology especially the renewable energy revolution and blabs endlessly about the wonders of permaculture to solve all our problems, you seem to know surprisingly little about plants, plant physiology, and microbiology. You seem to be even less aware that humanity is well on its way to having 9 to 10 billion inhabitants that will be by absolute necessity be living in highly concentrated urban centers. While I have nothing against permaculture technology, and yes it is a technology with pros and cons, like all technologies, there is no way it can sustainably scale to support 10 billion humans.
On the other hand it is possible to incorporate phytoremediation technologies to clean even heavy metals out of waste water such as that which might be a byproduct of alternative energy manufacturing processes. Hey maybe you and Javier could join forces and work on something like that, eh? There has been a lot of work done on that in Brazil, I could give you contacts of various scientists and universities already doing this kind of research….
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26311085
Perspectives of phytoremediation using water hyacinth for removal of heavy metals, organic and inorganic pollutants in wastewater.
Rezania S1, Ponraj M2, Talaiekhozani A3, Mohamad SE4, Md Din MF1, Taib SM5, Sabbagh F6, Sairan FM1.
Author information
Abstract
The development of eco-friendly and efficient technologies for treating wastewater is one of the attractive research area. Phytoremediation is considered to be a possible method for the removal of pollutants present in wastewater and recognized as a better green remediation technology. Nowadays the focus is to look for a sustainable approach in developing wastewater treatment capability. Water hyacinth is one of the ancient technology that has been still used in the modern era. Although, many papers in relation to wastewater treatment using water hyacinth have been published, recently removal of organic, inorganic and heavy metal have not been reviewed extensively. The main objective of this paper is to review the possibility of using water hyacinth for the removal of pollutants present in different types of wastewater. Water hyacinth is although reported to be as one of the most problematic plants worldwide due to its uncontrollable growth in water bodies but its quest for nutrient absorption has provided way for its usage in phytoremediation, along with the combination of herbicidal control, integratated biological control and watershed management controlling nutrient supply to control its growth. Moreover as a part of solving wastewater treatment problems in urban or industrial areas using this plant, a large number of useful byproducts can be developed like animal and fish feed, power plant energy (briquette), ethanol, biogas, composting and fiber board making. In focus to the future aspects of phytoremediation, the utilization of invasive plants in pollution abatement phytotechnologies can certainly assist for their sustainable management in treating waste water.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Though I much prefer to listen to him in his native Hungarian here’s an interesting guy for you. Istvan Kenyeres. Ironically his last name means (Bread Maker)!
2017 Summit Istvan Kenyeres
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmQ5ifkkBAU&index=7&list=PLXT_ozykGVak6HZ14BB4oYMW49KSDYBnZ
And If there are any native Hungarian speakers out there lurking…
Istvan Kenyeres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJqiqGYw8Oc
Újragondolt városok és a Budapesti Állatkert: Kenyeres István at TEDxDanubia 2014
Caelan, in the last non petroleum thread you posted a comment to which you attached to two pictures taken from a music video, featuring the landfill of Kingston, the capital city of the Jamaica. The Google map coordinates (GPS?) of the center of the landfill are 18.009221, -76.854004 and below is a screenshot of the area of the city to the north east of the landfill with the north east section of the landfill in the lower left hand corner. The lower picture of the two in your comment was probably taken from this area in the corner of my screenshot which appears to be the used tyre cell of the landfill.
The area of the city adjacent to the landfill is called Riverton City, a notorious slum/shanty town/ghetto who’s residents largely survive by scavenging from the landfill. Among the things scavenged from the incoming garbage trucks, the most valuable are scrap metals with aluminum and copper being the most valuable scrap metals but, glass, recyclable plastics and anything else that can be re-sold or reused will also not escape the scavengers who often pounce on the incoming trucks before they dump their loads. One treat is when truckloads of edible items that have passed their “best by” date come in which I have been told has included ice cream and chicken meat which are either consumed by the residents or taken back into the main market areas and sold at bargain prices. An American Peace Corps volunteer made an interesting video “Riverton City Jamaica in which he looks at one of the cottage industries that has come out of the dump, aluminum casting.
Going back to the screenshot, the structure stretching from the upper left hand corner to the center of the lower edge is the main storm water drain for the city called Sandy Gully. The only bridge across the drain in the screenshot is for Spanish Town Road the main arterial road leading from the main downtown, market/commercial/industrial and waterfront financial areas of the city, to the central and western section of the island. Spanish Town Road is part of the route from the international airport serving Kingston to all points west of the capital. In the screenshot, the only “middle class” residential area is in the center of the shot, north of Sandy Gully and Spanish Town Road.
Everywhere else in the screen shot is either industrial/commercial property or “working class” (ghetto) type residential areas. In these areas, girls start having children at a young age and I suspect that it would be very hard to find a twenty year old woman who has no children. Case in point is an unemployed woman not quite 25 years old who has recently given birth to her fourth child and depends on the father of her last three children for sustenance. Her first child, which she gave birth to at the age of 17, before she had finished school, lives with the mother of that child’s father. That is an example of a fairly stable family, the opposite being women who have a different father for each child.
These areas contain large populations of individuals like this young woman, who depend on industrial agriculture for food in the form of wheat, corn, beans, sugar, cooking oils, meat, poultry and dairy products. Fruit and vegetables are luxuries except when in season and abundant (cheap). They also have access to television and in many cases internet and have become accustomed to a mostly North American diet of music and movies in addition to entertainment from the very vibrant local pop music industry. Are you suggesting that introducing these folks to permaculture is a solution? They are going to have to be introduced to a lot more and also receive some mental conditioning before wrapping their heads around the concepts involved, in other words, social engineering on a grand scale. If you can convince the owners of the content delivery services to do this you would have to be a hypnotist of the highest order. In case you are thinking it is any different outside of the capital, I have recently had reason to venture into some very poor areas outside Kingston, including one in the middle of a sugar cane growing area and my observations from the safety of the cab of my vehicle are lots and lots of young adults, children and infants.
A lot of what you espouse will only work after a significant die off of the planet’s current population and in any rapid die off scenario, I cannot guarantee that I will be among the survivors. As a result I am looking at stuff (technology) that might mitigate against a rapid die off happening in my life time and possibly ever. It appears to me that you favor a rapid die off scenario, in which case, how can you be sure you will be among the survivors?
Hi islandboy,
I’ll respond in a kind of point format, and have added a reply to your comment under another article/thread.
Poor is relative. Poor is what the system can make of some people, and their surrounds and planet. Like what is actually happening, even to the ‘rich’.
The whole planet is turning into a dump, like C02 dumped into the oceans and atmosphere.
That’s not the sense I get with permaculture, but the more we procrastinate with the current system, the greater appear the dangers.
Our little city of Halifax could plant a whole lot of fruit and nut trees on its lawn-covered parks and similar areas without blinking. Trees with edibles and that take up C02, etc., are crucial, PV panels and EV’s are not.
I have actually been thinking of running for local government on a greening-of-the-whole-city platform.
It’s the ‘elite’ that have the most to give up.
They/We can do it the hard way, or we can do it the less hard way. We are past doing it the easy way.
… …
Like hand-knitting, carpentry or permaculture?
If I fixate– whatever that means– on any new stuff, it’s probably because you and a few others do in a different way.
As you see it? Why? Do you think I have a better vantage point from within your own head? ‘u^
Depending on the country, apparently ~90% of oil is nationally-owned, so the large majority are atypical corporations, yes?
Yes I know, the Koch brothers are your posterboy whipping-boys.
Do you really want those?
Industry, whether greenwashed as ‘disruptive’ or not, doesn’t work either, not as it’s currently managed.
I doubt the ‘disruption’ will be what you might think.
Oil depletion will disrupt anyway.
So let it work the way it’s been working for billions of years. Let go of your systemic shackles, grab a mango and go to the beach, or that land you mentioned inheriting and maybe offer some of it as an ecovillage project for some of those impoverished people you mentioned.
And get dragged/enticed/duped and locked-in to the system, yes? With what money?
Industry and government, that’s what.
That’s a cardboard cutout:
‘Put up solar panel, charge electric car.’
Reality often has different ideas, and we ignore them at our peril. So-called government is very much behind much of this. That, alone, speaks volumes of concern.
Poor is relative. Poor is what the system can make of some people, and their surrounds and planet.
No it fucking isn’t!! Have you ever been in a shanty town or slum or favela?!
Maybe you should visit Jamaica and ask Islandboy to give you a tour!
You just gave an example, though, in ‘shanty town’.
Poor can also be about not having access to potable water because a local chemical corporation used a local river to dump its chemical wastes into.
Or poor can be when the global industrial crony-capitalist plutarchy conducts its business-as-usual, whereby the planet is less viable for the existence of many species: ‘An impoverished planet’.
I think I see why we see things so differently
islandboy city of residence – Kingston Jamaica
population : 666,041 (2012)
area : 185.3 mi²
population density : 3594 per mi²
January temp and insolation : 25.60°C, 4.66 kWh/m²/day
June insolation : 6.65 kWh/m²/day
August temp : 27.17°C
Caelan MacIntyre city of residence : Halifax, Nova Scotia
population : 390,095 (2011)
area : 2,120 mi²
population density : 184 per mi²
January temp and insolation : -7.48 °C, 1.52 kWh/m²/day
June insolation : 5.23 kWh/m²/day
July temp : 21.38°C
So I live in a city with a population density twenty times greater than the city where Caelan lives. In my humid tropical climate heat dependent processes (rusting, rot, mould growth etc.) happen much faster all year round. Solar energy doesn’t count for much in the winter in Halifax when it would be most helpful. Probably lots of less obvious differences (air quality?) that help account for our different views. Perspective matters!
That’s why the pallet house idea would not work in my neck of the woods. It does not scale well and rot and termites would destroy the low quality wood typically used for pallets before the residents got fully accustomed to their “new” homes. Of course one could chemically treat the wood against pests and paint it to protect against rot and mould but, I don’t think that’s what Caelan had in mind.
Just saw that the link in my previous comment didn’t post so here it is again.
Riverton City Jamaica
I never suggested the palette idea for Jamaica and know enough about residential architecture– and resilience/sustainability/relocalization– to know about designing for locality. How about you? Much of that is Peak Oil 101.
As for population counts/densities, obviously the area that is included, which can differ significantly, matters. Also, Jamaica seems to have a longer growing season and the soils here on the east coast are not the greatest.
In any case, it appears that food will have to be grown more locally and by more people. Therefore, there may be less people to work elsewhere and therefore make enough money for solar panels and electric cars, or even support an economy that can support the manufacture of said items.
Jeffrey Brown just emailed me the below post. I thought it worth posting here. Ron
The senators from Arizona are probably at the top of Trump’s hit list for several reasons, e.g., McCain cast the deciding vote that stopped the Obama Care repeal effort and Jeff Flake wrote a book that was very critical of Trump. But only Flake is up for reelection next year, and Trump has already endorsed Flake’s opponent in the primary. Trump called Flake “Toxic.”
