Climate science from climate scientists...

At the COP26 gathering last week much of the discussion related to “Net-Zero” goals. This concept derives from important physical science results highlighted in the Special Report on 1.5ºC and more thoroughly in the last IPCC report that future warming is tied to future emissions, and that warming will effectively cease only once anthropogenic CO2 emissions are balanced by anthropogenic CO2 removals. But some activists have (rightly) pointed out that large-scale CO2 removals are as yet untested, and so reliance on them to any significant extent to balance out emissions is akin not really committing to net zero at all. Their point is that “net-zero” is not zero and hence will serve as a smokescreen for insufficient climate action. To help sort this out some background might be helpful.

Net-zero CO2 has real geophysical significance

With empirical data and more and better modeling, it has become clear that, to first approximation, the eventual anthropogenic warming from carbon dioxide is tied to the cumulative emissions. This figure is from the AR6 SPM:

The basis of this relationship is the rough balance between the net uptake of carbon into deep pools (mainly the deep ocean) and the rate at which the oceans warm in response to an energy imbalance. We’ve discussed ‘commitment’ issues before, and to zeroth order global temperature is basically stable once CO2 emissions stop. Thus future warming is totally dependent on future emissions. These relationships implies that once cumulative emissions stop (i.e. net-zero is reached), the eventual warming is set.

This is a very important result, and one that underlies the recent pledges to achieve net-zero by 2030/2040/2050 etc. coming as part of the upgrade to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the COP26 meeting.

Net-zero greenhouse gas emission does not have any geophysical significance

Within the Paris Agreement there is a section that says:

In order to achieve the long-term temperature goal set out in Article 2, Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing country Parties, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.

This could be interpreted in different ways. Some folks have made a link between this statement and the emission reporting requirements which uses GWP-100 to convert different gases to a CO2-equivalent to suggest that we should be aiming for net-zero emissions of CO2-e. However this does not have any particular geophysical significance since it could be associated with an increasing, decreasing or stable temperature depending entirely on what is happening to CH4, N2O and CFCs.

For example, if anthropogenic CH4 emissions can be halved (say), that’s roughly 170 TgCh4/yr, which implies that 5100 TgCO2/yr ~ 5 GtCO2/yr could remain if net-zero CO2-e was the goal. While this is much smaller than current emissions of ~ 36 GtCO2/yr, it’s sufficient to maintain a warming trend of ~0.02ºC/decade. Alternatively, if we achieved net-zero CO2 and moved into net-negative CO2 emissions, net-zero CO2-e might occur at some point later while temperatures are declining. (At some point it will be worth looking in detail at what happens when we get 80 or 90% CO2 emission cuts because at that point the detectability of global temperature trends and the importance of small and hitherto neglected sources and sinks will come into play).

IPCC AR6 and the Glasgow text are clearer

During the approval session for the IPCC AR6 Summary for Policy Makers, this was one of the persistent issues. Wherever the authors had made a reference to net-zero CO2 emissions, the Saudis (and sometimes China) tried to amend it to say net-zero greenhouse gases instead. The authors and many other countries took pains to explain that these were not commensurate statements, and the SPM text ended up making it clear that net-zero as a concept only applied to CO2.

Subsequently, the Glasgow text clarified this for the COP process as well:

[The Conference of the Parties] also recognizes that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net zero around mid-century, as well as deep reductions in other greenhouse gases;

This implies that the goal of net-zero for CO2 is now enshrined as a key goal (at least for the 1.5ºC aspiration). However, it is the timetable and cumulative emissions up until ‘net zero’ that will determine the eventual temperatures (with some additional influence from cuts to other GHGs and short-lived forcings). So even though ‘net-zero’ is only coupled to the 1.5ºC aspiration in this text, it’s actually much a broader concept.

Is net-zero as a scientific concept different from net-zero as a slogan?

Some parts of the climate community has been hostile to the use of “net-zero” because, in their eyes, the “net” part allows for bad faith actors to maintain current emissions while promising unrealistic amounts of negative emissions in the future to compensate. This is clearly an issue. Any net-zero pledge needs to be examined for credibility and the proposers need to be held accountable for the claims. I think it’s inevitable that some (maybe even all) such pledges will be optimistic about the magnitude of plausible negative emissions. But is net-zero the same as climate denial?

Net zero is the new climate denial: a #cop26 thread. 1/

My answer is no. Net-zero is a well-founded physical goal that is rooted in the science that climate deniers mostly try to ignore. Is the rhetorical flourish here useful? I don’t particularly think so – it mostly serves to confuse greenwashing (a real problem) with the science of the carbon cycle which people already have a hard enough time with.

This isn’t to say that pledges and targets should not be scrutinized – of course they should, and some will be found to be less credible than others. But even though net-zero is not zero it is still geophysically meaningful and a useful concept for the general public to understand because it underlies the important conclusion that future CO2-driven warming is driven by future CO2 emissions.

Filed Under: Carbon cycle, Climate modelling, Climate Science, Featured Story, IPCC

The new work in brain science suggests that a statement is only a lie if you can not imagine any path to it’s truth – including that you or another will find that path later.

“future CO2-driven warming is driven by future CO2 emissions” is true but because we have a flood of CO2 in our atmosphere already that has to be drawn down the statement to me would be more correct in saying future CO2 emissions and the excess CO2 already resent will drive warming. Good article!

This has some very good commentary on the net zero issue:

https://skepticalscience.com/The_Keeling_Curve_What_Road_Will_We_Take.html

>”But is net-zero the same as climate denial? >My answer is no. Net-zero is a well-founded physical goal that is rooted in the science that climate deniers >mostly try to ignore. Is the rhetorical flourish here useful? I don’t particularly think so – it mostly serves to >confuse greenwashing (a real problem) with the science of the carbon cycle which people already have a >hard enough time with.”

The term “net-zero” is both a clever piece of mitigation denialism *and* a legitimate, well-founded physical goal. That’s precisely what makes the term so insidious. There is the “net-zero” of policy-makers and politicians, which will allow them to do whatever they like as long as they posit enough negative emissions to achieve the accounting trick of zero total CO2 emissions in some policy document or press release; and then there is actually achieving net-zero, which is a hypothetical physical state that is not likely to happen (or not in time, anyway). Calling the first use of “net-zero” the new denialism is not confusing greenwashing with science; it is correctly identifying the fact that the slogan itself achieves the greenwashing.

Over the years, you have seen how easily it is for climate scientists to be misquoted and misinterpreted. Cue denialists quoting the post above as they pivot to greenwashing instead of frank denialism.

Large scale CO2 reclamation is expensive at the current moment, so I think it is reasonable for people to consider Net Zero a diversion from actually reducing GHG as soon as possible to mitigate climate effects.

While it is basic that warming will effectively cease only once anthropogenic CO2 emissions are balanced by anthropogenic CO2 removals, it is just as basic that global temperature will not change at that point for hundreds of years. In other words, however much energy we bake into the climate is the cake we, and our children’s, children will eat.

That means that the faster we get to net zero the better.. Glen Peters has a great figure showing this https://twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/1460524816449118208

NetZero is a non-goal. May as well call for NetILoveRiskingItAll. < 300 or bust. Literally.

+0.4% SOC globally each year gets us to net zero, by the way. But, hey, sure, let's take decades building out a bunch of unsustainable, ecosystem-killing… stuff.

Net-zero or even zero cannot not be accomplished by lowering fuel emissions. That process takes no CO2 out of the atmosphere and must add to it while trying. All that lowering emissions can do is leave carbon in the ground (in case we need it if the climate cools again). But what net-zero WILL do is make transportation using renewable biofuels even more expensive than it is now.. With increasing shortages because they are deemed necessary to meet the impossible Paris goals. It’s not complicated, but carbon capture and long-term geological storage is. Biofuels will be required for that also.

