By Dennis Coyne
Note that non-Petroleum comments should mostly be in this thread.
A separate petroleum thread will be posted soon.
I created an optimistic scenario for future emissions based on low population growth (UN low fertility scenario) and energy intensity of real GDP that decreases by 0.93% until 2050 and then the rate of decrease gradually falls to 0.13% by 2100, other energy demand assumptions are similar to my previous high demand scenario in an earlier post (Energy Transition).
It is assumed that non-fossil fuel energy supply increases enough to satisfy demand until 2032 when the growth rate of non-fossil fuel energy(NFFE) supply has reached 5% per year. From that point the NFFE supply continues to increase at 5% per year and demand for fossil fuels is reduced as NFFE replaces fossil fuels. I assume for simplicity that any extra NFFE (that is greater than NFFE demand) replaces coal first, then oil, and finally natural gas until fossil fuel energy demand is zero in 2058.
The scenario is too optimistic because there will be some uses of fossil fuel which will be difficult or impossible to reduce completely by 2058.
The fossil fuel emissions scenario is shown in the chart that follows and can be downloaded at the link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/76hasvu73fmbv07/RCPMDB.SCEN?dl=0
An interactive version of the ‘Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change’ (MAGICC) can be used with the scenario at the link above (registration required.) The model can also be used as a free download for a PC.
The “liveMAGICC” model can be accessed at http://live.magicc.org/
The emissions scenario is very similar to the RCP4.5 scenario, with the fossil fuel emissions changed to match the scenario in the chart above. My “RCPMDB.scen” must be downloaded to your computer and then uploaded to liveMagic to reproduce what I have done.
I ran two versions of the probabilistic models using live magicc and my emissions scenario.
The first is not actually probabilistic in reality, it is an ensemble that uses 19 different AOGCMs (Atmosphere-Ocean Global Circulation Models) and 9 different carbon cycle models (19*9=171 different possibilities) and assumes each is equally likely, then it shows results for the median, 17% chance that temperature will be lower, as well as 25%, 75%, and 83%.
The global temperature on the vertical scale is degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature.
The second scenario considers a true probabilistic historically constrained run using 600 different scenarios. Details can be found in the 2009 paper linked below:
Supplemental information at
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/extref/nature08017-s1.pdf
Using my low carbon emissions scenario we get the result below.
Does this suggest there is no reason for concern? No.
First, this is a very optimistic emissions scenario that is unlikely to be attained, total fossil fuel emissions are likely to be more than 1000 Pg C by 2100. In addition we don’t know if actual temperatures will be lower or higher than 2 C, we would be smart to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as is feasible due to uncertainty about climate sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide.
Works Cited
Meinshausen, M., S. C. B. Raper and T. M. L. Wigley (2011). “Emulating coupled atmosphere-ocean and carbon cycle models with a simpler model, MAGICC6: Part I – Model Description and Calibration.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11: 1417-1456. doi:10.5194/acp-11-1417-2011.
I did this analysis 3 years ago
16/5/2013
Half of oil burnable in 2000-2050 to keep us within 2 degrees warming has been used up as we hit 400 ppm
http://crudeoilpeak.info/half-of-oil-burnable-in-2000-2050-to-keep-us-within-2-degrees-warming-has-been-used-up-as-we-hit-400-ppm
It needs updating as the US and Canada could not refrain from going for unconventional oil
In Australia we had for 2 years a Federal government in full denial mode of both peak oil and global warming
8/9/2013
New Australian Prime Minister [Abbott] is sceptical that peak oil has value for policy making
http://crudeoilpeak.info/new-australian-prime-minister-is-sceptical-that-peak-oil-has-value-for-policy-making
In 2010, when Abbott was opposition leader:
“The climate change argument is absolute crap”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2808321.htm
After coming to power he abolished a carbon tax introduced by the previous government.
In September 2015 he was seen laughing about a sea level rise joke of his immigration Minister
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324
A couple of days later Abbott was kicked out by Turnbull (who was in favor of an emissions trading scheme) in a leadership spill, but policies have not changed.
Some of Australia’s top climate scientists say new instructions given to the CSIRO to renew its focus on climate science will not be enough to reverse the damage done by previous jobs cuts.
CSIRO Fellow Dr John Church, an expert in estimating and understanding global and regional sea-level rise, is one of the 275 CSIRO scientists who are losing their jobs
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-04/csiro-climate-focus-wont-reverse-job-cut-damages-say-scientists/7691928
In the freshly elected Senate, there is yet another climate change skeptic:
New One Nation senator-elect Malcolm Roberts has argued the United Nations is trying to impose global government through climate change policy.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-04/final-senate-make-up-confirmed-with-11-crossbenchers/7689788
Going with what anthropogenic climate change or anthropogenic global warming would seem to dictate essentially means the end of business and government (as we know it).
It essentially means the end of vested interests in death.
While some people are– and very misguidedly– suggesting that BAU needs to be run as long as possible to avert countless deaths, the inverse argument is that BAU needs to be annulled as quickly as possible to avert countless deaths.
Checkmate: Why Capitalism Cannot Survive Global Warming
Hi Caelan,
The argument,which is easily understood by those who WANT to understand it, is that business as usual must continue in the SHORT to MEDIUM term to prevent billions of needless early deaths; and that the current generation model of BAU must morph into a new model BAU LITE based on conservation, renewable energy, falling population, and generally sustainable low energy lifestyles in order to prevent billions of needless deaths in the medium to long term.
I am unable to decide whether you fail to understand this argument, or whether you simply prefer enjoy talking doom and gloom like a street corner preacher hoping to save a few souls and maybe get enough donations for gas and supper.
Since there is no tip jar at this site,I suppose you are a serious doom and gloom preacher.
So far you have never had any thing to say that will help much, if at all, to prevent those billions of deaths, either short or long term.
There is a zero chance we can manage a transition from the current day bau paradigm to a hunter gatherer primitive farmer paradigm in less than several generations.
Your refusal to acknowledge this reality , to put it as politely as possible, indicates that you don’t actually know doo doo from apple butter, as put it at the dinner table in my neck of the woods.
Out on the job, we use a somewhat less polite four letter word.
Did BAU successfully ‘morph’ into BAU Lite for previous civilizations?
How’d that work out, such as for Easter Island?
If we agree that BAU is fundamentally ‘criminal’ and/or ‘dysfunctional’, then expecting it to atone for its crimes/dysfunctions and somehow automagically go Lite and fix things/save us, seems quite a stretch. (Maybe that’s happened, but how often, if so, and in what contexts?)
In my neck of the suburban parking lot, that ‘stretch’ might garner a comment like, “Your head is so far up your arse, it’s affecting your thinking or it’s coming out your mouth.” Not that I would say that, mind you, just that someone else might.
But I might add my 2¢ and suggest that it might strongly suggest why someone can’t or won’t see other ways to live beyond BAU, like permaculture and other forms of resilient lifestyles, and why, if they can’t or won’t, they won’t budge.
I mean, how easy is it to budge/walk, with your head up your ass?
We need to shift as many of our industrial processes away from the way we currently do them. Biomimicry is one way to do that.
Here is a short Youtube video about Biomimicry and Janine Benyus Co-founder of Biomimicry Institute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY
In the meantime, China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, expects to reach a peak in carbon emissions by 2030. A recent economic slowdown, policies to discourage coal-fired power plants near cities, and a huge investment in wind and solar energy helped reduce coal use in China last year BUT even as coal becomes unpopular, the country’s biggest state-owned electricity generators are adding coal-fired power plants at a pace not seen in a decade.
Concurrently, Indian coal demand could jump 42 percent or 300 million metric tons by 2020 and India is expected to add 124 gigawatts of electricity capacity in that time. In just two years India may surpass China as the largest importer of coal.
Don’t worry, no problem, we have developed clean coal technology!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Gy-kgL8yA
Clean coal carolers
Hey, its never too early to get ready for Christmas…
Christmas is every day if you’re an elite.
That must really bug the non-Christian religious elite.
“Oi veh, more Christmas presents this morning! I am going to hit that Santa Claus guy over the head with my menorah if I catch him!!!.
I think there might be a Charlie Hebdo cartoon in there somewhere…
Go for it Fred!
Hi Doug,
Eventually China and India will run low on coal and it will become very expensive.
If countries with large coal resources such as the US and Australia enact a large carbon tax on mined coal, imports of coal to India and China will be very expensive and eventually less coal will be used. In fact wind and solar costs are likely to come down and the combination of higher coal prices and lower relative prices for wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power are likely to reduce the use of coal.
The scenario presented here is optimistic, but even if no attempt is made to reduce carbon emissions, limited affordable fossil fuels is likely to reduce total carbon emissions to 1200 Pg of carbon (based on my medium fossil fuel scenario, which many pessimists claim is too high).
“…..which many pessimists claim is too high” Actually if you replaced ‘pessimists’ with ‘realists’ I might agree with you Dennis. 🙂
Hi Doug,
Ok realists think less fossil fuel will be burned.
So the realists would be optimistic on climate change if ECS is indeed 3 C or less as 1000 Pg of carbon emissions results in a median estimate of about 2 C of warming.
Basically if you’re a “realist” on fossil fuel availability, climate change is less of a problem.
My first inlaws owned three out of four corners at a country crossroads back in the thirties, and were offered the fourth corner for thirty bucks.
They thought about it a while, and wanted it for the farm, but turned down the offer because they didn’t know where they could raise thirty dollars, or how they could pay it back. So they refused the offer.
Then the owner offered it to them for my father in law working for four weeks as a carpenter, during the off season.
They turned that offer down too, because they were having trouble coming up with enough cash to pay their property taxes, etc.
That corner recently sold for well over a hundred thousand bucks. The whole neighborhood is now high dollar houses on two acre lots.
Most people are unwilling or unable to think in multigenerational terms, but farmers typically think in terms of generations.
The only other people I know of who really think of the real world in multigenerational terms are climate scientists and ecologists, etc.
Things run short in a world with a growing population.
It’s no problem at all for me to envision a de facto coal cartel with the two most powerful members being the USA and Australia.
It could come into existence within the next twenty five years.
With the price of coal artificially enhanced by such an arrangement, the incentive for building more wind and solar farms, sooner, would be substantially greater.
Dennis – Eventually everybody might run short of coal. There is a chance that if we get a quick decline in oil then countries will turn to in-situ gasification (i.e. of coal deposits that can’t be mined. China has a lot of these in production and construction:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasification-plant-databases/china-gasification-database
UK has a lot of such coal and has issued operating licences on several of them (but no action on them yet).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/underground-coal-gasification-licences
If things go that way I think RCP8.5 will be a likely outcome, and probably not many habitable areas left after 2100.
Hi George
Rcp 8.5 is highly unlikely not enough affordable resource to accomplish. Rcp4.5 is the more realistic scenario.
Liquids from coal will be very expensive. Alternatives will be much more cost effective in the medium to long term imo.
You’re months out of date, Doug.
The central government in China does not approve of the behavior of the state-owned electricity generators and has introduced new regulations and pricing rules to force them to preference renewables over coal. The generators are rogue. The central government does not like rogue operators.
India has abandoned coal imports entirely, and stated that they won’t import any coal at all soon. India has further abandoned most of its plans for coal power plants because they are uneconomic — with the exception of plants located directly next to coal mines — and even the *coal mining companies* are building solar farms.
Janine Benyus keeps referring to corporations (as if they’re going to finally, once and for all save us with their biotech) in that video which you’ve posted hereon before.
While her heart seems in the right place, her particular brand of ‘biomimicry’ may include BAU, which lacks ethics, equality, true democracy, and stuff like that. If it does, then it’s just along the lines of yet more intellectual masturbation along with gene drives, personal jet-packs, lives of leisure and artistic pursuit, self-crashing and flying cars, robot servants, EV’s, PV’s, moon-walks, Martian condos, etc..
We are not going to get to where her heart seems to be without the aforementioned ethical, etc. changes in operations.
We’re just going to get yet more suits telling us what’s good for us in token greenwashed and whitewashed voices.
The animal world or the human world?
I am unsure ‘hierarchical pecking orders’ in the animal world is a fair comparison to ‘hierarchical pecking orders’ in the human animal world. In the human world, it appears as more of an eat-cake-and-have-it-too approach. Other animals, strangely enough, might get ethics better than we.
So I suspect that there can be a fair or equable so-called hierarchy, which is apparently not what we get with the human animal.
I have previously used ants and reciprocity (reciprocal frame/roof) as examples and how, if you want to be ‘queen’, you have to stay indoors all day and pop out eggs. If you have to be a worker, at least you can get outside in the sun.
Similarly, if one or more supporting members of a reciprocal roof are somehow less reciprocal (too big, say, or small), then they can threaten the entire structure.
Walking On The Moon
CO2 is good for plants.
After it kills off all the humans, there will be less Olive Gardens and Sumo Salads.
Tomatoes and Onions will prosper.
Lettuce will be unstoppable.
And Satan will become best friends with a sentient CRISPR tomato.
LOL! I’ll make an exception and comment on your remark, you have absolutely no idea how incredibly close you are to the truth! Digital information storage in DNA, together with CRISPR gene editing technology, big data, neural nets and deep learning algorithms are but a few of the emerging technologies that are allowing advances in artificial intelligence to happen even more quickly than anyone has previously imagined.
Here ya go, straight from the devil’s mouth…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qloX87Apz2o
Edit: Storing digital information in DNA also uses orders of magnitude less energy than storing it in traditional server farms.
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-dna.html
George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Readable DNA was extracted from the 600,000-year-old remains of a horse found in the Yukon.
Tape- and disk-based data storage degrades and can become obsolete, requiring rewriting every decade or so. Cloud- or server-based storage requires a vast amount of electricity; in 2011 Google’s server farms used enough electricity to power 200,000 U.S. homes. Furthermore, old-school methods require lots and lots of space. IBM estimated 1,000 gigabytes of information in book form would take up seven miles of bookshelves. In fact, Sandia recently completed a 15,000-square-foot building to store 35,000 boxes of inactive records and archival documents.
So be careful how you talk to your tomatoes and onions! 🙂
So “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” was also predictive.
I was hoping for Killer Clowns, but I guess we have those already.
So “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” was also predictive.
Maybe more like the Attack of the Mcintosh Apples… 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI
New Jersey has a bill put forward by a couple of democrats to make drinking beverages and eating in cars while driving illegal, to the point of large fines and suspending licenses. They are promoting this control under the guise of distracted driving.
I would say they are going to kill and injure a lot of people. Take away their coffee and they will be drowsy and/or fall asleep at the wheel. I am fairly sure Dunkin Donuts coffee saved me on a few late night drives.
One step closer to “1984”.
I am fairly sure Dunkin Donuts coffee saved me on a few late night drives.
One step closer to “1984”.
Don’t worry, I’m sure you will be able to get your soma laced with caffeine….
GoneFishing,
Does Dunkin’ Donuts still have crullers? When I was a kid the Alhambra Bakery in Alhambra, California made crullers. I grew up with them so didn’t expect I’d spend my life unable to find them but that’s what happened once I left that part of LA in 1965. I came across them once, in Westport OR in 1998, and I live on the memory.
Does Dunkin’ Donuts still have crullers?
Alas no!
In 2003, the Dunkin’ Donuts chain of doughnut shops stopped carrying traditional crullers, claiming that the hand-shaped rectangular treats were too labor-intensive, and couldn’t be simulated with new machines for mixing doughnut batter. The company still sells “French Crullers”[1] which can be formed by a kind of extruding nozzle.[4]
Tim Hortons,[5] and Honey Dew Donuts[6] still sell the Cruller doughnut. Krispy Kreme[7] sell something that they call a cruller, but in reality it is just a molded/formed cake (or Old Fashioned) doughnut. In place of the traditional cruller, Dunkin’ Donuts now sells several variations of a substitute product it calls a “cake stick” which is a simplified, machine-made version of the more elaborately twisted, hand-made variety.
Source Wikipedia
BTW, I used to get my Crullers from a German bakery in Queens NY, back in the day. Now I have a craving for a real Cruller!
Hmm, just had a thought, wounder if someone could come up with a way to adapt 3D printing technology to make Crullers?
Heh! Ask Google and you shall recieve! Sure enough…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVSSZ-DXXUs
Though I’m not sure if that one is edible but I’m sure it could be done! Here’s a 3D printer that makes edible food such as pizza and biscuits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9OP8v0zABw
FredM,
Well there is no joy in Mudville. Westport is a long way away and that was 18 years ago and I think a limocello would be nice right about now.
Thanks for looking.
I like crullers too, but in this setup, it’s a race to the bottom. Even mom and pop shops, in order to ‘compete’ (there’s that indoctrinal magical musical chairs word again) they might have to source from the same or similar economies-of-scale outfits as the big boxes and reduce their overheads in similar fashion.
And so you get increasing inferiority and loveless corporate poop-outs (full of weird chemical and factory-farm re-routed ingredients), until you get little worth anything.
And then I guess it’s the Grand Ol’ Reset Button to locally-produced quality handmade again, if you’re lucky, after the dust settles.
Incidentally, ‘Mom’ is, of course, this new rebranded BAU-manufactured construct that supposedly owns a house (as if she isn’t living in relative squalor with increasing concern over her health and pension) that, god forbid, in its basement, anyone in their right mind would live. She– or ‘it’– is sort of the antithesis of the car commercial, with its rampant unrealism of open roads devoid of gridlock, road-kill, or geographies of nowhere.
That’s one pretty glaring erosion of real community that BAU is pretty much all about.
Requiem For The American Dream
The good stuff gets made at home by hand. Real food getting prepared, no added chemicals, preservatives, stabilizers or dyes.
Yes, that junk including in the food that’s bought at the ‘grocery warehouses’.
I guess that’s why there’s a supposed obesity epidemic. We don’t scythe and mill, etc., our own flour/cereal with our own muscles or local contraptions anymore.
We drive our cars to the automatic-door-opening insta-quasi-edibles places (‘grocery warehouses’) in exchanges for not-so-funny-money from different forms of relatively-sedentary wage-slave quasi-OCD’s we call ‘jobs’.
Pinnacles of our civilization.
Caelan, there is a defined obesity epidemic for two reasons. One, people eat too much starch and sugar, it’s endemic through the provided food chain. Two, people eat starch and sugar, it turns instantly to stored fat in about 60 percent of the people due to biochemistry, they don’t feel full or fed because it didn’t enter their cells, so they eat more.
That’s kind of what I mean, GoneFishing.
We are not controlling our food or working for it the way we used to, nor expending our calories from it the way we used to either, and so forth.
Consider an urban or suburban indoor fitness club– you know, with all those exercise machines? Or ‘jogging/running’.
That’s ‘displacement’.
Their exercises aren’t really doing anything except internally, in burning calories and maybe building muscle mass and so forth.
They would be laughable in a different context, such as if they were raising their own children (rather than outsourcing them to daycares and schools); making their own clothes and homes; and growing/gathering their own food again.
Incidentally…
” The way Adam Smith envisioned it, a market system would be populated by specialists. Each person would have a single craft that they would focus on. This is a world with doctors, lawyers, carpenters, teachers, chefs, and so on. A jack-of-all-trades is simply not valued in a market system. (Renaissance men are dinosaurs in Adam Smith’s world.)
The way you get the division of labor to work is by combining it with trade. Once you get to the point where you conclude that the division of labor is something you want to take advantage of, trade is a necessary next step. A physician cannot consume only her own medical advice – she must draw on the productivity of the many other specialists in society…
As populations grow, and as the ability to trade grows, you should see more and more specialization and higher and higher productivity. (Obviously the division of labor is not the only source of increases in productivity.)
However, there is a downside to this plan. Adam Smith’s plan exposes people to incredible variations in income and thus a market system possesses and[sic] important force which causes inequality. Specialization ties your entire wellbeing to a single industry. If you decide that you are going to become a web designer, your fate is very closely tied to the market for web designers. As a result, while Smith’s plan dramatically increases overall productivity, it also exposes us to incredible risk…
I don’t mean to imply that all or even most of the alarming increase in inequality is due to the division of labor and trade. I would guess that modern technology (which allows people to leverage luck to extreme degrees by cheaply reproducing and transmitting ideas and information) and inheritance, both play a significant role in creating inequality. However, living with income inequality is an implicit part of the deal we made with Adam Smith and it will be with us in some form for a long time. ” ~ Chris House
— — — — — — —
Of course this is right up peak oil’s alley, as it seems to lend some support to the contention that, in the face of a failing, and/or, charitably, a ‘restructuring’ ‘Adam Smith economy’, continued specialization may be a dubious personal and community strategy to adhere to, such as in terms of resilience.
I am fairly sure Dunkin Donuts coffee saved me on a few late night drives.
I keep a pack of Caffeinated chewing gum in my car nowadays. (Google it…I’m not putting in the brand name.) Unlike coffee, the caffeine is absorbed sublingually, so it hits almost immediately (coffee is absorbed in the gut, takes 45 minutes to start to take effect, and is not all absorbed immediately.) The dropoff is equally fast, in my experience, as it is all absorbed immediately and the decline of usable caffeine in your bloodstream starts from that point: if you take it in the evening, you can still sleep after using it (my experience, half a dose, your mileage may vary, etc., etc.)
-Lloyd
http://finance.yahoo.com/m/a18a2362-fbfb-3394-93eb-b2b37e95173b/ss_apple-gets-permission-to.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/siemens-2016/winds-across-america/924/
OFM- Thats a interesting wind industry promo. They project 1/3rd of the nation energy from wind by 2050. That is a lot of jobs, local industry and dispersed ownership of energy production. By 2050, many locations will be on their 2nd or 3rd generation of turbines.
That Apple solar production facility is located in the county that I live, in a extremely dry and sunny valley microclimate inland from coastal mountain ranges.
Dennis- I think it would be wise to assume that places like India, Indonesia and China will burn through much more coal than you hope.
The DOE expanded the wind capability of the US by almost double a couple of years ago due to advancing technology.
Hi Hickory
The coal resource is not as large as many believe.
I believe I said that the scenario was optimistic.
That means I don’t think it is likely.
http://www.ecowatch.com/republican-platform-rejects-climate-regulations-paris-agreement-1933797772.html
A day before officially declaring Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, the party released its 2016 platform that promises sweeping changes to climate and environmental policies.
The platform calls for pulling the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, ending all renewable energy incentives and demoting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—set up by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970—to a commission.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/jonathan-haidt-the-moral-matrix-breaking-out-of-our-righteous-minds/
Jonathan Haidt and the Moral Matrix: Breaking Out of Our Righteous Minds
The great Asian religions, Haidt reminded the crowd at TED, swallowed their pride and took the red pill millennia ago. And by stepping out of their moral matrices they realized that societies flourish when they value all of the moral foundations to some degree. This is why Ying and Yang aren’t enemies, “they are both necessary, like night and day, for the functioning of the world.” Or, similarly, why the two of the high Gods in Hinduism, Vishnu the preserver (who stands for conservative principles) and Shiva the destroyer (who stands for liberal principles) work together.
Now, it’s time for us to decide – the blue pill or the red pill. Political bickering plagues the United States; both parties are unwilling to cooperate and understand the others’ point of view. Let’s hope we make the correct decision. Maybe then we can break out of our Righteous Minds.
All the regulars here know by now that I am a self defined conservative, which is possible given that I am a follower of the Humpty Dumpty School of Linguistics, but I AIN’T NO STINKING REPUBLICAN of the capital “R” description.
My own personal take on the election this time around is that we have a situation that even the worst sort of hack novelists wouldn’t use in the plot of a novel intended to be serialized in the WEEKLY WORLD REVIEW, a supermarket tabloid which regularly headlines encounters with aliens and abominable snowmen in the deep South.
But so help me Sky Daddy, the only thing that makes any real sense, as improbable as it sounds, IF one presumes Trump is not INSANE, is that he and Clinton got together and that he is actively working as a Clinton sleeper to destroy the R party and throw the election her way.
If somebody had tried to convince me even ten years ago that both the R and the D party would run such badly flawed candidates the same year for prez, I would have laughed at them.
I have said several times in various other forums that if the D’s lose this election, then maybe they will learn a few institutional lessons about running a candidate that eighty percent of the country believes is untrustworthy.
And I have also said that the R party would learn a SIMILAR but somewhat different lesson about ignoring the wishes of the party foot soldiers, and taking them for granted , thus setting the stage for such a buffoon as Trump to win the nomination.
As things stand right now, I think maybe the R party establishment has ALREADY had its nose rubbed in the doo doo to such an extent that maybe, IF the party survives, it will be a little more careful about taking the party base for granted.
I am not ready to predict a Clinton victory, because surprises are still possible, and I EXPERT some more surprises.
But in simple betting terms, I would offer five to three odds that Clinton will win.