So, it’s not a coincidence that Trump is holding a campaign style rally in Arizona tonight. It could be “Interesting.” Continuing with the not necessarily repeating, but rhyming, theme, there are all kinds of unpleasant parallels.
For example, Republican office holders who do not swear eternal loyalty to Trump are facing primary challengers in their districts and states, e.g., Flake, which of course sounds unpleasantly similar to the personal loyalty oath that Hitler required.
It’s also interesting to compare the video of a pro-Nazi rally in New York in early 1939 to the recent Neo-Nazi rally in Virginia. Youtube clips follow. Note that a Jewish protester rushed the stage in 1939.
Pro-Nazi rally in New York in February, 1939:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gU9op16rjQ
The head of the German American Bund complained about the Jewish controlled press.
Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gld84wPItqc
In Charlottesville, Neo-Nazis, among other things, chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Trump said that there were “Many fine people on both sides in Charlottesville.”
Following is a link to an article about one of Trump’s latest rants about “Fake news,” which sounds uncomfortably close to the German American Bund leader complaining about unfair coverage in the “Jewish controlled press.”
Trump: Fake news media is ‘out of control’
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/trump-fake-news-jerry-falwell-jr-241859
Trump also posted another tweet five minutes later to thank a follower that defended him, while using it as another opportunity to further his point.
“Thank you,” Trump said to the account admiring how he never backs down from people trying to take him down, “the very dishonest Fake News Media is out of control!”
If the “Fake News Media” is out of control, doesn’t that imply that the President of the United States is suggesting a need to bring the media under control?
To his credit, Senator Majority Leader McConnell is hitting back on Trump’s claims:
McConnell undercuts Trump’s claim: ‘Most news is not fake’
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/21/mitch-mcconnell-trump-fake-news
However, it’s disturbing to read about the Neo-Nazi response to someone who simply and accurately reported what he saw regarding the Neo-Nazi who drove his car deliberately into counter-protesters:
How I Became Fake News
I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Then the conspiracy theories began.
By BRENNAN GILMORE
August 21, 2017
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-charlottesville-215514
In any case, between the Neo-Nazis and the counter-protesters, it could be an “Interesting” night in Pheonix, Arizona.
Ron, I have stated on multiple occasions since back in the presidential campaign that there were very obvious parallels between what has been happening in the US and the rise of Nazism in Germany. I now think, given recent events, that it is worse than I ever imagined!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UNDuAPMAuw
Noam Chomsky: The Republican party is the most dangerous organisation on earth
I’m glad there are a couple here who see and realize this issue. America has been transforming to an authoritarianism regime since Monica’s blue dress and Bush vs. Gore. Fox News would make Joseph Goebbels envious as a disinformation machine. Trump is running the Nazi Putin playbook. The only thing the Republicans have left is hate, racism, disinformation and gerrymandering. This is not your fathers America. Except the racism before the 60’s.
The more complex something becomes, the less control we have over it.
‘Americans’ haven’t been in control of ‘their’ ‘government’ since its inception and never will, until it dissolves.
Every year we seem to see an extra ‘click’ of the ratchet toward that, with maybe more clicks each year as time progresses.
Should be interesting to see what the next financial hit does and if the clicks set off some added surprises or even break the ratchet.
“The more complex something becomes, the less control we have over it”
Oh bullshit, what it does is expose the ignorant and losers. Who are more interest in tearing down the system from their lack of ability or interest in improving it.
Sorry, HuntingtonBeach, but your ‘Oh bullshit’ just doesn’t cut the mustard. Better luck next time.
The Hoover Dam is a means of technology control and produces more food as a by product in a year than permaculture will in your life time. Try chewing on that again, because I’m sure you already have physically, just not mentally.
Hey great, then I guess our global population can continue to grow– the more, the merrier– thanks to technologies like the Hoover Dam.
Not a problem birth “control” technology can’t solve, if it wasn’t for your gardening stone age religious friends
Ya, that birth control tech is working really well. Only 7+ billion and counting.
My take on dams:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2015-2-march-april/green-life/3-dam-detonation-videos-prove-going-green-blowing
I also have some issues with Bechtel Corporation–
but I’m not going there for undisclosed reasons.
Damn!
Damn Fool
Seriously, we are past the point of a perfect world. All the more reason to have regulations and an Environmental Protection Agency with the best knowledge. Life is full of compromise.
BECHTEL (BOO)
I’m done compromising.
Been there and it didn’t always work out very well for myself.
When you compromise you get Glen Canyon Dam and Hillary Clinton.
That is not acceptable.
Hi Ron,
What do you or Jeff make of Paul Craig Roberts’ takes?
For examples:
The Witch Hunt for Donald Trump Surpasses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93
Trump and American History Have Been Assassinated
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” ~ Joseph Goebbels
Don’t forget about about his campaign statement than only he is qualified to bring a peace agreement to the Middle East, because he’s so good at ‘making deals’.
“When an American president stands on the steps of the White House alongside the prime minister of Lebanon and can’t find the words, ignorantly stuttering when he receives a simple question about Hezbollah, it’s not just a disgrace—it’s an occasion that calls for scorn and pity. Because Donald Trump, it turns out, has no clue about Hezbollah. The man who announced with great fanfare that he is the only person who can bring a peace agreement to the Middle East has no idea who’s fighting whom in the neighborhood. ”
http://www.mepc.org/commentary/hezbollah-march-not-where-trump-says
He’s a dumb ass. And he deserves what he gets.
Fair enough, Survivalist and opinion appreciated…
The concern with Trump ‘deserving what he gets’ is that if/when he gets whatever it is, it adds a few more clicks of the ratchet, like for people in America and the rest of the world in general. I might be ok with some of it, being against the coercive state apparatus, but not with all of it of course.
Maybe Trump Should hire Tim Minchin to help him resolve the issue once and for all…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UO6YlkYNJQ
Tim Minchin – Peace Anthem For Palestine
Maybe Trump should check into a hospital
Hi Ron,
What do you or Jeff make of Paul Craig Roberts’ takes?
WTF?! Do you really need Ron or Jeff to tell you that Paul Craig Roberts is a wacko conspiracy theorist?! Haven’t you learned to use Google yet and form your own damn opinions?! Seriously, even just based on what you copied and pasted! What next? Are you going to become a Nazi sympathizer because some of them are ‘fine people’ and practice permaculture?
Do you even realize how beyond ridiculous the analogy of the Salem Witch Trials is, in this context?
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. Five others (including two infant children) died in prison.
Source Wikipedia
Times two
“Nazi sympathizer because some of them are ‘fine people’ and practice permaculture?”
Pure gold
This is not about my opinion. If it was, I would have offered it.
Nevertheless, I do find it intriguing how Paul Craig Roberts’ opinions on the subject butt up against others’, as well as the idea of Trump being taken out of context or misinterpreted, etc..
While as Survivalist suggests, Trump may have his ‘limits’, so do others, like for example those who might take Tump out of context or misinterpret him, even deliberately, and then run with it (like as a published piece). Maybe like you on here sometimes, too, ay, Fred? ^u^
“idea of Trump being taken out of context or misinterpreted”
More gold, every time he sticks his foot in his mouth. His lackeys have to explain to us, “it was a joke”. When nothing is funny.
Trump is a bit of a distraction in any case.
Your not funny either Caelan
My not funny either what?
While as Survivalist suggests, Trump may have his ‘limits’, so do others, like for example those who might take Tump out of context or misinterpret him, even deliberately, and then run with it (like as a published piece). Maybe like you on here sometimes, too, ay, Fred? ^u^
Yo! Little Bro, let me make sure you don’t take me out of context or misinterpret me! My own family had Nazi sympathizers in it, back in Hungary during WWII, I know real well up close and personal what kind of shit went down because of it. So when I tell you there ain’t no fucking way to misinterpret TRump, I know exactly what I’m talking about! Do I make myself crystal clear you fucking little piece of shit?!!
Maybe Trevor Noah can help you a little with interpreting of current events!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VhgRttiS7M
The “Master Race” Needs to Play It Cool: The Daily Show
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
No need to reply to me, because I just hit the X next to your stupid name!
Nothing like lobbing ‘demonizing’ words, short of ‘Nazi’ (slippery slope, though, given enough people and time), at people one disagrees with; revealing on a blog like POB, one’s own family members as Nazi sympathizers; ostensibly confusing questions as some sort of support for, or defense of, that in question; ‘automating a facet of ignorance and announcing it’ and ‘running away’ to boot…
That oh-so-inimitable Fred Magyar-quality that we’ve come to expect. Let’s turn it into an echo-chamber.
May I suggest you change your screen name to CaeBuddy aka Nazi
The Inquisition is strong in this forum against anybody that dares to dissent from core beliefs. Weren’t you taught respect for diversity when young, or was it only certain types of diversity that deserve respect?
Javier aka POB Denier and Chief
“Don’t tell me you are so naive as to think” humans aren’t at risk of globe warming
I don’t believe on anything for which there is no clear evidence.
And there is clear evidence of several people in this blog trying to discourage dissent through personal attacks and insults.
Indeed.
Javier slanders Wadhams
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-1-2017/#comment-591001
Javier slanders tamino
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-jan-8-2017/#comment-591762
Perhaps as your argument gets weaker and weaker you are becoming more sensitive? Regularly abusive people who also seek sympathy often have a personality disorder.
What, do you think I shouldn’t defend myself from the likes of you?
I enjoy polite discussion like I have with Dennis, but I don’t care the least about being bullied or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t give a damn about any sympathy. Just pointing that those that are taking the moral high ground in this forum are actually the worst offenders as usual.
When a few years pass and all this climate brouhaha comes down crumbling, I’ll remember back all these discussions and I will have a good laugh at your expense.
Run Fred Magyar– his comments over time on POB, maybe specifically the ones I’ve ‘highlighted’ (some doozies) including how he handles his dissenters, etc.– through a US President Simulation and see what spits out…
Perhaps we will find that President Magyar has more in common with his family members– or worse– than he might think, maybe worse than how Trump is viewed… including by Fred.
Lets never forget that Paul Ryan has been a major enabler of this fascist movement. He has slapped trump on the wrist several times very gently, and then acted to collaborate with him.
Complicit.
I am at the point where I am ready to actively support dissolving the union.
I do not want to pay a dime of time to a republican government and all the cruel policies it promotes.
It’s because Trump and Ryan’s policies, beliefs and voter base are 95% the same
I’ve read fairly often along the lines of when empires or governments begin to ‘get in trouble’, they create a war. The problem with the American empire doing so now would seem to have too many large-scale global repercussions. So maybe ‘the next best thing’ is to help create an internal war or at least some serious internal distractions, and along some already-existing fault-lines, enough that, along with other distractions like sabre-rattling with North Korea, etc., they may lead to the dissolution of the Union.