You may have a sensible point in there somewhere, but this bit is just self-contradictory:

Net-zero or even zero cannot not be accomplished by lowering fuel emissions. That process takes no CO2 out of the atmosphere and must add to it while trying.

Lowering emissions–whether practical or not—is not ‘adding emissions.’ Can’t be, by definition. Maybe you meant something like “trying to lower emissions is not possible”?

“Net-zero or even zero cannot not be accomplished by lowering fuel emissions. That process takes no CO2 out of the atmosphere”

This is a strawman because nobody is suggesting lowering fuel emissions would take CO2 out of the atmosphere or would be be sufficient to get to zero. Other measures are required in addition to lowering fuel emissions.

“…and must add to it while trying”

Your second point is wrong, because lowering fuel emissions while building a new energy grid adds emissions short term, but decreases emissions longer term, making net zero possible. This has all been documented in various studies.

Thank you for your article, Gavin. In your opening paragraph you state that large-scale CO2 removals are as yet untested, but is this statement misleading? The technologies of carbon capture and carbon sequestration have been demonstrated at the commercial scale for individual facilities for almost two decades. As long as the economics fall into place, taking into account carbon pricing, the technology is proven. The fields of geology and petroleum engineering can re-tool to sequester the 100 gigatons of CO2 required. I suggest contacting Chen Zhu, a geochemist at Indiana University and current Darcy Lecturer for a prominent geologist’s perspective on this topic.

Matt Neuner, You talk of “the 100 gigatons of CO2 required.” I fear that isn’t even half the problem.. SSP1-1.9 (the scenario that achieves a 50% chance of keeping global temperature increase below +1.5ºC) required 200Gt(C) net negative anthropogenic emissions, that being 730Gt(CO2), roughly half through the period 2050-2100 and the remaining half through 2100-50. An in addition to that net requirement is the sequestering of enough CO2 to balance any “above scenario” emissions to achieve the projected net emissions, positive pre-2050 and and negative post-2050. See Fig2c from Meinshausen et al (2020). SSP1-1.9 allows a net anthropogenic carbon budget of +120Gt(C) to 2050 and -200Gt(C) in the decades following. We are currently running down that +120Gt(C) budget at 11Gt(C)/year. And at Glasgow, our wise world leaders decided to come back next year to discuss it. So if Professor Chen Zhu can sort out the sequestering technology, he should be getting himself involved with some level of urgency.

Or we can not risk extinction and simplify, thus also preserving and restoring the ecosystem, not just sucking up CO2. You know, a real solution.

BTW, a sequestration plant came on line recently. We only need 33,000 more of them.

Woo-hoo! We’re saved! /sarc

K: BTW, a sequestration plant came on line recently. We only need 33,000 more of them.

Woo-hoo! We’re saved! /sarc

BPL: K in 1900: BTW, a horseless carriage came on line recently. We only need 33,000,000 more of them.

Woo-hoo! We’re saved! /sarc

on Killian and Barton Paul Levenson:

Question: Are thees the large statures that arange and administers the street- fights?

Litterature: https :// Trollet på Carl Johan, Theodor Kittelsen

Why do you seek to prove your ideology and trollishness like this?

BPL: What? Solve the problem?! But my Capitalism!

Sane Person: (Hey, Jesus said rich men can go straigh to hell. Not sure about rich women…)

BPL: God loves me and my Capitalism! Save the climate! But don’t! Not really! Cuz my Capitalism!

Sane Person: Christ was a hippie who lived off of donations, loved the street people, said give half your shit to others, even if you only have a little, etc.

Jesus H. Christ. Grow up, man.

@nigelj thx for the reply.

Killian, you need to look up what a “straw man argument” is.

What is the comparison being made here? Cars are a consumer item created by private investment to make a profit. Sequestration plants are not the kind of thing people will be ordering from Amazon. They are infrastructure that will require state funding to build and maintain.

Maybe a comparison to nuclear would be better, especially for France, though even that is a stretch given the changing nature of many economies.

This is the comparison as follows. Building 33,000 plants to suck CO2 out of the air and sequester it sounds a daunting or even an impossible task, but building millions of automobilies was probably also considered an impossibility back around 1895 when the first automobile was built. The rest is history.

And such plant will become more efficient. Assume we need 10,000 and I can see the big industrial powers doing some each and it being achievable, like building electricity generation plants. Im not saying such a solution to the climate problem is ideal or preferable, just that it’s not necessarily impossible.

@nigellj your short analysis is fair and reasonable… at least theoretically.

Where it breaks down is when one considers the urgency of Time. Time has run out. Once the globe crosses 1.5C then 2C the uncontrollable the unknown and undefined (in science) Feedbacks will naturally (physics of temperatures winds drought weather etc) kick in at levels far above and frequencies more often than the current +1.1C driver.

So imv, we are talking about the 2020s, and the 2030s and then increasing. Along this continuum there comes a point where all their prognostications of climate science projections collapse as being meaningless … because they do not include increasing situational regional feedbacks that will come long before any Tipping Point they do note comes around.

iow I am suggesting it is not the 1, 2 or 3 meter seal level that will get us it will be the death by a thousand cuts that will. Climate science has ignored those multiplicity of cuts leading to destruction of infrastructures and bark huts, loss of economic viability, supply chain ructions, social instability and riots, loss of homes roads grocery stores, and disruption or a total loss of food energy and water supply etc.

They were all too “small ticket items” for climate science to address … (including with their current aspirations to address act on Adaption at a local scale – that’s why all we ever heard about are the big ticket climate change items like the futuristic AMOC collapse, the permafrost feedback “maybe” post 2100, the creepily slow SLR almost non-existent by 2100 they assert…. this is what ends up in the papers and the IPCC … but this is not what is really going to happen which will wreck social stability and resilience everywhere, slowly but progressively one place at time.

It is really not that hard to imagine a world with 100 simultaneous incidences of record breaking massive PNW heatwaves followed by wild fires, towns being burn to the ground and then followed a few weeks later destructive winds rainfall and flooding wiping out Billions of infrastructure and a whole season of agricultural crops and tens of thousands of head of cattle, sheep or pigs and poultry.

I cannot imagine why anyone would need to see these things being detailed in peer reviewed climate science papers before they can see it as plain as day.

FUN FACT: In general, bar a very very few, Climate Scientists and related Academic Research papers, and published articles and public speaking engagements by those who KNOW THIS …. NEVER address the above. Never! They avoid it like the Plague.

Sometimes the odd environmental pro-CC action activists do speak of these issues but then they are pilloried and hounded by celebrity climate scientists claiming none of that is supported by the Science!

But they can only say that because NO Science has ever been done on these smaller scale climatic impacts already arising now at 1.1C and soon with increasing frequency and locations going forward.

Logically even Science has it’s limitations you know. :)

The way I see this issue of CCS and similar future dreams of success (fwiw to maybe consider/ponder) is that in an ever increasingly disrupted destabilized world and society and townships now, this decade onward and getting worse with very unpredictable ever changing damaging weather conditions on steroids, then no one will have the reliability of sufficient finances, or resources, the spare energy supply, the land or mental space to be building 30,000 or 10,000 technologically complex and vulnerable DAC/CCS facilities.

Every aspect of modern society from mining to transportation to the military to bars and nightclubs will be impacted by extreme weather events and the resultant supply shortages.

There is no published Research papers that explains all this to the layman or the politicians.

We are expected to simply work it out for ourselves. The scientists and academics stay silent so they cannot be accused of rocking the establishment boat or for scaring the natives with what is considered (by them falsely as) “unnecessary fear mongering” or Doomer like scenarios !

The Catch 22? There is no published science on the subject = dismiss it all out of hand!!!

I could be wrong. Of course I could.