We are reminded by Secretary Clinton that today is the 4th anniversary of Trump trumpisms beginnings in politics as the tormentor in chief to the Commander in Chief. For the next 3 months, or unless he can be forced to enter a psychiatric facility, Trump will be the tormentor in chief of Secretary Clinton. I should point out early, while Trumps lies and distortions are annoying and the sheer number per day certainly makes his multiple pathosis easy to commit to a faculty. Trump has failed against President Obama. Because inconvenient things to Trump like easily verifiable facts in dispute of the NOTHING Trump.
Brings as innuendo, will trip the pathological liar up every time. Have to give this to Trump, he is serial in his pathological lying.
Obama cannot find his birth certificate. Obama presents not just the short but the long version. These are forgeries Trump says, this being the most clandestine presidency in the history of the world that Hawaiian authorities saw such promise in Obama within minutes of his birth, that this would be a two term President, the first and repeat black President I our countries history. The irony of a prodigy which Trump would be nothing without his Fathers million dollars, seems that all the DNA handed to Trump
Had Ben Franklin’s face on them, but the promise of Obama was far less seed money, but education, community organizer, and marrying a smart woman. Must be a rub for Trump that Obama married a powerful woman with a wide open but legally trained Ivy League wife, while Trump has married 3 so far who while not a brain trust one, and two of them scored their green card immigration papers doing the back breaking work at Trump Tower which when this work is done in the Penthouse bedroom gets you more rewarded that immigrant workers that laundry the sheets soiled by the guest worker program in the Penthouse. It’s fair to say, since there have been 3, SO FAR, wives that have also produced a bonus check and a standard of living guaranteed for life, oh I forgot the names of these spawns of Trump, because after the next 90 days it won’t matter anymore.
Donald Trump gave us daily reminders of what a truly disastrous performance looks like. Trump opened the week by continuing his bizarre and appalling war against the Khan family, and then claimed to have seen a “top secret” video of U.S. officials unloading $400 million off a plane in Iran — a claim refuted even by Trump’s own communications director. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough related a truly chilling anecdote told to him by a foreign policy expert: that during a briefing, Trump asked three times, since we have nuclear weapons, “Why can’t we use them?”
Trump got down in the dirt and showed the world exactly what he is made of, NOTHING.
“HILLARY WANTS to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” Donald Trump said Tuesday. “By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-reckless-call-to-second-amendment-people/2016/08/09/a6aa4be2-5e76-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory#comments
Refer to 18 US 2383:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383
U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 115 › § 2383
18 U.S. Code § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection
Current through Pub. L. 114-38. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
This is the same idiot who invited Russian provocateurs to hack into Hillary Clinton’s email. This incitement seems close to being a treasonous act.
Then there is this gem:
Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/trump-asks-why-us-cant-use-nukes-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-reports.html
The only saving grace is that Trump probably would not be the ‘Senator Stillson’ (see ‘The Dead Zone’ )religious nut-job type that Ben Carson might be if he had the codes.
Oh, I almost forgot this one: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said at a campaign rally here.
Why is this guy only 8 points behind Ms. Clinton again? Lots of knucklehead potential voters in the Land of the Free, Home of the Knave.
He is only eight points behind Clinton because she is the lesser evil, not because she is a great candidate.
I don’t see hear a SOUL now preaching about how HER private server wasn’t hacked. If the Russians and Sky Daddy and Wikileaks and every body else got into the D party computers, why should we think they didn’t also get into hers?
I wouldn’t vote for Trump even if somebody were holding a gun to my head, but if ANYBODY else with a touch of charisma were running against her, and a touch of common sense, etc, the R party would mop the floor with her.
Hopefully the R party, if it survives as a party, will have learned a lesson or two about ignoring the core voters of the party. If Clinton loses, which is not likely imo, but possible, the D party will have learned a bitter lesson about running a candidate trusted only by old women from the sixties, and a few youngsters who don’t know her record.
if ANYBODY else with a touch of charisma were running against her, and a touch of common sense, etc, the R party would mop the floor with her.
It’s possible. OTOH, charisma really shouldn’t be the very top criterion for a US pres. Public leadership is valuable, but…
Having the correct policies really is more important than whether a politician is slightly more or less careful about how they conduct their private life.
Do I care whether “W” was in the reserves? No. I care about his getting us into a very, very bad war.
Do I care whether Clinton had an affair? No. I care about his policies, some of which were good, some bad, but in general they were far better than his Repub opponents.
Policies matter.
“He is only eight points behind Clinton because she is the lesser evil, not because she is a great candidate.”
This is what Republicans say, not Democrats. Your true colors are showing.
“Hopefully the R party, if it survives as a party, will have learned a lesson or two about ignoring the core voters of the party”
Why ? There is a reason they call themselves the STUPID party.
“But so help me Sky Daddy, the only thing that makes any real sense, as improbable as it sounds, IF one presumes Trump is not INSANE, is that he and Clinton got together and that he is actively working as a Clinton sleeper to destroy the R party and throw the election her way.
Conspiracy theory alert: I’ve been thinking that a lot for a while now. Trump is a Clinton plant. He got together with the Clintons and conspired to destroy the Republican party’s chances from the inside. There is no way that guy is for real!
With Peak Oil and all, plus the impending disruptions in the electricity and transportation sectors, it is going to be a very interesting four years ahead, come January. It will be particularly interesting to watch how HRC serves her corporate masters in the midst of all the disruption.
Her husband’s administration got hybrids started with the PNGV program. So, she’s probably pro-disruption.
It’s good that the Republican platform is proposing to alter the status of the EPA. But, oops, in the wrong direction. EPA should be a Cabinet department. The most important ‘issue arena’ to humanity and life on earth, and we can’t even elevate it to the status of the Post Office. Smart apes, we are. It matters not. The climate physics – to say nothing of the rest of ecological dynamics – that are playing out shall overwhelm any policy effort we make in either direction.
Another reason why the Republicans are collapsing. They refuse to accept change and the world keeps marching on. The scientific community has pretty much shot down their paid stooges. Climate change is real. It may not be as politically charged as terrorism but the end result could certainly be more devastating.
Observational determination of albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice
“We find that the Arctic planetary albedo has decreased from 0.52 to 0.48 between 1979 and 2011, corresponding to an additional 6.4 +/- 0.9 W/m(2) of solar energy input into the Arctic Ocean region since 1979. Averaged over the globe, this albedo decrease corresponds to a forcing that is 25% as large as that due to the change in CO2 during this period, considerably larger than expectations from models and other less direct recent estimates.”
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/biblio/observational-determination-albedo-decrease-caused-vanishing-arctic-sea-ice
Albedo decrease caused by vanishing Arctic sea ice Observational determination using CERES
http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2013-10/18_CEREStalk_20131030_kpistone.pdf
Hi Gonefishing,
The GISS Model E2-H actually has less sea ice than actual in 2005 when the model is spun up, so some models actually overestimate the ice loss.
There is indeed uncertainty, nobody claims that is not the case, and it is reason to be cautious and reduce carbon emissions more rather than less.
See page 170-171
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2014/2014_Schmidt_sc02500z.pdf
For Model E-2-R the arctic sea ice extant is too large, and for Model E-2-H the Antarctic ice extant is too low.
None of the models gets everything just right.
From what I have read, most models have large flaws that underestimate warming and it’s effects.
Especially feedback loops.
As well as a real understanding of the how greenhouse gases operate in the atmosphere vertically and how they vary tremendously in concentration across the planet.
The models include the feedbacks. The Giss model e2h gets 1900 to 1999 temperature right.
There are no perfect models.
“The models include the feedbacks.”
No they don’t, not any I’ve seen. Modeling climate feedback requires application of chaos theory. Fact is, Nature is highly complex and the only prediction you can make is that She is unpredictable. Chaos Theory taught us that weather most often works in patterns caused by the sum of many tiny pulses where a little inaccuracy can amplify and cause the entire system to swing out of whack.
Extending to climate, we can’t get an accurate fix on the situation, just an approximation, and so our ideas about climate are doomed to fall into misalignment, into the nebulas of fantasy; Nature will not let herself be predicted.
We all know the first chaos theorists discovered that complex systems, that weather systems, seem to run through some kind of cycle, even though situations are rarely exactly duplicated and repeated. Plotting many systems in simple graphs revealed that often there seemed to be some kind of situation that the system tries to achieve, equilibrium of some sort.
That’s weather. How many modern current climate systems do we have model with?: half of one I’d say.
Hi Doug
If you expect a perfect model you will be disappointed.
The long term feedbacks are not included. Nor are they well understood.
Most mainstream climate scientists do not believe earth system sensitivity will be important before 2500 or later.
“If you expect a perfect model you will be disappointed.”
What? The point of my comment was there will never be even a decent model owing to multiple variables combined with unpredictable feedback effects.
Hi Doug,
The model doesn’t need to give us precise second to second variations in weather, we are interested in climate, not weather.
Is your point that it cannot be done ?
In that case we do the best we can, yes nature is complex, physicists try to break the complexity into tractable models, the deniers would agree with you, too hard, not good enough, why bother.
Most models only include the fast feed back loops (e.g. carbon cycle and sea ice albedo) – and mostly fairly conservatively. They don’t include the slow ones like permafrost melt, clathrates, which have a large range of possible outcomes, plus all Doug says above. The Guy McPherson monster essay has lots more possible feedbacks listed (just ignore the short term extinction stuff).
http://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/
(just ignore the short term extinction stuff)
Why?
I don’t know if McPherson touches on this subject, but one of the results of acidifying the ocean with excess CO2 is to destroy the oxygen producers. Without the oxygen producers, free oxygen is formed into nitrates and enters the ocean, not to return. This process leads to oxygen depletion in the atmosphere and ocean, if biological oxygen producers in the ocean do not replenish the supply.
“The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is overshadowing another catastrophe that’s also unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico this summer: The oxygen dissolved in the Gulf waters is disappearing. In some places, the oxygen is getting so scarce that fish and other animals cannot survive. They can either leave the oxygen-free waters or die. The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium reported this week that this year’s so-called “dead zone” covers 7,722 square miles.”
“But global warming has the potential to reduce the ocean’s oxygen content across the entire planet. Combined with acidification — another global impact of our carbon emissions — the loss of oxygen could have a major impact on marine life”
“Unless we find a way to rein in our carbon emissions very soon, a low-oxygen ocean may become an inescapable feature of our planet”
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_looming_oxygen_crisis_and_its_impact_on_worlds_oceans/2301/
“Unless we find a way to rein in our carbon emissions very soon, a low-oxygen ocean may become an inescapable feature of our planet”
If I’m not mistaken McPherson’s position is that for humans it is already game over! If that’s the case then once we are finally gone then perhaps something like the cyanobacteria will make a comeback and help increase the O2 content in the atmosphere and oceans.
After a couple million years or so there will be completely new kinds of ecosystems and another explosion of speciation to repopulate them. Maybe next time we’ll get some sapient cuttlefish… apes just didn’t seem to work out too well.
A little Sunday Morning Music from Canada for Y’all. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMwxwRA9Xr8
Cambrian Explosion
Hi Gone Fishing,
From the peer reviewed papers that I have read, the models have flaws, but mostly with getting regional changes just right, in my view the expectation that the models will be perfect will never be met. Most mainstream climate scientists think there is room for improvement.
According to Berkeley Earth, GISS E2-H gets global temperatures about right from 1900 to 1999, but does a poor job with regional accuracy.
Some models overestimate, others underestimate. Future temperature change is unknown.
I don’t know what Arctic planetary albedo is, however planetary albedo is not changing, at least according to NASA.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84499
“Taken across the planet, no significant global trend appears. As noted in the anomaly plot below, global albedo rose and fell in different years, but did not necessarily head in either direction for long.”
According to most models, Earth’s albedo should be decreasing and this should be a positive feedback, but it doesn’t and it isn’t.
As seen in the maps you presented, Arctic albedo has fallen dramatically, as well as the West Antarctic region. Since those areas are (were) ice dominated that is a very strong change in albedo for those regions in a very short time period.
The satellite albedo measurement is over a short time period, showing many negative incursions during that period. It will serve as a baseline.
The areas to watch are the Arctic, West Antarctic and Russia. Not sure what is going on in the Southern US and Mexico, probably changes in clouds.
Since clouds are a strong factor in albedo, I think studying that effect would illuminate a lot of what is going on with albedo.
Global wildland fire season severity in the 21st century
https://www.frames.gov/files/7213/7513/9347/AFSC_RB2013-3v3-corrected.pdf
Another positive feedback loop:
“These very large fires are vigorously burning in a contiguous permafrost zone of Siberia. During recent years, as human fossil-fuel burning has continued to warm the Earth, such fires have become more and more common. Burning not only forest, the fires have also consumed duff, peat, and, increasingly, recently thawed sections of the permafrost. Though these fires are now in the process of activating a very large northern carbon store, and though such an event represents a dangerous amplifying feedback to human-forced warming”.
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/07/18/scores-of-city-sized-siberian-wildfires-spew-2500-mile-long-plume-of-smoke-over-northern-hemisphere/
Meanwhile,
YUKON ASKS FOR HELP AS FOREST FIRE STARTS FAR SURPASS ALL OF LAST YEAR
“Fire Management agency is asking for outside help after almost a dozen new fire starts on Sunday. That brings the total burning to about 80 fires. George Maratos, spokeperson for Yukon Wildland Fire Management, says there have already been 123 forest fires in Yukon this season… compared to 32 forest fires during all of last year.”
Another positive feedback loop:
Hmm, I wonder if you that’s something you could characterize as a negative positive feedback loop? 🙂
A negative positive feedback loop?
They are called glaciations and ice ages.
I find it interesting that the contiguous US shows 1.3 C warming from 1850 to 2011.
Also NOAA shows a global surface and atmospheric temperature rise of 1.3 C from 1910 to 2015.
The rate of global temperature rise from 1980 to 2015 was 0.19C/decade. So at that rate we will see a total rise of global temperature of about 2 C above the 1910 level by 2100.
However, there is little evidence or knowledge to support a linear rise in temperature. We are 40 years behind the temperature effects of increased radiation forcing, meaning the best is yet to come. The feedbacks will accelerate as temperature rises, causing positive non-linearity.
Stresses on civilization are causing increased greenhouse gas levels, despite efficiency gains. These stresses are increasing, implying a term of increased activity and the resulting greenhouse gas rate increase.
As alternative energy and low carbon output buildings and vehicles take over much of the energy load, The at least 1 degree C temperature rise due to reducing atmospheric pollutants will take effect (generally not modeled). That effect will take place quickly, so if one expects a 2C rise by 2100 then that should be modified to 3C. Also temperature rise due to increasing natural sources and feedbacks will occur. Considering all of the above, even in a moderate fossil fuel burn scenario, expect global 3C increase by 2100 and Arctic temperature rise to be about 5C or higher.
That’s just commie pinko liberal babble. Where’s the damn beer anyway?
The commie pinko liberals just banned beer due to an increase in alcoholic climate deniers.
Well, given that the process of alcoholic fermentation produces 2 moles of CO2
C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2
Obvious conclusion: CO2 is the best thing ever! 🙂
Makes good burps.
Hi gonefishing
The aerosols are included in the models.
Hi gonefishing
Picking a single year is called cherry picking
Look at 1880 to 1900 average and compare with most recent 20 year average. Land only doesn’t count we look at global temperatures. I like BEST best.
For BEST land ocean data the difference is about 0.91 C from 1890 to 2005 ( for the centered 20 year running average).
“Picking a single year is called cherry picking” Didn’t do that, what are you talking about? Where did you get the land only thing? You are not making much sense to me.
If you are going to respond, please put a little thought and effort in it, maybe some actual supporting evidence. These short negating responses are just not conducive to discussion.
Getting too many useless negative comments, at least the Spanish Inquisition has not shown up yet.
Bye for now.
It’s called a ‘prima donna complex’; with Ron seemingly gone this site now lacks balance. My main interest is high energy physics (esp. neutron stars) anyway. So, I’m history now as well. However, I fully expect you and Fred will keep inserting quality comments: take care man.
Good luck. See you on the other side of the event horizon.
(My first research paper was on black holes. )
Doug, I think just about every regular here would prefer that you stick around.
But if you must go, and plan on posting on other sites, please let us know where you will be hanging out on the net.
Best wishes,
Mac
Hi Gone fishing,
The US would be land only. Hi Gone fishing you picked 1910 to 2015, if you are using 25 year averages, it is not apparent.
Looking at the rate of global temperature rise for 1980-2015, may be interesting, but global emissions were rising quite fast over that period. The coming peak in fossil fuels will mean that emissions are likely to be lower from 2015 to 2040. Also the radiative forcing from CO2 is a logarithmic relationship, so to get the same response would require more emissions. In any case, the 920 Pg carbon emission (all sources from 1765-2100) scenario, predicts a median temperature of about 2 C.
Earth system effects from melting ice sheets and regional changes in vegetation will take 1000 years or more, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to fall over that period which will counteract some of the earth system effects (which are not known very well).
Ice sheet size today is roughly one tenth the size of the last glacial maximum, based on the analysis by Shakun et al, global temperature changed about 3.7 C from the last glacial maximum (22 to 21 ky BP) to the early Holocene (9.5 to 6.5 ky BP). If we assume all of this temperature change was due to changes in ice sheets (an overestimate) and that the change is proportional to changes in the area of the ice sheets, we would expect about 0.37 C from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. This is likely to take many thousands of years (though this is highly uncertain). Overall changes in albedo due to changes in vegetation are not very certain, further research is needed on that (along with clouds and aerosols).
Hi Gone fishing,
Sorry about the short responses, I was using a cellphone in a car, I won’t do that in the future.
You talked about US temperatures (I believe that would be land only).
You also gave the temperature change from 1910 to 2015, maybe you were doing 20 or thirty year trailing averages, if so it was not clear from what you wrote. I would choose the entire land ocean instrumental record from 1850 to 2015 and compare centered 30 year averages to assess climate change, for the BEST land ocean data that would be about 0.79 C from 1864 to 2000 (using centered 30 year means).
Hi Gonefishing,
Most of the aerosols with a cooling effect that are anthropogenic are sulfates according to NASA.
You are correct that I may have too much of these in my input to MAGICC, I reduced them drastically after 2050 and they fall to zero by 208o and temperatures do indeed rise more, but only about 0.1 C rather than the 1 C that you suggest, median global temperatures rise to 2.15 C above pre-industrial by 2080 using the probabilistic model.
The sulfate emissions in millions of tonnes of sulfur per year for the scenario above in chart below.
The cost of Australian coal mining.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Veuv22-zk
Hi Dennis, thanks for the great work. But a few things need to be clarified.
First, you refer to 920 billion tons of “carbon”. So I suppose that means 3.37 trillion tons of carbon dioxide.
Secondly, I suppose you’re talking about cumulative emissions from fossil fuels burning only, excluding land use change and (possibly) cement production.
Thirdly, what is the time period for your cumulative emissions? Is it from 1750 to 2100 or from 2000 to 2100? IPCC now typically talks about 2011 to 2100.
Hi PE
920 billion tonnes of carbon emissions from 1765 to 2100 from fossil fuel burning, natural gas flaring, cement production, and land use change. Multiply by 3.667 for co2 to get 3.374 trillion tonnes of co2.
Hi Political economist,
Total carbon emissions through 2010 were about 512 Pg of carbon, so for 2011 to 2100, this scenario would be 397 Pg C or 1456 Pg of CO2 emissions from all sources (fossil fuels, natural gas flaring, cement production, and land use change).
Folks who are down on renewables, especially wind, often try to make a case that because wind farms must sometimes be shut down in part because of excess production then wind power is no good, and will never be any good.
But just about every kind of infrastructure we have is subject to being used at less than capacity quite frequently. Freeways are deserted in the small hours of the morning, water deliveries to homes and most commercial accounts vary greatly over the course of days and weeks, schools are used only during the day for the most part, most commercial trucks sit around more than they are actually driven, etc, etc, etc.
This is not to say that curtailing output due to inadequate transmission capacity, or overbuilding wind in some particular locations, is not a problem.
But if the idea is to get away from PAYING CASH for depleting fossil fuels, which MUST grow more expensive as we exploit ever lower quality deposits, and to get away from paying the non cash price of environmental destruction, well then, we are simply going to have to over build wind and solar farms, so as to have enough capacity on days when the wind and sun aren’t very cooperative.
This article goes into some detail about the practical problems that are being dealt with right now it Texas.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602112/in-texas-oil-country-wind-is-straining-the-grid/
we are simply going to have to over build wind and solar farms
And, of course, the current grid is overbuilt. Total capacity is around 1,200GW, while average production is roughly 450GW.
So, overbuilding is nothing new.
Having extra capacity is good, industries, businesses, home and government can take advantage of low priced power. Pumped hydro works well and vehicle batteries can be charged. I think that power companies will be less generating companies and more storage and distribution companies.
Let all those telecommunication networks earn their keep by notifying customer equipment to turn on during times of good sun and wind.
Cheers to this vision of redesigned business plans for our utilities.
Also want to positively reinforce Leighton’s comments above that models are inherently conservative when simplifying dynamic ecosystems, and add that lags fool us all with our present focus. Sure enough, science now shows that lags as ecosystems degrade will surprise us to the downside in biodiversity and natural carbon conservation:
https://news.mongabay.com/2016/07/ecological-recession-researchers-ring-the-alarm-as-biodiversity-loss-hits-critical-threshold-across-the-globe/
and hence upside in land temperature rises:
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep30294
Another current example of a petroleum driven ecosystem change lag:
[Abstract] “The widespread occurrence and accumulation of plastic waste in the environment have become a growing global concern over the past decade. Although some marine organisms have been shown to ingest plastic, few studies have investigated the ecological effects of plastic waste on animals. Here we show that exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of microplastic polystyrene particles (90 micrometers) inhibits hatching, decreases growth rates, and alters feeding preferences and innate behaviors of European perch (Perca fluviatilis) larvae. Furthermore, individuals exposed to microplastics do not respond to olfactory threat cues, which greatly increases predator-induced mortality rates. Our results demonstrate that microplastic particles operate both chemically and physically on larval fish performance and development.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6290/1213
Exactly. The anti wind, anti sun crowd seldom if ever bothers to think things thru.
And the facts associated with depletion make no more impression on them than water on a ducks back.
“We could be doing that with our electrical system…”
That would seem to mean getting rid of pseudogovernment or at least getting it relatively out of the way (i.e., ‘optional’/opt-in, opt-out, per decision/referendum), and/or getting a real government.
Close one!
“In the early 1990s, a European genetic engineering company was preparing to field test its genetically modified version of Klebsiella planticola, which it had tested in the lab and presumed to be safe. But if it weren’t for the work of a team of independent scientists led by Dr. Elaine Ingham, that company could have literally killed every terrestrial plant on the planet.
The company’s genetic engineers were trying to solve a simple problem faced by farmers all over the world: how to deal with crop residues like leftover corn and wheat stalks after harvest without burning fields and creating thick and dangerous smoke. They figured that they could take a gene that leads to alcohol production from yeast and insert it into the bacteria Klebsiella planticola.
In the end, the scientists hoped that this simple modification could do three things at once: decompose the plant material without burning it, produce alcohol that could be used for gasoline or cooking, and create a sludge byproduct that would be rich in nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur, magnesium and calcium to be used as fertilizer. As Dr. Elaine Ingham described it, it would be a win-win-win situation.
But when Dr. Ingham and her team tested the impact that the sludge would have on the ecological balance and the agricultural soil when they applied it as fertilizer, they found that wheat grown in the sludge died after about week. And as Dr. Ingham pointed out in a presentation in 1998, by modifying the Klebsiella planticola, they fundamentally changed what it does in the soil:
The parent bacterium makes a slime layer that helps it stick to the plant’s roots. The engineered bacterium makes about 17 parts per million alcohol. What is the level of alcohol that is toxic to roots? About one part per million. The engineered bacterium makes the plants drunk, and kills them.
Klebsiella planticola is found in the root systems of every terrestrial plant on Earth, so if the modified bacterium were released into the wild, it would threaten every single terrestrial plant on the planet.“
403.20 ppm CO2 on 8/3/2016 Up a whopping +6.36 from 396.8 1 yr ago
Disclaimer: The atmosphere is composed of about 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen by volume. No other gas constitutes more than 1%. CO2 is, in fact, a trace gas representing approximately 0.04% of the volume of dry air in the atmosphere. Please don’t try to fool any more people by posting supposed CO2 measurements without a proper context for understanding what they really mean.