I also very recently skimmed an article that suggested something to the effect that it would be dangerous to have Trump removed from office. So, ok, remove Trump, maybe as a last resort…
At which time as all the officials can then clock out, turn off the lights one final time, and go home.
Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
Week beginning on August 13, 2017: 405.14 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 401.90 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 381.80
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Regarding image at link above. Red dashes indicate weekly values. Appears to be less slope in the annual CO2 decline. Perhaps in time we shall see the annual decline flatten out as NH summer becomes less of a sink.
US grid untroubled by total eclipse despite plunge in solar output
Dive Insight:
Yesterday’s eclipse enthralled the nation, leaving two things in short supply: eclipse glasses and solar energy. But at least on the energy front, utilities successfully planned for the event, giving some insight into the growing reliability systems with large amounts of of intermittent energy.
“We were able to balance the Duke Energy system to compensate for the loss of solar power over the eclipse period,” Sammy Roberts, Duke Energy director of system operations, said in an emailed statement to Utility Dive. “Our system reacted as planned, and we were able to reliably and efficiently meet the energy demands of our customers in the Carolinas.”
Duke Energy has 2,500 MW of solar capacity connected to its system in North Carolina. Given the weather conditions yesterday, utility officials said they would normally expect 1,808 MW of solar output during the afternoon, but were getting only about 109 MW during the eclipse’s peak.
In the PJM territory, the grid experienced a drop of approximately 520 MW of wholesale solar generation from just before the eclipse reached its peak. The grid operator also estimated that electricity from behind-the-meter solar generation decreased by approximately 1,700 MW.
PJM Interconnection also said other factors made dealing with the drop-off of solar power easier. The operator said it had expected a reduction in power from rooftop panels, but several factors — including lower cooling loads, increased cloud cover and changes in behavior related to the eclipse — resulted in a net decrease in demand of about 5,000 MW throughout the eclipse.
Yawn.
AECEA: China installations to surpass 40 GW in 2017
Official data released by NEA states that 24.4 GW of new PV capacity was installed in China during the first half of 2017. On top of this, AECEA estimates that another 10.5 GW was added in July, bringing the total from Jan-July to 34.92 GW, around 380 MW ahead of 2016’s figure of 34.54 GW.
China’s cumulative capacity now stands at 112.34 GW, already around 7 GW ahead of the 2020 target of 105 GW outlined in the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), and current estimates predict that by 2020 China’s PV capacity could reach as much as 230 GW.
For this growth rate to be sustained through to 2020, China will need to double it’s PV manufacturing capacity by the end of next year and unless kerfless wafer technology (like that developed by 1366 Technologies) makes up the majority of that increase, raw silicon consumption will have to double as well. I’ll call that as highly unlikely, not impossible but highly unlikely. Limits to growth?
The Economist Touts Tesla, Cover Story Reports ICE Is Roadkill
THE ECONOMIST: GOODBYE PETROL, HELLO TESLA
The most recent cover story in The Economist* announces, “The death of the internal combustion engine… it had a good run. But the end is in sight.”
In a remarkable account, The Economist reports that the internal combustion engine’s “days are numbered. Rapid gains in battery technology favour electric motors instead… Today’s electric cars, powered by lithium-ion batteries, can do much better.”
Recent developments are encouraging:
Already, there are “Mass-market vehicles with driving ranges close to that offered by a full tank of petrol, such as Tesla’s Model 3” that will be a catalyst for change. But sweeping changes ahead are fast-approaching. “Many forecasters reckon that the lifetime costs of owning and driving an electric car will be comparable to those for a fuel burner within a few years, leading sales of the electric cars to soar in the 2020s and to claim the majority sometime during the 2030s.”
In a comment on a the July 9 non-petroleum thread, I brought up the BNEF “more optimistic than previous” forecast. Below is as graphic containing three graphs, the one on the left is from the article above while the two to the right were taken from my comment in the July 9 thread. The economist graph appears to be based on work from BNEF and seems to be cumulative sales in comparison to the BNEF chart’s annual sales but, the far more pessimistic chart from the perspective of the oil and vehicle industries by far, is Seba’s.
Following Seba’s projections, the auto industry will be FUBAR by the middle of the next decade. Oil demand would also take a big hit since more than half of all passenger miles covered in 2026 would be covered using Transport as a Service rather than individually owned vehicles according to Figure 5 on page 30 of the report “Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030: The Disruption of Transportation and the Collapse of the ICE Vehicle and Oil Industries” at https://www.rethinkx.com/transportation. Seba’s projections should not be taken as rosy since they basically entail the end of the automobile industry as we know it. Even if his timing is off, his scenarios spell disaster for the incumbent auto industry. If his ideas get any traction within the auto industry, there will be wholesale panic amongst the incumbents. Those more aware of what is beginning to happen are getting uneasy but, there is no panic…..yet.
If the climate targets set by the Paris conference are to be achieved, CO2 emissions from traffic worldwide will have to be reduced 50% over the next four decades, and by at least 85% in the advanced economies
Achieving our future climate targets calls for other intelligent solutions apart from electromobility
in Europe by 2050 as a scheduled supplement to electrification could save up to 2.8 gigatons of CO2: three times Germany’s carbon-dioxide emissions in 2016.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/08/20170822-bosch.html
China is the fastest-growing market in the world for new energy vehicles (NEVs). Ford expects the market for NEVs in China to grow to six million units per year by 2025, of which approximately 4 million vehicles will be all-electric.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/08/20170822-ford.html
Don’t tell me you are so naive as to think Paris accords amount to more than talk. Actually some of the worst offenders, like China and Germany, are the ones doing more talking.
And the data shows some of the countries are simply fooling the reports.
BBC News: ‘Dodgy’ greenhouse gas data threatens Paris accord
“Potent, climate-warming gases are being emitted into the atmosphere but are not being recorded in official inventories, a BBC investigation has found.
Air monitors in Switzerland have detected large quantities of one gas coming from a location in Italy.
However, the Italian submission to the UN records just a tiny amount of the substance being emitted.
Levels of some emissions from India and China are so uncertain that experts say their records are plus or minus 100%.
These flaws posed a bigger threat to the Paris climate agreement than US President Donald Trump’s intention to withdraw, researchers told BBC Radio 4’s
A report in 2015 suggested one error in China’s statistics amounted to 10% of global emissions in 2013.
without good data as a basis, Paris essentially collapses. It just becomes a talkfest without much progress.”
A scam within a scam. The plot thickens.
Despite Europe being reported as using about half the energy per capita as the US it is plagued by horrific air pollution in the winter.
The scale of “cigarettes per day” is used to make the levels easiest to understand. They were calculated by comparing the known health risk of cigarettes to the known health risks of PM2.5 as estimated by the World Health Organization. Throughout much of Europe the pollution levels give a health effect equivalent to that of every man, woman and child smoking 5 cigarettes per day; in the worst regions of Europe, the level exceeds 7 cigarettes per day equivalent
http://berkeleyearth.org/category/uncategorized/
Land and Ocean surface temperatures from 2000
It starts in La Niña and ends in El Niño. Other than that no warming 2001-2014. The known and studied but not explained Pause.
Taaaa Dummm! More vaudeville from the obsessive villager.
How about this one Doc? Does this one start in La Niña and end in El Niño?
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/customize.html
“It was as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.” – George Eliot, Middlemarch
Cherry picking his years again to include those favorable to him while excluding those that are not.
Just a liar.
NAOM
No slowdown, no pause.
Michael Mann, John Fyfe, Ben Santer, Ed Hawkins, and many other climate scientists disagree with that:
Fyfe, J.C., Meehl, G.A., England, M.H., Mann, M.E., Santer, B.D., Flato, G.M., Hawkins, E., Gillett, N.P., Xie, S.P., Kosaka, Y. and Swart, N.C., 2016. Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown. Nature Climate Change, 6(3), pp.224-228.
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/65738/1/Fyfe_etal_2016_proofs.pdf
I guess there is a schism in the Church of Global Warming and you are going with the fundamentalists. Not surprising, given your radical alarmism.
The members of the Church of See No Global Warming are screaming in the aisles over this one. Their Alter of Pause has been torn down.
NOAA got it right.
“The authors showed that the ocean buoys used to measure sea temperatures tend to report slightly cooler temperatures than the older ship-based systems.
Back in the 1990s, ship measurements made up the vast majority of the data, whereas now the more accurate and consistent buoys account for 85% of measurements. ”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38513740
Oh yes, when temperatures don’t show any warming you can always find a way of introducing more warming through adjustments to the data. No wonder it is called human global warming. We are certainly creating it.
Got you backed into the wall Javier. Name calling, labeling commenters and now the final sign of being boxed in ” the scientists are lying”. Poor Javier, all emotion and searches all the time for fringe element scientists to prove a point that over 97 percent of climate scientists agree is wrong. Plus the way you are so negative and present your case, even if there was some truth to some parts no one is going to think there is any. Keep grasping at straws, looking at every little short term natural deviation for proof of your beliefs but nature or scientists are not agreeing with you.
We all wish this was not happening but constant saying it is not happening will not change reality. Unless you believe in magic. A problem cannot be solved until it is recognized as existing. Disinformation and myth is holding people back from acting appropriately.
Yes, when the earth releases GHG’s, whether it be from natural or manmade sources, physics says it will get warmer. Doubling GHG’s in a couple of centuries will cause severe temperature and ecological changes. It’s simple, there is no magical solution around simple physics. Electromagnetic waves of certain frequencies interact with matter in certain ways. Warming causes other interactions.
Haven’t you ever used an infrared spectrometer or a UV/VIS spectrophotometer? Seen an actual spectrum? It’s not magic. Study some physics and chemistry, it’s all known and easily accessible/provable.
You got it all wrong GoneFishing. All. This is not a debate between you and me, and nobody has to believe a single word of what you, or I, or anybody else says.
All that matters is the evidence. I have shown evidence that can be checked by anybody, and I have shown scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals that can be checked by anybody. This is not a question of trust or credibility. So I don’t care whether I convince people or not because I am not trying to convince anybody.
Conviction is a personal think. Instead of following what they are told people have to examine the evidence themselves and decide by themselves what they think is going on. My only role here is to present an alternative view based on science so people know that it exists. They’ll become convinced when they see that the evidence fits better the non-alarmist view of climate change.
Scientists don’t deserve any more trust than politicians, priests, policemen, or doctors. Why should they? They all are known to have held collective views that were wrong in the past. The only arbiter is the evidence. It is already 10 years since Al Gore made his infamous movie that won him an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. We already know a lot of what he said in the movie was wrong, and none of his predictions have come true. He just released a second part that was a big flop. 10 years later people are just unconvinced and skepticism has grown, not abated. I was a believer then and are a skeptic now.
And people are not unconvinced because of “deniers” but because of lack of evidence. They have been told horror stories since the late 80’s about sea level rise, about Arctic melting, about hurricanes and tornadoes, and never ending droughts. And then reality is quite different so it is only logical that they remain largely unconvinced.