But is what I am saying illogical given the way the world works in Reality? (smile)

Reality Check. I agree scaling up that sort of carbon sequestration technology sufficient to meaningfully help stop warming going over 1.5 degrees looks impossible. 10 years just intuitively looks just too short whatever you do, especially considering all the other technology that is needed like electricity generation. I say this as somebody with tertiary level qualifications / experience in design and project management. And all that assumes there’s a will to do it and commit the funds which there isn’t right now.

The carbon sequestration technology could be scaled up by 2050 sufficent to help stop warming go above 2 degrees, if there was a will to do this. The time frames are more manageable. You only have to look at WW2 the massive shift to manufacturing military technology to see whats possible if people want, but the trouble is climate change does not engender the same degree of urgency. I have to confess I’m not that hopeful.

We are backing ourselves into a corner where the only alternatives will be massive reductions in consumption, which is just a pie in the sky fantasy in such a materialistic world, or geoengineering with its attendant risks.

I have considered your death by 1000 cuts theory myself, although I think manufacturing will be the least effected aspect of things. Much of it is automated and located away from the coast. But it will still be affected. Like you say the more that we delay fixing the climate problem the harder it becomes to fix. Some would argue economic growth will compensate but the same twits dont seem to have noticed economic growth has been slowing down for the last 20 years in places like America and the situation is likely to continue.

However I disagree about climate scientists. They dont have the training to consider impacts on total human systems. That’s more of a social science or general environmental science issue. I have seen research papers on it, but they can be impenetrable and they arent the sort of thing you see in your local bookshop and aren’t featured in the media. They go below the radar which is very unfortunate. This material needs to be infront of the public as you mentioned.

“As long as the economics fall into place…”

And what a rat’s nest of assumptions are contained in that seemingly innocent phrase! With existential threat potentially on the line, no less.

Thanks for an important clarificatory post Prof Schmidt. Pointing out a minor spelling error … ‘convert’ has been spelt as ‘covert’ just below Article 4 …

In 1988 I was the only voice at the Changing Atmosphere conference who stood in a plenary to ask that the conference statement that delegates were hammering out be changed to recognize the possibility that the changes to the composition of Earth’s atmosphere that everyone there was concerned about, could be reversed.

It was a bizarre experience. I introduced myself to the other delegates saying I was an artist who had become alarmed as I realized I was living in a dying civilization.

I couldn’t understand why the scientists of that time were reluctant to publicly call for the solution. They didn’t want to be seen as insane. Everyone “knew” civilization wasn’t going to give up fossil fuels.

A few lines from this weeks “The NOW Show”:

“Everything’s fine! We’ve got non binding targets now! We’ll save the planet in time!”

The Washington Post recently published “Countries’ climate pledges built on flawed data”:

“In the end, everything becomes a bit of a fantasy,” said Philippe Ciais, a scientist with France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences who tracks emissions based on satellite data. “Because between the world of reporting and the real world of emissions, you start to have large discrepancies.”

– https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/greenhouse-gas-emissions-pledges-data/

Gavin, Leaving aside denialists and accepting that net zero is “rooted in science”, there is still a very credible argument that greenwashing is not just a “real problem”, but it is in fact the sole purpose of net zero.

In an April 2021 article in The Conversation, three climate scientists make a very persuasive case against the very notion of net zero: https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368. A couple of quotes summarise their argument:

Wolfgang Knorr, Senior Research Scientist, Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University: “The predecessor to net zero was and still is called ‘offsetting’. Once I was full of hope that carbon offsetting schemes could do the trick and save intact forest ecosystems from almost certain destruction by economic development. Now I know this was just a dream. The massive amount of offsetting needed for staying within safe climate limits cannot be met by leaving nature alone. It demands fast growing, mostly alien species that are cut down often and regularly, with devastating consequences for biodiversity. We are already seeing the beginning of it in European forests. I am scared almost more by the consequences of net zero, than by those of climate warming.”

James Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Global Systems, University of Exeter: “It’s astonishing how the continual absence of any credible carbon removal technology seems to never affect net zero policies. Whatever is thrown at it, net zero carries on without a dent in the fender. For some time I assumed it was merely ill-informed or over-cautious. I’ve now realised we have all been subject to a form of gaslighting. Whether its BECCS, afforestation, direct air capture or carbon absorbing unicorns, the assumption is that net zero will work because it has to work. But beyond fine words and glossy brochures there is nothing there. The emperor has no clothes.” https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368

A recent 30 October 2021 article by Marian Wilkinson argues that the CCS will be used to greenwash gigantic LNG exports from Australia:

“Australia’s major trading partners, Japan and South Korea, are big investors in Australian LNG projects and big customers. Unlike Australia, both countries have agreed to reduce their emissions by 2030 by 46 percent and 40 percent respectively. That means within nine years they will need to slash their emissions from burning fossil fuels. It’s why the push for CCS is so important. The Australian gas industry needs to keep alive the prospect of large-scale CCS projects to persuade Japanese and Korean energy investors, financiers and customers that Australia can deliver carbon-neutral LNG and clean hydrogen in the not-too-distant future.

Just weeks before the Glasgow summit, Energy Minister Angus Taylor gave the gas lobby’s CCS campaign a major boost. In a world first, the Energy minister announced companies such as Santos could get “carbon credits” from the government for new CCS projects. CCS, with all its problems, is now set to become part of Australia’s carbon offset system under the taxpayer-supported Emissions Reduction Fund.

Taylor’s decision to grant carbon credits for CCS has been widely criticised by climate groups. “CCS is used by the oil and gas industry to justify large-scale projects that would inevitably result in far greater emissions that they sequester”, said The Australia Institute’s Mark Ogge. Fortescue Metals Group’s chairman Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest echoes that criticism. At the same time as Santos was lobbying for CCS carbon credits, Gallagher hit the “go” button on Barossa, a huge new gas development 300 kilometres north of Darwin, which has been described as the most greenhouse-intensive LNG project in Australia’s history. Forrest attacked Barossa as one of the most polluting projects in the world. “It needs to be called for what it is,” he said. “It is an atrocious project.” https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/10/30/how-the-gas-lobby-captured-morrisons-glasgow-response/163551240012779

The following video uses humour and coarse language to make its case against CCS, perhaps the only way for the message to cut through:

Honest Government Ad | Carbon Capture & Storage (4:44) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8

Everywhere you look the arguments for offsets fails both because of scale and the fossil fuel industry capture of politics. Leaving aside CCS, the sudden enthusiasm for farm and forests sequestration in Australia fails to take account of regular droughts, continued warming and the observation reported by retired Australian fire chief Greg Mullins, that our new wildfire regime burns all the carbon in the soil, not just the vegetation above ground.

I wish it were otherwise, but there no convincing evidence at this stage that green or black, pain-free offsets will work. The only thing that will stop warming becoming catastrophic is a very fast transition to renewables.

Case in point, the Australian Prime Minister recently (and reluctantly) agreed to a Net Zero target (to take effect decades after his term) and cheerfully announced it with zero new policy or legislation to make it happen. No actual short-term goals to reduce emissions.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-31/morrison-climate-plan-net-zero-new-model-political-leadership/100576698

It is essential now to concentrate on the the next few years separating us from 2030. The goal is now to show humanity can actually achieve a substantial reduction of co2 emissions in a little time, with still growing population and economies. As stated in Glasgow co2 emissions should fall “by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level”. Let’s do this homework and the muscles will build for 2050.

I cannot speak for humanity, but, at age 80, I am 99% sure that my 2040 CO2 emissions will be very near zero!

This short video is on net zero. Naughty, but amusing and perceptive:” Honest Government Ad | Net Zero by 2050 (feat. Greta Thunberg)”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqXTCvDLeo

A nice exercise in definitions. However, at the end of the day, atmospheric CO2 was 310 in 1953. Given there is still understood to be a lag in the system between increased GHGs and effects manifesting, 300 ppm CO2 is the only thing that matters; the things we need to do to achieve that will necessarily bring down other GHG’s too.