Additionally reference Wikipedia Atmopshere of Earth entry: “The three major constituents of air, and therefore of Earth’s atmosphere, are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Water vapor accounts for roughly 0.25% of the atmosphere by mass. The concentration of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) varies significantly from around 10 ppm by volume in the coldest portions of the atmosphere to as much as 5% by volume in hot, humid air masses, and concentrations of other atmospheric gases are typically quoted in terms of dry air (without water vapor). The remaining gases are often referred to as trace gases, among which are the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.“
Yep, greenhouse gasses are rising.
The planet is getting warmer.
Hey Louis, how much do you weigh? 80 kg? Why don’t you try ingesting a TRACE amount of strychnine? Something like 100 mg should suffice.
1 milligram (mg) is equal to 1/1000000 kilograms (kg)
You can do the math I’m sure, to figure out what a minuscule amount 100 mg of something is when compared to 80 Kg of which about 70% is water! So I’m sure you’d have absolutely nothing to worry about!
Hydrogen Sulfide (from wikipedia):
“Hence, low levels of hydrogen sulfide may be tolerated indefinitely …
At some threshold level, believed to average around 300–350 ppm, the oxidative enzymes become overwhelmed. Many personal safety gas detectors, such as those used by utility, sewage and petrochemical workers, are set to alarm at as low as 5 to 10 ppm and to go into high alarm at 15 ppm.”
That means at 300 ppm you die, pretty much straight away, and you can’t smell it because it kills your sense organs at much lower levels. The alarm at 15 ppm is because you also die at lower levels, it just takes a bit longer. Carbon monoxide kills you at similar levels. If you want to give it a go let us know how it works out, maybe we’ll have more patience with claims that 400ppm CO2 is too small to have any effect.
When the ocean chemistry goes awry, lots of H2S gas can be ejected into the atmosphere.
Louis Tennessee,
CO2? That’s the trace gas that supports all the photosynthesis on the planet, yes?
Proof positive that trace gases can’t be important.
Each denier argument contradicts the previous 6.
NAOM
“Up a whopping +6.36 from 396.8 1 yr ago” progress defined, go big oil?
Proof Conservative home schooling is a world problem
I hope you take into consideration that CO2 levels always raise above average on El Niño years, but this is compensated because they raise below average on La Niña years. Did you know that?
We just might live to experience climatic conditions similar to what the Pliocene was like. The only problem with that is there are no known ecosystems that are able to adapt to those conditions on a time scale as abrupt as the one in which it is currently happening.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2013/12/03/what-does-400-ppm-look-like/
Recent estimates suggest CO2 levels reached as much as 415 parts per million (ppm) during the Pliocene. With that came global average temperatures that eventually reached 3 or 4 degrees C (5.4-7.2 degrees F) higher than today’s and as much as 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) warmer at the poles. Sea level ranged between five and 40 meters (16 to 131 feet) higher than today.
If that actually happens then there are a number of feedbacks that will probably kick in and tipping points will be experienced that do not bode well for a stable global climate system that is suitable for human civilization based on our current agricultural systems and ecosystem biodiversity. We might even see prolonged droughts in the world’s grain producing regions, massive fires in places like Canada and the Siberian tundra releasing stored CO2, releases of methane, etc. Climate refugees from places like the Middle East pouring into Europe. Oh wait, most of these things are already happening and we are still at less than 1 degree Celsius of warming.
Man, I can hardly wait for that New Ice Age to come and save our asses!
We most probably might not experience those conditions.
It is an assumption that CO2 levels during the Pliocene brought the warm temperatures, and it actually might be backwards and the warm temperatures have produced elevated CO2 levels.
Temperatures on Earth appear to follow a 150 Million year cycle and we are just at a brief respite during the Quaternary Ice Age, one of the coldest periods of the planet for the past 550 Million years.
As far as I know, nobody as applied for a climate refugee status in Europe. They are all either war refugees, political refugees, or economic refugees. You must be mistaken in calling them climate refugees.
So far what we have seen is one of the best times for humankind coincident with a 350 year long global warming. All those climate horrors are hypothetical, based on imagination or faulty models that cannot rightly forecast.
Interesting graph, it shows the present as being in a -4.0C anomaly.
Seems like the world is almost constantly in a warm anomaly, even during parts of those so called ice ages (actual term is glaciations).
So through what mechanisms does the warmer world produce more atmospheric CO2?
You are incorrect again, sir.
“An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth’s surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of cold climate are termed “glacial periods” (or alternatively “glacials” or “glaciations” or colloquially as “ice age”), and intermittent warm periods are called “interglacials”. Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene—of the ice age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist.” Wikipedia.
We are in the Holocene Interglacial within the Quaternary Ice Age. Last glaciation or glacial period ended 11,700 years ago in what is termed Glacial Termination I. Last glaciation has different names in different parts of the world, like Weichselian, Wisconsian, or Würm.
Anomaly refers to temperature departures from the average from a specified period, usually 1960-1990.
And yes, it is believed that the planet has been most of the time for the past 550 million years warmer than present. The planet is right now cool, unproductive, and CO2 starved compared to average. We could say we like it that way, except that we are tropical creatures designed to efficiently lose heat as our lack of body hair and abundance of sweat glands makes very clear, probably from being long distance walkers or endurance runners under a tropical climate.
CO2 is mainly produced through volcanism, but the oceans release CO2 when they warm. Currently the average temperature of the ocean is 3.9°C, terribly cold, reflecting that we have been within an ice age for 2.6 million years and the oceans of the Earth have cooled down. When the ice age ends in a few million years the oceans will warm and release significant amounts of CO2.
Javier, you need to reread and comprehend the meaning of ice age and then look at the labeling on the graph. Your assertion that we are colder than all of those labeled “ice ages” is absolute and utter nonsense. If that were so we would be deep in another glaciation right now.
All that and your ability to not comprehend how greenhouse gases work shows a very deep mental rift between science and the tales you spin.
Don’t twist my words GoneFishing.
In that graph we are pretty close to 0.0 anomaly, therefore if the data is correct, the Earth has been warmer than now for most of the past 550 million years. Obviously it was colder during glacial periods within ice ages, but most of the time the Earth has not been in an ice age.
And I do understand how greenhouse gases work. Greenhouse gases absorb IR radiation coming from any direction and emit IR radiation in every direction. Downward IR radiation from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reduces the net IR loss by the Earth’s surface, causing it to achieve a higher temperature than it would have if there was no downward radiation from above. More greenhouse gases enhance the warming with diminishing effect following a logarithmic saturation curve. This is pretty basic stuff that can be considered quite settled. What we don’t know is how much warming an increase in greenhouse gases will produce because that depends of the climatic response that we ignore.
Why do you think I do not understand how greenhouse gases work? Is it because you don’t?
I know two things for sure, you don’t understand greenhouse gas radiation and you certainly can’t read a graph.
Then please enlighten me. Explain greenhouse gas radiation to me in your own words.
So far you have demonstrated very little knowledge of climatology and do not even know what a glaciation is, so I am quite interested in finally learning something from you instead of the opposite.
I am afraid in your case, enlightenment has to come from your own due diligence, but I do not think you can achieve it. Most of your analyses appear to be skewed toward a desired outcome. So I would be wasting my time.
Exactly what I expected. An excuse to cover your profound lack of knowledge on climate issues.
Most climate alarmists like you know very little of climate science, and just regurgitate whatever alarmist claim they read over the internet. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming has become a belief system to alarmists, not very unlike a religion.
When pressed on the inconsistencies of your belief system you react by refusing to discuss the arguments and try to disqualify the unfaithful. It is transparent and it doesn’t work.
It is me who is wasting his time. You come here to preach your faith.
As far as I know, nobody as applied for a climate refugee status in Europe. They are all either war refugees, political refugees, or economic refugees. You must be mistaken in calling them climate refugees.
So far what we have seen is one of the best times for humankind coincident with a 350 year long global warming. All those climate horrors are hypothetical, based on imagination or faulty models that cannot rightly forecast.
Oh, yeah these are most certainly among the best times for human kind!
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.full
Abstract
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. We show that the recent decrease in Syrian precipitation is a combination of natural variability and a long-term drying trend, and the unusual severity of the observed drought is here shown to be highly unlikely without this trend. Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the drawdown of soil moisture. No natural cause is apparent for these trends, whereas the observed drying and warming are consistent with model studies of the response to increases in greenhouse gases. Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.
I say we can definitely call Syrian refugees trying to emigrate to Europe, Climate Refugees!
Other data available does not support that the drought in Syria during the 2006-2011 period was unusual in a country used to recurrent droughts:
Drought, Climate, War, Terrorism, and Syria.
Of course one can always claim that climate change is behind anything bad that happens, but a very different thing is to prove it when we have much better explanations.
Syrian population grew from 6 million to 23 million between 1960 and 2010. This population growth was similar to that of other oil exporting nations in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, and was helped by fuel subsidies. In a rain constrained country agriculture, specially wheat, became very dependent on aquifer watering using cheap fuel-run pumps. In 2008 Syria reached Peak Oil and with a booming population its oil exports started to crash. The government, a religious Alawite (Shia) minority in power due in part to colonial history and military domination while the country is majoritarian Sunni, reacted by reducing fuel subsidies. Fuel prices increased above what farmers could pay and wheat production crashed.
In 2011 the Arab Spring took place from Marocco to Syria and from Saudi Arabia to Yemen, not because of a drought, but because of a food price crisis as it has been amply demonstrated.
MENA countries ruled by dictators or minorities were in deep trouble. Saudi Arabia weathered by throwing tons of cash to the population. Syria was a poor country and was thus engulfed by violence, like Lybia or Yemen.
Probably the Alawite regime would have maintained control if it wasn’t for foreign intervention. Qatar wanted to build a gas pipe line through Syria to sell gas from the huge South Pars/North Dome field to Europe, but the Alawite regime declined and accepted an offer from Russia and Iran to build an alternative gas pipe line to sell Iranian gas from the same field. That was unacceptable to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia jumped at the opportunity offered by the Arab Spring in Syria and started supporting Sunni rebels with weapons and money with the blessings of NATO, trying to overturn the regime. The rebellion turned into a protracted civil war. The government obtained the support of Russia turning the civil war into a fossil fuel war for proxy.
Now you can go around with your climate glasses on, seeing everything on climate colors, but that will prevent you from understanding anything.
There are no climate refugees other than the retirees fleeing to Southern California and Florida looking for a little warming.
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/08/06/nissans-no-charge-charge-program-expands-10-new-markets/
We don’t hear so much about the LEAF these days, which I suspect is mostly due to excitement about electrics with longer range dominating the discussion.
But Nissan is a strong company, and I think that when the LEAF gets upgraded, which will likely happen within the next two or three years, it will have a range well over a hundred miles, and quite possibly two hundred miles.
The 2016 Leaf can get over 100 miles range with the 30KWh pack, especially with easy driving under good conditions. However, the next generation will be a long runner, though more expensive.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1104610_next-nissan-leaf-confirmed-for-60-kwh-battery-200-miles-of-range
Elio is the new car out there.
https://www.eliomotors.com
At 84 mpg, the gasoline saved would reduce emissions by some 60 percent or so.
If George Washington were in the race for the presidency, Hillary Clinton would find ample evidence to judge George to be unfit for office. Slave owner? Check. Greedy landowner? Check. Hemp grower? Check. Revolutionary? Check. The cherry tree he chopped down would be used as an example to describe how George was not a friend of plants, a heartless destroyer of the environment and definitely not a friend to man. George would face a prison sentence in today’s murka. har
On and on the list of George’s faults would grow, from a mole hill to as tall as a mountain.
Hillary would make sure that every single person with ears to hear would hear it all and you would never hear the end of it. Satan himself would expel her from hell, he would be so tired of listening to her. The rest of us aren’t as lucky, we have to endure her constant caterwauling and nonsense.
Trump is Tweedledee and Hillary is Tweedledum. Two morons are running for the office of the president. Scares the bejesus out of me. We need divine intervention, Good Lord!
Too much CO2 clouding their feeble minds occupying the empty space where their brains should be. One consolation, there is plenty of room for improvement!
Alas, both are brainless twits and we all have the chance to vote for one or the other.
I need a beer, one for starters, then one after another. har
“We need divine intervention, Good Lord!” Look RW, we have managed to mess up the whole planet so far and not get caught. What do you think will happen when God finds out? He sent global floods and destroyed cities for minor infractions. I can’t even imagine what would happen if God found out what we have been up to. So just chill on that one please. Mother Nature is going to be tough on us as it is.
1.6 Million Barrels of Misconception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_cIAxRc9U
“Trump is Tweedledee and Hillary is Tweedledum. Two morons are running for the office of the president. Scares the bejesus out of me. We need divine intervention, Good Lord!”
Me too.
I have never thought HRC was brainless but I wouldn’t trust her with ten dollars, given a choice.
Trump is either awesomely stupid, which is hard to square with the fact that he hasn’t been separated from his money by smarter people, or he has suffered a brain lesion, or a stroke or something, or else he is a D party sleeper agent in collusion with the Clintons, with the dual objectives of destroying the R party and putting Hillary in the WH.
Trump is about the only so called Republican in the country who is just about sure to lose to Clinton. Virtually any more or less middle of the road R politician with just a touch of charisma could mop the floor with her, barring a few major scandals ruining his or her R party campaign.
The only large D democrats I know personally who trust her are old ladies and about as stupid as the old men who think Trump is would be a good president.
So far I haven’t met even one D with a working brain who can look me straight in the eye and say without looking away and blushing that he or she thinks HRC is trustworthy.
But Sky Daddy help us, Trump is even WORSE.
Glen, for heaven’s sakes, your ‘Tweedledee’ and ‘Tweedledum’– as you ironically label them– are indeed just ‘labels’, just ‘facades’ of The Dystem. Book-covers. They have speech-/script-writers and teleprompters.
Caelan, your reading comprehension is apparently less than noteworthy.
I quoted RW.
I put HIS remark in quotes.
I agreed with him that the situation scares me.
Then I tore into Clinton, and would up by finishing off by saying Trump is even worse.
You seem to think I take these two clowns, one a pathological liar, the other a rich redneck of the worst sort, and an even worse liar, seriously.
Well, I DO take them seriously, in the same sense I take a weaving car coming at me on the wrong side of the road seriously, wondering if I am going to the hospital or the morgue, if I can’t avoid the potential accident.
I am beginning to wonder if you are over medicating yourself.
OF COURSE the “system” is fucked up.
The difference between you and me, is that I understand not only that it IS fucked up, but also that it can be at least partially repaired, thus buying us and the environment some time to make MORE repairs, while learning to live with less, doing less harm.
Hi Glen, yes, I notice the quotes.
Either they weren’t there when I looked or my laptop screen is filthy. Or both.
In any case, I suppose we may be alive long enough to see what happens to the System. May it throw itself, head-first, into the wood-chipper.
In case I am in charge of the chipper when you go in, do you prefer head or feet first?
OFM- You’ve said you appreciate hearing from folks who don’t agree with you on things. Well here is my shot at it.
First, to qualify. I don’t trust any politician, I’ve been around long enough to know that it would be a silly thing to try. Secondly, I consider myself non-aligned , and definitely anti-partisan, but when I do vote its usually Demo.
OK, got to say, I do like Pres H. Clinton. Not the email/server thing, I don’t like that. But most of the rest. I think the gist of her thinking on issues, her serious demeanor, and generally her world view, are about as good as I’d expect to see from any politician at her level- for my taste. Although got to say Bernie surprised me with his success and I like a lot of what he had to say. Glad he got traction, that being so hard to do.
I am not trying to convince you of anything, just to say that some people out here don’t see her in such a bad light, in fact see her as overall very positive.
She will bury that fool in the election in this, the biggest state. I am glad to vote for a women.
But its a very bad job that she will get. I wouldn’t want it in a million years.
Hickory, I haven’t voted R since 84′ and would like to take it back today. I agree with you except for that ” its a very bad job that she will get ” part. Obama got stuck cleaning up most of the mess.
The world is extremely messy- don’t kid yourself. Whoever is president will face horrific problems, domestic and abroad. All of the policies you enact will hurt someone, and the ones you fail enact will hurt someone too. Not just someone, but millions.
This article from the Upshot (NYT) about how the developed World has been in a period of slow growth is very disappointing. Lots of lamenting that no one knows why the slow growth period has beset us.
No one knows any fundamental reasons?
Really?
Not a peep about declining marginal returns on energy and other resource production.
Not a word about lower EROEI versus the need to invest a staggering amount of energy and resources into maintaining and revamping our /existing/ high-complexity infrastructure.
Are people really this ignorant, or are they sticking their heads in the sand?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/upshot/were-in-a-low-growth-world-how-did-we-get-here.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fupshot&action=click&contentCollection=upshot®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
Are people really this ignorant, or are they sticking their heads in the sand?
Yes and yes!
Lots of energy is still available at a reasonable price. The article appears to be USA/Euro centric. The growth moved away from them decades ago to Asia. Even Africa has 4.4% GDP growth despite it’s problems.
A pump, metal stamping machine, plastic extruder or railroad locomotive does not care where the electrons come from, it still works the same. When fossil fuels are too expensive and hard to get, the electrons will come from sun, wind, tidal and biomass. When liquid fuel for ICE’s falls short, alternative transport options will be made (natural gas and or electric).
Just about everyone is aware of the problems, they just don’t care yet since the effects can be ignored, at least for now. Nobody is causing a revolution about a hundred thousand holes being punched in the earth every few years. They still all drive to the gas stations.
Certainly major governments and academics are aware of the situation. They just are not reacting much yet, just slow and steady now. They need hard deadlines and strong pressures to get moving. Patching up seems to work for now.
GF, when fuels are in short supply, crops will stand in the fields unharvested, the planting won’t be done, fields will be barren.
When it all sinks in, it is going to be too late.
City folk will be too busy chasing Pokemon Go, they won’t have time to solve a single problem. It will be a maelstrom of misery and chaos.
Game over.
Electrons won’t matter.
RW, when fuels are in short supply fuel allocations will go to needed operations such as farming and critical services. The rest will be rationed. Happened before, will happen again.
Game not over, merely adjusted.
GF, that was before a population of 7.4 billion humans.
It will be game over.
It COULD be game over, because the human race is collectively so complacent we may get caught with our pants around our ankles taking a nice long liesurely crap even as the hungry man eating lion of fossil fuel depletion is stalking us.
But SOME countries will react in a timely fashion, almost for sure. By timely, I mean in time to prevent large scale rioting, the water and sewer systems in large cities failing, people starving in the streets.
The USA will be one country that will almost for sure manage to avoid a catastrophic economic and ecological crash as the result of oil and other fossil fuel supplies suddenly coming up short.
But a sudden, large , and prolonged spike in the prices of oil and natural gas, along with all our other economic problems, sure as hell could bring on an economic troubles that might just put us down for the count, and for good, even here in the USA.
The final outcome will depend mostly on how fast renewables scale up, how fast fossil fuels deplete, and how lucky we are in terms of leadership when the shit eventually hits the fan.
Dennis,
I find your scenario is based on too many unknowns to offer any guidance.
Regarding emissions, there has been little increase since 2013, so we are almost flat already. There is a very distinct possibility that the fall in emissions could be faster than you anticipate, specially if we get a new global economic crisis in the next years, but it is unlikely that it will ever reach zero. You are only considering emissions from fossil fuels and emissions from cement and land uses are significant, so I doubt emissions could fall below 5-10% of current in any scenario for the next 50 years.
But the impact on Earth’s climate is a complete unknown. Nobody knew 20 years ago what impact was going to have on the climate the increase of CO2 levels during these two decades, and nobody knows what impact is going to have by 2100. It is all futile speculation based on imperfect knowledge and models that do not reproduce the climate of the Earth, and so cannot be trusted.
You have an almost worst case scenario based on a climate sensitivity for CO2 of 3, yet nobody knows the climate sensibility for CO2. The more we know, the lower the measured climate sensitivity. See figure for published measured values by date of publication. According to IPCC it cannot be discarded that climate sensitivity is between 1.5 and 2.0.
A new paper on the issue has the following to say:
Assessing atmospheric temperature data sets for climate studies
Magnus Cederlof, Lennart Bengtsson, Kevin Hodges
Tellus A 2016, 68, 31503
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/view/31503
“Observed near-surface temperature trends during the period 1979–2014 show large differences between land and ocean, with positive values over land (0.25–0.27 °C/decade) that are significantly larger than over the ocean (0.06–0.12 °C/decade). Temperature trends in the mid-troposphere of 0.08-0.11 °C/decade, on the other hand, are similar for both land and ocean and agree closely with the ocean surface temperature trend. The lapse rate is consequently systematically larger over land than over the ocean and also shows a positive trend in most land areas. This is puzzling as a response to external warming, such as from increasing greenhouse gases, is broadly the same throughout the troposphere. The reduced tropospheric warming trend over land suggests a weaker vertical temperature coupling indicating that some of the processes in the planetary boundary layer such as inversions have a limited influence on the temperature of the free atmosphere. Alternatively, the temperature of the free atmosphere is influenced by advection of colder tropospheric air from the oceans. It is therefore suggested to use either the more robust tropospheric temperature or ocean surface temperature in studies of climate sensitivity. We also conclude that the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis Interim can be used to obtain consistent temperature trends through the depth of the atmosphere, as they are consistent both with near-surface temperature trends and atmospheric temperature trends obtained from microwave sounding sensors.”
What it is most interesting is that ECMWF reanalysis data ERAI provides an independent temperature comparison through data assimilation and shows quite good agreement with satellite data from microwave sounding units. If you look at table 1 and 2, it shows that ERAI temperature data for surface and lower troposphere agrees quite well with satellites at 0.12°C per decade between 1979-2014.
Extrapolation is not a very good technique, but those 35 years extended to the next 85 gives a total of 1.02°C if emissions continue growing as they did, but if they grow at a slower rate as we know it is most likely, we could see significantly less than 1°C increase by 2100.
This is cutting edge climatology. ERA Interim reanalysis from ECMWF is the best medium-range weather forecast available in the world. Lives depend on ECMWF weather forecasts. This is an organization formed by 34 countries. More and more climatologists are starting to think that reanalysis data can be trusted better than single organization reconstructions of temperature databases.
There is the distinct possibility that we are in no danger from climate change, as I have been telling here for a very long time. And there is a clear scientific basis to what I defend. Political and economic interests are sequestering a debate that should be dealt with scientifically.
Figure from:
Gervais, F. (2016). Anthropogenic CO 2 warming challenged by 60-yearcycle. Earth-Science Reviews, 155, 129-135.
http://www.kin152.org/climatologie/challenge.pdf
“In his comment, Scafetta refers to his own work, noting, “I argue that at least 50% of the warming observed since 1850 could be attributed to a set of decadal, multi-decadal (20 and 60 year), secular and millennial natural oscillations [in the climate systems].” Scafetta has made this argument in a number of peer-reviewed articles.
Scafetta’s comment is one page long and seems to have been written in part to bring his own research up-to-date, and in part because “Gervais made a mistake [in citing one of Scafetta’s articles]…Very likely Gervais wanted to cite a different paper of mine.”
Thus Scafetta comes not to praise Gervais, but to correct his error.”
Not one scientist has found the arguments in any of the five rejecting articles even worthy of postive mention.
I fail to see the relevance of what you post to what I have said Duncan.
First, what you post comes from here:
http://www.jamespowell.org/page62/index.html
hardly a scientific paper, but also it refers to five scientific publications of which I have said nothing, as you would have discovered if you has bothered clicking the link:
http://www.jamespowell.org/methodology/newmethodology.html
It refers to:
Gervais, F., 2014. Tiny warming of residual anthropogenic CO2. International Journal of Modern Physics B. 28, 1450095.
So what you have posted is not at all relevant to what I said.
Second, from the Gervais article I have just extracted a figure about the evolution of measured climate sensitivity values to CO2 according to scientific publications that are cited. The only relevant question is if the figure provided is accurate, and it is. If you want to discuss Gervais’ article that is a completely different issue, and I guess that to discuss it you will have to first read it, won’t you?
Third, my post is quite long but it mainly refers to two points, the disparity between measured climate sensitivity values and the values used by models and Dennis, and the use of ERA Interim reanalysis data from ECMWF for climatic studies. You have not commented on any of these two points.
I am starting to think you didn’t even read my post before pasting something you found on internet that has nothing to do with it. I hope you don’t usually do that.
Gervais, F., 2014. Tiny warming of residual anthropogenic CO2. International Journal of Modern Physics B. 28, 1450095.
Come now, my delusional friend.
That is a publication by Worldscience—
A quack publication that denys Darwinism.
Not peer reviewed or legitimate.
We need higher standards.
You brought that paper up, not me. This is your strawman argument. You seem you still haven’t read my post.
Here is Powell’s view:
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Powell-Science-Pie-Chart.png
(Jim Powell is a science author. He has been a college and museum president and was a member of the National Science Board for 12 years, appointed first by President Reagan and then by President George H. W. Bush.)
Hardly a commie leftist.