Climate change alarmism will not die from what people like me say, but from the years going by and turning into decades with the promised climate catastrophe failing to materialize.
It has been 30 years since the first doom predictions by Hansen. All we have got has been a moderate warming, a moderate sea level rise, and a decrease in Arctic ice. The climate has been stable and benign. The CO2 hypothesis of GHG climate control is on shaky ground due to its many assumptions, but the climate doom hypothesis is already a complete failure. As with any doom theory, believers like you will continue pushing the date forward as time goes by, and will become a more and more marginal group.
This year is another fail year. Temperatures are lower than past year, and Arctic sea ice has failed to decrease further. Next year is very likely to be more of the same. Temperatures lower than 2016, and probably 2017, and Arctic sea ice above 2007 levels.
An interesting question is if Arctic sea ice was growing year after year for the next 20 years, would you be happy about it? I guess not, because that would make you wrong. That makes you a hypocrite that is rooting for Arctic sea ice demise. Otherwise you should be celebrating with me that for the past 10 years Arctic sea ice hasn’t decreased.
Hi Javier,
You often say the future cannot be predicted based on past trends. That is especially true when one uses a trend for climate based on only 10 years of data, but probably true in general.
I have often stated that there is natural variability, quite obvious from the evidence, the physics suggests that there is an underlying anthropogenic signal that can be discerned from that natural variability. Variations in aerosols due to volcanoes, and solar output, and ocean currents are difficult to predict, but the underlying signal from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is confirmed by the evidence.
Dennis,
Nothing in the data suggests we are headed towards a warmageddon. All we have got and can determine from the past is a moderate mostly beneficial warming, an irrelevant sea level rise and a significant but of little importance melting of Arctic sea ice and glaciers.
And the conditions have been very favorable to warming, with high solar activity and few volcanic eruptions. We cannot guarantee that it is going to continue that way.
You should know that most of the warming from the CO2 hypothesis should come not from CO2, but from hypothetical feedbacks that are assumed to multiply the warming. Some of these feedbacks are very unknown, like clouds, that could actually limit warming instead of boosting it.
“You got it all wrong…” Javier
You have show nothing – only lies.
NAOM
When Javier posts the cartoon of the scientist holding the lighter to the thermometer you can bet that he’s foaming at the mouth and off his meds again. Get ready for about 6 miles of Javier’s inane blather in the comments section.
Just X him out for a while like I do.
So you can’t see Javier’s comments? That would seem to work more to Javier’s advantage.
What advantage? Everyone but you knows he is full of shit.
‘Everyone but you’ doesn’t wash, either, but, sure, go ahead, make Javier’s day.
He can’t stop the millions of scientific papers and letters from being published nor make a dent in anyone who understands science or is actually interested in the world.
So what advantage? He is a tranquilizer, a drug, full of belief in a world that does not exist, a fake paradise. I make people think about reality and probabilities.
Do you know what a trap is Caelan? I think you do and in your own way are railing against the traps of current civilization.
“The most dangerous men are patriots and other zealots.” They can never stop or quit and are locked in to their belief system. They do not believe reality, just some imagined version of it and they act as if that version is real and concrete. They are incapable of true change or actual understanding.
Sadly, for them, they will never actually see the world.
Hey, I think the X is the greatest addition to the comment section of this forum. People that can’t stand each other can now ignore each other, which works to everybody’s advantage, including the rest of people. I am ignoring a bunch of people that have nothing of interest to say. I just hope they do the same with me.
And, GoneFishing, I am not trying to stop any scientific article. I read more scientific papers than most people here. I am more interested in the science of climate change than most people here. I just have a dissenting opinion, that is fully based on science. And the way things are I might be right and you might be wrong.
Posts by co author Ed Hawkins regarding the paper linked above by Javier.
“Finally, we would like to emphasize that Karl et al. and Fyfe et al. agree on the most important scientific points. We agree that human influence on climate is real, is large, and is ongoing. We agree that this influence is primarily due to fossil fuel burning, and to the resulting human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases [16]. We agree that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases should lead – and do lead – to global-scale warming of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land surface [17]. We agree that we have identified large global warming signals in the observed surface temperature changes from the late 19th century to the present [18], in the satellite atmospheric temperature data that have featured prominently in recent Congressional hearings [19,20], and in ocean heat content measurements [21].”
https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2017/letter-to-lamar-smith/
Slowdown discussion
Guest post by Fyfe et al.
https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/slowdown-discussion/
(Notice they call it a slowdown and not a pause. That is likely because they know what those words mean and how to use them correctly in a sentence, like most people.)
Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown
https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/making-sense/
Ed has an interesting blog.
The years you choose to show a hiatus start with an El Nino while you end or ignore the next El Nino as it messes up your hypothesis.
NAOM
There are hundreds of scientific articles about the hiatus. Nearly every climate scientist has wrote about it. You are simply an ignorant about the issue when you try to say that I define the hiatus by choosing the dates.
Lewandowsky et al 2015 (L2015) points out that in addition to two 2014 special issues/sections of Nature journals devoted to the “pause” or “hiatus” (Nature Climate Change, March 2014, No. 149; and Nature Geoscience, February 2014, No. 157), and with the IPCC adopting the term “hiatus” in its Fifth Assessment Report (Stocker et al., 2013), the number of scientific papers devoted to this alleged “hiatus” is large and growing rapidly (e.g., Allan et al., 2014, Balmaseda et al., 2013, Bao and Ren, 2014, Brown et al., 2014, Cazenave et al., 2014, Chen and Tung, 2014, Clement and DiNezio, 2014, Crowley et al., 2014, de Boisséson et al., 2014, Desbruyères et al., 2014, Dong and Zhou, 2014, Drijfhout et al., 2014, Easterling and Wehner, 2009, England et al., 2014, Estrada et al., 2013, Fyfe et al., 2013, Fyfe and Gillett, 2014, Goddard, 2014, Guemas et al., 2013, Haywood et al., 2014, Hawkins et al., 2014, Held, 2013, Huber and Knutti, 2014, Hunt, 2011, Kamae et al., 2014, Kaufmann et al., 2011, Kosaka and Xie, 2013, Laepple and Huybers, 2014, Lean and Rind, 2009, Lin et al., 2014, Lorentzen, 2014, Lovejoy, 2014, Lu et al., 2014, Macias et al., 2014, Maher et al., 2014, McGregor et al., 2014, Meehl et al., 2011, Meehl et al., 2013b, Meehl et al., 2014, Meehl and Teng, 2014, Palmer and Smith, 2014, Ridley et al., 2014, Risbey et al., 2014, Santer et al., 2011, Santer et al., 2014, Schmidt et al., 2014, Seneviratne et al., 2014, Sillmann et al., 2014, Smith, 2013, Solomon et al., 2010, Solomon et al., 2011, Tollefson, 2014, Trenberth, 2009, Trenberth and Fasullo, 2013, Trenberth et al., 2014, Triacca et al., 2014, Tung and Zhou, 2013, Watanabe et al., 2013, Watanabe et al., 2014 and Wayman, 2013).
L2015 does not claim that this list is exhaustive, and adds that ‘the IPCC represents the thoroughly vetted consensus view of the scientific community, and its treatment of the “hiatus” as a phenomenon worthy of explanation confirms that its existence has entered the mainstream scientific discourse.’
1 Strengthening of ocean heat uptake efficiency associated with the recent climate hiatus
Watanabe et al Geophysical, 2013
2 Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
England et al Nature Climate, 2014
3 Externally forced and internally generated decadal climate variability associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
Meehl et al. J of Climate, 2013
Section 3 contrasts the signatures of surface climate during hiatus and accelerated warming decades in the model
4 Model-based evidence of deep-ocean heat uptake during surface-temperature hiatus periods
Meehl et al. Nature Climate, 2011
There have been decades, such as 2000–2009, when the observed globally averaged surface-temperature time series shows little increase or even a slightly negative trend 1 (a hiatus period).
5 Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming
Meehl et al. Nature Climate Change, 2014
6 Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling
Kosaka & Xie Nature, 2013
7 Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled
Huber & Knutti Nature Geoscience, 2014
8 Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008
Kaufmann et al. Proceedings of the National Acad Sciences, 2011
Another explanation for the recent hiatus in warming focuses on the internal variability of the climate system.
9 Contribution of natural decadal variability to global warming acceleration and hiatus
Watanabe et al. Nature Climate
10 Climate science: The cause of the pause
Held Nature, 2013
11 CMIP5 multimodel hindcasts for the mid1970s shift and early 2000s hiatus and predictions for 2016–2035
Meehl & Teng – Geophysical Research Letters, 2014
12 Drivers of decadal hiatus periods in the 20th and 21st centuries
Maher et al. – Geophysical Research, 2014
13 Observed and simulated temperature extremes during the recent warming hiatus
Sillmann et al. Environmental Research, 2014
14 Surface warming hiatus caused by increased heat uptake across multiple ocean basins
Drijfhout et al. Geophysical, 2014
15 Equilibrium climate sensitivity in light of observations over the warming hiatus
Johansson et al. Nature Climate, 2015
16 Quantifying the likelihood of a continued hiatus in global warming
Roberts et al. Nature Climate Change, 2015
17 Application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis Technique to Study the Recent Hiatus on the Global Surface Temperature Record
Macias et al. 2014
18 The global warming hiatus – a natural product of interactions of a secular warming trend and a multi-decadal oscillation
Yao et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 2015
19 Why the hiatus in global warming in the last decade?
Bala CURRENT SCIENCE, 2013
20 A link between the hiatus in global warming and North American drought
Delworth et al. J of Climate, 2015
In the meantime, Kevin Trenberth, who spent a lot of time looking for the missing heat in the oceans, has published a paper on Science entitled:
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~klinck/Reprints/PDF/trenberthScience15.pdf
Has there been a hiatus? K. Trenberth 2015 Science 14 August 2015: Vol. 349 no. 6249 pp. 691-692
His bottom line: “The increasing gap between model expectations and observed temperatures provides further grounds for concluding that there has been a hiatus.”
Latest research confirms the pause:
Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown
J.C. Fyfe et al. 2016. Nature Climate Change 6, 224–228.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2938
Our results support previous findings of a reduced rate of surface warming over the 2001-2014 period – a period in which anthropogenic forcing increased at a relatively constant rate.
Newly identified observational errors do not, however negate the existance of a real reduction in the surface warming rate in the early twenty-first century relative to the 1970s-1990s.
This slowdown is evident in time series of GMST and in the global mean temperature of the lower troposphere.
97% of scientific papers published on the issue support the existence of the pause, that you think that I define the pause by picking dates is laughable. Go learn a little bit before showing everybody how ignorant you are.
Once again, cherry picked old reports and cherry picked charts.
NAOM
What a phenomenal resistance to melting by Arctic sea ice this year.
Despite huge alarmist reporting from November all over the press about Arctic sea ice and polar temperatures, widely echoed here at this blog forum, and great expectations at alarmist sea ice forums that this year could break the record of 2012, Nature is refusing to cooperate with alarmists.