Do Regenerative, solve all the world’s problems… and end pointless debates.

This was not all too clear.

We have it both in electronics and in chemistery where it is easy and I have allways set on that so I do not have to read and to re- educate and understand any more.

Plumbers and plumbing and sewage, canalisation and draining and possible alarm and overflow and also sudden high pressure tube leaks, is also a variety of it that can be easily understood.

“Sugerør” = secret sucking tubes and even intensional leaks and drips in the national and in the communities economies is further a more or less traditional reality to the SALDO budget balance.

Robert Boyle, (not Carl Marx or Adam Smith,) was the pioneer on this, The sceptical chemist. Boyle invented the budget, and repulsed goldmaking, the conventional ADVLTERARE.

I recently made a pessimistic comment on FR about long-term thinking, and this discussion reinforces my sense of things. There’s nothing wrong with refining the science, but it is not going to have any significant effect on the decisions that need to be made in the real world. One might even argue that it has become counterproductive to propose short-term goals that have no chance of being achieved. Quoting from this NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/20/style/breed-children-climate-change.html

In an interview with Vox in April, Kimberly Nicholas, a climate scientist and co-author of a 2017 study of the most effective lifestyle changes to reduce climate impact, said that population reduction is not the answer.

“It is true that more people will consume more resources and cause more greenhouse gas emissions,” Ms. Nicholas said. “But that’s not really the relevant time frame for actually stabilizing the climate, given that we have this decade to cut emissions in half.”

But we are not going to cut emissions in half in this decade!

It used to be the case that people would invoke the precautionary principle when urging action on climate change. I still do that… I ask how we can reduce the suffering of humans who will be born 100 years from now, given the possibility that they will be living in a world of an SSP more to the right than the left.

And certainly, the decline of fertility described in the article would contribute to that reduction.

More generally, the more complicated (and frantic) we make the discussion, the less chance of implementing the core policies that will improve things in the longer term. It is poor political messaging… the classic R’s do bumper stickers and D’s produce 300 page legislation.

How about, for example, focusing on the electricity sector and the transportation sector, and telling people that it will make a big difference (it will), rather than saying “We are all doomed if we don’t achieve Nirvana soon!” ?

The point being that you need to get people to take the first hopeful steps in the right direction, however long the journey.

I’d have one simple question to G. Schmidt. As he rightfully points out in this 2010 paper there is a “single factor removal” (SFR) and a “single factor addition” (SFA) by GHGs to the GHE. The difference is about the overlapped component and it is quite substantial.

“For each pair of absorbers, there is potentially a spectral overlap. For example, both water vapor and CO2 have overlapping absorption lines spread across the LW spectrum. This means that the sum of the effect of each absorber acting separately is greater than if they act together”

https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Schmidt_sc05400j.pdf

The forcing by doubling CO2 is about 3.7W/m2 and the feedback by WV (excluding LR) about 1.8W/m2. These figures are well reproducible with hitran or modtran. The question though is on overlaps. Are they meant SFR, or SFA?? The precondition to reproduce the figures is to eliminate all other absorbers and thus the named overlaps. So they are only true SFA. However, what you need to assess the actual radiative effects are the SFR figures, which turn out a lot lower.

The 3.7 W/m2 is the marginal increase in forcing from doubling CO2. At equilibrium that adds 10 to 20 W/m2 to the total greenhouse effect (depending on the magnitude of the feedbacks), but it doesn’t greatly affect the partitioning of the total greenhouse effect (as we showed in the 2010 paper).

Thx, but that is not the point. The SFR vs SFA issue does not dissappear with increments of the GHE, be it forcing or feedbacks. So the fundamental, most essential question is, if the named figures on CO2 forcing and WV feedback are including overlaps or not. To assess ECS they MUST NOT include overlaps, but all the evidence suggests they DO!!!

And I have the feeling, you are not even aware of the problem!

I may also be missing the point, but given that the main competitor with CO2 in the realm of radiative forcing is H2O, and that H2O is temperature-sensitive, short-lived, and essentially independent of human emission, how would you envision the ‘decoupling’ of CO2 and H2O concentrations in the atmosphere taking place, exactly?

H2O is an absorber, all right–but a climate feedback, not a climate forcing.

Ok, let me try again. In the named paper CO2 has a share in the GHE (155W/M2) of 14% and 24.6% respectively. That is 21.7W/m2 SFR and 38.1W/m2 SFA. So 16.4W/m2 (=38.1 – 21.7) of the CO2 GHE would be overlapped with other GH-agents (including clouds).

If I try in modtran I get a similar figure for SFA of 35.168W/m2. It has to be less, as modtran assumes surface emissions of only 381.5W/m2, instead of >390W/m2 Schmidt uses. Apart from this issue, the figures are pretty consistent. And if I double CO2 it produces a forcing of about 3.7W/m2, which again is perfectly fine.

The problem is: it is the SFA figure increasing by these 3.7W/m2, while we would rather need to know by how much SFR will increase due to doubling CO2. I did some modelling on this issue, and the result tends towards 2W/m2 only. Not so incidentally similar to 14/24.6 x 3.7 = 2.1

More and more confusing. You wrote:

we would rather need to know by how much SFR will increase due to doubling CO2.

How would “single factor removal” possibly relate to doubling CO2? Possibly that’s in the paper, but most readers here aren’t going to want to pore over it. (Disclosure: I gave it a quick scan, but no more than that.)

E. Shaffer, You refer again to Schmidt et al (2010) “Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect”. And inspired by this paper, you appear to be attempting to calculate an ECS for the entirety of the GHE.

Thus you cite the value given for the “Single Factor Addition”, the level of GHE resulting from an atmosphere with a GHE solely caused by CO2; no H2O, no cloud, etc. And here you see the CO2 provides a GHE 24.6% of the present GHE. And thus feedbacks (which they almost all are) contribute about three-times the GHE of CO2 alone. You go so far as to visit Chicago Uni’s superb MODTRAN web engine and are happy that this confirms the paper’s findings for “Single Factor Addition” as well as a forcing from 2xCO2 being consistent with the climate literature’s 3.7Wm^-2. All is fine and peachy.

But you have noted the “Single Factor Removal” value, that if all the CO2 were entirely removed from the atmosphere and thus imposing a very large negative forcing, the paper states the GHE reduces by just 14.0%, a far smaller effect which results from overlaps. You are questioning why this “Single Factor Addition” value is used in climatology when the “Single Factor Removal” accounts for overlaps which are significant and thus should not be ignored. (Perhaps what you fail to do is see what happens in MODTRAN with 0.5xCO2.)

The climatological calculation of forcing from 2xCO2 does include the overlap; that is the overlap between the other GHGs present prior to the application of the forcing. It does not include the overlap with the additional GHGs which become part of the GHE as a result of the 2xCO2 forcing. I suppose the equilibrium atmosphere following the 2xCO2 could then be modelled but with 1xCO2 to identify the overlap. And you could then argue that the overlap should be part of the feedback rather than the CO2 forcing. But the warming resulting from 2xCO2 would remain the same.

The adjusted figures from table 3 represent a more complex model, allowing for lapse rate changes, especially in the stratosphere. And sure it is reasonable to add complexity in order to produce more accurate models. Also the paper discusses the difference in the attained result of 4.1W/m2 (or 4.3W/m2 excluding the SW component) vs. the “canonical” 3.7W/m2.