I couldn’t care less about Jim Powell’s view or his political inclinations.
Let’s discuss only peer-reviewed published climate science, shall we? Neither the Gervais piece you brought up, nor Jim Powell are relevant. I see you like to muddle and confound the issues.
Sure they are.
Gervais was in your post.
Peer Reviewed when it was published in wroldscience publication?
Any creditable scientist would be laughing on the floor!
Lets look at NASA’s data:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5FvYtPOYKbY/VLmsJDSagtI/AAAAAAAAAQg/VCbwpHT5aqc/s1600/2014isontrend.png
(and it has only risen further)
15 of the top 16 warmest years have occurred since 2000.[10] March 2016 was the hottest month on record, making it the 11th month in a row of global high temperature records.[11] 2015 was not only the warmest year on record, but broke the record by the largest margin by which the record has been broken.[12] 2015 was the 39th consecutive year with above-average temperatures. Ocean oscillations like El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can affect global average temperatures; for example, 1998 and 2015 temperatures were significantly enhanced by strong El Niño conditions. The large margin by which 2015 is the warmest year is also attributed to another strong El Nino. However, 2014 was ENSO neutral.
Top 16 Warmest Years (NOAA)
(1880–2015)
Rank Year Anomaly °C Anomaly °F
1 2015 0.90 1.62
2 2014 0.74 1.33
3 2010 0.70 1.26
4 2013 0.66 1.19
5 2005 0.65 1.17
6 (tie) 1998 0.63 1.13
6 (tie) 2009 0.63 1.13
8 2012 0.62 1.12
9 (tie) 2003 0.61 1.10
9 (tie) 2006 0.61 1.10
9 (tie) 2007 0.61 1.10
12 2002 0.60 1.08
13 (tie) 2004 0.57 1.03
13 (tie) 2011 0.57 1.03
15 (tie) 2001 0.54 0.97
15 (tie) 2008 0.54
Big deal. That only demonstrates that the world has been warming. But those records are by tiny amounts that are within experimental error, like the 38% probability that 2014 was the warmest (remember?).
Once you put all those records in line the warming rate for the 21st century is something like 0.1 °C/decade, definitively lower than in the late 20th century when anthropogenic forcing was smaller.
If one is mathematically literate, those numbers do not scare at all.
Excuse me, in my post the citation was:
Gervais, F. (2016). Anthropogenic CO 2 warming challenged by 60-year cycle. Earth-Science Reviews, 155, 129-135.
http://www.kin152.org/climatologie/challenge.pdf
Which is a peer-reviewed scientific publication of which you still have said nothing.
I don’t know if you are being obtuse or trying to raise a strawman argument by bringing up a different publication by the same author that I did not mentioned, and that is unrelated to the points I discuss, and repeatedly ignoring it when I point it to you.
HI Javier,
The chart showed fossil fuel emissions only, but the input to the model includes emissions from all sources. I think emissions are likely to be higher than this scenario, which is why I said in the post that emissions may be higher than this, you believe they will be lower, but that depends on a global recession which cannot be predicted in advance (an unproven hypothesis.)
You say that you think emissions will be different, feel free to send me a spreadsheet with the “correct” emissions and it can be input into the MAGICC model, or you can do it.
I doubt that emissions will be lower than this scenario, and the exact path of emissions does not matter that much, it is total carbon emissions that is important.
I agree the models are imperfect, that is why there are a range of estimates based on different climate models and historical constraints.
Perhaps emissions will fall faster than in this scenario, but it is pretty aggressive, lower economic output may lead to lower energy demand, but it will also lead to less replacement of fossil fuel power generation by non-fossil fuel energy so emissions could potentially fall more slowly than if the World economy does relatively well and can afford to invest in non-fossil fuel energy, difficult to predict.
Perhaps equilibrium climate sensitivity is less than 3 C and perhaps it is more, we do not know whether it is more or less than 3C. You seem to think it is less, I think that is an unproven hypothesis.
Hi Dennis,
Your Total Carbon Emissions graph above is close to what I believe is possible. If the fossil fuel industry is beaten back from it’s political influence and the citizens of the world join together with sacrifice and commit to right the wrong that has been done to earth because of humanity. I’m not sure humans will ever totally stop polluting but we may figure out how to sequester as much or more CO2 than produce in a given day.
“Perhaps equilibrium climate sensitivity is less than 3 C and perhaps it is more, we do not know whether it is more or less than 3C”
Your quote above is were you loose me. Trying to put some arbitrary number that maybe safe or tipping point is misleading. We very well maybe at a point today that the polar ice caps are going to melt if we stopped burning fossil fuel today. There is a probability we may have already make earth uninhabitable for humans in the near future and is irreversible. Everyday we continue to burn rises that probability.
I was just giving my opinion that the fall in emissions could be faster over the next couple of decades if economic conditions remain difficult, but it will probably be slower around mid century, as it is always easier to reduce at the beginning and there are a lot of things that we do that are not only burning fossil fuels that produce emissions, like chopping trees (land use change), burning biomass, producing cement, and so on, so a fall to zero on 2060 is not very realistic in my opinion.
Hi Javier,
I agree it is not very realistic, which I thought I said clearly in the post. Carbon emissions are likely to be higher than 920 Pg.
If emissions are higher and the Probabilistic analysis done in the Meinhausen paper (Nature 2009) is correct then global temperature will be more than 2 C above pre-industrial temperature.
Hi Javier,
The figure 1 you posted has been is a couple of years old, since that time there have been many studies suggesting ECS of around 3 C is about right.
One can choose to dismiss those studies, but my reading of those studies is that the result is robust.
There is the Marvel et al paper, which Lewis found errors in, but the corrected results remain about 3 C
see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/Marvel_etal2016.html
Another study from 2016 at link below, paper behind a paywall but the blog post is by one of the paper authors.
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/reconciling-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity/
Dennis,
The two studies that you mention are not experimental determinations of ECS but two attempts of defending an ECS of 3°C because that is the ECS that most models utilize, not because it has been determined, but because it has been chosen and fitted.
Richardson et al., 2016 requires that HadCRUT4 (and all temperature datasets) are very wrong:
“The implications for understanding historical global temperature change are also significant. It is suggested that changes in global air temperature are actually ~24% larger than measured by the HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset.”
Now what are the chances that HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset is 24% wrong towards the cooling side? I would think not many, and in the end it reflects in the fact that for models being right and ECS being 3°C, the warming has to have been much higher, because, as everybody knows, models are running hot.
As soon as the models have been let to run the deviation has been significant, and not even the record warming from El Niño is alleviating this problem. That is a very important reason why ECS is not going to be 3°C.
Hi Javier,
The paper says we need to compare like with like. So if we have global temperatures that only cover a portion of the earth we should compare the model results from those same locations.
Temperature changes are measured against the 1901-2000 average, and are measured in degrees Fahrenheit.
1880s: -0.3
1890s: -0.4
1900s: -0.5
1910s: -0.5
1920s: -0.26
1930s: -0.02
1940s: +0.12
1950s: -0.03
1960s: +0.03
1970s: +0.06
1980s: +0.35
1990s: +0.65
2000s: +0.95
Contiguous US summer temperature anomaly. Best regional record available in the world.
Ouch. Not much global warming there, where it matters most. We are getting balmier winters. Except when the Polar vortex decides to play, that is.
Nope, that is global data.
Javier is your typical scientific contrarian that gets his rocks off by arguing against stuff that does not fit his political agenda.
Dennis,
That is the trick. By computing disproportionally Northern Hemisphere land they get a higher ECS, but then models apply that higher partial ECS to the entire planet and produce a warming that is unrealistic.
As Cederlof et al., 2016 point:
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/view/31503
“It is therefore suggested to use either the more robust tropospheric temperature or ocean surface temperature in studies of climate sensitivity.”
But they won’t do that because that gives lower ECS values and they rather stick to their deficient models.
The conclusion is that all those degrees of warming that we are constantly scared with are never going to happen for the foreseeable future. We might get some moderate warming or some moderate cooling, as before. That is what the evidence supports, but we are always free to ignore evidence in the pursue of other agendas.
Hi Javier
The study looks at models vs data where we have data.
If the model matches the data that is one confirmation of the model.
Just extrapolating past data trends is likely to give poor results.
That is why we use models.
Javier is simply a contrarian when it comes to climate science. Here is evidence of his arbitrary nature: http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=7278#comment-10688
But the models don’t match the data. Of course they can be made to match the data once you get it through parameterization, but when their projections are compared to the data they fail miserably.
That’s why the Pause was such a big surprise and why they don’t have a good explanation for it, because it is not included in the models since nobody knows how it is produced. Even if it is natural variability, it is clearly not programmed in the models.
If the models run too hot, and they do, how can they match the data? It is clear that they don’t.
Hi Javier,
You assume the models run too hot. That is not the case.
See http://berkeleyearth.org/graphics/model-performance-against-berkeley-earth-data-set/#section-2-0
Figure 9. The above figure shows a comparison between the Berkeley Earth Surface Air Temperature record and a collection of GCM results from the IPCC’s AR4 report. The GCM results were created by sampling the entire GCM field at the same locations and times as the Berkeley Earth average. The GCM average is shown in red and the Berkeley average is shown in black.
Dennis,
I have not idea how BEST sets its tests, and that is non published information.
This recent article from well respected authors like Michael Mann:
Fyfe, J. C., et al. Nature Climate Change 6.3 (2016): 224-228.
shows the opposite.
From the figure legend:
“Annual mean and global mean surface temperature anomalies. Anomalies are from three updated observational datasets and the ensemble mean (black curve) and 10–90% range (darker grey shading) GMST of 124 simulations from 41 CMIP-5 models using RCP4.5 extensions from 2005”
So it is not my assumption that models run too hot, it is published evidence.
Simple models do not “run too hot”.
The simple models suggest that TCR is about 2C and ECS about 3C for a doubling of CO2 (along with concomitant increase of other GHGs). It has been the same estimate since the Charney report came out in ~1980.
And that is exactly what we are seeing with the data as Dennis has shown.
So now simple models better represent reality than complex ones. We should have saved a pile of money by not develop and run the complex ones.
Like I said before, there is more to climate science than studying AGW. Jeez.
There is no doubt that the eddy and vortex behavior that shows up in climate modeling requires numerical modeling. Yet other aspects of climate science can get by with mean-value approximations.
lol oh stop it Javier you’re killing me over here! I’m starting to feel embarrassed for you.
Hi Javier,
Whether the models run “hot” depends on what we use for the zero point for the temperature scale.
In the chart below I take the default model data from MAGICC from 1850 to 2005 and the BEST Land ocean data from 1850 to 2005 and use the average temperature over the 1850 to 2005 period as the zero point for both model and data.
Then I take the 21 year centered running average for the model and the data. The model runs “hot” over the period from 1860 to 1932 and it runs “cool” after 1933.
It is pretty clear that over the entire period the model underestimates overall temperature increase rather than the reverse.
For the chart above the 21 year centered running average uses annual data from 1850 to 2015 (last 21 year centered average is 2005.)
For the BEST land ocean (LO) data the 1860 to 2005 change in the 21 year centered running average is 0.9 C, for the default CMIP3 model in MAGICC it is 0.8 C from 1860 to 2005.
The model actually runs “cool” not hot over the instrumental period from 1850 to 2015.
Are the numbers corrected for the ship sampling biases that Nasa and UK met office highlighted recently – i.e canvas bucket sampling gave cooler numbers in the 19th century, engine coolant intake gave hotter numbers by about 0.1 degrees C which has gradually declined as the proportion of buoys has increased? That what actually match the discrepancies to a large extent.
Hi George,
The model data uses the MAGICC model which can be downloaded for free at link below.
http://www.magicc.org/
The BEST data can be found at
http://berkeleyearth.org/data/
I use annual temperature data with air temperature above sea ice as recommended by the team at Berkeley Earth.
The Carboniferous Period:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/carboniferous/carboniferous.php
The Carboniferous Period lasted from about 359.2 to 299 million years ago* during the late Paleozoic Era. The term “Carboniferous” comes from England, in reference to the rich deposits of coal that occur there. These deposits of coal occur throughout northern Europe, Asia, and midwestern and eastern North America. The term “Carboniferous” is used throughout the world to describe this period, although in the United States it has been separated into the Mississippian (early Carboniferous) and the Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous) Subsystems. This division was established to distinguish the coal-bearing layers of the Pennsylvanian from the mostly limestone Mississippian, and is a result of differing stratigraphy on the different continents. The Mississippian and Pennsylvanian, in turn, are subdivided into a number of internationally recognized stages based on evolutionary successions of fossil groups . These stages are (from early to late) Tournaisian, Visean, and Serpukhovian for the Mississippian — and Bashkirian, Moscovian, Kasimovian, and Gzhelian for the Pennsylvanian.
Probably all lies and disinformation, a left wing institution like Berkeley can’t be trusted. har
So would now be called the Anti-Carboniferous Period?
Would appropriate protest signs for fossil fuel promoters be:
Free the Carbon! Let it Burn.
Back to the Atmosphere.
Jurassic Here We Come.
In the prior post on the energy transition there was some discussion on a desal plant in Israel which got me to thinking, how much would it need to produce to compare with the rain that falls on Israel in an ave year. My figures end up being almost incredulous, so I invite corrections.
Israel,with a total of 8,019 square miles and the wetter half, roughly 4,000 square miles or 2.5 million acres receives an average of 20 inches of rainfall per year. 20 inches per acre= 543,083 gallons /acre or 17 rail car tankers/acre x 2.5 million acres = 42.5 million tank cars every 12 months. 88 rail cars to the mile comes to 483,000 miles of tankers or a train that wraps around the equator 20 times.
So how many gallons was this plant supposed to produce????? and at what cost??????
So how many gallons was this plant supposed to produce????? and at what cost??????
At what cost? Dunno I haven’t checked, but probably still cheaper than water wars.
However I’m sure that we will be seeing lots more desalination technology going forward and wind and solar are perfect energy sources for this, especially when there is surplus power available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4oW8OtaPY
Biomimicry; Water: Begins at: 10:54
Company: Forward Osmosis from http://aquaporin.dk/products/fo/
Aquaporin Inside™ Forward Osmosis (FO), has its benefits in treatment of difficult wastewater streams with a minimum need for pretreatment and low fouling propensity.
The FO process uses only the osmotic pressure difference between a feed water stream and the draw solution as a driving force, making it highly energy efficient. The integration of the aquaporin protein pores into the rejection layer makes the Aquaporin Inside™ FO membranes highly capable of rejecting difficult contaminants or withhold valuable components.
Lot’s of people still trying to do it old way with reverse osmosis plants though wherever there is lots of sun and ocean such as the Middle East they can do it with concentrating solar otherwise it does take huge amounts of fossil fuel energy.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/01/22/worlds-largest-solar-powered-desalination-plant-under-way/
California Is Building The Country’s Largest Solar Desalination Plant
In the Central Valley, nowhere near the ocean, there’s lots of salty waste irrigation water—and not enough to drink.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051087/california-is-building-the-countrys-largest-solar-desalination-plant
In terms of “If you have to have it” Oil might be nice but somehow water seems a little more important…so cost might be a secondary consideration 🙂
Hi Fred,
Thanks for the desal links.
Another way of looking at the issue, from a different perspective, is the value of any given liter or gallon.
The most valuable gallon of all is the one you need for drinking. the next few for washing and sanitation, after that for every thing else, in human terms.
I have high hopes that solar energy will scale up to the point that we can collectively afford to run desal water plants in most of the places where water problems are already critical.
If you or any body else runs across any links dealing with the expiration of patents in the wind and solar energy fields, thus making it easier to manufacture new panels, inverters, batteries, turbines, towers, etc, I hope to see them posted here, and thanks in advance.
Something tells me that by now a lot of pesky patents will soon expire, making it easier to manufacture new equipment.
Does any body know what is becoming of the equipment in solar cell plants that are obsolete?
In other industries, such equipment is sometimes moved to countries where wages are low enough that it can still be profitably used.
I think the low hanging fruit (much lower cost options) are pricing of water, to incentivize farmers to optimize their water inputs; and recycling.
Hi Nick,
For sure there is plenty of water wasted irrigating farms in the sense that there is land in other places with no need for irrigation where the same crops could be grown, and even more places with ample water that is readily available for irrigation, since there are no large cities nearby.
Yeah. It’s all about optimization, which can’t happen without proper pricing.
Farming uses 80% of water, and 3/4 of the remaining 20% is used for lawns.
We don’t really have a serious shortage of either potable water, or ag water. Just a shortage of proper management.
“We don’t really have a serious shortage of either potable water, or ag water.”
There are a lot of farmers who would disagree with you. And by the way, I enjoy my landscaping.
California, like Brazil and the rest of the world, seems to mismanage water badly.
“Whether driven by market forces or government regulation or — as is virtually guaranteed — by a combination of the two, water prices are going to go up. This is especially true in California, where some water is free or nearly so, and therefore is predictably going scarce. A more accurate term than “drought” might be “a shortage of water caused by misuse.”
Since agriculture uses something like 80 percent of the water in the state, as water becomes scarcer — and as we acknowledge that, and behave as if it’s scarcer — it’s going to become more expensive….using less water for food (“more crop per drop”) is imperative.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/opinion/mark-bittman-fear-of-almonds.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article
Hi Nick,
“mismanage water badly.”
“a shortage of water caused by misuse.”
I disagree with these statements. California has managed it’s abundance of water quite well for the last 125 years. What has changed in the last 10 to 15 years is it’s source of regularly free abundant water. California will have to change how it managements it’s water source from abundance to scarce or limited. This will require more costly capital investment similar to peak oil. The price of that large salad or hamburger for lunch is going up. Maybe what’s really been mismanaged is the diet of the American consumer.
Lots of blame to go around
Hmmm. Did you read the article I attached?
My impression is that California is dependent on a great deal of imported water, that it’s using it to over irrigate desert. Parts of the Central Valley are in serious trouble due to over irrigation.
CA farmers are very often growing the wrong crops, or wasting water with wasteful irrigation methods that lose a great deal to evaporation.
There’s a simple fix: charging farmers a very minimal fee for water. Then they’ll start paying a little more attention, and stop with wasteful practices.
“My impression is that California is dependent on a great deal of imported water”
The only water that could be considered imported water is it’s legal share of what it takes for the Colorado river. That water is used to grow alfalfa to feed the cattle for your hamburger, cotton for your blue jeans or lettuce for your salad in January. There is no over irrigating desert going on.
“There’s a simple fix: charging farmers a very minimal fee for water. Then they’ll start paying a little more attention, and stop with wasteful practices.”
The farmers already pay a fee for the water. There is no “simple fix”. It’s either produce less or a huge increase in capital and labor to make the water go further.
The water is NOT mismanaged badly. Climate change just means it’s going to be managed differently and your going to pay more for less food to pay for the new infrastructure.
The only water that could be considered imported water is it’s legal share of what it takes for the Colorado river.
That’s imported water.
There is no over irrigating desert going on.
Have you looked at some the areas that are irrigated?
The farmers already pay a fee for the water.
Did you read the article I provided?
“Most water problems are readily addressed with innovation,” said David G. Victor of the University of California, San Diego. “Getting the water price right to signal scarcity is crucially important.”
The signals today are way off. Water is far too cheap across most American cities and towns. But what’s worse is the way the United States quenches the thirst of farmers, who account for 80 percent of the nation’s water consumption and for whom water costs virtually nothing.
Adding to the challenges are the obstacles placed in the way of water trading. “Markets are essential to ensuring that water, when it’s scarce, can go to the most valuable uses,” said Barton H. Thompson, an expert on environmental resources at Stanford Law School. Without them, “the allocation of water is certainly arbitrary.”
There is enough water; we can live within our means,” said Jim Lochhead, chief executive of Denver Water. “But the systems we have in place simply do not have enough flexibility to move water to the places where it is most needed.”
The price of water going into Americans’ homes often does not even cover the cost of delivering it, let alone the depreciation of utilities’ infrastructure or their R&D. It certainly doesn’t account for other costs imposed by water use — on, say, fisheries or the environment — caused by taking water out of rivers or lakes.
Consumers have little incentive to conserve. Despite California’s distress, about half of the homes in the capital, Sacramento, still don’t have water meters, paying a flat fee no matter how much water they consume.
Some utilities do worse: charging decreasing rates the more water is consumed. Utilities, of course, have little incentive to discourage consumption: The more they did that the more their revenues would decline.
Their water rights are primarily subject to state law. In the West, they have been allocated by a method that closely resembles “first come first served.” The first farm that drew water had a right to whatever it needed pretty much forever. Junior users — who arrived later — had to stand in line.
Farmers pay if the government brings the water to the farm, say via an aqueduct from the Colorado River. But the fees are minimal. Farmers in California’s Imperial Irrigation District pay $20 per acre-foot, less than a tenth of what it can cost in San Diego. And the government has often subsidized farmers via things like interest-free loans to cover upfront investments. (An acre-foot is the amount it takes to cover one acre of land a foot deep in water.)
This kind of arrangement helps explain why about half the 60 million acres of irrigated land in the United States use flood irrigation, just flooding the fields with water, which is about as wasteful a method as there is. It also helps explain why underground water reserves declined by 53 million acre-feet between 2003 and 2014, about twice the volume of Lake Mead.
This is hardly the only obstacle to conservation. A farm that doesn’t use its full allotment of water risks forfeiting it for not putting it to “beneficial use.” And any water saved automatically flows to other farmers with junior rights.
markets must play their part. “Without prices or trade,” said Robert Glennon, an expert on water at Arizona University’s College of Law, “we will just get more diversion of rivers, more dams and more wells.” And nothing will be fixed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/business/economy/the-price-of-water-is-too-low.html
“Have you looked at some the areas that are irrigated?”
Nick, it’s clear you don’t understand the situation when you write comments like this above.
The Imperial Valley is farmed because that is were the water is located from the Colorado river and it is rich fertile soil. Not to mention that it has a year round growing season. You seem to have the mentality that if enough is charged for the price of the water the problem is solved and conservation isn’t currently being applied. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. One quarter of all the electricity consumed in California is to move water.
Hey, but maybe your right and Louisiana can ship California some excess water from the Mississippi in Perrier bottles in EV’s.
I’m sure you will be enjoying your $25 hamburger along side our $2 Perrier soon.
HB,
Did you read the articles??
Nick,
Do you know the Imperial Valley is not the Central Valley and their water sources don’t irrigate each other ?
Do you know the Imperial Valley is not the Central Valley
Sure.
Have you read the articles???
“What has changed in the last 10 to 15 years is it’s source of regularly free abundant water. California will have to change how it managements it’s water source from abundance to scarce or limited. This will require more costly capital investment similar to peak oil.”
Did you read my comment above ?
“Just a shortage of proper management.”
Your shortage proper management statement is about as ignorant as someone who said back in 2007 “why isn’t everybody driving EV’s “
Did you read my comment above ?
Yes. And, yes, it will require some investment and different choices. But, this is an optimization exercise. Small changes in cost can induce substantial changes in behavior. When commodities are free or almost so, bad decisions are made. Resources are allocated in a very suboptimal fashion. Proper pricing of inputs does not necessary mean dramatic changes in the pricing of outputs, because a lot of things will be done at least somewhat differently, leading to much better outcomes.
Your shortage proper management statement is about as ignorant as someone who said back in 2007 “why isn’t everybody driving EV’s “
They should have been driving smaller cars, hybrids and EVs. They would have been if oil had been properly priced, just as Europeans use 18% as much fuel for personal transportation, due to somewhat better fuel pricing.
18%. That means that Europeans spend about 1/3 as much on fuel than Americans, despite prices that are twice as high per litre. Jevon’s in reverse, perhaps.
So…once more…
Did you read the articles???? Do you have any responses to the specific things said in them?
“A more accurate term than “drought” might be “a shortage of water caused by misuse.”
Wrong, California and the west coast are in an historical drought. Don’t distract from the issue at hand. This is not just some “optimization exercise”. California has been optimizing it’s water usage for over a hundred years with aqueducts and dams since before you were born. This is a climate change event. You can’t optimize something you don’t have. The states natural areas are burning up in brush fires. California is a leader in the world in managing the environment in hopes to reduce CO2 and pollution around the world. Your little EV quest would be nothing without the leadership of California.
“I can’t tell you how many times in the last month someone has come up to me and said something like, “Do you think I should stop eating almonds?” ”
More bullshit ! He can’t tell you because no one is saying it. I live in California and have never heard anyone pose that question or subject. But if you want to get your California drought information for a New Yorker cook book writter, be my guest. Without almonds for trade, how does the California optimize trade with Asia for electronics and Walmart junk ?
“Oh my God, do you know how much water it takes to grow an avocado?”