The only remarkable thing about this melt season is that it is on its way to show one of the lowest sea ice melting of the past 10 years. Another year that contributes to the observed increase in Arctic sea ice since 2007. But this is happening on the wake of the three warmest years ever recorded, 2015-2017.
Most people will ignore the evidence and continue accepting the official version that the Arctic is rapidly and alarmingly melting, and that global average temperatures are responsible because of Arctic amplification. The truth is other. Arctic summers are getting shorter and cooler, and Arctic sea ice is slowly growing.
Figure Arctic sea ice extent from http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
2017 in light blue.
The explanation for why Arctic summers are getting shorter and cooler is known to scientists. It is just not being accepted by the climate establishment that defends the CO2 hypothesis. Arctic waters are getting cooler since at least 2004 according to Argo. This is simply and indication that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation that has contributed to global warming for the past decades is slowly turning and no longer contributes to the warming and sea ice melting.
So yes, some scientists know that Arctic sea ice is not going to melt and can even grow for the next decade or two, and I do too, while most scientists, alarmists like Survivalist or GoneFishing, and curve fitters like Tamino or Dennis, don’t have a clue.
We should ignore climate alarmists and their proposed solutions, because the evidence shows they don’t know what they talk about.
Figure: Argo ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic and Arctic waters from http://www.climate4you.com/
In areas that ice still exists, I would not expect SST and near surface temperatures to be much different than the melting point of ice. That is obvious.
However gateway areas to the Arctic Ocean have been showing significant warming.
Most boundary regions and marginal seas of the Arctic had anomalously warm SSTs in August 2015 compared to the 1982-2010 August mean (Fig. 5.1c). SSTs in these seas, which are mostly ice-free in August, are linked to the timing of local sea-ice retreat; anomalously warm SSTs (up to +3°C relative to 1982-2010) in August 2015 in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas were associated with low sea-ice extents and exposure of surface waters to direct solar heating (Fig. 5.1c; see also the essay on Sea Ice). The relationship between warm SSTs and reduced sea-ice is further apparent in a comparison between August 2015 and August 2014 SSTs: anomalously warm regions (including to the east of Svalbard, where SSTs were up to +3°C warmer than 1982-2010) are associated with relatively lower sea-ice extents in 2015 compared to 2014 (Fig. 5.1d). Although SSTs were warmer in general, August 2015 SSTs were cooler relative to the 1982-2010 average in some regions, e.g., along the southern boundaries of the Beaufort and East Siberian seas (Fig. 5.1c), where summer air temperatures were also below average (see Fig. 1.2d in the essay on Air Temperature).
Anomalously warm August 2015 SSTs in eastern Baffin Bay are notable this year, with values as much as +4°C warmer than the 1982-2010 August mean; SSTs over the region indicate a general warming trend of about 0.5°C/decade since 1982 (Fig. 5.2). If only the past two decades are considered, the linear warming trend in the surface waters of eastern Baffin Bay is about 1°C/decade (+0.10 ± 0.05°C/year). Along the boundaries of the Arctic Basin, the only marginal seas to exhibit statistically significant warming trends are the Chukchi and the Kara seas. Chukchi Sea August SSTs are warming at a rate of about +0.5°C/decade, commensurate with declining trends in summer sea-ice extent in the region. In the Kara Sea, August 2015 SSTs were also around +4°C warmer than the 1982-2010 August mean; SSTs in this sea have warmed by about +0.3°C/decade since 1982. In other marginal seas, warm August SST anomalies observed in 2015 are of similar magnitude to warm anomalies observed in past decades (shown in Arctic Report Card 2014, Fig. 5.3).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2015/ArtMID/5037/ArticleID/220/Sea-Surface-Temperature
Argo is state of the art ocean temperature measurement, but only from 2004. Argo shows Arctic and North Atlantic are cooling. Perhaps they were doing different before, but now they are cooling.
As you yourself said: “whereas now the more accurate and consistent buoys account for 85% of measurements.”
We know better what they are doing now.
Hi Javier,
Here is the page.
http://climate4you.com/
For the Arctic the Gateway seas are more important than the North Atlantic click on “Arctic gateway seas (20W-40E. 70-80N) heat content 0-700 m depth” under the Oceans link at the left to find this. All three of these “Gateway seas” have been warming.
Also the Global Ocean has been warming since 1983, see chart below.
For the World’s Oceans we have the chart below.
What has been discovered lately is that the very deep ocean below our ARGO and other floats is gaining temperature. Autonomous probes are in the works to explore the true deeps and take more rigorous measurements than have been done so far.
There is a lot we do not know about the ocean, but a lot we do. SST are rising and the first 700 meters too. There are some localized cool areas but they are small compared to the heated region. Again, it’s physics, how electromagnetic waves interact with water.
I don’t know if you know that the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9°C. That’s very cold, and if ocean mixing got a little bit more efficient we would be in a serious problem. Sure the deep ocean can use some warming. That the ocean is so cold is a Quaternary Ice Age feature.
Oh, you really are reaching the bottom of the barrel bringing up that old hackneyed ploy. What next, the average temperature of the earth. You know the center is very hot and molten right? How about the average temperature of the atmosphere. It is very cold or very hot depending on altitude.
As a biologist of some sort you do realize life exists within a narrow realm on earth and the extremes of temperature elsewhere (like in volcanoes or at the bottom of the deep ocean or at the top of the atmosphere) are not even in the discussion. Unless you are predicting some fast overturn of the ocean. Haven’t heard that one yet.
Maybe you will find one more “scientific” paper saying how the surface temperature will suddenly drop from 17C to 3C due to the gravitational pull of Jupiter combining with the pull of Venus or some such claptrap.
“the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9°C. That’s very cold” – Javier
“Everything is relative” – Javier
Not exactly captain of the debate team, are you Doc?
This is not about debating skills. It is about evidence. The evidence doesn’t support what you say. The oceans are very cold and the average warming they are experiencing incredibly small. So small that it is within the measurement error of any thermometer.
So it is not as you are telling it.
Of course the ocean has warmed. The planet would not have warmed without the ocean. Only the top 100 m. can store more energy than the entire atmosphere.
Arctic gateway seas have not warmed within the Argo era. Their previous warming doesn’t melt today’s ice.
Hi Javier,
Anybody can look at the charts to see you are wrong. The gateway seas have warmed during the Argo period, just look at the charts I pointed to at climate4u.
Hi Dennis,
Argo data for the area shows cooling, not warming:
Look at the 65-80°N band. Do you see any warming there?
Hi Javier,
I only use the data to confirm hypotheses based on physics. If you consider this “curve fitting” fine, I would call it science. Though it is very basic science, not ground breaking stuff that could be published in a journal.
Below I test the annual temperature data against the natural log of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the AMO with a simple linear regression.
The relationship between atmospheric CO2 and radiative forcing is well known and a paper by Berkeley Earth suggests the amo is also important. The “CAMO” model (for Carbon and AMO) does a simple linear regression on temperature vs nat log of atm CO2 and AMO. The model matches Berkely Earth land ocean data fairly well from 1850 to 2015. The data is annual. The correlation coefficient is 0.956. Also note the regression was done on 1881-2010 data only so 1850-1880 and 2011 to 2015 are outside the model fit
Javier likes to claim there has been no acceleration in warming, but if we consider the trend from 1850 to 1969 (0.4 C per century) and 1970-2015 (1.7 C per century) there is about a fourfold increase in the rate of warming from one period to the next. Perhaps this rate will slow in the future, or it may accelerate further, it will depend on many factors including carbon emissions and future feedbacks to those emissions. The results are uncertain, but are likely to be within the range of Global Climate models (which show wide variation).
I have shown this chart from the Met Office that the BBC published before.
It shows the rate of warming has not increased. If anything the rate of cooling has decreased.
I like the Met Office better than Berkeley Earth. Berkeley Earth funding is unclear and its results controversial.
Hi Javier,
The main global data sets that go back to at least 1880 match very well with the Berkeley Earth data. So you only like data that confirms your hypothesis? Interesting. That is a very strange chart, typically one uses temperature rather than a plot of “trends”.
No offense intended, Dennis, but when you consider Arctic sea ice extent you only take into consideration the mathematical value of the points and insist in 30 years as criterion for consideration. The cause of the melting has to be considered, and 10 years is plenty to detect changes. Thousands of scientists write thousands of articles over phenomena that has been studied for much less than 10 years.
The cause of the lack of melting for the past 10 years does exist, as everything has a cause, and it has to be investigated. It shows that for the past 10 years neither global average temperatures nor CO2 have had much effect on Arctic sea ice. An alternative explanation is available that not only fits current data but extends the explanation back hundreds of years, long before any significant change in CO2.
A possible cause for the good fit between temperatures and CO2 is that temperatures have been adjusted to CO2.
Ok,
If you want to argue that the scientists have adjusted the data to fit their hypothesis and they are all conspiring to fool the public, be my guest.
A foolish hypothesis in my view.
There is a simple explanation for changes in the rate that the ice melts from year to year. It is natural variability. The system is chaotic and non-linear and in other places you have claimed that the long term trends tend to be relatively stable, I am suggesting from decade to decade there may be variation in the rate that the ice melts, and of course a casual glance at the evidence shows that the amount of ice varies up and down year to year. This will depend on wind, ocean currents, temperature and cloudiness all of which will vary day to day, month to month and year to year.
Would you agree that 2 or three years would tell us very little (if we take them in isolation)?
I am not deducing any intention, but it is a fact that temperatures have become a lot better correlated with successive adjustments and station selections. This is hard to explain as we know how to measure temperatures since well over a hundred years ago. But regardless of explanations the good correlation comes from a recent interpretation of old data.
This is a graph I made from the official GISS temperature graphs for 2000 and 2015. Between those years 0.4°C of warming have been introduced. This is a fact, and it has not been explained, nor do I think can be explained. To say that a great deal of the warming is human in origin, and more properly produced by climate scientists is not an exaggeration.
Hi Javier,
A paper published by Berkeley Earth explains their methodology. My guess is their are similar papers for GISS data.
Oh and read your chart more carefully, it is 0.2 C of a difference not 0.4 C as the scale is shifted on the chart.
Also charts are not a good way to do this, you have to look at the data.
For the history try
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/history/
When the 2002 data is compared with the 2017 data and the 1880 to 1909 mean is set to zero for both data sets, the difference between the 1993-2002 mean for the two data sets is 0.136, over a 100 year period this amounts to 0.00136 C per year. The difference in the trends is in fact 0.0013 C/year.
The innuendo is not an argument,
how about peer reviewed papers?
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/papers/Results-Paper-Berkeley-Earth.pdf
and this list
http://berkeleyearth.org/papers/
Hi Javier,
Those are not Arctic Oceans, that is the ocean south of the Arctic. The Arctic Ocean is 65N-90N.
Ocean temperature is not measured below the ice.
Yes it is. ARGO does it, tethered floats do it. Actually about half a dozen ways it is directly measured.