“Additionally, we also note that our adjusted radiative forcing for a doubling of CO2 is 4.1 W/m2, roughly 10% larger than the canonical estimate of 3.7 ± 0.4 W/m2”

However, if for simplicity we stick to the non-adjusted framework, the 3.7W/m2 is obviously the increase of the SFA figure. With obviously I mean it can be reproduced both with hitran and modtran by removing all other GHGs. Then, if you double CO2, emissions TOA drop by these ~3.7W/m2. Logically the SFR figure would grow by less than this. Only introducing WV drops 2xCO2 forcing to about 3W/m2 (O3 prodives a little overlap as well). Simulations with clouds and realistic surface emissivity (the spectral hemispheric emissivity of water is 0.91, below the main absorption range of CO2 it is 0.895) indicate ~2W/m2. Again, the relation 2/3.7 is consistent with SFR/SFA given by Schmidt, with a little deviation as surface emissivity != 1.

“The values of the forcings in Table 3 are closely related to the percentage change in net LW absorbed in the single‐factor removals in Table 1 (they would be exactly equivalent for the instantaneous forcings)”

Combined these quotes suggest 3.7W/m2 or the adjusted 4.1W/m2 (or 4.3W/m2) were the growth of SFR, when indeed it has to be SFA.

E. Schaffer, You now refer to Table 3 of Schmidt et al (2010) and insist the entry for 2xCO2 is calculated for a doubling of an atmosphere without any GHGs other than CO2, this in the manner of the “Single Factor Addition” values in Table 1. And because this Table 3 value for 2xCO2 is described as being the “canonical” 3.7Wm^-2 calculated by a different route (and thus the different value), you insist this “canonical” 3.7Wm^-2 is also calculated by doubling CO2 levels in an atmosphere otherwise empty of GHGs. You insist this is obvious and “has to be” because of results you obtain from HITRAN & MODTRAN. I think you need to demonstrate this derivation before we take this interchange any further. You provide quite a detailed account of the 2xCO2 numbers obtained but how are you converting HITRAN or MODTRAN into these global 2xCO2 calculations? For the record, when I have a play on Chicago Uni’s excellent MODRTAN I have no difficulty finding numbers well above 3.7Wm^-2 for 2xCO2 (and do not find them below), and the numbers are higher still if it is 2xCO2+NoGHG.

Let us check what Prof. Archers modtran installation does under different circumstances. It is easy to reproduce. Let us use “1976 US std” atmosphere with 288.2K surface temperature, 0.971 surface emissivity and a fixed lapse rate of ~6.5K within the troposphere. WV scale of “1” means some 17.3mm of precipitable water.

1. run: Only CO2, no other GHGs (all set to zero), emissions TOA 400ppm: 345.4 800ppm: 341.632 Delta: 3.768W/m2

2. run: all GHGs at their preset values, no clouds 400ppm: 267.842 800ppm: 264.859 Delta: 2.983W/m2

3. run: all GHGs at their preset values, clouds “Stratus/Strato CU Base .66km Top 2.0km” adding come 25W/m2 in CRE 400ppm: 242.91 800ppm: 240.618 Delta: 2.292W/m2

I think it easy to see (and understand) where this is going. Do you still suggest the 3.7W/m2 IS accounting for overlaps???

http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/

E. Schaffer, It did occur to me to have a peek at the website your name links-to and it is evident from such a peek that you are a very clumsy denialist troll whose grand theorising eventually finds a value for ECS of +0.45ºC. You do correctly assess this value as being not anywhere near any “consensus range.” But I should point out that you are off your trolley in suggesting “this estimate is based on the very same foundations the orthodoxy uses.” The conclusion you draw from this all is however entirely correct when you say “The only difference is in the elimination of logical mistakes. And these mistakes are undeniable.” Mind, a denialist troll may find correcting undeniable mistakes less than easy.

In terms of this grand error you present on your website, do note that the forcing of 2xCO2 has no actual role in defining ESC (although with the multiple ways ESC is assessed, I may be wrong to suggest it is never used).

And from your comment here, when you say further up-thread “These figures are well reproducible with hitran or modtran” you actually mean just MODTRAN. And when you use MODTRAN (which is not ideal for this calculation of the global 2xCO2 forcing) you consider the TOA as 70km above the surface and also ignore the back radiation (which is not significant but still present at that high altitude). 70km is rather high. TOA is usually defined as at the tropopause which is a lot lower than 70km. (The usual definition of IRF, RF & ERF are described here.)

So the first MODTRAN “run” you set out above (with MODTRAN helpfully providing a trace of temp against altitude suggesting a tropopause altitude of 15km) would yield a 2xCO2 IRF of (344.458 – 10.397) – (340.062 – 12.102) = 6.1Wm^-2.

And to paraphrase the concluding remark of your comment – “I think it easy to see (and understand) where this is going. Do you still suggest the 3.7W/m2 ISN’T accounting for overlaps???”

Perhaps you missed my response below, where I quoted Gavin’s paper (my bold):

It is in part due to these nonlinearities combined with associated feedbacks that the attribution calculations are not directly useful for determining climate sensitivity. For instance, one cannot simply take the attribution to CO2 of the total greenhouse effect (20% of 33°C) and project that onto a 2 × CO2 scenario. That would exaggerate the no‐feedback impact of the extra CO2 while ignoring the role of feedbacks that might change the water vapor and clouds.

So I did the modtran thing with 280ppm to 560ppm, starting with the preset values for 280, and then setting Water Vapor Scale at 1.053 for the 560 run. Try it.

The point is, of course, that you are not “modeling” (which you claimed); you are simply plugging random numbers into the app. Gavin is working with actual models that incorporate feedbacks.

Mhm.. I am positively curious about this approach of adding up “back radiation” from the stratosphere and the reduction of emissions top of the troposphere. Can you provide me with ressources explaining that rationale?

E. Schaffer, Given the grand work on your website runs under the name ‘The Greenhouse Defect – Saving the Planet … from idiocy’ with a strap line of “The most disruptive site on climate science”, I am less than come-hitherish with your ‘positive curiosity’. You really do need to correct/debunk all that stuff you’ve been posting onto your website over the last seven months. It is generally utter drivel. And as that would be quite a task for you, perhaps I could assist you in that correcting/debunking.

So when you ask me if I can provide you with “ressources” explaining the rationale of taking TOA=Tropopause (rather than TOA=100km altitude which is another definition), I would suggest that to obtain such “ressources” you contact your ISP as they are obviously failing to provide you with the splendiferous power that access to the full internet allows as it is packed to the gunwales with everything you require.

For other readers of this comment who may be less imbued with denialism yet still be “curious” at climatology using TOA=Tropopause within the Radiative Forcing formalism (rather than TOA=100km), in my understanding this is because climatology wants to equate measurable stuff going on in the atmosphere to the resulting measurable changes in surface temperature. Given that requirement, the stuff going on above the tropopause usually isn’t greatly impacting the stuff going on below the tropopause and particularly stuff going on at the surface. And as the stratosphere is still active in the IR (with CO2, O3 & H2O), an imposed warming GHG forcing in the troposphere which reduces IR escaping up past the tropopause will result in an instant imbalance in the stratosphere followed by a resulting stratospheric cooling. Thus the instantaneous TOA=Tropopause forcing will be different to the instantaneous TOA=100km forcing. It was found that this 100km forcing was less useful as an expression of surface warming and thus TOA=Tropopause was adopted yielding what is called Instantanious Radiative Forcing (IRF). A better result was found if the imbalance in the stratosphere was allowed to equalise, this the usual definition of “Radiative Forcing” (RF). And this of course allows the forcing formalism to properly encompass forcings acting in the stratosphere as well as (because the stratosphere is allowed to gain equilibruim) RFtropopause=RF100km.. And an even better result was found if the troposphere is also allowed to equalise holding just surface temperature fixed, indeed just a fixed sea surface temperature. This is Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) which you see often appears in the literature.