Did you know that avocado orchards are irrigated already with emitters and spitters ? Oh that’s right, Mark Buttman can’t see that from the 72nd floor in his office in New York writing his latest cook book.
Here is another thought for you Nick. Residential use of water is about 10 to 20 times more expensive than agriculture use. If you want to level that playing field with the price. Than agriculture is going to get a smaller piece of the pie and your going to pay even more for your hamburger. Yea, I’m paying more for my landscaping so you can have cheap food.
Don’t give me your bullshit “California seems to mismanage water badly”. We are experiencing an environmental disruptive event. California is not a fly over in denial knuckle dragging state. It’s a leader in the world.
It’s more than just water mismanagement. 70 million trees killed by drought:
https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/08/10/californias-70-million-dead-trees-a-botanical-emergency-room/
Not saying that the water rights aren’t antiquated or anything. And it’s crazy that groundwater pumping isn’t regulated.
California Gov Jerry Brown at DNC 2016 on Climate Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZwIZs4Dics
HB,
Economics (which is what we’re practicing here, whether we admit it or not) is about the “allocation of scarce resources”. There are always limits of some sort. But, we can minimize costs and maximize benefits – which is what we’re not doing with water.
I’m not criticizing California – I’m sure it’s doing as well as anyone. But…we can do much better.
Finally…did you read the 2nd article?? It has a lot of people who can’t be dismissed. You might want to read the details, think about them, and address them specifically.
Yair . . .
Oldfarmermac.
You may find a book titled “Direct use of the Suns Energy” by Farrington Daniels of the University of Wisconsin of interest.
First published in 1964 it details early solar experiments and designs for working stills, several of which I have built over the years . . . it mentions that in (I think) the 1890’s an acre of glass reliably produced 6000 gallons a day at a mine in Chile.
The book has been reprinted many times and a copy may well be available with a search. Its an interesting read.
Cheers.
Thank you Scrub Puller,
I wish I could get down under and out into the real boonies and hoist a few brews or fruit juice if that is your pleasure, with you, and hear about your life as a working guy first hand.
The book is now on my wish list.
Researching a book takes FOREVER , it seems, and at the rate I am going composing my own, I keep rewriting and adding new stuff as I run across stuff such as this book.
Yair . . .
Oldfarmermac.
“I wish I could get down under and out into the real boonies and hoist a few brews or fruit juice if that is your pleasure, with you, and hear about your life as a working guy first hand. ”
That would indeed be a pleasure.
It was always on my list to get to the US and ride Route 66 on a Harley but I’m afraid a life well lived intervened. (wry grin)
I hear you about the writing. I have a ninety thousand work of fiction with an agent at the moment . . . about eight years of rewrites and revisions so far and I didn’t need any research.
Cheers.
Haven’t read that book but I did read about the solar still at that Chilean mine. At the time I was doing a little research before I built myself a small solar still when I first moved to Florida.
Yair . . .
I just noticed HUNTINGTON BEACH mentioned up thread that California is a world leader in water use . . . I am told by a friend just back from the US that he actually saw tomatoes and almonds being irrigated with flood.
This piqued my interest and quick search revealed that such practice is still widespread, a fact I find surprising.
Cheers.
I said “It’s a leader in the world.” Don’t make shit up.
Yair . . . .
HUNTINGTON BEACH
” I said “It’s a leader in the world.” Don’t make shit up”
You’re being a little techy I think, the phrases are similar in context.
Cheers.
No “Cheers”. Words matter. Your phrase of my statement totally change the meaning.
Your being a “little” ignorant “I think”.
Yair . . .
HUNTINGTON BEACH
Lets see . . . You said, “It’s a leader in the world” implying Cal. is a world leader in the efficient use of water.
I pointed out my friend had seen large scale gravity irrigation of tomatoes and almonds.
A short Google search indicates gravity/flood irrigation is still common so there is still a ways to go.
Cheers.
No, your implying it’s a leader in the world in water efficient use of water. I said it’s a leader. To different things.
Desal has some applications that make sense, like using it for blue water sailing.
Almost all the rest are energy intensive ecological disasters.
But is some applications it is the logical choice.
Disclaimer: I worked politically to stop a desal plant in Marin County in California.
We were successful, uniting a varied opposition that ranged from Marin Peace and Justice to the Marin Gun and Rod Club.
Almost all the rest are energy intensive ecological disasters.
You could probably power most reverse osmosis desal with wind and solar but one of the main issues with it, is that it produces toxic or high salinity brine as a waste product that still has to be disposed of in a safe manner. Therefore the potential for ecological disasters. But hey, most of our current civilization is the root cause of multiple ecological disasters. There are other ways to skin the cat but they require paradigm shifts on multiple levels.
Which is why forward osmosis is probably a better way to go and some companies are trying to go that route already.
Now if everyone on the planet starts to understand that we are all passengers on a tiny blue water spaceship sailing through the cosmos then maybe we can start working on those paradigm shifts before it is too late.
Who knows maybe we can even add some birth control chemicals to that desal water… 🙂
Hi Fred,
How about any links you have about forward osmosis?
I can see concentrated brine being a big problem in a confined bay area, but it would appear that any desal plant located near open water could have a pipe out far enough into that open water for wind and currents to safely disperse the concentrated brine.
The wikipedia article is pretty good.
Hey OFM,
I could certainly provide you with plenty of links to peer reviewed scientific research on forward osmosis. We could start with our own bodies and examine how our kidneys work or we could look at how saltwater fish manage to survive in the ocean,since they are prime examples of living desalination plants.
You can browse this Danish startup company’s site to get a general idea as to where this technology could be put to good use:
http://aquaporin.dk/technology/fo/
…it would appear that any desal plant located near open water could have a pipe out far enough into that open water for wind and currents to safely disperse the concentrated brine.
Well, while that may be true to some extent, let me be on record in saying, that I am not in principle, a big fan of the idea:
That dilution is the solution to pollution.
I think that is a slippery slope that has gotten us into trouble over and over again.
Sorry farmboy, but I got to say that’s is an silly analysis. In Calif we do let quite of water run out to the sea, mainly for good economic and environmental reasons, and cost. But the Colorado River, for example, doesn’t reach the sea anymore- its used up by the time it gets to the Mexican border, essentially.
In Israel they work very hard at capturing runoff, and have been pioneering that field since the 70’s.
Where I live, the nearby Salinas Valley is a huge Ag producer, generally #3 or 4 top county in country at about $5B/yr. It could be considerably more if there was more water. The Salinas river barely reaches the sea, not even strongly enough to prevent salt water intrusion into the lower fields, and the groundwater is tapped very heavily (unsustainably).
I’m not arguing for desal, but it certainly could be used for ‘keeping the train going’.
btw- there is no water imported into this county, and none available. Urban growth has been heavily curtailed here for more than a decade. Just try to get a permit for a sink or toilet- good luck.
Hickory Silly analysis ?? Why can’t you come out and say just how much or just how little water that desal plant can produce and at what energy cost?
23 inches is a lot of water but somehow Israel manages to lose most of it. One big challenge is that almost all of it comes in the winter and then almost nothing for months on end. So they are ending up with degrading runoff and then evaporation so that very little of that water gets put to good use.
If they would get of their technology high horse and listen to some of the Holistic Grasslands Managers they could learn how to go about growing grass with that water to cover the soil during the hot dry summer, and start rejenerating the whole landscape and in a few years those seasonal wadis start to flow all year with clean water.
Here is a selection of what we as holistic land managers have to offer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLCb9Z6y7w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwwfL2o9d4
ECMWF Ensembles looking more like El Nino than La Nina in the 11-15 day period. Another High +AAM period coming
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpdJIQHUkAIxPnx.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpdF6o1VMAEUXE3.jpg
Spectacular example of glacier retreating onto land spotted yesterday on flight over E Greenland.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CojFKWjUEAAkAzA.jpg
This is the top of Greenland. We’re about to melt out the top .
Blue water around Greenland is in the cards. This year. The ice at the top is shattered.
But the water goes down below to the bottom of the glacier, and from there it is a slippery slope to the ocean. The ocean and ice cubes, not long together. Pretty neat though, we have the greenhouse energy being absorbed by the ocean, then the ocean uses it up melting the big ice cubes that keep falling in the water. I wonder if anyone has done an energy assessment on that chilling scenario.
Meanwhile, it’s just not very safe in some places around Greenland.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/23/this-melting-greenland-glacier-is-now-producing-terrifying-tsunamis/?utm_term=.d8730d5caf9d
not sure if this was already posted above, but there are good reasons to think that the ice could speed up markedly if there was sufficient thermal transfer from above. That is, if you believe in those kinds of things. It is quite a bit warmer at the bottom of the ice sheet:
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-nasa-areas-greenland-ice-sheet.html#jCp
Nice, that is a lot of warm bottom on that ice sheet. I guess we can expect a lot more giant ice cubes in the Atlantic Ocean.
Just need to start forming some cracks in the ice sheet in places not locked in by rock to get things going. Next couple of decades should be a really exciting time for ice studies.
I guess you are going to be wrong on that. Perhaps you have heard of Ice Rafted Debris that Gerard Bond studied a couple of decades ago. His main finding was that cold periods are accompanied by a marked increase in iceberg activity in the North Atlantic. He established the Bond series formed by cold periods named Bond events, hugely cited.
This has to do with the cold 1910’s having a lot of icebergs that were a danger for navigation culminating in the 1917 Titanic incident.
So to have a lot of icebergs you need a lot of glaciers growing strongly.
I mean we have had a few glaciers growing the last 4 years, like the Pettermann Glacier:
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Petermann-2013-2014-2015-2016.gif
however it is a weak growth unlikely to produce many icebergs.
As usual you seem to get climate things backwards. No wonder you are so scared.
some of Greenland’s glaciers are also retreating, quite rapidly:
http://blogs.agu.org/fromaglaciersperspective/2009/06/28/recession-of-jakobshavn-isbrae/
more here on the relative number of growing vs shrinking glaciers around the globe:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/himalayan-glaciers-growing-intermediate.htm
Yes, that is correct. We are in a global warming period and most glaciers are receding. It is undeniable that we are in the warmest period in several centuries. When it is warm, well behaved ice melts. However the dynamics of ice melting and of sea level rise do not correspond directly to temperature changes much to the chagrin of climate scientists.
The melting of glaciers and sea level rise are processes that have been taking place since the end of the Little Ice Age, around 1850 as the bottom picture attests, so they are due in great measure to natural causes, although probably enhanced by GHGs.
It is not actually a bad thing. Much better than living through a cooling period when glaciers grow. There’s testimonies of glaciers growing during the LIA and destroying farms, houses and even villages that were in their way.
“In 1589 the Allalin glacier in Switzerland descended so low that it blocked the Saas valley, forming a lake. The moraine broke a few months later, sending floods downstream. Seven years later 70 people died when similar floods from the Gietroz glacier submerged the town of Martigny.
As the glaciers relentlessly pushed downslope thousands of acres of farm land were ruined and many villages were left uninhabitable such as La Bois where a government official noted “where there are still six houses. all uninhabited save two, in which live some wretched women and children…Above and adjoining the village there is a great and horrible glacier of great and incalculable volume which can promise nothing but the destruction of the houses and lands which still remain”. Eventually the village was completely abandoned.
The same official visited the hamlet of La Rosiere in 1616 and found” “The great glacier of La Rosiere every now and then goes bounding and thrashing or descending…There have been destroyed 43 journaux of land with nothing but stones and 8 houses, 7 barns and 5 little granges have been entirely ruined and destroyed”.”
Brian Fagan The Little Ice Age
When it is warm, well behaved ice melts. However the dynamics of ice melting and of sea level rise do not correspond directly to temperature changes much to the chagrin of climate scientists.
That is a good point. However it underscores the need to really understand the risks we face due to the fact that climate is a dynamic complex nonlinear system governed by the laws of physics and best described by chaos math. Not only that but climate affects many other complex nonlinear systems such as ecosystem biodiversity on land and in the oceans, to cite just two.
So to put it very bluntly, the vast majority of climate scientists, physicists, atmospheric chemists, biologists and ecologists who understand the implications of nonlinear dynamics and chaos math would strongly disagree that anything that we are currently witnessing with the changing climate could be characterized as being ‘well behaved!’
Climate Change, Chaos and Inexact Computing: Prof Tim Palmer(May 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVwZcphrDes
Doug, if you are still lurking you might like this lecture.
Thanks for the heads-up, once again, Fred. I expect you’re well aware of this but you’re among the very few I trust to provide reasoned/balanced comments here. Call me a spoilsport or not but I’ve grown tired of the BS and mostly moved on.
That local cooling termed “The Little Ice Age” example is precious. So hackneyed and overused. A modest cooling of 1C in the northern hemisphere probably due to multiple volcanic eruptions.
Now the Younger-Dryas, that is an example of abrupt climate change, one of many that appear in the paleo record.
Hey Doug, I think I know how you feel…
Be well!
I suggest you attend Professor Alley’s lectures on the subject. He will tell you just how glaciers slide into the ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt4QLcocveE
New Maunder minimum coming, move south – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sh_nlz43Pc
Solar companies are crashing for the past year which seems to indicate we have hit “peak solar”
Bundle up and load up on food stocks
Zharkova’s work was published in 2014 and I read it last year when it made the press. She is most likely wrong. Her model is incorrect and does not properly hindcast past activity. It is extremely unlikely that a grand solar minimum is going to take place probably in centuries. There is nothing wrong with the climate. It is what it should be with a small bonus warming from GHGs that is actually quite beneficial.
Javier, You really have no clue as to what will happen. Although not really a law, the so-called “law of unintended consequences” precludes you from suggesting that the “bonus warming from GHGs” will be “quite beneficial”. This bit is especially curious as IIRC you claim to be a biologist, yet seem to be unaware how pathogenic species can take advantage of ecological niches brought on by environmental changes.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/scmh/1010/Ecology.php
You do claim to be some sort of biologist, right? Or will your contrarian nature now deny that too?
As climate and ecological environments have always been changing, every species tries to adapt to changing conditions and in the process evolve.
Global warming is 400 years old. Every species has been adapting to it one year at a time. There is no reason to think they will stop doing it.
The main problem for most species is natural environment degradation by humanity, followed by pollution. Global warming is a red herring.
Yet you seem incapable of building on the work of other plain-vanilla climate research. The majority of climate science has nothing to do with global warming.
Global warming is 400 years old.
Global warming is a red herring.
Pick one.
NAOM
Both are true
red her·ring
noun
2. something, especially a clue, that is or is intended to be misleading or distracting.
We are being misled and distracted with an issue that should not worry us the least.
Javier is apparently this blog’s official representative from the nanny state, telling us what to worry about or not to worry about.
In practice, what many readers like about PeakOilBarrel is that the data and models presented do the talking, not some arbitrary yahoo’s “personal opinion”.
Dennis/Ron, I’ve lost the bubble on how to post images on this site. The browse/select feature here has never worked for me, even though I have a WordPress blog where it does work.
Test to see if this works
Daily CO2
August 9, 2016: 403.10 ppm
August 9, 2015: 399.05 ppm
With anthropogenic CO2 output continuously rising, no wonder the atmospheric concentration goes up. Add in the other greenhouse gases and it is close to 470 ppm CO2 equivalent.
Now that it has been discovered that much of the methane emissions in the tundra are in winter and in the high and dry areas, the role of natural methane exudation just went up a notch.
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/arctic-methane-emissions-persist-in-winter/
Even without the methane issues is it fair to say that we are well above RCP8.5 at the moment in both absolute terms and rate of increase? If 3 to 4 ppm y-o-y increases are sustained then they cannot be coming for fossil fuel use, but must be from changes in the carbon cycle or triggering of some feed backs like permafrost melt or increased wildfire activity (though I’m not sure how much of wildfires or other vegetation loss is already assumed in the carbon cycle). The La Nina for this year seems now to have been downgraded to being fairly mild which would imply less of an impact on CO2 levels (i.e. less of a reduction in rate of increase this year). I am by no means an expert but none of this appears to be anything but on the bad side of previous estimates, and maybe explains why the deniers are increasingly going for the ‘there will be a temperature rise but, trust me, in the end it won’t be all that bad in extent or impact’ as their only strategy now.
Yes, we appear right now to be on track with the 8.5 scenario versus the 4.5, but they don’t really significantly diverge until after 2030, so anything can be said about them at this point.
At this rate we are headed for over 800 ppm GHG by 2100. Of course, the rate may decrease or increase depending upon fossil fuel burning, forest burns and other natural production.
The real near problem we face is the subtraction or addition of aerosols in the atmosphere. Current estimates of -8W/m2 up to -20 W/m2 due to aerosols forcing will disappear if we stop burning fossil fuels, thus causing quick heating. Of course the other thing we face is the possibility of more aerosols being added causing an overall cooling effect in some regions and not others. This may be on purpose or as a result of burning as much coal as possible, or both.
As was stated decades ago, we cannot afford to wait until we fully understand the climate system to take action. Well, since then we took action, in the opposite direction. Enjoy the warmth and energetic weather events. Wait for the reduction in global dimming, it will be a doozy.
You are on to something. While CO2 emissions and atmospheric increase have followed the worst scenarios, temperature increase has not, and in fact tracks around best case scenarios. This disconnection between predictions and reality indicates that there is a problem with the initial hypothesis of how much warming we should get from greenhouse gases.
Hansen’s original prediction from 1988 called for a warming of 3°C per century for his BAU scenario A, and 2.5°C for his some increase in emissions scenario B, while HadCRUT4 has registered 1.6°C increase in the 1986-2015 period.
But CO2 emissions are practically flat since 2013. If the trend persists there should be no acceleration in the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 going forward.
I think that if temperature increase is less than expected and CO2 emissions are under control, we should have every reason to be optimistic about future temperatures.
It’ very exciting, when one takes into account the reductions in radiative forcing due to aerosols and dimming the actual GHG forcing will be at least 3 times the current assumed value.
That’s crap. You are not current with research that demonstrates that aerosol forcing has been hugely overestimated:
Stevens, B. (2015). Rethinking the lower bound on aerosol radiative forcing. Journal of Climate, 28(12), 4794-4819.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00656.1
“a forcing more negative than −1.0 W m−2 is implausible, as it implies that none of the approximately 0.3-K temperature rise between 1850 and 1950 can be attributed to Northern Hemisphere forcing. The individual terms of the model are interpreted in light of comprehensive modeling, constraints from observations, and physical understanding to provide further support for the less negative (−1.0 W m−2) lower bound. These findings suggest that aerosol radiative forcing is less negative and more certain than is commonly believed.”
Stop scaring the children with baseless claims.
“That’s crap.” The response of an uneducated lout.
Why are you scared? Is the crap is in your pants?
From field data not models. I thought you said many times, models don’t work. Jumping fences when convenient?
It’s not just dust and carbon particles, it’s SOx, and that makes clouds, reducing the light hitting the surface. Chemical reactions of these aerosols in the atmosphere create haze, up to 3 km thick.
Decades of data, half a century.
The effect varies greatly over the planet, but estimates of the terrestrial surface average value are:
5.3% (9 W/m²); over 1958–85 (Stanhill and Moreshet, 1992)[12]
2%/decade over 1964–93 (Gilgen et al., 1998)[15]
2.7%/decade (total 20 W/m²); up to 2000 (Stanhill and Cohen, 2001)[16]
4% over 1961–90 (Liepert 2002)[17]
I find the possibility very illuminating, explains a lot. Explains why the Arctic region which is receiving 50 W/m2 less solar radiation than it did 11,000 years ago is getting warmer and melting. Global dimming is much less at high latitudes. The GHG effect is probably much stronger than we thought, being masked by global dimming but less so at the poles.
Always nice to find a piece of the puzzle. I don’t just accept what I am told or run by an agenda. Some of what we have been told does not make sense, that should send up red flags, but most people just run with the flock.
Be glad for the dimming, it kept us much cooler. Enjoy the ice while it lasts.
The problem is that all those unproven hypothesis are adjusted to fit a narrative. The dimming and aerosol forcings are estimated at the required strength when the uncertainties are huge. The research is contradictory and shows that brown clouds both warm or cool.
Yet somehow we have to accept that it is known how much the world is going to warm.
This is from field data, actual measurements. Not he IPCC models. Not hypotheses, real data.
The amount of light has been being reduced from the time in early 50’s when it was first noticed.
The effect of dimming and aerosols on global warming is entirely hypothetical.
Now you have heard it, incoming energy levels have no known effect on global warming. Science is hypothetical.
Sure they have an effect, but it has not been quantified properly. Their estimations are based on unproven assumptions.
Javier, I’ve been reading your posts and I must admit I don’t quite get your point. You admit the planet is warming, you admit humans put CO2 in the air, you admit CO2 is a GHG; yet you seem to argue with everybody who suggests human CO2 emissions cause warming, I think, frankly you seem kinda all over the place. Like for example you suggest warming causes increased CO2 emissions, ok I get that but so does people burning coal gas and oil since 1750. For my benefit could you please briefly present your thesis. What is it you believe is going on? I’m thinking perhaps you believe global warming and increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not caused by people burning fossil fuels. You seem kinda all over the place and like you just enjoy arguing with people while not actually putting forth your beliefs. If someone quotes a study that features a model you disparage models but then you go and post links to models and use them to validate your argument. You say global warming is a red herring and then you say it’s been going on for 400 years. If it’s a red herring why do you use it? Personally I’m concerned for your sanity. You don’t seem very well thought out, yet you talk like you seem to think you are quite smart.
I cannot and am not trying to speak for Javier, but I don’t have any problem with his arguments, in terms of understanding them.
In basic terms, what he is saying is that while warming is real, it is also modest, that there is no real evidence that it is the result of our burning more and more fossil fuels, and that the models based on CO2 concentrations are predicting higher average global temperatures than are likely to actually come to pass.
I don’t agree with him but the actual evidence is statistical, and according to my lawyer, would not be considered more than circumstantial in criminal court, and CO2 would walk out laughing at the prosecutor dumb enough to try the case.
My lawyer believes the planet is warming up fast too, but he is agnostic about the causes, and ill educated in respect to the physical sciences.
Personally I believe that the planet is warming up, fast, and that a large portion and probably almost all of this recent warming is the result man made green house gas pollution, changing land use patterns, and so forth. The odds in my opinion are that more warming is virtually guaranteed, and that this additional warming is going to be a BAD thing for us naked apes.
It’s not that we can’t adapt , but rather that we are adapted to current conditions, and adaptation is going to cost us to such an extent that it’s scary to even think about it.
Hot resource wars are already a baked in given, imo, and I expect to live long enough to see news coverage of dead bodies piled up in front of national border fences defended with machine guns. Now most of this sort of trouble will be the result of excessive population and shortages of resources such as farmland, oil, etc, but a substantial portion will be due to starvation as food production fails. Some people will probably become heat refugees. The places they currently live will get to be so hot they are forced to move.
With the exception of forced climate change, everything Javier has said in this forum is entirely consistent with the general consensus of biologists concerning the overall environment.
He’s not a nut case, and there is a non zero chance he is right about the climate models.
Survivalist said:
That’s what I am thinking as well. And this is not limited to amateur arm-chair skeptic warriors such as Javier. One of the top climate scientists Isaac Held has said the same thing about chief denier Richard Lindzen.
We shouldn’t be surprised by this because this is a peak oil site after all and that type of personality goes with the territory. I think Javier has no problem with the general concept of peak oil, but that just goes to show the arbitrary nature of a contrarian.
I am continuing to banter with Javier because of the way he is criticizing my own climate science modeling. I noticed that he is congratulating a modeling dude who achieved a 0.024 correlation coefficient with some data, yet disparages a model that I have that has a correlation coefficient of close to 0.9.
Survivalist,
I am not more clear about my beliefs, because they are not important. What it is important is what the evidence shows, the data that is published in scientific journals. I don’t come to Peak Oil Barrel to preach about climate change, I come to learn about Oil, but as I know a lot more about climate than about oil, I respond to the people like GoneFishing, Duncan Idaho, or Dough Leighton that post climate comments to spread unfounded alarmism.
Global warming is real and 400 years old. There is no evidence that the natural component has stopped, so we must assume that it continues. Humans are responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2, and that CO2 is producing warming. There is no doubt about the science. My personal opinion is that CO2 is responsible for about 30-50% of the measured warming.
Despite accelerated increase in atmospheric CO2 there is no acceleration of warming, there is no acceleration of sea level rise, and there is no acceleration of sea ice melting. There is zero evidence that the warming is going to become dangerous or even catastrophic. Every bad outcome is always in the future and not based on evidence.
Climate alarmism is not positive. We have to take rational decisions based on actual evidence. Peak Oil is our outstanding issue for the next few decades. We have to make sure that our future energy supply is as reliable as possible, whether it comes from renewables or not. We should be worried about our energy, not our climate. We should also be worried about wildlife and natural spaces, but with the global warming scare we worry about polar bears instead (which are doing fine).