You are correct, but I haven’t found the data on temperatures for the tethered profilers, just on oxygen and salinity, and as they drift randomly and there are few, they are not fit for temperature determination over time.
Hi Dennis,
This is the latitudinal temperature profile for Argo. You are just trying hard not to see what it is the obvious explanation for the Arctic sea ice lack of melting for the last decade. The water is getting colder and the water is a lot more important for ice melting than the air.
Any year now we are going to have a lot of fun with Arctic sea ice. We are going to have a really good ice year and September extent will go above 5 million sq. km. Then the scientific articles and press articles on the ice pause will start. You are just getting advanced warning by me here.
Hi Javier,
Well the Arctic Gateway seas have been Warming. In addition the surface Ocean temperatures (37 month average) from 0 to 2.5 meters deep have been stable. It is the heating from the solar radiation that does most of the melting from above along with higher air temperatures that result in more melting. Changes in the Jet stream have made the summers variable in the amount of warmth. So which is it, you seem to be saying both that we know the Arctic ocean is warmer and that we don’t have accurate measurements? It cannot be both, either we know the temperature or we don’t.
I have shown you the Argo map, and the latitudinal graph, and both clearly show no warming but cooling in the Arctic and adjacent areas. Argo is the best system to measure ocean temperatures and everybody agrees on that.
Your proposal that solar radiation does most of the melting is quite irrelevant. Solar radiation essentially doesn’t change from year to year except from cloud variability, and if anything albedo changes should promote more melting, not the less melting we are seeing. And the air has seen increased warming not decreased.
A factor that clearly can influence melting is water temperature and the best information we have is that water temperature is decreasing, and should contribute to the increase in Arctic sea ice observed.
Hi Javier,
The ice is on the surface, the temperature of the water at the surface is unchanged.
The amount of warming on the surface changes depending upon the surface conditions and albedo at the surface as well as the air temperature near the surface.
Clouds and humidity will affect the net radiative forcing on the surface, of course the solar input is relatively unchanged year to year (though there are slight variations in solar output the changes are small).
Obviously expect complete silence from the press about the Arctic not melting for the past 10 years. It is very telling so many articles about the coming Arctic melting during the Arctic winter, and none about the observed melting during the Arctic summer.
At least you have been informed here. You cannot claim that you have been fooled by the press and alarmist scientists.
You’ve got a bit of a tic. Obsess much?
FYI
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourette_syndrome
Try to self-diagnose before going around.
Looks like Javier is off his meds again. It was so peaceful here a couple months ago when his comments had dried up.
You mean you could spread all sort of climate alarmist exaggerations without anybody checking on you, don’t you?
All I have done is post data. It’s unfortunate that you choose to label anyone who posts data that contradicts your propaganda as alarmist. Not exactly captain of the debate team, are you? I’m not alarmed at all. I’m actually quite cool, calm and collected (the 3 C’s) about the whole thing. It appears to be you who is alarmed, as your failed predictions, propaganda and bullshit arguments collide head on with reality.
Actually climate evidence is supporting my views. That’s why I feel reinforced in my conviction that I am interpreting the evidence correctly.
– No significant warming lately except for El Niño
– No decline in Arctic sea ice since 2007
– No big increase in sea level rise
– No increase in extreme weather phenomena
My predictions are not failing and I am not alarmed. Quite the contrary, I thing we are enjoying what climate scientists used to call a climate optimum. I don’t foresee any significant warming or cooling for the next decades, so everything is perfect in that regard.
Hi Javier,
It is not likely that the rate of warming will be constant. Since 1979 using the wood for trees index (average of 2 satellite data sets and 2 thermometer data sets) the rate of increase in global temperatures has been 1.58 C per century. This rate could increase or decrease in the future, it will depend in part on climate emissions and on future feedbacks as albedo changes and permafrost melts and the effect of warming on cloudiness.
1.58°C/decade means 0.5°C more by 2050.
If we get that it means warming is not accelerating, and that is not consistent with CO2 driving the warming.
If we get less, well that means we have seriously misunderstood climate change.
Only if we get significantly more than 0.5°C increase by 2050 the hypothesis can be said to agree with the evidence.
We just have to wait and see, but in my opinion we are not going to get even +0.5°C by 2050 showing that the hypothesis is not consistent with the evidence.
That is if they don’t keep adding 0.4°C every 15 years.
Hi Javier,
The Woodfortrees index is based on 4 independent data sets and the GISS only changes from the 2002 to 2017 data sets by 0.09 C if we use the 1981-2000 mean as zero for the two data sets (as in Wood for trees).
The current GISS data set has a slope of 0.017 C/year from 1979 to 2016.
How much warming there will be over the next 50 years will depend in part on atmospheric CO2. If atmospheric CO2 rises to 500 ppm in 49 years that implies another 0.7 C of warming above 2015 temperature. This assumes a simple linear relation ship between the change in the natural log of atmospheric CO2 and changes in temperature. Reality is far more complex and the relationship may be non-linear, up to 520 ppm this may be a fairly good approximation over the next 100 years.
For those interested in a more nuanced assessment:
This link shows extent and concentration on one tab, and thickness and volume on another. Clearly ice has in fact been melting.
http://polarportal.dk/en/havisen-i-arktis/nbsp/sea-ice-extent/
One thing I find particularly interesting is the negative feedbacks to arctic ice reduction. This year Arctic low pressure areas with persistent cyclonic conditions (“cool”/cloudy) over the central Arctic have prevented much of the usual ice export through the Fram Straight. While ice has indeed been melting, as can be seen by viewing animations at link above, the export has been virtually nil.
Arctic circulation regimes and impact on ice export is quite interesting. Although I’m sure Javier would rather talk solar cycles over at Juddith Curry.
Arctic circulation regimes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4607701/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_Gyre
Yes in climate scientists’ computers, but not in the Arctic.
Satellite pictures pixels show no melting for ten years. And that one is going to be tough to adjust. The pictures cannot be changed and the measurements are done by Europeans and Japanese too.
Looks like it’s getting very broken up to me and NSIDC.
A closer look.
Javier focuses on extent. Volume is an illusion according to Javier. And concentration is a feature of sea ice that he has never mentioned before. Likely because doing so would not help his pathetic excuse for an analysis.
Both JAXA and NSIDC currently have arctic sea ice extent in 5th place for lowest extent. In a few weeks we’ll know the final outcome for the year.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/blog/polview.html
Javier has very little to go on these days. I guess 5th lowest on record is a big win in his eyes. After all his failed predictions he’s getting desperate. I guess Javier feels that 2017 not being a record low Arctic sea ice extent vindicates his argument. Kinda pathetic really.
Desperate? You’ve got to be kidding.
The evidence continues to support my interpretation. Arctic sea ice is not decreasing one more year, temperatures are slowly returning towards pre-El Niño values, sea level rise continues being the same, every alarmist prediction is turning out dead wrong.
It is the alarmists that are getting desperate, as their lies and exaggerations are being uncovered. You have a rough time ahead.
“You have a rough time ahead.” – Javier
Could you be more specific? Perhaps offer me one of your soon to be failed predictions perhaps?
Yes. I predict you are going to be very disappointed by climate change over the next few years. It is not going to support your beliefs very much. Perhaps you will even have doubts that you got this one right.
Working night shift Javier?
NAOM
Hey Survivalist, I have pointed out both many times and he (them)?
Anyway ge pays no attention. He is his own echo chamber trying to drown us out with his volume.
Anyway we know the ice is melted from both underneath and above, thus breaking and thinning it. The majority of winter ice is first year ice now and that is increasing. Even if the Arctic has several exceptionally cold winters in a row, it will not be enough to stop the progression. There is too much heat coming in from sky, fresh water and ocean currents. Most of the land around the Arctic Ocean will be above freezing for at least the next week according to weather predictions. Some places hitting over 50F.
You mean you tell by eye? Ha-ha, you are funny.
Hi Javier,
One could easily take the concentration data and estimate ice volume and that’s what PIOMAS does. And also DMI
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
DMI does not show 2012, but 2017/8/22 is third lowest on the DMI volume chart and below the 2014 to 2013 mean volume.
Which doesn’t mean that the estimate is correct, does it?
For the last 10 years volume shows decrease, extent doesn’t. One is wrong. One is estimated the other is measured. I wonder which one.
How do you know one is wrong? Is it not plausible that they could both be right? Is it not possible that volume can decline while extent does not?
Very weak tea Doc. Pathetic really.
Yeah. Keep dreaming. Your pathetic ice pancake into crepe conjecture. The problem with alarmists is that they are willing to believe anything that supports their beliefs even in the absence of any evidence. The lack of religion really has left a big hole in weak minds.
Hi Javier,
They can both be correct. If extent is unchanged and thickness decreases, then volume decreases.
Not very difficult to understand.
You do know that the satellite temperature is not a “temperature measurement”, it is based on a “model” so it cannot be believed 🙂 Or some might make such a spurious claim. I am kidding, but there do seem to be problems with the satellite temperature data.
Hi Dennis,
Except that the thinner the ice the easier it melts during the melting season, so it is not believable that the ice can get thinner and thinner for years without melting.
Hi Javier,
I suppose if one imagines the ice is of uniform thickness that would be correct.
I make no such assumption. There is natural variation in wind and ocean currents as well as summer weather differences affecting cloudiness and precipitation, thus the movement and breakup of the ice is very different from year to year.
Which part of natural variability do you find difficult to understand? 🙂
Both are estimates. Either could be wrong and both could be right.
Yes, it’s color coordinated to the chart on the right. Are you color blind as well as logically impaired?
-7.4% per decade
https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
You’re pathetic Doc.
Stats much?
“Evidently Javier was unhappy about NSIDC using daily data on sea ice extent to show that this year had the 2nd-lowest annual minimum on record. So, he decided to go with the September monthly averages for each year, and to start with 2007 to show a “trend” which, he says, shows “that Arctic sea ice has been increasing since that fateful September of 2007.”
Gosh, Javier, what was that you were saying about “The trend is always determined by the choice of starting point and ending point“? Didn’t you “Do your homework“?
Of course the trend isn’t determined by the choice of start and end points, but it’s strongly influenced by it. That’s especially true if you start (or end) with an extreme, which I discussed here. And that’s exactly what Javier has done: start, not just with the most extreme September average in the record, but one so extreme he himself refers to it as “fateful.”
Javier has also resorted to another denier favorite: computing a “trend” based on a time span that’s way to short. Way too short. Ten years, from 2007 to 2016. And, in classic fashion, he omits to estimate any uncertainty with that “trend.”
Let’s do the math for him.
Using September average sea ice extent from NSIDC, and using only the data from 2007 through 2016, the estimated trend by linear regression is +18 thousand km^2 per year. Upward!!! But, the “margin of error” (95% confidence interval) for that figure is somewhere between +142 thousand km^2/yr and -105 thousand km^2/yr. Downward 🙁
Apparently that’s the best he could do, despite cherry-picking an extreme starting point. Of course he follows this keen trend analysis with what I can only call “mathturbation” to support a claim of trend change … and rather crude mathturbation, in my opinion.”