Again, it is all fine if you add complexity and consider seperately how troposphere and stratosphere will react to perturbations. However, none if it justifies your well-led approach of adding up CO2 forcing top of the troposphere (TOT) with “back radiation” from above it.

“..would yield a 2xCO2 IRF of (344.458 – 10.397) – (340.062 – 12.102) = 6.1Wm^-2”

a) It is inconsistent with the figures Schmidt gives. CO2 SFA (at 400ppm) for instance would amount to (380.254 – 344.458) + (10.397 – 0.024) = 46.169W/m2. That is despite modtran having less surface emissions and thus producing smaller figures. b) Alternatively you could argue CO2 forcing should be calculated with a different scheme as its partial GHE. Since CO2 is by nature nothing but an increase of this partial GHE, that makes no sense either. c) We have the same SFA/SFR issues with vapor feedback. Again, 1.8W/m2 are well reproducible as an increment to SFA, not SFR. Your approach of adding “back radiation” is no remedy in this instance, as there is simply not enough WV in the stratosphere to make much difference. d) By now we should all be able to agree that “back radiation” does not heat anything, as it is not a source of energy, but rather a function of temperature.

E. Schaffer, Is this renewed package of drivel you present the result of you delving into all that wondrous information available to any who care to seek it on the internet? Or is it you renewing your ridiculous account of misguided denialism?

I fear it is the latter.

Firstly, it is not me adding complexity. It is the science. And if troposphere and stratosphere are to be considered separately by that science, it entirely justifies the use of the net radiation budget at the tropopause. Secondly, if you wish to engage in further discussion, it will be necessary for you to set out what it is you are suggesting in an understandable and coherent manner. I would suggest your points (a) to (c) fail to achieve these necessary requirements. Finally, do note that nothing in the GHE is “a source of energy” yet you will find that strangely its presence is required to “heat” the planet surface. It thus seems from your point (d) that it is not just that you fail to grasp the basic mechanisms of the GHE but that you also fail to grasp the fundamentals of the physics.

@E. Schaffer: -“To assess ECS they MUST NOT include overlaps, but …”

— A “real” ECS is assessed in a “real” (overlapping) atmosphere. the most important overlaps are between water vapor and clouds, followed by water vapor and CO2.

Once they are attributed, the total net effects for water vapor, clouds, CO2 and the other forcings are – 50%, 25%, 19% and 7%, respectively. Note that while the cited paper is concerned with the “greenhouse” impact of clouds, their net radiative impact including SW effects is one of cooling. (~ -19W/m²)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-018-4413-y

Gavin says: – “At the 2 × CO2 equilibrium, the global mean increase in G, the total greenhouse effect, is around 20 W/m2. Significantly larger than the 4 W/m2 initial forcing and demonstrating the overall affect of the LW feedbacks is positive (in this model).

That is, the extra net absorption by CO2 has been amplified by the response of water vapor and clouds to the initial forcing. The 20 W/m2 greenhouse effect enhancement is associated with a 15 W/m2 extra emission from the surface (since the planet has warmed by 2.7°C) and a 5 W/m2 reduction in outgoing LW that balances a 1.5% increase in planetary albedo (due to increased cloud cover, a negative (SW) feedback).”

— Unfortunately there is no 1,5% increase in planetary albedo, …a decrease in cloud cover has been observed over the past few decades. How do you explain this decrease ?

How I explain a decrease in cloud cover? I do not know, lol! Btw. not just cloud cover seems to decline, also the atmosphere as a whole gets relatively dryer, and most interestingly, pan evaporation is trending downward. This is pretty strange, given a reduction in cloud cover and relative humidity combined with increasing temperatures should all increase evaporation. Why that is I will tell you once the mystery is solved ;)

You seem to have a whole bunch of numbers and concepts mixed up into an incoherent jumble.

Maybe you could elaborate on the “modeling” that you did to clarify your reasoning?

I’m speculating that you didn’t read carefully or perhaps misunderstood the purpose of Gavin’s reference. Try reading this again:

The values of the forcings in Table 3 are closely related to the percentage change in net LW absorbed in the single‐factor removals in Table 1 (they would be exactly equivalent for the instantaneous forcings). The impact of entirely removing CO2 is almost 7 times the impact of doubling CO2, underlining the highly nonlinear nature of the forcing due to CO2 concentration change over this range. [26] It is in part due to these nonlinearities combined with associated feedbacks that the attribution calculations are not directly useful for determining climate sensitivity. For instance, one cannot simply take the attribution to CO2 of the total greenhouse effect (20% of 33°C) and project that onto a 2 × CO2 scenario. That would exaggerate the no‐feedback impact of the extra CO2 while ignoring the role of feedbacks that might change the water vapor and clouds. In GISS ModelE, the Charney sensitivity is 2.7°C for a doubling of CO2 (or ∼0.7°C/(W/m2)) [Schmidt et al., 2006].

@E.Schaffer: – “This is pretty strange, given a reduction in cloud cover and relative humidity combined with increasing temperatures should all increase evaporation. Why that is I will tell you once the mystery is solved.”

m.s. – Global development of evaporation, precipitation, groundwater levels and global runoff, desertification and water scarcity

– Evidence and causes of a globally decreasing cloud cover

– A better understanding of a holistic climate protection strategy …

https://climate-protecion-hardware.webnode.com/_files/200000045-0c99b0c99d/english-website%20cph.pdf?ph=02adf5ae1c

Gavin says; “At equilibrium that adds 10 to 20 W/m2 to the total greenhouse effect (depending on the magnitude of the feedbacks), but it doesn’t greatly affect the partitioning of the total greenhouse effect (as we showed in the 2010 paper).” I wonder if Gavin can explain where the greenhouse effect entered into this recent occurrence at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station between April and September of 2021?

South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, a surprise in a warming world October 2, 2021 at 8:45 a.m. EDT This story, first published Friday evening, was updated Saturday morning.

Amid a record hot summer in large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, beset by devastating fires, floods and hurricanes, Antarctica was mired in a deep, deep freeze. That’s typically the case during the southernmost continent’s winter months, but 2021 was different. The chill was exceptional, even for the coldest location on the planet. The average temperature at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station between April and September, a frigid minus-78 degrees (minus-61 Celsius), was the coldest on record, dating back to 1957. This was 4.5 degrees lower than the most recent 30-year average at this remote station, which is operated by United States Antarctic Program and administered by the National Science Foundation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/10/01/south-pole-coldest-winter-record/

The Galactic Federation used 3 of it’s Orion Class Starships to “beam transport” a large quantity of heat content from continental Antarctica to the Pacific North West. Mainly to screw around with our heads and our implacable climate models. There is nothing to see here. They were only joking. Honestly.

JDS: South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, a surprise in a warming world

BPL: Global warming refers to the global average. You will still get occasional cold records. However, worldwide, hot records are outnumbering cold records two to one. This is why statisticians warn against “cherry picking,” a short term for “the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances.” You have to use all the data, not just the part that supports your views.

Barton Paul Levenson says; “Global warming refers to the global average.” Well, Barton Paul Levenson, this is the global average compiled from 30 years of temperature records that, as in this example, comes from 59,122 different reporting stations from around the globe. Please note that the temperature deviation is -0.24°F/-0.13°C.

The Earth’s Temperature Currently: 56.96°F/13.87°C Deviation: -0.24°F/-0.13°C Stations processed last hour: 59122 Last station processed: La Grande IV, Canada Update time: 2021-11-30 03:24:15 UTC http://www.temperature.global/?fbclid=IwAR2mvfvcL0od4e1OnVFh3EcNVd0on-CahKapSN1S7UCs1tnU2fHejTTlePA#twitter

Netzero is newspeak: ambiguous euphemistic language used chiefly in political propaganda- to keep emitting fossil fuel emissions.