Whether I am smart or not is not for me to say, and I don’t really care because that is a comparative quality and I don’t need to compare myself to anybody to feel good. But definitely I feel quite sane and have a normal happy life with my wife and children, so you shouldn’t be concerned. Perhaps I like a little too much to discuss over scientific issues. It might come from being a scientist and doing it for decades.
Javier said:
No one with an interest in science cares what your “personal opinion” is. If you want to create a model and put it on a blog or a forum, where you can elaborate, go ahead.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-people-favor-opinion-over-scientific-evidence/
It turns out that there are a few efforts at trying to find a correlation between certain cyclic climate phenom with lunar gravitational forcing.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Javier gave kudos to one of the AGW skeptic bloggers working this angle here.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=7278#comment-10688
Even though Best’s correlation was only 0.024, Javier said this:
Note that he also had to get a dig in at the consensus climate science crowd. He does this because Javier is a partisan political hack.
I am also working the lunar/climate connection on my blog and at the Azimuth Project forum, where I provide clear evidence for a strong correlation between lunar tides and the QBO.
https://forum.azimuthproject.org/discussion/comment/15459/#Comment_15459
Of course Javier attacks this because I am not an AGW skeptic. These cyclic variations due to lunar or solar influences have virtually no impact on the overall decadal trends that we are in the middle of. They aren’t “embarrassing” findings to anyone as Javier claims.
You know what Javier will say next — that this is not peer-reviewed. Yet the journal that Best published in is called the “Italian Journal of Engineering Geology and Environment.” Whoo-hoo!
In any case, I submitted my work to the AGU meeting to be held this fall. It will likely get accepted, and I will be there to defend it. So if Javier wants to argue, he can show up at the meeting and have his say.
Webby,
You should try to control that obsession that you have developed for me. You are now following me around other blogs.
Javier, Concerning your paranoia, I have followed Clive Best’s blog for a long time. As far as AGW skeptics, he is one of the smarter dudes out there. Working on similar things that I am, so I noticed your comment. I suggest you get over it, lol
Hi Gone fishing the aerosol effect is included in the models.
If we assume carbon emissions fall and SOx also falls we will get more warming, as I showed at
http://peakoilbarrel.com/climate-change-with-920-billion-metric-tonnes-of-carbon-emissions/#comment-578186
Warming increases by about 0.1 C more than my original scenario (based on RCP4.5).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/76hasvu73fmbv07/RCPMDB.SCEN?dl=0
The new scenario with even lower SOx emissions can be downloaded from link above.
SOx emissions in chart below.
Chart
For the scenario with the SOx emissions above (and all other emissions unchanged), the median global temperature increase above pre-industrial in 2070 is 2.18 (1.84, 2.57) C . The numbers in parentheses are the 17% to 83% likelihood bounds. In 2090 the temperature above preindustrial is 2.15 (1.78, 2.60)C. This is using the livemagicc probabilistic scenario which is historically constrained.
It seems unlikely that SOx emissions could be reduced to this degree as it would require no volcanic eruptions after 2060.
Meinshausen, M., S. C. B. Raper and T. M. L. Wigley (2011). “Emulating coupled atmosphere-ocean and carbon cycle models with a simpler model, MAGICC6: Part I – Model Description and Calibration.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11: 1417-1456. doi:10.5194/acp-11-1417-2011.
China’s solar boom begins to fade
(This time in English)
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602136/chinas-solar-binge-is-turning-into-a-hangover/?set=602129
From the article:
“Much of the new solar generation, particularly in the desert provinces of western China, is not even hooked up to the grid. That means much of the power is going to waste—39 percent in Gansu Province and more than half in Xinjiang, according to the Photovoltaic Industry Association. It’s part of a long-term supply glut that plagues China in the coal, steel, and concrete industries as well.
“We all know how prone China is to over-investment leading to massive overcapacity,” Mark Clifford, executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council, wrote last month. “Why should electricity be any different?”
Hey Guys, I’ve been too busy over the past couple of weeks to post or even read much. Jamaica has just come out of a couple of public holidays, Emancipation Day and Independence Day which encompass a lot of activities. I attended the annual Denbigh Agricultural Show, the largest such show in the island and took the opportunity to take an extra fifteen minute drive to visit the site of the soon to be commissioned 20MW Content Solar Farm.
Some news related to the subject of this post:
JET wants Gov’t to rethink proposed coal plant for Alpart
THE Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) has hit out against a plan for a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plant to power the Alpart alumina refinery in Nain, St Elizabeth, which was recently acquired by China-based Jiuquan Iron and Steel (Group) Company Ltd (JISCo) from Russian mining company UC Rusal….. [snip]
At a press conference last week, Transport and Mining Minister Lester ‘Mike’ Henry — who had travelled to China to witness the signing of the agreement between JISCo and UC Rusal — announced the proposed coal plant as part of a wider US$2-billion modification programme for the plant…..[snip]
But an unconvinced JET called on the Government to rethink the project.
“A modern coal-fired plant emits 762 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt-hour of electricity generated, if there is no CO2 capture. This plant alone would emit roughly 6.7 million tons of CO2 per year, just over half of our 2025 target under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which we signed on Earth Day 2016. Meeting our intended nationally determined contribution to greenhouse gas emissions under this agreement would become virtually impossible.
Part of the proposed project includes an aluminum smelter, to be powered by the 1,000 MW coal plant but, this would double the islands current level of carbon emissions. Below is a screen grab of the satellite image courtesy of Google Maps, showing the existing alumina production facility and the larger “red mud”waste area to the south west. I am going to be posting some more pictures for comparison to the new solar farm.
For comparison with the picture of the bauxite/alumina processing plant and it’s waste area, from my post above, below is a satellite picture of the new solar farm with a line measure the distance from the south east corner, up to the north east corner and across to the north west corner.
One thing I find kind of creepy is how, the day I drove there, the satellite picture didn’t show any of the panels in place, more resembling a site being prepared. I was using the Google Maps app on my smart phone to try and help me navigate gto the site and had the GPS feature turned on yto show my location on the map. Viola! A few days after my visit the image is refreshed with all the panels installed! It could be sheer coincidence but, I get the feeling that Google might have picked up “unusual activity” from mine and maybe other smart phones around the site and decided to update that section of the image, if it’s possible that their system works that way.
For a bit more perspective I used the NREL PVWatts online calculator to estimate the capacity of the plant. The owners won a bid to supply 20 MW of power and obtained some $61 million to finance the plant based on costs at the time of the preparation of the bid.
According to my work with PVWatts, the capacity of the physical plant as seen in the satellite picture is in the region of 32 MW so either PVWatts is incredibly wrong or the owners decided to build as much as the financing they raised will build at current costs. I suspect that what has happened is that the amount they had budgeted back when they put together their bid for 20 MW, can build over 30 MW at more recent prices. A college classmate of mine, who should have intimate knowledge of these things, was unaware of any difference between what has been constructed and what was bid for. He did say that, as a private project any savings in thew costs accrue to the developer but, he did not believe they would be able to supply more than they bid for, that is, more than 20 MW.
As an illustration for those who are skeptical of the space occupied by solar farms, below is a the PVWatts window expanded to cover the surrounding region, including a nearby bauxite to alumina facility with it’s “red mud” waste area to the south east. In this graphic the solar farm is enclosed in a rectangle with an area of 572,082 square meters which, according to PVWatts should represent a capacity of over 85 MW.
In an earlier post I indicated that my work with PV Watts indicated that the solar farm capacity was in the region of 32.5 MW but the attached picture clearly shows a PVWatts estimate of over 48 MW. A closer examination of the picture reveals that the area enclosed by the line contains the area occupied by the inverters, access paths and roadways, as well as other open space. PVWatts seems to calculate the capacity as if the entire space was occupied by one contiguous array of modules, not rows of modules with space between them. I did some estimation by tracing around individual rows, to come up with a correction factor for the spacing between rows, resulting in my figure of 32.5 MW.
Tracing a line around the perimeter fence of the entire solar farm produces an area of 469635 square meters (0.181 sq. miles) so a supposedly 20MW solar farm occupies less than a fifth of a square mile, which would mean it should be possible to generate over 100 MW per square mile. My final post in this series will show the new solar farm relative to the size of the entire island of Jamaica.
The picture below shows the new 20 MW solar farm in Jamaica against the backdrop of almost the entire island. In fact, the little white square is probably in the region of 3 or 4 miles square, enough area to facilitate three to four hundred megawatts of solar PV capacity. Using figures from a report (PDF) on electricity generation in Jamaica for the year 2010 through 2014, I chose the highest figure for “Net Generation” (including losses and significant amounts of theft) to come up with 2,270 as the amount of solar PV capacity that would be required to supply 100% of Jamaica’s electricity. There are 23 MW of hydro power and about 100 MW of wind, with potential for more of both so solar would never need to supply all the electricity.
So less than eight of those little squares is all the area need for solar PV to generate all the electricity needed on the island and if suitable rooftop space of buildings is used, the required area is even less. Space is not the problem, financing is but, if Tony Seba is right, that is a problem that will diminish with time. Another challenge with solar is the fact that it does not generate at night. Part of that challenge can be addressed with technology like batteries and cooling appliances that store cold (as ice?) and thus use most of their energy during the daylight hours. For areas where heating is needed, objects with high thermal mass can be heated during the day and provide warmth at night, accepting that there are serious limitations and challenges with that approach in the places where heat is needed the most and the days are short.
Part of that challenge can be addressed with technology like batteries
The very first, best and cheapest solution for solar’s daily variability is demand-side management (DSM). The single best form of DSM to soak up excess solar during the day is charging EVs.
Does your utility offer Time of Use metering? All US utilities are now required to offer it (by the 2005 Energy Act – they don’t advertise it…).
Insulation isn’t necessarily cheap, but it can and does do away with up to one hundred percent of domestic space heating needs.
Daily CO2
August 10, 2016: 402.94 ppm
August 10, 2015: 399.20 ppm
Canadian Model forecasting a 963 mb Arctic Storm for Monday near North Pole. Would be very bad for sea ice.
Yikes!
https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/763858455752871936/photo/1
Until recently, the oil industry perhaps is not giving any attention as what is happening around the auto-industry. However, a recent announcement of almost all the ICEs car manufacturers’ plans of moving away from ICE to EVs while some companies are planning to completely stop manufacturing of ICEs beyond 2050 should be alarming and eye opening for oil industry.
Volkswagen and Audi are aiming for EVs to make up 25 percent or more of sales by 2025, while Mercedes is about to unveil an entire fleet of electric vehicles, other automakers Hyundai, BMW, GM, Chevrolet Bolt, Tesla, and others also unveiled big plans.
In addition, the introduction of semi and fully autonomous cars and drones to replace domestic delivery will surely have a substantial impact on global oil demand. What this paradigm shift means for oil companies? Surely rapid penetration of EVs will displace sizable oil demand in road transport which accounts for major chunk of oil consumed. Author and Andreas de Vries in their recently published the article “Wake up call for oil companies: electric vehicles will deflate oil demand” predicted that under the reference case the penetration of EVs will displace 13.8 million bpd by 2040 and under the high case it could reach 39.5 million bpd.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Oil-Companies-Must-Look-Beyond-Oil-To-Survive.html
I love the timelines in these articles “while some companies are planning to completely stop manufacturing of ICEs beyond 2050 should be alarming and eye opening for oil industry”. Does anyone here think there will be much of an oil industry beyond 2050 anyway? Maybe if we are stupid there will be a methane hydrate industry, but oil? Now if they said 2030, the oil industry might stand up and take a little notice.
The factor that people are discounting is the knock-on effect. Every time a high mpg car or EV is built or someone decides just to not drive as much, not only is oil demand lower but it effects all the fossil fuel industries. The fossil fuel industries are interdependent.
I think the takeover of solar, wind and EV’s will give a moaning point for the fossil fuel industries. They will blame these disruptive technologies for their business descent, yet in reality, without them they would not be able to keep up with future demand, even if demand stays the same.
But at least there will be a counterpoint to the argument, overall energy demand will fall as electricity, efficiency and conservation take over.
So will the fossil industries go out honorably, fading into the sunset, transforming into new industries or will they depend on wars and draconian political/ legal methods to try and stay in the “play”?
But here is a question to consider, if we have converted most of civilization to electric vehicles, renewable energy and essentially quenched the fossil fuel fires by 2050. What then? What is our next act and real aim? Where are we going with all this and why? Something to think about.
Hi Fish,
“Now if they said 2030, the oil industry might stand up and take a little notice.”
I’m guessing 2030 is a reasonable date manufacturers could be restricted from building light weight personal ICE vehicles. Let’s hope the fat lady can sing.
Hey Hunt,
Probably a good idea to stop the building of piston ICE’s at some point. Even though oil will be well along on the descent.
The “plank to warming”, natural gas, could still play a part after 2030. Not a good idea. I am not sure if anyone is dumb enough to use coal to liquid technology but you never know.
Javier has some interesting posts concerning climate, nonetheless, he should be keelhauled for expressing opinions contrary to the climate science zeitgeist.
It’s a witch hunt, so maybe burning him at the stake like Giodarno Bruno was is the way to go.
There is no room for heretics like Javier in the scientific world.
Javier needs to recant his beliefs and findings and be buried with them.
Really no other choice in the matter. har
Hi Ronald,
You are up to your usual standard today, keep it up. The world is critically short of scientific heretics,gadflies, and heretics of all sorts.
It’s the heretics who first ask the questions that pull down old established orders built on bad foundations. If the foundations are good, the heretics hardly matter in the grand scheme of things.
Now SOMETIMES the establishment simply has its collective head up its collective ass, and puts procedure ahead of established facts.
Every body who is a regular here should be acquainted with the history behind the theory of continental drift. Wegener couldn’t prove HOW it worked, so he was an outcast, in spite of the overwhelming evidence, well known even in the first half of the twentieth century that the continents have been wandering like ducks in a farm pond, all over the globe.
I came along while the theory was still in doubt, and took a course in probability theory to round out my math ticket, and got into a personal discussion of the evidence with my math professor, who knew nothing about it. So I showed him a summary of the evidence, such as closely related species on separate continents, the geology of stone and soil matching along coast lines, etc, in a couple of my textbooks, from biology and agriculture, and he took only a minute or two to digest the evidence.
Then he said paraphrased you can either believe in continental drift, or you can believe in a billion to one accidents. A MATHEMATICIAN would rather look for the explanation, than bet on hitting a billion to one lottery. The whole establishment was wrong, mostly because of an ignorance of probability theory, which is established science.
Of course in the case of global warming, the statistical evidence is in FAVOR of the establishment, so far as I can see, instead of against it, but I am not a statistician and could be wrong about that.
I’m betting with the establishment this time, lol.
“he should be keelhauled for expressing opinions contrary to the climate science zeitgeist.”
You nailed it RW, expressing opinions is the general method of the contrarians, denialists and shills of the world. They contradict themselves constantly, because there is no real science involved, just opinions.
No keel hauling or burning allowed, you are thinking of the old days. Everybody gets their say now, whether it makes sense or not. Just like politics.
Some are of the opinion that climate change deniers should be prosecuted and imprisoned, ergo, a stark reality that we are in a new dark age. A hallmark of where we really are in the post-modern era.
It is then totally appropriate to have a daily purge of climate change deniers and burning them at the stake would har-ken back to the old days of the Dark Ages.
Hanging is too good for them. The death sentence is not a severe enough penalty.
It is then totally appropriate to have a daily purge of climate change deniers and burning them at the stake would har-ken back to the old days of the Dark Ages.
Nah, That would release too much CO2… Now if you were to produce denier BiocHAR! that might work. 🙂
climate change deniers should be prosecuted and imprisoned,
The argument is that companies like ExxonMobil knew that Climate Change was a real problem, and yet aggressively suppressed their research and misled the public, investors and legislators.
If it’s proven in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, then they should go to jail.
And…investors who were misled will haul the company into court as fast as you can say “Securities fraud”.
They don’t have a case and they know it. The science has always been confusing. One only has to read the FAR, SAR, TAR, and even AR4 from IPCC to see the huge uncertainties of the time. Once it becomes a case of my scientific article against yours, the judges refuse to enter into the matter.
The fossil fuel industry didn’t have to convince anybody of buying their product. They decided themselves by buying an automobile. They might as well try to prosecute the car industry for forcing people to use fuel in their cars.
Meantime it provides entertainment and fills the lawyers’ pockets.
It’s not about the science: it’s about what those companies believed, and what they did with it.
If they (after review of their internal staff’s research) believed that Climate Change was a real problem, and then turned around and told investors, the public and legislators that it was not, then they’re guilty of various kinds of fraud.
So, the evidence doesn’t come from scientific research, it comes from the internal documents at the company: what did they know (or believe), and what did they do with it?
How could they possibly know, when nobody knew?
That’s an unbeatable defense. Lots of scientific papers up to the late 90’s saying that a human effect on climate had not emerged from natural variability.
Well, that suggests that you simply haven’t been reading about this subject.
ExxonMobil’s staff did a lot of work on it, and there is internal documentation that their top management took it very seriously.
When it comes to corporate liability,that’s the question:what did top management believe, and how did they act on those beliefs. If you ignore or suppress a serious health threat…you’re in big trouble.
ExxonMobil couldn’t possibly know more than scientific experts in academia. That’s fairly easy to establish.
ExxonMobil couldn’t possibly know more than scientific experts in academia.
That’s not relevant.
Again: what did top management believe, and how did they act on those beliefs. If a manager indicates in writing that they believe that their staff has identified a serious threat, and then…ignores or suppresses it…they’re in big trouble.
Never go against big oil companies in patent and legal cases in general. They have lots of expensive lawyers and will run anything in court far into the future until people give up.
Just stop using their products.
That’s what the tobacco companies thought…..but they lost anyway.
And yet they still sell cigarettes. More customers than ever, more cigarettes sold than ever, almost twice as many as sold in 1970.
6 trillion cigarettes sold worldwide in 2009. About one billion people smoking and the number increases each year.
The bans and reductions in some countries have had only a small effect overall, still 264 billion cigarettes sold in the US. About 1/3 of it’s peak around 1973.
Maybe that should be a lesson for peak oil, as some countries transistion away from fossil fuel, others will increase their use as the fossil fuel companies push products elsewhere.
Look what happening in Asia. As the US and Europe implemented reduced pollution standards, the pollution just moved elsewhere.
I should not be prosecuted.
The Washington Times: Most voters oppose government prosecution of climate skeptics, say debate isn’t over: poll
“Survey comes as Democratic attorneys general have been targeting ExxonMobil
National Survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters
Conducted August 3-4, 2016
By Rasmussen Reports
1* Is the scientific debate about global warming over?
2* Should the government investigate and prosecute scientists and others including major corporations who question global warming?
NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/-3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence
An overwhelming majority of voters oppose government efforts to investigate and prosecute scientists and others, including major corporations, who question global warming.
A Rasmussen Reports survey released Tuesday found that 69 percent of likely U.S. voters are opposed to such investigations, while only 15 percent approve of them. Another 16 percent are undecided.
The poll comes amid investigations by Democratic state attorneys general into whether ExxonMobil committed “fraud” by underplaying the extent and impact of global warming. Subpoenas issued in Massachusetts and the Virgin Islands as part of the probe have also named universities, academics and think tanks.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has come under pressure from Democratic lawmakers and climate groups to pursue racketeering charges against fossil-fuel companies and others challenging the catastrophic climate-change narrative.
The findings released Tuesday are nearly identical to those released in November 2015 following news of New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman’s investigation into ExxonMobil.
Only 25 percent of voters in Tuesday’s survey said they believe the debate on global warming is settled, contrary to the claims of Democratic lawmakers, while 61 percent said the debate is not over.
Mr. Schneiderman leads a coalition of 17 attorneys general — 16 Democrats and one Independent — called AGs United for Clean Power aimed at pursuing those who downplay the impact rising carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere for possible “fraud.”
Even so, only 21 percent of Democratic voters said in the survey they favor the government investigating and prosecuting climate-change skeptics.
Just 26 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of Democrats agree that the debate about global warming is “over,” as opposed to 19 percent of unaffiliated voters.“
Hi Javier,
Reading anything RW puts up literally is a mistake. He pokes fun at just about everything and just about everybody.
Sarcasm and satire are his chosen weapons, and his targets are legion.
That’s entertaining, Oldfarmermac. It is always good to have jesters when serious matters are being pondered.
I just found the opinion poll interesting. It shows no advances on people’s conviction on the climate debate being settled despite El Niño and Paris COP 21.
It also shows that a common assumption in this forum is not supported at the streets, since the difference between democrats and republicans on the climate debate being over is only 2%, within the error of the poll.
That should require some explanation. Most climate skeptic forums are clearly very conservative, while alarmist forums tend to be liberal. I actually feel uncomfortable that my opinion is held mostly by conservatives on internet, but when it comes to a choice between evidence and politics I go with the evidence. I am not a tribe type of guy. Most people chose their beliefs from what their peers believe and that includes climate change beliefs.
It’s a biased poll. It’s worded in an obviously biased fashion.
The Attorneys General aren’t prosecuting scientists, or managers who are genuinely skeptical. They’re going after managers who suppressed evidence of a serious public health threat.
That’s what you say. As far as I know there is absolutely no evidence that they are guilty of anything, and as everybody else, they have their right to free speech without risk of prosecution.
As far as I know there is absolutely no evidence that they are guilty of anything
Managers of public companies do not have unlimited free speech.
Ford is not allowed to claim that the Pinto’s gas tank had no safety issues.
Reynolds tobacco is not allowed to say that cigarettes are good for you, and that health concerns will never, ever hurt our sales. That’s consumer and investor fraud.
GLOBAL DIMMING
With an overall loss of 20W/m2 global radiation since the 1950’s, as measured by thermoelectric pyranometers, the paper below discusses the measurements and results. The strongest affected regions are the mid-latitude northern hemisphere, the most populated and developed industrial regions in the temperate zone. Being most polluting, they stay the coolest to the order of 1 W/m2/year.
I find that lack of pyranometers in rich industrialized eastern China to be a real eye opener. Don’t they want to know?
https://imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_I_cod101601/Ballabrera_Diciembre_2011/Articulos/Stanhill.2005.pdf
Over the past 12 months, Alaska’s statewide temperature was exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit, about six degrees warmer than “normal”. We’ve entered a new phase of global warming: An entire frozen land has just jumped above the melting point.
http://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/984d710e34f256eabf1e2d56984772ef99b48598/images/21fd58d3-63ab-4e2c-a1dc-4dd8e3a01d43.png
No, we have not.
We just had a strong El Niño.
Arctic temperatures North of 80°N are just normal for the time of the year.
Arctic summer is being slightly cooler so despite low sea ice by May, the NSIDC has said that “A new record low September ice extent now appears to be unlikely.” Your alarmist postings about Arctic sea ice from earlier this year have turned premature and unfounded, as always.
So no, we have not entered a new phase of global warming.
Really?
“a statewide temperature of 55.7°F, 3.0°F above average. This was Alaska’s warmest July since 2009 and continued a streak of above-average temperatures that began in October 2015. Several locations across southern parts of the state were record warm, including the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport which had a monthly average temperature of 62.7°F, the warmest month observed there since records began in 1953. “
As I said, we just had a strong El Niño.
El Nino is a regional weather effect caused by surface water warmed by solar irradiation shifting position and direction. It is all the solar heating of surface water.
GLOBAL WARMING FROM 1880 TO 2015
http://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/139/
El Niño effects are not regional. They are multi-regional and nearly global. And the temperature rise and CO2 rise that they cause are global.
It’s pretty much a slam dunk that 2016 will go down in the record books as the hottest year in recorded history:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/99-percent-chance-2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record/
The temperature anomalies are even more significant in the far north, based on what I have read.
As I said, we just had a strong El Niño.
Yes, we did.
And in fact it also says exactly that in the link I posted. So we can both agree on that.
“While an exceptionally strong El Niño has provided a boost to temperatures in recent months, the primary driver has been the heat that has built up from decades of unabated greenhouse gas emissions.”
That is once more a premature assumption. We will know in about three years where the temperatures stand after El Niño and possible La Niña stop interfering. Considering that for about 12 years we saw very little warming, I don’t know why they say that the heat has built up.
I agree with the unabated greenhouse gas emissions part.
Javier is a believer in the GNF theory, ha ha
FAIL : The $100,000 Giant Climate Fluctuation
Since you like to tell everybody around here how much you know about the whole climate change stuff please answer the following for me…What should the world actually do to get that awful no good CO2 (aka plant food) down to where all you libs say we will be safe? Destroy our whole economy, take away all our jobs, flush all our freedoms down the drain, bring in communism? So just which is the endgame for all you libs?