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/extreme-cherry-ice/
He uses levelized graphs (data with trend removed to study variance) to show no trend.
Tamino is shown wrong one more year. He’ll have to eat crow. Every passing year he is going to look more ridicule. His statistics aren’t going to tell him anything about Arctic sea ice dynamics. His lack of understanding cannot be covered by statistics.
Meds Doc. Get back on them.
Yes Javier. In the Arctic. Ice has been melting. Perhaps you think you’re smarter than the US Navy, who it would do you no harm to know actually take quite a keen interest in Arctic ice.
https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicen_nowcast_anim30d.gif
Maybe you should get a job with NASA and the US Navy and you can sort all those dumbasses out with your keen mind and insightful analysis.
If I remember correctly Maslowski works at the US Naval School and he has been saying since 2007 that the ice in the Arctic disappeared years ago.
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
“Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
“So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
Professor Maslowski’s group, which includes co-workers at Nasa and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), is well known for producing modelled dates that are in advance of other teams.”
What a bunch of crap. 2013 was 4 years ago, and we have more Arctic sea ice than when this looser made his crappy prediction and said it was too conservative. Certainly some of those dumbasses need smarting up.
Hi Javier the paper is at link below
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wieslaw_Maslowski/publication/234145875_The_Future_of_Arctic_Sea_Ice/links/0c96051fabe025feb4000000.pdf
On page 639 of the paper we have:
Given the estimated trend and the volume estimate for October–November of 2007 at less than 9,000 km3 (Kwoketal.2009), one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer.
So the prediction was 2013 to 2019 for “nearly ice free”.
They go on to say:
Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover.
I would note that the slope projection is -1120 km3/year with a standard deviation of 2353 km3/year. So it is not clear where they get the +/-3 years, a better prediction would have been no prediction with this level of uncertainty, in my opinion.
Or if all the data from 1979 to 2004 had been used a projection of 2033 might be more reasonable with maybe +/-17 years for an uncertainty range so 2016 to 2050 with maybe a 2/3 chance of it falling in that range.
Easier to say in hindsight of course, the paper was published in May 2012.
Hi Dennis,
That was his 2012 prediction. His 2007 prediction was 2013 as it was clearly reflected in the press and used by Al Gore. Gore spoke of Maslowski’s prediction in his Nobel discourse.
“Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.”
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html
Obviously by 2011 he had realized his prediction was going to fail as sea ice grew between 2007 and 2011. He did what all doomers do. He postponed the date of his prediction.
Hi Javier,
Or as most scientists do he changes his theory based on evidence. I would need to see the 2007 paper that you refer to, often non-scientists will exaggerate, I don’t get my science from politicians.
Survivalist – there wasn’t much transport into the Greenland Sea and as a consequence that has lost almost all it’s cover, including the remaining fast ice, for the first time. Also all the multi year ice along northern Greenland and the archipelago got separated from land and smashed up. Be interesting to see how that effects things next year. I think the Atlantic margin seems to be gradually getting warmer every year and, depending on all the other trends going on, is gradually pushing the ice limit back bit by bit. Like you say it’s pretty fascinating, and more so as it’s all likely never to be repeated (and also has resulted in me learning how to spell archipelago – no mean feat).
We may be at an inflection point in some markets/drivers where its make more sense to add an additional Battery capacity than the messy complexities an Hybrid ICE Motor. Asian Pure EV’s taking over Hybrids now. It’s just not just the stinking ICE either, as there are also hundreds of parts for just the Fuel System required to meet North American Pollution / Safety requirements. A YUGH deal for Global Battery Production ramp up. Also of Interest is the 190,000 Asian Commerical EV’s for 2016.
https://chargedevs.com/newswire/plug-in-vehicles-in-china-181000-units-sold-in-first-half/
Good news. China is a growing market for vehicles and the growth of EV’s is important to them, they have very bad pollution problems. The US citizens have higher expectations for their cars and pay more for it, so they will not fully embrace the pure EV until a reasonably useful network of charging systems has been installed. That is why Tesla rolled out it’s charging systems early.
Another five to ten years and the EV will be the mainstay of passenger cars sold worldwide.
Right now, unless one can afford a Tesla, the best option for much of the US is the plug in hybrid. If you hardly ever travel far, the EV is a great vehicle with no or little hassles. Remember though that winter driving range is shorter and even a Tesla will not start if it is cold enough.
“Pungoteague_Dave | October 28, 2013
I now keep our heated garages warmer because of this factor. Our excess solar generation allows this with minimal cost. However, we find that range drops about 20% when driving in temperatures below 40F and more than that below 30. I don’t think this matters as much in the EU, where distances are often shorter and charging opportunities more frequent, but for us it makes driving the S85 190 miles between our homes a bit risky. We range charge twice per week to make the round trip, but as the car ages it will likely become impossible. It is already impossible with a standard charge.”
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cold-weather-battery-warming-question
Recent post by NSIDC
“On August 21, 2017, ice extent stood at 5.27 million square kilometers (2.03 million square miles). This was 1.82 million square kilometers (703,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 median extent for the same day, and 804,000 square kilometers (310,000 square miles) and 221,000 square kilometers (85,000 square miles) above the 2012 and 2007 extents for the same day, respectively”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Looks like extreme warm years over the Arctic occur about two to three times per decade now. The highs over the Arctic will be changing to lows soon. A high pressure region will move northward over Greenland.
I’m interested to see how ice export might resume as the high pressure moves over the central Arctic. Interesting times! Like watching a slow motion car wreck. That you’re in.
Recent post by Copernicus. Nice graphics too.
“Sea-ice was much less widespread in July 2017 than in the average for July from 1981 to 2010.
Arctic sea-ice cover was either absent or much lower than normal off much of the northern coastline of Russia, Alaska and the Yukon. It was generally lower than normal elsewhere, and above average only in small regions, most notably south of Baffin Bay.
Antarctic sea-ice cover was also lower than average overall. It extended less to the north than is normal for July in all but one sector, although concentrations further south were higher than average in some other sectors also.”
https://climate.copernicus.eu/products/monthly-sea-ice-maps/monthly-maps/july-2017
The Antarctic looks like something about to hit resonance frequency. That’s a good site, and will still be there despite Trump’s best efforts, I wonder how many US scientists will move over to it (or already have).
Define your average as for the last ten years as NOAA does and then suddenly what you have is average sea ice.
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/images/sea_ice_only.jpg
Hi Javier,
The past 10 years have not been normal in the Arctic so that would be a strange mean to use. Maybe they should call 2012 the mean 🙂
Hi Dennis,
Normal is a human definition that depends on the period considered, the ice knows nothing about that. There have been periods with more ice and with less ice in the Arctic. What we have is the new normal for the 21st century so far. Much better than what was predicted 10 years ago.
Hi Javier,
There probably have not been 10 years with less ice in the arctic than 2007-2016 in the past 4000 years. So lets say since the development of human civilization.
Hi Dennis,
How could you possibly know that? Sea ice proxies are in their infancy, so we have absolutely no idea how Arctic sea ice was during the prolonged Roman warm period. We don’t even know the sea ice extent 100 years ago, much less 2000 years ago.
Hi Javier,
Some research suggests its been about 2 million years since the Arctic was ice free.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/12/02/the_last_time_there_was_this_little_arctic_ice_modern_humans_didn_t_exist.html
Front page of NY Times – report on research by Wood’s Hole:
ALASKA’S PERMAFROST IS THAWING
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/23/climate/alaska-permafrost-thawing.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska — The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.
We have lost about 3/4 of the September sea ice volume in the Arctic since 1980 and are losing the permafrast. Once Arctic sea ice and permafrost become annual, the energy effect changes. Ice has been a buffer for global warming, but as it is lost the buffer goes away to be replaced by easily melted ice or none at all. More energy will be available for heating.
When do you expect that to happen? By 2013 like Maslowski?
Poor, poor Javier, jabbering nonsense.
The decline of Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2016 has been from 7.22 to 4.74 million sq. km. That represents a loss of 34%. The loss took place mainly between 1996 with 7.91 million sq. km. and 2007 with 4.32 million sq. km.
The idea that the Arctic ice loss has been linear and we can extrapolate it is wrong. Most of the ice loss coincided with a period known to scientists as the pause due to its low rate of warming. This indicates that either there is a very long delay between global warming and ice melting, or both are unrelated.
In any case the conservative expectation is a continuation of the recent trend of no melting. Whether there will be a period of accelerated melting again in the future or not is currently unknown. Since we cannot explain ice behavior, we cannot predict future ice. Apparently you think you can, therefore you are the one speaking jabbering nonsense.
In 1996 nobody could say that there was a problem with Arctic sea ice. By 2007, just 11 years later, the entire drop had materialized and sea ice experts were all running around shitless. That’s the origin of the Arctic scare that first Al Gore and then Greenpeace have taken advantage so well. 10 years later there hasn’t been any further loss. It is time to reassess and get a more rational approach to Arctic sea ice loss. If there is no further loss of ice for the next 10 years, or even some gain, it is going to be very difficult to explain people that they were lied for 20 years with Arctic stories when the ice was not declining.
The entrenchment into the position that we are not seeing the loss in ice extent but it is still happening in unseen volume will backfire spectacularly against scientists. People don’t like being lied. It is always better to come out truthful and say things as they are.
Javier,
Perhaps it is too early to tell. There is data that shows the Arctic ice was relatively stable for many decades, though the data may not be as good as the data since 1979. If we look at the data we have a linear trend fits pretty well, though no doubt there may be some variation above and below the linear trend, perhaps the relationship is a negative exponential. Hard to say at this point.
Javier – I didn’t read what you wrote but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t comment on anything I write, take your dumbass, putrid, needy narcissism and fuck off somewhere else.
Javier reminds me of a Jehovah Witness; mindless automation spouting endless volumes of total crap.
Always a good source:
Hollow spaces make great echo chambers and after a little while all you hear is yourself.
Preparing for the future, Swiss planting warmer climate trees to replace those that are heat sensitive.
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/swiss-trees-swelter-climate-warms/
.
Cute Fred. Looks like my area in winter, but the palm trees are plastic. 🙂
Fred, if you know, maybe you could give us some perspective on a large portion of the preserved Amazon rain forest losing protection and being turned over to mining interests in Brazil. I had heard that the rate of deforestation had slowed for a while, but will this turn out to just be a blip with the new push toward usage of the Amazon by the government and destruction of biological reserves as well as incursion into indigenous population areas?