Net Zero, Netto and Zero, has a very clear meaning in other contexts. To tell the same in other words would be confusing and disturbing for many. The same net zero is also an abstraction that can be guaranteed in the global carbon budget, and does have a rather obviousd meaning like Carbon sink is equal to carbon souce not defining whether it is natural or artificial, that comes as a next.

Thus keep your Newspeak out of this.

Isn’t the only thing that truly matters the 1.5C CO2 Carbon budget?

And we already know beyond reasonable doubt that budget based upon the COP26 NDCs is definitely all gone before the end of this decade with a 83-90% Likelihood.

And yet no one seems to be keen on discussing this fact.

Everything about net zero CO2 emissions in 2050 or before or after and talk about 1.5C is ludicrous rubbish. It’s denial. It’s classic cognitive dissonance writ large across people foreheads in big black texta.

Until something seriously changes in global politics and collective intelligence levels. That has definitely not happened yet and remains highly unlikely.

Precise description: “The biggest challenge for the impresarios of these climate summits is to appear to take some action to avert the crisis that envelopes us, while doing almost nothing at all. Less than nothing really, since over the course of the summit the catastrophe will have deepened by more than the meager measures adopted to ameliorate it. When the first COP (aka, Conference of the Polluters) was held in Berlin in 1995, the atmospheric carbon level hit 395.92 parts per million. This year the monthly average topped 419 ppm. Net less than zero reduction.

Mostly the art of summitry comes down to stagecraft and after three decades of these kinds of performances the mechanics of the event are pretty well scripted. Indigenous leaders are brought in from the Arctic and Amazonia to bless the event. Global leaders memorize their lines and pitch coins into fountains for good luck, by far the most assertive act for of the entire affair. News is carefully leaked about fake fights behind the scenes in the anterooms of the conference, which threaten to imperil any agreement. The leaders of island nations are given a few moments before the cameras to declaim how many acres of their land mass have been lost to rising seas since the last summit and the members of the press try earnestly to recall how to spell the names of their countries before they disappear altogether. Outside protesters from around the world swarm the streets, lending the whole affair a gravitas that these hollow exercises wouldn’t have without them.

The lobbies of nearby hotels are turned into showroom floors for the latest quick-fix technologies marketed by corporations, most of them also Pentagon contractors, seeking to capitalize on a global green new deal. The rituals of the COP are followed as diligently as the secret salutations and backroom handshakes at Davos and Bohemian Grove. The most important thing, of course, is that whatever agreement is reached–even if it’s an agreement in name only (often the most preferable outcome)–must be good for the bottom line. It must make the crypto-carbon-futures markets jump.

Still there must be drama and tension to emphasize how seriously these ambassadors of the atmosphere are taking the crisis. One way or another, the people’s interest must be simultaneously maintained and distracted. The protesters need to be kept on the streets, shaking their puppets and signs, voicing their agitation over the carefully cultivated prospect that it all might fall apart and nothing, alas, will be done.

The blah blah blah outside the COP confab has become as predictable and tedious as the blah blah blah inside. But every summit needs its sonic score, the sound of marching, charging feet, boy. As Norman Mailer once said in a different context, it’s like muzak for the cancer ward.

Big fights ensue over tiny measures. Nations threaten to walk out, until, at the last possible moment, the summit is saved by some fancy deus ex machina wordplay by veteran climate diplomats like John Kerry and Angela Merkel, deftly changing “phase out” to “phase down” and eliding the tripwire phrase “fossil fuels” altogether.

Hurray! Progress has been made, if not toward reducing emissions, at least, and this is, naturally, the most important thing, toward planning the next summit, sure to be the most important one yet, when the planet’s atmosphere will have breached the once unthinkable level of 420 ppm. Book your flights now.

+ When the carbon footprint of holding your summit is greater than the aspirational pledges for carbon reduction made at the summit, maybe you should consider skipping the next summit so you can claim some real carbon savings.

+ Fortunately for the US delegation, they wrapped things up in Glasgow in time to return home to conduct one of the largest offshore oil lease auctions (82 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico) in American history. Go team!”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/19/roaming-charges-33/

Karsten V. Johansen presented a wonderful appraisal of the Glasgow Conference of Parties (COP26). The Glasgow COP is the 26th conference of the parties to that treaty and just look at what they have managed to accomplish. Could this be due to humans thinking that they can control the Earth’s complex climate is out of the reach of humanities limited powers to manage basically anything to do with the climate and the weather? This is especially true if certain groups who go to these absurd climate get togethers believe that a trace gas, CO₂, comprising only .038% of the total mass of the Earth’s atmosphere, is responsible for what the Earth’s climate and temperature does. They hold this believe about the unworldly powers of this essential trace gas for all life on the planet, CO₂, even though the true believers cannot produce even one empirical example that can be tested by experiment that demonstrates that, in fact, CO₂ possess these amazing powers for a trace gas that is 1.6 times heavier than the rest of the atmosphere. This is how the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman put it, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

If, as alleged, CO₂ is causing runaway heating of the planet, then why does this record still stand after 108 years? World Meteorological Organization Assessment of the Purported World Record 58°C Temperature Extreme at El Azizia, Libya (13 September 1922) “On 13 September 1922, a temperature of 58°C (136.4°F) was purportedly recorded at El Azizia (approximately 40 kilometers south-southwest of Tripoli) in what is now modern-day Libya…………. The WMO assessment is that the highest recorded surface temperature of 56.7°C (134°F) was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley) CA USA.” https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fbams$002f94$002f2$002fbams-d-12-00093.1.xml?t:ac=journals%24002fbams%24002f94%24002f2%24002fbams-d-12-00093.1.xml This is a record that still holds after 108 years & isn’t it the same WMO that said that this is the warmest time in earth’s history, or some other such nonsense?

JDS. You really are dumber than a rock.

JDS. You really are dumber than a rock.

Thank you so much for your comment that must have taken all of your analytical abilities to compile. Does nigelj just want to sweep under the rug the part about that he holds this believe about the unworldly powers of this essential trace gas for all life on the planet, CO₂, even though he cannot produce even one empirical example that can be tested by experiment that demonstrates that, in fact, CO₂ possess these amazing powers for a trace gas that is 1.6 times heavier than the rest of the atmosphere that actually demonstrates that CO₂ causes the Earth’s climate to change or its temperature to rise?

JDS cant spell correctly or put together a coherent sentence either. Proves what I say. He’s dumber than a rock. He’s been shown empirical examples a dozen times. Not going to do it again.

JDS: a trace gas, CO₂, comprising only .038% of the total mass of the Earth’s atmosphere, is responsible for what the Earth’s climate and temperature does. They hold this believe about the unworldly powers of this essential trace gas for all life on the planet, CO₂, even though the true believers cannot produce even one empirical example that can be tested by experiment that demonstrates that, in fact, CO₂ possess these amazing powers for a trace gas that is 1.6 times heavier than the rest of the atmosphere.

BPL: You are a dishonest poster, JDS. These points have been answered for you many, many times on this blog, on Facebook, and elsewhere, yet you keep bringing them up. Allow me to remind you that “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”

1.5 C requires ~600 ppm CO2. There’s a fundamental flaw in Manabe that predates Manabe, leaving his ECS in error by a factor of approximately two. This error reappears in the 2nd edition of Hartmann, but in color. Hartmann himself is mystified by the implications of Manabe’s error but doesn’t seem able to correct it.

We are already at a transient rise of ~+1.1C at ~415 ppm CO2 and nowhere near ECS. The chance of ECS per doubling being below +2C, never mind +1.5C, is slim to non existent.

But what ever you’re smoking, just keep on keeping on.