Nancy,
The first step would be to take away your FoxNews .
What should the world actually do to get that awful no good CO2
Actually, most of what we need is a good, stiff gas tax, which could be rebated back to taxpayers for a net of no new taxes. A utility tax based on the pollution content of their fuel mix would also be good. These both exist right now.
No communism needed. No UN troops. Nothing new at all, really. Just good old basic free market economics.
Destroy the economy and flush freedom down the drain. And use LIBS to break everything in the world down into their constituent atoms. This sounds like a viable endgame to me. But I take it you are not actually talking about laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser-induced_breakdown_spectroscopy
Nancy, here are the freedoms that will be removed.
The freedom to destroy, the freedom to poison and pollute, the freedom to treat people, living creatures and their places as disposable garbage pits.
Destroy our whole economy, take away all our jobs
What a load of bollocks. More like a massive job creation scheme putting all the 0 carbon energy systems into place with a huge boost to the economy.
NAOM
Considering that for about 12 years we saw very little warming, I don’t know why they say that the heat has built up.
The reason that is, for all practical purposes irrelevant, is explained quite clearly in this lecture starting at about 11:53.
The graph displayed addresses those 12 years very clearly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVwZcphrDes
Climate Change, Chaos and Inexact Computing: Prof Tim Palmer(May 2016)
If you watch it, it might even change the way you think about this entire issue.
The rate of warming in the last decade is double that of the last century. Despite the largest introduction of air pollution and aerosols ever, despite volcanic activity. despite a deep solar minimum and despite global warming deniers attacking scientists.
I find it quite amazing that we keep breaking global temperature records year after year and people still keep claiming there is no warming. I find it even more amazing that people still pay attention to those who say nothing is happening.
Fred,
I already watched the talk the first time you put the link, thanks. I did not comment because you were talking to Dough. It is a fantastic talk, and the guy is very good and bright. I like very much the concept of imprecise computing. It is brilliant.
The magnetic pendulum example is also very good, and it highlights very well the uncertainty problem that we face.
Paleoclimatology is very clear that the big wedge under the pendulum is the Milankovitch forcing that tilts the outcome towards cooling, but in a very long time frame.
The question is how big is the CO2 wedge. If it is small enough the warming will be mild and beneficial. So far nobody has demonstrated that it is a big enough wedge as to constitute a clear danger.
Is the pause a random walk as he proposes? I don’t think so. As a mathematician he is not well prepared to deal with climatic cycles. The pause has all the markings of being part of a longer cycle. That’s why there was another one in 1945-1975. It appears to be related to oceanic oscillators like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. If that is the case, chaos mathematics and random walks will not be able to properly reproduce and predict its occurrence.
No pause happened. Total temperature kept rising.
We are in the most circular portion of the orbital cycle now, very little overall change in solar energy. Perihelion occurs now during northern winter, when the arctic is in darkness. The southern hemisphere receives more solar irradiance than the northern hemisphere per year.
The tilting merely re-distributes the solar energy north or south, does not change the overall irradiance.
Right now in the north we have reached a minima from a peak insolation that started 11,000 years ago. So we should be near the coldest point, but the ice is still melting. Will rise from here for the next 10,000 years, but the annual change is quite small.
I find that the two major factors in controlling solar energy right now are the aerosols and the GHG’s. One effects cloud formation, reflectance of clouds and haze, blocking visible light to the surface. The other controls the long wave radiation at different levels of the atmosphere, trapping heat.
The ocean has risen 1.1 F since 1980 (first 700 meters).
If that is the case, chaos mathematics and random walks will not be able to properly reproduce and predict its occurrence.
Of course not! Nobody ever said it would and that completely misses the point!
What an understanding of chaos math does is give us a window into the unpredictability of complex dynamic systems given very small perturbations in initial conditions and therefore underscore the probability of potential risks.
If you listen to Prof. Palmer’s concluding remarks he clearly states that given the robustness of the science he sees significant risks in pursuing current trends .
He also says that deciding to take action to mitigate those risk is not something that is within the purview of science. Those decisions need to be made by an informed public and society at large.
I do not think that at this juncture the public is sufficiently informed nor do I think they understand the risks.
As you must be well aware, I strongly disagree with your assessment of those risks!
My analysis shows that there is less chaos in phenomena such as El Nino/ENSO than the consensus thinks. This also means that the excursions are bounded and don’t contribute to the extremes in warming and cooling that AGW can.
As long as Javier posts his unfounded assertions, I may as well counter with my ongoing analysis.
http://contextearth.com/2016/06/10/pukites-model-of-enso/
The idea of ENSO being an initial-value problem is not right from what I am finding. It is actually a boundary-value problem. The bpundary-values can be in space or in time: In space the boundary values set up zero-points for an oscillating dipole. While in time, the cyclic motions of the sun, moon, and known angular momentum periods are the boundary conditions.
Knowing all this makes climate science incrementally more predictable, and will allow us to isolate other aspects that are more chaotic, such as the formation of hurricanes and vortices.
Fred,
I listened to the entire talk, just not the questions.
Prof. Palmer sees significant risks in pursuing current trends, and so do I, just not the same risks. None of us knows the future, but while oil depletion is inescapable future climate is unknown.
“He also says that deciding to take action to mitigate those risk is not something that is within the purview of science. Those decisions need to be made by an informed public and society at large.”
I 100% agree. Scientists do research. They do not take decisions for the society nor should they become activists.
“As you must be well aware, I strongly disagree with your assessment of those risks!”
I know, but that doesn’t make me wrong or you right. As OMF says the possibility that I am correct is not zero. Obviously I see it significantly higher.
I don’t think I will last more than 30 years. I expect that by 2045 temperatures will have risen no more (probably less) than 0.5°C from what they have been this past decade (2003-2013) and sea levels will have increased by about 90 mm.
I could be wrong and we might get some cooling, though. Hard to tell with the reduced solar activity and negative AMO.
I don’t think I will last more than 30 years. I expect that by 2045 temperatures will have risen no more (probably less) than 0.5°C from what they have been this past decade (2003-2013) and sea levels will have increased by about 90 mm.
Unfortunately or maybe fortunately I won’t be around for that long either. If you turned out to be correct I would gladly send you a case of the finest French Champagne!
However there is a reasonable chance that both us will still be around for another decade or so and I think there is a very high probability that you will be proven wrong and if that is the case it will give me no joy at all!
Raising the gas tax would be one of the worst possible things to do in this extremely fragile Hoebama Economy since the raise would take money out of everybody’s pockets. Then get sent to expand government even more to tell us what we can and cant do. All the people who depend on a truck or car to get to work would have less disposable income to spend on other things, cities would see higher prices to provide any kind of service. Plus all the businesses providing goods and services would just pass the tax onto customers. That’s what always happens anyway with any tax increase and why they are the quickest way to completely destroy an economy and send everyone to the poor house.
Raising the gas tax…would take money out of everybody’s pockets
Which is why you’d rebate it right back to taxpayers as a flat amount per capita rebate, like they do in Alaska.
It wouldn’t harm the economy at all.
That is a great idea Nick G, I would really make out on it since my car is fairly economical and I don’t travel very far. Do electric car owners get the rebate too?
Everyone gets the rebate.
US drivers use about 140B gallons of gas per year. A $3 tax would generate $420B per year. If there are 200M taxpayers, then every taxpayer would get a flat $2,100 per year.
Of course, a $3 tax would reduce consumption, so next year the rebate would have to be reduced to reflect the revenues generated.
And so on.
Wait, that is not everyone. Suddenly it is only taxpayers that get the money. That eliminates about 40 percent or more of households that pay no federal income tax due to low income and exemptions. Sounds like another way to shift money to the rich and well off and cheat the poor guy trying to put gas in his car to get to his low paying job.
No, low income people are taxpayers too: social security taxes, mostly.
You could probably model it after the Alaska rebate program.
If we are handing the money back to the people, how effective can this program be? It seems to be more of a redistribution of wealth than a carbon tax. Are there any actual figures or projections on how much fuel use would be reduced using this system.
Unless diesel was also taxed, people would just switch over to diesel engines to escape the cost. If diesel is taxed, the truckers will have a fit. If they are not taxed the car drivers will have a fit.
If we are handing the money back to the people, how effective can this program be?
If you’re paying $7 a gallon at the tank, you’ll reduce your fuel consumption. It won’t matter that you’re getting a $2,000 check at Christmas. If you switch to a hybrid, you’ll still get that check.
Are there any actual figures or projections on how much fuel use would be reduced using this system.
Sure. Elasticity of demand for fuel is well researched: it’s about .30, which means that if you increase the price by 100%, you’ll reduce consumption by about 30%. More, in the long term.
Europeans use 18% as much fuel.
18%!
If diesel is taxed, the truckers will have a fit.
Sure. That’s because prices matter.
Of course, that’s a big reason why diesel is big in Europe: industrial/commercial users prevented tax rates from being as high as for gasoline.
But…it’s clear what the correct public policy is. Implementing it in the face of resistance from legacy industries is always, always the big problem.
Rebate the tax increase BEFORE the consumer buys the gasoline. That way the consumer would spend the tax rebate to buy gas BEFORE the consumer would spend their own money.
Estimate the amount each car owner uses, 20 gallons per week, 1040 gallons, the gas tax at fifty cents per gallon, then ten dollars can be rebated each week, 520 usd each year. The first 220 gallons purchased would be free of charge with a rebate gas card issued to each consumer, an incentive to use more gas, not less. MORE is always better. 2600 usd per consumer at 2.50 per gallon with the new tax, 520 of it free money.
Rebate cards could be sold on eBay and the consumer would benefit some if they drive less. Just have to drive less to make it work, the rebate cards would have less value on the street than at the pump. GAP cards would be a hot item for those who want to drive more. A family of four would receive four GAP cards, by congessional mandate, it must be fair. A family of four would have gas credits of 2080 usd each year. A great way to increase the GDP.
It would raise the price of gas and oil would increase per barrel by about ten dollars, maybe even more.
A win win for the oil companies.
Of course, inevitably, the consumer would not benefit whatsoever, just the gubmint and the oil companies.
Raising the gas tax is another hare-brained idea, it just isn’t going to work, the consumer would eventually pay through the nose, as usual.
However, a new criminal class would emerge and the gubmint would need more law enforcement, which is always good. The gasoline rebate administration, more gubmint jobs, and that is better too.
har, that is the bestest of all.
Gas taxes are very simple. They already exist, and they’re pretty simple to administer.
Europeans have higher tax levels, and they use 18% as much fuel per person.
Our driving distances are probably also 18% shorter.
Perhaps you can find a way of shrinking your country by giving back to Mexico what you took from them, or alternatively by concentrating the population in smaller spaces (like you did with the Indians) with better mass transit.
The Native Americans were the first to experience life in a gulag, not Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
What can be done to reduce emissions is to eliminate water heaters, they add extra heat to the atmosphere, whether they are electric or natural gas, and everyone could take cold showers.
Nobody really needs hot water, they can do without, a whole industry could be eliminated and a reduction in emissions would be the result.
Javier, you are just trying to raise awareness, something that is Verboten, however, you remain guilty of heresy anyway. If you recant, which you must do to avoid prosecution, you can go free, a monitoring of your whereabouts would be required, however. A free iPhone would do the job. Sarcasm here, I’m not being serious. Just to be sure, you are on notice.
When it comes to prosecuting climate change deniers, what must be done is to prosecute and imprison oil company executives. They are definitely corrupt, criminals, incorrigible recividists impossible to rehabilitate. Therefore, prosecution and imprisonment is the only solution. A nice concentration camp for them is the answer.
Of course, the crime of defalcating money from the private sector is another infraction, so a liquidation of Shell, British Petroleum, Exxon, and a whole raft of other oil corporations must be completed. A government agency, legislation, would be necessary along with a law enforcement program to round up the criminals involved with oil distribution and marketing. Also, oil traders would be included.
A sentencing of forced labor at the new Tesla factory in Nevada would be the place to put the lazy bums to work.
More sarcasm, don’t take me seriously,
No, Europeans don’t use 18% less, they use 18% as much. That’s 82% less.
They drive less, they own fewer cars, and their cars use 60% as much fuel per mile.
Some of that is historical, some of it is geographical, but Americans already live in urban areas that are just as dense as Europeans.
The single most important difference is fuel prices that are at least twice as high.
How about rebating it to EVs then they who are paying the gas tax can get their money back by converting then saving even more money by not having to buy gas and having more free money to spend and boost the economy.
NAOM
TESLA has apparently upgraded the battery in the S and X again, bringing it up to a hundred kilowatt hours.
This option will put the S past three hundred miles of driving range.
The Tesla 85 series is capable of over 400 mile range, just don’t drive highway speeds. Air drag is the key factor for electrics. At 63 mph they get about 300 mile range.
So if you are toodling around town at 25 mph, expect to get 500 or more miles between charges. Since electrics don’t use power when stuck in traffic (only power for accessories) they are extremely conservative in stop and go traffic.
That is true for every car. By driving at 45 mph and letting your car go faster in down slopes on neutral (not recommended) you reduce fuel consumption a lot and you can drive farther on a tank.
In Europe we also have the concept of eco-driving, where they train you to drive low consumption by never stepping hard on the gas pedal, progressive acceleration, right gear, right revolutions, start braking early using engine brake, have windows rolled up, not using AC unless really necessary, and so on. Fuel savings are estimated at 20%. Only about 1% of the drivers are trained or drive using eco-driving, even though its concepts are evident.
Somehow I don’t see people so concerned for energy conservation as they drive big SUV very fast and accelerate strong only to get ahead of you and arrive to the traffic light at the same time.
Javier, not true for every car. My 4 banger ICE is most efficient at 45to 55 mph where the engine efficiency versus aerodynamics meet. Electrics are generally most efficient at 25 mph and even more so in stop and go traffic due to regenerative braking. A Nissan Leaf gets 6.3 miles per kWh at 35 mph.
The speed versus range curve is much different between an ICE and an electric. Electrics start falling off at 25 mph, ICE’s start falling off at 40 to 55 mph depending on design. ICE’s operate most efficiently at a given rpm, thus the need for gearing, electrics operate efficiently at a wider range of rpm’s.
Tesla tried to put a two gear transmission in it’s roadster, but the high instantaneous torque of the electric motor kept destroying the transmission. ICE’s need to wind up to a high rpm to reach maximum torque and efficiency. The first 900 rpm on an ICE is just to keep the engine running, does nothing to move the car. For ICE cars the fuel rate at idle (no accessories on), is between 0.17 and 0.4 gallons per hour depending on engine size.
Either way, the electric is more energy efficient.
Javier, not true for every car. My 4 banger ICE is most efficient at 55 mph where the engine efficiency versus aerodynamics meet. Electrics are generally most efficient at 25 mph and even more so in stop and go traffic due to regenerative braking. A Nissan Leaf gets 6.3 miles per kWh at 35 mph.
The speed versus range curve is much different between an ICE and an electric. Electrics start falling off at 25 mph, ICE’s start falling off at 40 to 55 mph depending on design. ICE’s operate most efficiently at a given rpm, thus the need for gearing, electrics operate efficiently at a wider range of rpm’s.
Tesla tried to put a two gear transmission in it’s roadster, but the high instantaneous torque of the electric motor kept destroying the transmission. ICE’s need to wind up to a high rpm to reach maximum torque and efficiency. The first 900 rpm on an ICE is just to keep the engine running, does nothing to move the car. For ICE cars the fuel rate at idle (no accessories on), is between 0.17 and 0.4 gallons per hour depending on engine size.
Either way, the electric is more energy efficient.
Yes, I agree, many people and manufacturers are not concerned with efficiency so the efficiency will have to be built in to the vehicle and required by government edict.
Along with global warming we get increased storm strength. Think of all the bird nests destroyed by the higher winds. Weather violence effects everything and everyone.
Can you demonstrate that storm strength is increasing with global warming, or is this another one of your beliefs?
Should be fairly easy as we have statistics for storms.
Javier said:
Massive psychological projection on Javier’s part. Almost Trump-like.
Get some facts boy and then we will talk. Prove me wrong.
I’ve already done multiple times and you keep going saying things for which you have absolutely no evidence.
I say you have no idea what you are talking about. I bet you have no idea what the IPCC has said about global warming and storms. I bet you have no idea if during the Holocene storms increased or decreased during cold or warm periods. You are full of air.
I see you have no evidence.
Show me yours first. You were the one that made a claim first. Enough free climate education for you.
Really, you promise? Thank you.
Nick
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/business/economy/the-price-of-water-is-too-low.html?_r=0
“allocation of scarce resources”
After review and some thought, my formal education in finance and economics doesn’t really have much problem with the article above. As climate change continues on it current path. I’m sure the economics of supply & demand pricing will be a major factor in “allocation of scarce resources” like water.
But let’s take a closer look at the current situation. Two years ago when the California governor called a water emergency. Resident consumption dropped about 25 percent. My guess is that’s a bigger reduction than if he had just doubled the price. Clearly if you double the price of gasoline, you won’t get a 25 percent reduction. At least not in the short term. For myself, I reduced about 40%. But, had the price doubled for no apparent reason. I would have spent the extra $10 and keep pouring the water to my landscaping to maximize my green lawn. Clearly there are other methods of allocation than just supply & demand pricing.
My Democratic friends believe that healthcare is a right. Well I’m pretty sure water is going to get that same belief when the poor can’t afford water. Clearly the governor of Michigan is in a shit load of problems from only applying economic solutions to Flint. More than just supply & demand pricing needs to be applied to the situation. I believe a comprehensive study of the situation needs to be done. Discover the waste and low hanging fruit. Then apply regulations to achieve the desired objectives. I do believe pricing needs to be addressed.
Water is a little different than oil. I find it disturbing when a natural resource like water and air which is essential for life becomes commoditized. This should not be an opportunity for the rich to prey on the poor.
Water is a little different than oil. I find it disturbing when a natural resource like water and air which is essential for life becomes commoditized. This should not be an opportunity for the rich to prey on the poor.
I think I’m just a tad more cynical than you and think that is exactly what has already happened. The 1% have managed to privatized the gains and socialize the costs of their lifestyles by usurping the commons for their almost exclusive benefit.
Do you think for a moment, that say, Big Ag or Big Pharma care all that much about the environment or the health of the world’s poor? After all CEOs need their yachts and Leer jets to escape to their private island getaways. Do remember when BP’s Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters that he cared about the small people… Well guess what? That was pure BS then and it still is today! Though I’m sure they all give token amounts to charity.
I’ll give you fifty bucks to take away my guilt
From the song linked below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcLAJbvwNQU
Fuck The Poor
by Tim Minchin
Hey Fred, could you get back to me after your boy Rick Scott the Medicare thief is removed for power. Who refuses to accept free Medicaid for the first three years from the ACA for the low income(poor) in his own state. He got his. I mean really, what’s the problem with the rest of the sheep fighting for the scarps.
Don’t let just one post evaluate my cynical thinking. I have plenty of Fred Magyar in me. Heading out for a bike ride north bound on Pacific Coast Hwy in a few minutes.
Heading out for a bike ride north bound on Pacific Coast Hwy in a few minutes.
Enjoy!
And make sure your health insurance is up to date 🙂
What can be done to decrease the use of usable energy, electricity, fossil fuels consumed and to decrease the over-use of water is to shut down all municipal water systems throughout the world. No water distribution, no sewage systems, just force everyone to develop their own. Everyone can walk to the river and draw a five gallon jug of water for their daily water needs. Everybody can have their own outhouse, no water required, no running water means no monthly water bill, it will be a water saving, money saving plan. You can get by with 1/10th the water you use, such profligate overconsumption of water is such a waste. A sink full of water can clean you entire body. Pour the gray water on your lawn or water your plants and garden.
Reduction of the water supply could be 90%!
Algae plumes would go away, construction of drain lines would be eliminated, no need for plumbing fixtures, no need for water lines, etc. Maybe a well with simple mechanical pumps attached to a windmill would be sufficient. The windmill could also charge batteries in your basement for lights, you wouldn’t have to connected to the grid.
Water distribution systems consume far too much usable energy and resources, so eliminating water distribution systems would greatly reduce emissions and pollutants.
Probably the number one problem concerning over-use of fossil fuels and and usable energy.
People would have to actually work to obtain their water needs, Antarctica wouldn’t have to be removing all that water and locking it up for centuries to come. It just wouldn’t be there anymore. The aquifers around the world would recharge, the Aral Sea would be back to its original shorelines.
Eliminating water distribution and municipal water systems would be a win win for us all.
You would be thinner, a worldwide weight loss would be the result. Billions of dollars would be in individual bank accounts instead of flowing to local governments who always waste money hand over fist, always frittering money out the window.
Time for a change for the better and closing down water treatment plants would be a win win for the entire world.
Waste not, want not.
Worth a try, you never know if it will be a benefit until you actually give it a whirl.
har!
Time for a change for the better and closing down water treatment plants would be a win win for the entire world.
Waste not, want not.
Actually you are a lot closer to the truth than you might imagine!
https://www.ted.com/talks/molly_winter_the_taboo_secret_to_healthier_plants_and_people
Our poop and pee have superpowers, but for the most part we don’t harness them. Molly Winter faces down our squeamishness and asks us to see what goes down the toilet as a resource, one that can help fight climate change, spur innovation and even save us money.
In Japan they used to collect the human poop by cart in the cities and take it to the fields. Must have been one of the worst jobs in the entire human history, though.
Nowadays you can only legally use it on trees, because at least in Europe it is forbidden to use it for any other plant for human consumption for the evident health risk. The 2011 food intoxication in Germany that killed dozens was tracked to an E. coli strain that came from seeds from Egypt and was incubated when the seeds were grown to add seedlings to salads. And we all know that E. coli lives up some dark hole. Enough said of this scatological matter.
And we all know that E. coli lives up some dark hole. Enough said of this scatological matter.
Oh fer crimminie’s sake! The last person I would have ever expected to be a fecophobe would be a microbiologist.
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/chapter7.html
Fecophobia is alive and well and currently afflicting about a billion westerners. One common misconception is that fecal material, when composted, remains fecal material. It does not. Humanure comes from the earth, and through the miraculous process of composting, is converted back into earth. When the composting process is finished, the end product is humus, not crap, and it is useful in growing food. My friends didn’t understand this; despite my attempts to clarify the matter for their benefit, they chose to cling to their misconceptions. Apparently, some fecophobes will always remain fecophobes.
I am not fecophobic. Human feces have to be composted for 1-2 years before they become safe to be used in gardens and fields. For most of that billion westerners that is unachievable, since we are essentially an urban civilization. Playing with non curated human feces is highly inadvisable and can lead to serious consequences.
If I had a farm and was legal, I’d be delighted to give nature a hand to recycle soil components properly for maximum efficiency.
I am not fecophobic. Human feces have to be composted for 1-2 years before they become safe to be used in gardens and fields.
Not necessarily. Exposure to solar radiation seems to help accelerate the process. In any case I’m certainly not arguing that it shouldn’t be made safe before use as an additive to soil.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC93126/
Survival of Fecal Coliforms in Dry-Composting Toilets
Heres a good feasability study of the viability of composting toilets in high density urban environments.
http://www.thesustainabilitysociety.org.nz/conference/2004/Session5/52%20Salmon.pdf
I’ll leave it at that since I’m not particularly interested in hijacking this thread with this topic.
Perhaps an unfounded concern, but my apprehensions about using humanure for crops is all of the medications it would contain.
Hi Bob,
I ‘m fast getting out of date, with hardly any access to professional literature anymore, and never an expert this particular aspect of agriculture to begin with, but domestic plants and animals don’t seem to absorb much in the line of pharmaceuticals except in the case of the ones added directly to feed.
The actual concentrations in human sewage are minute to begin with, and most drugs break down fairly fast, when exposed to soil microbes, oxygen, sunlight,soil acids, etc. Then when the compost or actual manures are added to soils , they are further diluted.
This is not to say that nasty little buggers can’t and don’t survive and thrive sometimes, resulting in potentially fatal belly aches.
I suspect you are more concerned about all the various potentially troublesome little fellas evolving resistance to the drugs due to the exposure via manure.
This IS a VERY real problem, but not in my estimation a big enough one to matter, in terms of the biggest picture. The drugs are already going down drains, out into septic systems, onto the ground every time anybody takes a poop or a pee outside,and so the bugs are getting their evolution exercise ANYWAY. Sewers leak just like potable water lines. And sewage treatment plants don’t break down drugs very well at all. They are still in the water in every stream.
So – In terms of the big picture, we NEED to be making good use of our poop, because if we don’t soon close the nutrient cycle more effectively, we are going to “be up shit creek without a paddle”.
It won’t be too much longer before we are simply unable to pay for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to use them once and throw them away.