Actually those palms are real and that’s a pict of the beach in Ft. Lauderdale 😉
Re Amazon rainforest: I wish the deforestation had slowed but it seems the current administration has decided to cut back (no pun intended) environmental regulations, protecting the forest and allowing slash and burn agricultural practices and cattle ranching to encroach on sensitive areas. So it has been one step forward and two steps back. Brazil is currently under the control of a right wing, authoritarian, anti science regime, much like the Trump administration. Hopefully he, Temer, will be impeached soon.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-cattle-idUSKBN1722O1
BRASILIA (Reuters) – The world’s largest meatpacker, Brazil’s JBS SA, has for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land, turning a blind eye to regulations meant to protect the Amazon rainforest, Brazil’s environmental regulator has alleged.
The accusation comes even as JBS and other meatpackers in Brazil, the top global exporter of beef, are reeling from a corruption scandal. Police allege bribery of health inspectors to overlook unsanitary conditions and forgo inspections. JBS has denied wrongdoing and sought to assure consumers that its products meet rigorous quality standards.
Earlier this month, the environmental agency, IBAMA, ordered the suspension of two JBS meat packing plants and 13 others in southwest Pará state for buying cattle raised on pastures cleared by slashing and burning the forest. It fined the company 24 million reais ($7.7 million).
Then we have the environmental effects of large hydroelectric dams such as the Belo Monte Dam, and road building through the forest coupled with mining etc… Unfortunately most of Brazil is currently stuck in the global growth paradigm to solve all it’s problems which are mostly created by that very same growth paradigm in a never ending spiral or the case of the snake eating its own tail.
Back in the late 70’s and 80’s I used to fly a lot up to Belem and Amapa state as a contractor for Petrobras, that was our jump off point for flying out to the oil rigs. I was back in the Amazon two years ago and took a flight from Sao Paulo to Manaus at night and was struck by the number of lit up towns that I could see everywhere I looked as I flew over previously uninhabited territory. Those 7.5 plus billion humans are definitely having an impact.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716311223
Biological Conservation
Volume 206, February 2017, Pages 161-168
Biological Conservation
Discussion
Environmental impact assessment in Brazilian Amazonia: Challenges and prospects to assess biodiversity
Abstract
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has the goal of providing decision makers with an indication of the likely environmental consequences of planned actions risking environmental changes and, when necessary, allowing revision of these actions to mitigate adverse impacts. Here we provide an overview of the efficiency of EIA with emphasis on Brazilian Amazonia and discuss the problems and challenges with this type of assessment in highly diverse ecosystems. We concentrate on the methodology and performance of EIAs for three of the most recent and largest infrastructure projects in Amazonia: the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, the BR-319 Highway, and the Juruti bauxite mine. We conclude that all of these EIAs fall short of properly assessing the expected impact of infrastructure development in situ, and that their results had little or no effect on policy decisions. To improve the reliability and usefulness of EIAs in biologically diverse ecosystems, we suggest three relatively fast and cost-effective complementary approaches for assessing biodiversity: remote sensing, reflectance spectroscopy, and DNA meta-barcoding. We discuss how these emerging cutting-edge techniques can help in identifying environmental threats and the consequences of different activities in Amazonia. The ability to monitor the state of the environment and the likely impacts of human activities on natural resources is fundamental to evidence-based decisions on development choices, to the design of appropriate management strategies, and to mitigate biological and ecological consequences.
Fred – I’m sure you’ll agree, this is very depressing stuff.
WORRISOME TREND FOR HEALTH OF WILD DOLPHINS
Between 2003-2005, researchers saw a jump in the prevalence of disease, with the percentage of “definite disease” rising from 9 percent to 33 percent for the CHS population and from 28.6 percent to 50 percent in the IRL population. As of 2015, 32.5 percent of all IRL dolphins assessed by HERA were classified as “definite disease.”
“Today, fewer than half of the dolphins we are seeing as part of our health assessments can be classified as healthy,” said Dr. Bossart. “While this number has remained relatively stable since 2005, it is clear these populations are experiencing a health burden largely driven by infectious disease and environmental exposures.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170823184347.htm
Yeah that sucks!
The links I provided above about the destruction of the Brazilian Amazonian ecosystems includes one of my favorite dolphins, the pink river dolphin.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/dolphin-pink-river
As if that weren’t bad enough, this just across the wires!
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/brazil-opens-amazon-reserve-to-mining.html
Brazil opens mammoth Amazon reserve twice the size of New Jersey to mining The Brazilian government has dismantled an Amazonian national reserve twice the size of New Jersey.
The area, thought to be rich in minerals, will be opened up to mining. The region has been preserved as a national reserve for more than three decades.
What these greedy idiots do not grasp, is that the intact ecosystem of that reserve is worth multiple times what they could possibly extract in minerals. The people currently in power in Brazil may not be there for long, hopefully the next administration regains a proper sense of perspective and turns out to be better stewards of the environment.
Yes, that is what I was asking about up above. I heard it on NPR early this morning, they had a discussion about the loss of protection to some natural reserves in the northern Amazon. Not being that familiar with the area I put it to you.
You are right about people not properly valuing the natural systems. They value extremely short term industrial and profit systems that destroy the natural areas. There is little perspective in the civilized world.
We value the wrong things now and by the time we have the knowledge and wisdom to value natural areas properly, they will be mostly destroyed, so iPhones and other gadgets can sit in a landfill somewhere for that is their destiny.
. All that biological treasure will be up in smoke, clear cut and polluted. We may have Smartphones but we need to smarten up quickly or we may join the iPhones, a marriage made in corporation.
There is little perspective in the civilized world.
We value the wrong things now and by the time we have the knowledge and wisdom to value natural areas properly, they will be mostly destroyed, so iPhones and other gadgets can sit in a landfill somewhere for that is their destiny.
Which is why I’m a strong proponent of the concept of a ‘Circular Economy’! To be clear a circular economy isn’t about recycling. It is the application of systems and design thinking to completely reinvent all our systems be they social, economic, political, educational, technological, etc… from scratch.
It’s a fight against the entrenched linear thinking that is the foundation of what some of us call BAU.
https://www.thinkdif.co/news/first-news-of-this-years-dif-to-be-announced-at-2017-summit
Playlist:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/summit
I meant the palm trees in my area, not yours. Was that 1985?
Yeah, I got that. I was making a reference to the coming ice age and my snow plowing business venture in South Florida.
1985? Dunno cause back then I was recently married and living in NYC and any palm trees I had, would have definitely been of the plastic variety. Along with the pink flamingo I had, which was decorated with Christmas lights. 😉
Snow plowing is fine for Floridians but up here I would start a business designing and building geodesic igloos. Windows made of ice. Refrigerator and freezer come built in. Wolves at the door are free. 🙂
Nobody snowplows when the snow never melts.
You do realize it will be a really long walk to the ocean?
Heck I’m a bit tired of waiting for the ice age to come to me.
I was always interested in tensegrity structures, spherical trigonometry, and even built some geodesics for my son when he was still young enough not criticize me…
I even made icosahedronic aquariums! If you look head on into a pentagonal vertex where five equilateral triangles come together you see each fish multiplied by five and it looks like a whole school of fish.
So who knows, I might even consider a career move to some far northern clime and end up being a contractor building geodesics igloos with ice windows. 😉
Oh no, competition. Think I will just grow ice flowers then.
Yep—
‘IT’S ALARMING’: WILDFIRE EMISSIONS GROW TO TRIPLE B.C.’S ANNUAL CARBON FOOTPRINT
“The largest B.C. wildfire season on record has emitted an estimated 190 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — a total that nearly triples B.C.’s annual carbon footprint. Smith says the official wildfire emissions total won’t be available until next year; when researchers are able survey the all of the damage. To date, an estimated 1 million hectares [3861 square miles] of forest have been burned by over 1,000 different fires. Werner Kurz, a senior research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service, says the emissions are part of an ‘alarming’ feedback loop, fuelled in large part by climate change.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/it-s-alarming-wildfire-emissions-grow-to-triple-b-c-s-annual-carbon-footprint-1.4259306
In that case, human cut backs mean little. We are losing control. Shades of things to come? I remember Joe Romm warning the US congress about loss of forests in the southwest if they did not take action right away. Guess same also goes for other areas.
Meanwhile the land is heating up fast, not just in the Arctic but everywhere.
The land is warming twice as fast as the oceans … too bad we live on the land
https://thinkprogress.org/global-warming-now-twice-as-fast-over-land-than-the-ocean-nasa-chart-shows-52b4afe01345/
When it comes to climate and CO2 the big question, as I see it, is do we have enough definitive evidence now to alter policy in a major way?
I don’t think so, but I do think that there is a high probability that the evidence will become crystal clear within one to two decades.
By that time, the damage will heavy.
Do we select planned damage to the economy and adaptation (winners and losers), or just go blindly, take our risks and mourn for those who will randomly suffer.
Those who advocate for major policy change ahead of the damaging evidence are saying that the probability of a very bad outcome with the ‘business as usual’ course is high, and those like Javier are in effect saying that the probability of bad outcome from CO2/methane release by humans is low.
The future is all speculation, guesswork, theory and modeling. Not all that accurate. But its all we have, other than playing drunken ostrich.
Perhaps it is more fruitful to focus on adaptation that gives sustainability, energy supply stability and decentralization. That, and learning how to have a civilization that can ‘work’ in the midst of the great downsizing that is on the horizon (for most of the world).
I would vote for heavy implementation of a carbon tax that would fund a massive solar and wind buildout.
That would address several issues at once. And I acknowledge that any policy change like this will create winners and losers. The question is- whats best for the common good?
Secondly, we need to start moving infrastructure out of the flood plains (tidal and riverbank), and stop insuring flood-zone building with public money. Time to move uphill about 10 feet. That helps by many billions regardless of climate change severity.
What else?
We are not going to turn around or stop industrial civilization.
The survivors (if any) are going to have to sort it out on the other side of the wall we will be crashing into.
I agree we are not going to stop industrial civilization- but we are in deep overshoot and some way or another we are going to experience a grinding down.
It is rational to attempt to ride the wave (manage it), rather than just twirl around in the turbulence (whether you are at Smith Rock or Guerneville).
Probably both.
Smith Rock next week for sure.
Population overshoot, mass extinction, runaway climate change, economic uncertainty, ecocide—-
Just to name a few.
One thing I just do not understand is the adherence to the old economic model while there are massive opportunities by switching to a new one.
NAOM
DOE releases Grid Study-
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-releases-highly-anticipated-grid-study-faults-natural-gas-for-baseload/503357/
It has now been 4322 days since last major hurricane (Category 3+ on Saffir-Simpson scale) made U.S. landfall (Wilma-2005).
That is about to end.
Space X live launch underway
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/spacex-seeks-to-pass-russia-today-for-most-launches-in-2017/
WOW!! That was absolutely awesome! A perfect launch, deployment of payload, a satellite into orbit and a perfect recovery of the first stage rocket by landing fin first on the drone ship in the Pacific. They made it look so easy! Congrats to all the scientists, technologists and engineers who made that happen.
Hi all,
A new Open thread is up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-august-24-2017/
A new post on Texas will be up soon as well.
Texas post is up at link below
http://peakoilbarrel.com/texas-update-august-2017/