Most of the nitrogen is derived from depleting natural gas, and potassium and phosphorus are depleting mineral resources just as surely as any other one time gifts of nature.
Dealing with the public health aspects of recycling sewage onto farm land will be infinitely cheaper and less troublesome, long term, than dealing with ever more expensive and ever scarcer food.
It’s not just peak oil we have to worry about. If oil were to be the only thing threatening to run short, we would be in pretty tall cotton resource wise, lol.
Now we SHOULD quit putting good useful drugs into animal feeds. This does vastly accelerate the evolution of resistance to them, rendering them useless later on for treating human health problems.
Of course most of the regulars like you and Fred probably know about these things already, but I like to throw in some detail for the benefit of any kids or newcomers and regulars whose work and training don’t touch on agriculture.
OFM, the number of commercials on TV advertising pharmaceuticals is appalling and disgusting. When you listen to the warnings of the side effects, you have to be a bona fide nut case to actually want to go and buy a prescription. Me thinks the real motivation is to make money, not help aid ailments with prescribed medications. Whoddathunkit?
Vioxx killed an estimated 64,000, yet the CEO’s make millions. When are they going to be arrested and prosecuted for wrongful deaths? Never is the answer.
Enough to drive you to drink. Bring back commercials advertising Winstons and Camels, Lucky Strikes, Pall Malls, you are better off smoking than turning to legal drugs that kill. Prozac will cause suicidal thoughts, a friend of mine committed suicide, turned out he was prescribed Prozac.
Ritalin is prescribed to children with ADD, instead of paying attention the their real needs, they are sloughed off with drugs. And then we wonder why they turn to illegal drugs later on in their early adulthood? Who has the real problems?
Might as well drink. Especially beer and a lot of it.
“If drinking don’t kill me, her memory will”. har
R Walter is right, some of the numbers for prescriptions is appalling. Some have over one hundred patients need to be treated to get one positive result.
“Me thinks the real motivation is to make money, not help aid ailments with prescribed medications. Whoddathunkit?”
Bingo !
But, nothing says I can still get a stiffy like a little blue pill.
Escherichia coli 0151 is a problem.
Don’t eat apples that have fallen to the ground where deer have grazed. You just might die.
Just so you know.
Fecophobia is necessary.
Old manure that has been hot is the good stuff. I had to shovel plenty of sheep manure out of a 300 bushel grain box one day, no fun at all. Beer helped get the job done.
Dry cowchips and buffalo chips will cook your dinner. A high heat content, they have.
Coal? What coal? Don’t need no steen-king coal. Buffalo chips will do the job. There are Buffalo by the dozen fifteen miles away.
At my Grandfather’s farm, big chunks of coal were commonplace. You had to break them up before they could be ready for the cookstove.
Pay attention!
“No water distribution, no sewage systems, just force everyone to develop their own. Everyone can walk to the river and draw a five gallon jug of water for their daily water needs.”
The Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) is a public agency that provides wastewater collection, treatment and disposal service for approximately 2.5 million people.
OCSD receives 184 million gallons daily (MGD) of wastewater.
OCSD releases treated wastewater into the ocean through a 10 foot diameter offshore pipeline that extends five mile from shore to the point approximately 200 feet below the ocean surface.
OCSD generates about 775 tons per day of biosolids. Biosolids are highly treated, safe, nutrient rich, organic material derived from the wastewater treatment process.
Orange County’s biosolids have been safely applied to farmland since the 1980’s, typically for non food crops. Environmentally friendly alternative to popular petroleum based fertilizers.
$2167.44 estimated cost to collect, treat and dispose of 1 million gallons of sewage for fiscal year 2016-17
627 full time authorized employees
OCSD generates an average of 11,000 kilowatts of energy from burning natural gas and methane gas (biogas), which is a byproduct of the wastewater treatment.
OCSD supplies the Orange County Water District with more than 130 million gallons a day of treated wastewater. Which is than reclaimed and reused for treatment processes, landscaping. Enough new water for nearly 850,000 residents.
Any more third world bright ideas Walter ?
Quit picking on me! Cured manure spread on farmland makes it like new again.
Who do you think you are? Jethro Kloss?
OCSD finally caught up with third world practices, good for them.
Nothing compares better to a R Walter comment than a lots of Biosolid
HI HB,
Ronald is as sharp as a surgical scalpel, but he pokes fun at anything and everything and anybody and everybody.
You might THINK you have caught him in an error in any given comment, but another day and another comment he will inevitably take the opposite tack.
Read his comments as a robust mixture of sarcasm, satire, humor, and fresh undiluted bullshit, and you will appreciate them.
Assuming you have a sense of humor of course. LOL.
This is NOT to say he is not serious,but rather that you have to read his stuff in the same sense as he composes it.
He rarely says anything straight out in unvarnished naked language devoid of humor and sarcasm.
A few days back he said straight out that it would be lights out for industrial civilization once the fossil fuels are gone.That’s the only straight out serious thing I can remember him saying in quite some time.
He is probably right about that, but some some of us MIGHT manage a successful transition to a renewable energy modern economy. I have hopes along those lines, myself.
I’m quite aware Walter has Trump disease. Just as much as I’m aware you have Republican disease.
Best wishes,
“Assuming you have a sense of humor of course. LOL.”
HAZE AND MORE HAZE, CLOUDS AND MORE CLOUDS
I have hundreds of photographs of comets, galaxies, nebulae, eclipses, even some super-novae. I no longer pursue field astronomy, there are almost no clear nights at all anymore. Having moved to a higher altitude, country setting has not helped, the skies only got worse with time. To see a truly blue sky is a rare phenomenon. There is always a layer of haze. Cloudiness has increased dramatically. Rare to have a night with no clouds. The odds of a clear sky during an astronomical event are now near zero, thirty years ago a clear night sky was not uncommon, even frequent during some seasons.
Don’t get me wrong, I expect some haze during summer, but not this much nor having the haze and clouds through the late fall and early winter. Even the clearest days have a pall in the sky.
Haze Over the Central and Eastern United States
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/haze.html
Fish, don’t be discouraged by clouds, there are a number of amateurs with small observatories trying to detect at least the strongest pulsars. I’m using a 3 metre fixed dish which may turn out to be sufficient and also playing with a 3 metre tracking TVRO dish. It helps having an EME (Earth–Moon–Earth) receiver as kit: upgraded frequency stability plus all the problems of low noise front ends, antenna construction and pointing already solved. Of course, pulsar detection is rather extreme DX; perhaps not your cup of tea? 🙂
So what is he gain on your antenna and where are you getting the liquid helium to reduce the noise? Or are you using liquid nitrogen?
I prefer optical astronomy, so maybe I should just photograph clouds instead. I spent way too much time looking at FID’s and interpreting sensor responses in my professional life to want to do radio astronomy as a hobby.
I’ve been able to keep my receiver’s front end noise below 2 db but it’s a never ending issue. My pre-amp operates at nitrogen temperatures in a dewar. Actually, I’ve never had a problem finding liquid nitrogen (or helium) but then I have a lot of university lab contacts.
Hey GF, maybe you and Doug could team up and develop your own satellites.
Then have a company like interorbital launch them for you.
http://www.interorbital.com/interorbital_06222015_030.htm
If you want you can even invest in moon rocks through them.
IOS is currently offering advance sales of the lunar material at a 25% cost reduction, or $3.375 million per pound or $7,500 per gram. Buyers can secure lunar material at this reduced price by placing a 10% deposit on their desired quantity before the lunar mission begins. Final payment will be due on delivery. Advance buyers will receive a certificate of sale after the transaction. Once their lunar sample is safely returned to Earth and full payment is secured, the buyer will receive the following:
🙂 🙂 🙂
What I really want Fred is neutron star samples. Would sell my soul for a chunk of pulsar crust and toss in Grandkids for the core material (de-confined quark matter?). Yes, there would be storage issues. A teaspoon’s worth of crust/mantle weighs one billion tons, and quarks even more, so my Costco storage racks might not do.
so my Costco storage racks might not do.
Ehh, just shore em up with a couple of two by fours and you should be fine.
BTW I just saw a Costco flyer and they’re having a two for one special this week on Quark Gluon Plasma particles courtesy of relativistic heavy ion collisions at the LHC…maybe you could pick up a case or two for yourself to tide you over until you can get your hands on some of that pulsar crust. 🙂
How to get and what to do with a teaspoon of neutron star core.
Or more to the point, what it would do to you and your advanced starship or planet.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5805244/what-would-a-teaspoonful-of-neutron-star-do-to-you
I used to work with heavy water but nothing as heavy as that.
Does point out we are mostly force fields and empty space with a small amount of actual matter tossed in. I guess we are made of light matter, although I do not recommend light beer.
When the sky changes, so does the world.
MAYBE good ole boy AEP is a little on the optimistic side, but here are his thoughts on wind in the British Isles.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/08/14/britains-vast-national-gamble-on-wind-power-may-yet-pay-off/
I understand that being a biologist and defending that climate change is currently a minor threat for species goes against what everybody is constantly being told by the media, but this is exactly what I have been saying all along:
The Washington Post: ‘Let’s get some perspective’: Researchers say species face bigger threats than climate change
“Tackling climate change is the challenge of the century. But when it comes to endangered wildlife, scientists are arguing that we’ve got more pressing matters to worry about. A new comment just out today in the journal Nature contends that practices like hunting, fishing and agriculture are still the biggest threats to biodiversity on Earth — and we need to be careful not to let our concern about climate change overshadow our efforts to address them.
The group, which included experts from the University of Queensland and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), analyzed the threats facing more than 8,000 species on the IUCN’s Red List, a list of threatened animals, plants and other organisms all over the world.
After analyzing the threat information for these species, the authors found that exploitation and agriculture are the biggest drivers of declines in biodiversity. Of the threatened or near-threatened species they included, 72 percent faced challenges from hunting, fishing, and other practices that take organisms) and 62 percent were being threatened by the expansion of agriculture. The authors noted that climate change was affecting just 19 percent of threatened or near-threatened species.
In the comment, the authors suggest there’s an increasing tendency to focus on climate change when discussing the challenges faced by biodiversity.
“When thinking about climate change, it became obvious to me that we’ve got to sort out the current problems first,” said James Watson, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, director of science and research at the Wildlife Conservation Society and one of the comment’s authors. “Climate change is going to be a problem, but it’s not the greatest problem now.”
Funding for conservation efforts is limited, Watson said, and a lot of it is currently being poured into the fight against “novel threats,” such as climate change or emerging diseases. While he feels these threats are important, he also suggested that there’s been less funding going back into the fight against the “old foes” — exploitation and agricultural development.
“Most scientists would agree that current threats to species extinction are largely dominated by exploitation and habitat degradation,” said Mark Urban, director of the University of Connecticut’s newly established Institute of Biological Risk, who was not involved with the new comment. “But I think we also can’t lose sight of the accelerating risks of extinction from climate change.”
“If you solve threats like agricultural expansion in bad places, if you solve overexploitation, that is the best way to solve the climate change problem as well,” he said. “You give ecosystems a chance, you make them more resilient to climate change.”
For the time being, he said, the biggest priorities should include establishing more protected areas and creating better incentives for more sustainable land use, hunting and fishing. Such strategies will likely be addressed at the upcoming IUCN Congress.”
Now you can see that despite what the media tells you the experts are of the same opinion as me. Habitat degradation and overexploitation are the biggest threads to species and biodiversity and funding is being channeled from these present dangers towards a future unknown.
Some people are starting to argue that our efforts to combat climate change are likely to result in making matters worse, and they might have a point.
As usual, scientists thinking in terms of single variables and not realizing the link between climate change, agriculture, and human pressure on wild species, as well as the time variable. To take such a narrow view of species affected is simple minded too, in light of all the current knowledge about how climate change is affecting species in general, not just a small group of select species. It also treats species as independent of the natural system, they are not. Wreck the system, wreck all the species.
Such simplistic thinking is just plain embarrassing. Almost as bad as the geo-engineers who want to play God with the atmosphere and make big bucks doing it.
Nice article to salve the guilty conscious of the developed and developing countries.
As usual you have no idea what you talk about and make lots of unsubstantiated claims.
That’s what science is saying. You can think otherwise because you are a science denier.
The Telegraph: Climate change has helped more UK species than it has harmed
Agricultural management and climatic change are the major drivers of biodiversity change in the UK
Burns, F. et al., 2016. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0151595
“Climatic change has had a wide range of impacts on species, with more species impacted positively than negatively in the short-term at least.
Climatic change accounted for the second largest percentage of impact, 14 [-6 ; +8], though its impact on species trends was more balanced between positive and negative, and thus was the largest positive impact.”
This was totally predictable. An increase in temperatures produces an increase in energy and water and together with an increase in CO2 produces more productive ecosystems. Some species might respond negatively to the changes, but most species will respond positively.
Anthropogenic effect on species is greatly negative, but not due to climate change.
“As we describe, the net impact of climatic change on UK species in our sample is positive, but it is not clear whether this will always be the case.”
Typical bullshit. We find that the impact of climatic change is positive, but since we know it has to be negative, this has to change. A hard pill to swallow for the alarmist organization that financed and carried out the study.
GoneFishing, you are being exposed as someone who talks without knowledge. Your opinions based on hot air are neither original nor interesting.
My, what an infantile tantrum. As I said, simplistic thinking, or in your case just simplistic.
There just are no viable places to go for many species of plants and animals as they are forced to higher altitudes and higher latitudes by climate change.
Just some examples that defies the simple flat earth mental model of some.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/01/british-birds-extinction-climate-change
“Importantly, there are three times more birds that are negatively impacted by climate change than are positively affected. ”
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/288
The big picture. A really scary and sad one for birds and any migratory species.
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/288
And then there are the massive losses of frog populations currently in progress, linked to climate change.
Or this study from the University of Leeds predicting massive losses of species due to climate change.
“Climate change over the past ~30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species1, 2 and has been implicated in one species-level extinction3. Using projections of species’ distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15–37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be ‘committed to extinction’. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (~18%) than mid-range (~24%) and maximum-change (~35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6970/full/nature02121.html
As droughts, floods and human migrations occur all the other species are affected. Shifts in agriculture location and productivity, human population shifts and excessive extraction of minerals as well as energy to combat the effects of climate change do and will produce devastation to the natural world. Nothing exists in a vacuum, it is all interlinked when talking about climate.
The world is a very complex place and simple one factor analyses have no place when speaking of the natural world.
Let’s see what you got there:
The Guardian article about a study by RSPB and Durham University.
It is a prediction. Not actual data about the effects of global warming that we have experienced already on birds. Obviously some species will always lose with any change, but changes are always taking place.
After doing this piece in 2009, the RSPB decided to embark in the 2016 study that I have presented above and found that global warming was a net benefit: “Climate change has helped more UK species than it has harmed, RSPB study finds”
So I guess more modern data also from RSPB demonstrates that their 2009 prediction is probably incorrect.
Regarding the other two, you don’t go to an advocacy group for information because an advocacy group will only give you their view.
Just talking about birds, in Europe we have quite good information and most countries have better than average environmental protection. Even though it is always challenging to separate the effects of the climate from other European trends like farmland abandonment, forest increase, and increased urbanization.
When studies focus on multiple species populations rather than on endangered species or species ranges the results are clear. The number of birds in Europe is increasing:
Cuervo JJ, Møller AP (2013) Temporal Variation in Population Size of European Bird Species: Effects of Latitude and Marginality of Distribution. PLoS ONE 8(10): e77654. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0077654
“The main result of this study was the significant relationship between latitude and population trend, once marginality and other confounding factors had been controlled statistically. Northern populations of European bird species showed more positive trends than southern populations, as expected if climate warming had an effect on population size. Our study is therefore consistent with the conclusion reached in previous studies using other approaches or investigating other taxa, namely that climate change is having a non-negligible effect on population trends, and that this effect is more beneficial for northern than for southern populations.”
Let’s see if you get this. The higher the latitude, the more intense the global warming effect (the polar amplification mechanism, tropics barely change their temperature), and the more beneficial effect on birds populations. At high latitudes ecosystems respond more positively to global warming and become more productive. Additionally birds in Northern populations are not at their margin of distribution and can adapt better to the temperature changes.
You can see this clearly for example in the case of Hungary:
Szép, T., et al. (2012). Population trends of common breeding and wintering birds in Hungary, decline of long distance migrant and farmland birds during 1999–2012. Ornis Hungarica, 20(2), 13-63.
Birds are on the increase as everywhere else. Forest birds and mixed habitat birds are on the increase, but farmland birds are on the decrease. (see figure below)
Resident birds and short distance migrant birds are on the increase, but long distance migrant (trans-Saharan) birds are on the decrease.
As always there are winners and losers, and if you are a farmland long distance migrant bird you are out of luck, but not because of climate change.
If we move on to frogs, that issue has already been discussed here. Frogs are on a huge decline because of a fungal disease spread by human activity in the first place, and because they rely on wetlands that are being degraded, and because their skin makes them very sensitive to water pollutants that weaken their immune system. Nothing to do with climate change. The answer is better protection for wetlands and cleaner water, and perhaps more research into their disease.
Disease, not climate change, fueling frog declines in the Andes, study finds
“Our research shows that we can’t just automatically point our finger at climate change”
And the Nature News and Views that you link is just one more of the too common speculative predictions about how bad things are going to get when temperatures reach level X. Well that is all hypothetical because so far we are seen beneficial effects from global warming, and the negatives are always promised but never delivered, and really nobody has any clue about how the climate is going to be 20 years from now, so much less 85 years.
Forgot the graph of the Hungarian birdies in case you are really interested in how they are doing with climate change.
I guess if you have a very narrow outlook, can’t think ahead, ignore most of the data and results and don’t understand that not everyplace is the same or viable; then I guess global warming/climate change looks good.
Too many filters for me though.
more hot air?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/03/walrus-alaska-beach-climate-change-arctic-ice
“Margaret Williams managing director of WWF’s Arctic programme, said the walrus were the tip of the trophic iceberg.
“The massive concentration of walruses onshore—when they should be scattered broadly in ice-covered waters—is just one example of the impacts of climate change on the distribution of marine species in the Arctic.
“The sharp decline of Arctic sea ice over the last decade means major changes for wildlife and communities alike. These photos are yet another reminder of the urgent need to ratchet down global greenhouse gas emissions—the main human factor driving massive climate change.” ”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160518165304.htm
“Ocean acidification expected to accompany climate change may slow development and reduce survival of the larval stages of Dungeness crab, a key component of the Northwest marine ecosystem and the largest fishery by revenue on the West Coast, a new study has found.”
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/delay_in_dungeness_crab_fishing_season_offers_a_big_climate_lesson/
“The commercial crab seasons in California, Oregon, and Washington have been indefinitely postponed.
The reason? Dungeness crab samples taken this year by officials at various locations along the coast contained domoic acid, a dangerous neurotoxin, prompting the indefinite postponement of the commercial crab seasons in California, Oregon, and Washington. California’s season was slated to begin November 15, while Oregon and Washington were originally expected to open their seasons December 1. Ingestion of domoic acid can cause loss of short-term memory, seizures, or even death, so health officials are not taking chances when it comes to this biotoxin.
The organism responsible for wreaking havoc on the crab industry is a large bloom of an algae species known as Pseudo-nitzschia, which produces the domoic acid. Linked to unusually warm ocean temperatures off the West Coast, this year’s bloom stretched from Alaska to California, making it the largest and most persistent occurrence of Pseudo-nitzschia ever recorded.”
——
While scientists cannot directly point to climate change as the cause of this bloom, they are confident that “changing the environment [through human-induced climate change] is absolutely going to disrupt the marine ecosystem in a big way,” Lefebvre says.”
Inadvertently you are just parroting tendentious misinformation from warming activist.
The polar bear is falling out of favor as iconic global warming endangered species. They are cute, but they are doing so well that it is difficult to defend that they are in any danger.
Being the Arctic so short in animals they had no recourse but to fall back on walruses, that although they are very ugly, perhaps can get some sympathy. So there it goes the news that it is in clear and present danger from global warming.
The problem is that it is again a false statement. Zoologists Dr. Susan Crockford demonstrates it:
Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover
“The attempts by WWF and others to link this event to global warming is self-serving nonsense that has nothing to do with science.
Walrus numbers are up considerably from the 1960s, although they are notoriously difficult to count (Garlich-Miller et al. 2011).
Fay, F.H. and B.P. Kelly. 1980. Mass natural mortality of walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) at St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea, autumn 1978. Arctic 33:226-245.
ABSTRACT: In October-November 1978, several thousand living walruses came ashore in at least four localities on St. Lawrence Island where they had not been present before in this century. They hauled out also at two other sites which they have occupied annually but in much smaller numbers. At least 537 animals died on the haulout areas at that time, and approximately 400 other carcasses washed ashore from various sources. This was by far the greatest mortality of walruses ever recorded in an event of this kind.
This was in 1979 when Arctic sea ice was at a maximum in the satellite era.
Walruses did just fine when there was little or no ice in the Arctic.
You are being deceived the same way you were deceived with the polar bears, but you are just happy to be deceived repeatedly.
The problem is that it is again a false statement. Zoologists Dr. Susan Crockford demonstrates it:
Mass haulouts of Pacific walrus and stampede deaths are not new, not due to low ice cover
Javier, enough of this BS please! Susan Crockford is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute. She is definitely full crock! Her expertise is in Canine evolution! She doesn’t have any expertise in walruses, polar bears or climate science!
https://goo.gl/IazhSq
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE LEAK: SUSAN CROCKFORD OF UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA RECRUITED TO HELP THINK TANK UNDERMINE IPCC
In Heartland’s proposed budget for 2012 two Australian scientists are listed under the program to “undermine” the credibility of the IPCC’s reports.
As noted, Bob Carter would have potentially received over $1600 per month to work on this project.
Also listed is one Susan Crockford – at the University of Victoria* (CA – edit) – who would potentially receive $750 per month.
Good one Fred. We have our own crock pot here who thinks weather changes are climate changes and varies about as much as the weather too.
Now you can see that despite what the media tells you the experts are of the same opinion as me. Habitat degradation and overexploitation are the biggest threads to species and biodiversity and funding is being channeled from these present dangers towards a future unknown.
First, there is absolutely no doubt that habitat destruction, human overpopulation and our modern civilized lifestyles are very serious threats to species and biodiversity and therfore possibly our very own existence. Anthropogenic climate change, due to burning of fossil fuels is pretty well established as being part and parcel of that package. All of those things are inextricably linked.
Climate Change is just one more symptom of the consequences of our collective actions. It really gets tiring to hear all the blind men who are examining just one aspect of the gigantic elephant in the room say that their part explains the whole elephant. Maybe climate change is like the trunk or the tail, it is only one part of the story!
I chose to bold a different part of your text:
“Most scientists would agree that current threats to species extinction are largely dominated by exploitation and habitat degradation,” said Mark Urban, director of the University of Connecticut’s newly established Institute of Biological Risk, who was not involved with the new comment. “But I think we also can’t lose sight of the accelerating risks of extinction from climate change.”
Some people are starting to argue that our efforts to combat climate change are likely to result in making matters worse, and they might have a point.
Only in the sense that if a cancer patient is in a car accident and she is taken to the emergency room the ER staff are not going to be administering chemotherapy before they stop the bleeding and set her broken bones. However the patient’s cancer will still need to continue to be treated if she is to survive.
1. We don’t even know if anything we can do might be effective in slowing/halting/reversing global warming.
2. The risks perceived are hypothetical and very dependent on worst case scenarios.
3. Our knowledge of climate is so imperfect that nobody knows what the rate of warming will be in the next 20 years and if it will depend or not on our rate of emissions.
4. Further warming could be as beneficial as past warming.
THE DANGEROUS MYTH
https://thinkprogress.org/the-dangerous-myth-that-climate-change-is-reversible-bbb608045471#.ym4yv2g07
314 North American Bird Species imperiled by climate change
http://climate.audubon.org/all-species?field_bird_category_tid=All&field_bird_category_tid=All&=Apply
Those are just the canaries in the coal mine so to speak… bad pun I guess.
My point being is that those birds are representatives of entire ecosystems and all the other species involved in them…
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
https://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/climate-impacts-report.pdf
See p. 79 for projected ecosystem changes
Although there are many articles and studies on bird migration patterns and the effect of civilization and climate on them, I never see mentioned one of the major aerodynamic problems caused by a a warmer, damper world.
When the air is warmer and humid, it is lower pressure and thus takes more energy for a bird or aircraft to fly. There is also less oxygen content per volume of air, so the bird must breathe more to get the same power. All this can cause a significant loss of energy over long distances.
My apologies if this has already been posted, dated July 22nd:
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/n0681-now-the-proof-permafrost-bubbles-are-leaking-methane-200-times-above-the-norm/