Gavin In the Matthews and Weaver letter you reference, they say: In response to an abrupt elimination of carbon dioxide emissions, global temperatures either remain approximately constant, or cool slightly as natural carbon sinks gradually draw anthropogenic carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate similar to the mixing of heat into the deep ocean. In this scenario, the atmospheric burden of CO2 slowly reduces from wherever it’ll have to got by the time we get to net zero, say 450ppmv. Currently at ~415ppmv there is a 0.7W/m2 energy imbalance (AR6 WG1 Fig 7.2). As the 450ppmv gradually reduces after reaching net zero emissions, am I right in thinking that the energy imbalance will reduce more or less proportionally? If so, it’ll take some decades for this the energy imbalance to disappear altogether. In the meantime what will that surplus energy be doing if not, at least in part, warming the ecosphere? If it is passing through the atmosphere and warming the hydro- and cryo-spheres, as I understand the above extract to be saying, is that something we should be concerned about in terms of its potential effect on marine biota?

Robert, I think you are thinking about too many variables at once.

Say we hold CO2 levels constant (e.g. current levels)… the climate energy level will rise until the rate of input from the sun is balanced by the rate of output from the Earth to space. From the RC post:

The upper line is often what is referred to as the ‘climate change commitment’ (for instance Wigley, 2005). This is the warming you get if we keep CO2 (and other GHG and pollutant levels) constant at today’s values. (Technically, the figure shows the case staying at year 2000 values). In such a scenario, the planet still has a radiative imbalance, and the warming will continue until the oceans have warmed sufficiently to equalise the situation – giving an additional 0.3 to 0.8ºC warming over the 21st Century. Thus the conclusion has been that because of climate inertia, further warming is inevitable.

So we will have achieved a new equilibrium global mean surface temperature (GMST) reflecting that new equilibrium climate energy state.

At that point, it is necessary to reduce atmospheric CO2, which will create a new (negative) energy imbalance, in order to return to (approximately) the pre-industrial climate energy state. As I understand it, the natural reduction is a slow process, so the negative effects we are experiencing would continue longer than a few decades.

(And sadly, we are not going to stay at current levels, so the negative effects of whatever new equilibrium climate energy level we do reach will be worse and last longer.)

Given that negative emissions options are seriously lacking (and 2-3 tons of CO2 are produced for each ton of fossil fuels burned, ie will never work cost effectively at scale) it looks like reaching Net Zero will require reaching close to Zero Emissions. Less the takeup by oceans and (perhaps) vegetation.

I don’t see reforestation or soil carbon – making an enduring increase in global biomass and claiming them as credible “offsets” – as viable either. Not without assurances of climate stability first. The schemes mostly are Greenwash – sometimes diverting emissions reduction funding to some of the fiercest opponents of strong climate policy

It looks to me like building an abundance of clean energy to displace fossil fuel burning is the most effective thing we can do. Clean energy also looks like one of the most affordable and readily and immediately achievable things we can do.

As negligent as mainstream politics handing the issue off to others in “you care so much, you fix it” style was, the empty gestures and gifts of enough rope to non nuclear “alternative” wind and solar energy that followed (imo gestures to appease emerging community concerns on one hand and gestures that reinforce perceptions of the issue being by and about fringe extremists, who’s solutions were expected to fail on the other) may have been the best mistake that climate apathy and denial within mainstream politics has made. Even nuclear options may ultimately become more possible because of the fading of the economic alarmist fear of shifting away from fossil fuels that RE successes have induced; along with questioning the validity of climate science, promoting economic fear has been a mainstay of climate obstructionist politics.

I don’t see reforestation or soil carbon – making an enduring increase in global biomass and claiming them as credible “offsets” – as viable either. Not without assurances of climate stability first.

This is so nonsensical it’s difficult to decipher. What does, “I don’t see…” mean? Regardless of the fact we know how to sequester all the carbon we emit just with adding 0.4% of carbon to soils globally – i.e. NetZero – you “don’t see” it? Adding that much a year is simple as hell. Can be done ANYWHERE there’s soil. There are examples of soil carbon being increased on farms up to over 3%. That’s seven years of carbon emissions if done globally.

So, gee, sorry you “don’t see” it. Educating yourself first might help you “see” it.

Drought, heatwave, fire can undo all the gains – soil carbon and re-vegetation needs climate stability for the biomass gains to endure. There are good reasons to encourage better agricultural and land management practices and with emissions approaching zero the benefits will be maximised – but without emissions approaching zero they aren’t solutions to AGW.

I recall that tropical soils do not contain much carbon. The bacteria and fungi eat it. The vast waterless carbonate sands of the Arabian Peninsula can hold more carbon? To use soil as a carbon sink, probably the best we can do is fertilize it with rock dust from the mountains. And for the oceans, where is the carbonate compensation depth now, and how fast is it rising?

Excellent comment, Ken, you articulated my own position pretty closely. “[G]estures that reinforce perceptions of the issue being by and about fringe extremists, who’s solutions were expected to fail” may well describe some collective interventions in the US energy market, but they helped drive the green vortex (h/t DBB) all the same. And I agree the precipitous drop in levelized costs of new wind and solar electricity in the last decade has, er, taken some wind out of mitigation-alarmist sails. Replacing fossil carbon with carbon-neutral energy throughout the US and global economies does appear affordable and achievable, IMO.

However: AFAICT, more and stronger collective actions at the national level are required, to drive decarbonization as quickly as possible. I’d really like the US to lead the world in that direction, but with the Koch Klub as motivated as ever to obstruct the process, and with so many US voters still in denial, I can’t propose a timeline for reaching our own carbon-neutrality. There’s going to be a lot of see-sawing. Exciting times are ahead!

“the fading of the economic alarmist fear”

I agree this is happening, albeit too late. It has been the only positive development in an otherwise bleak political landscape. People are finally seeing that there is money to be made in acting on climate; they just don’t understand the issue in terms of the carbon budget, so they are all moving way too slowly.

@ KenFabian: – “Given that negative emissions options are seriously lacking ”

— vertical growing on an industrial scale, e.g. in green high-rise buildings with a height of 80m, can absorb ~ 2000 times more Co² than a forest with the same area. With water-cooled LED light I have developed a heating system with negative emissions (CO²), which produces from wind, water or solar energy -> hot water and e.g. strawberries. As a floor heating system, it only consists of PV modules, LED chips, a water boiler with a heat exchanger and aluminum profiles, which you can easily build and install yourself at very low cost(DIY): https://www.lumen-laden.de/products/coolmac-300-1500w-grow-chamber/

Unsustainable is unsustainable. That is a limiting factor.

And Fabian is wrong. That people don’t want to accept that the solutions exist does not mean they do not. * Simplification gets us to 80-90% reductions. * SOC can get us down anywhere from an equivalent amount to double that.

We’re already solidly negative at that, and that’s just two bullet points out of a list of them.

Plants that take up CO2 will give off CO2 when they decompose – unless you can divert any increased vegetative growth to permanent sinks (deep, encapsulated burial or similar) the CO2 reductions have to come from an enduring increase in biomass, which must be very large scale. We now make more CO2 than all other waste combined – 5 times over – and more than any other commodity apart from “aggregate” (crushed rock and gravel). I don’t think it is possible to deal with emissions after; we have to stop the emissions.

Some plants can cope with CO² concentrations of up to 10,000ppm. These conditions can only be achieved with industrial vertical growing. One hectare of vertical growing (80m height) can then replace ~20km² of open agricultural land area or even more in the future. The sustainable storage of carbon then ultimately takes place on the agricultural land that is freed up by renaturation (forests, moors, etc.) taking place there.

Long transport routes in winter for fresh vegetables from abroad are just as unnecessary as costly packaging and cooling. There CO² can be used profitably in controlled cycles of plants -> biogas -> CO² separation -> fertilizer. The “farmer” of such an agricultural factory not only sells his harvest as an end product. Above all, he / she is also the best seller of self-produced heat, electricity and biogas. Photosynthesis 24/365 – without pesticides, herbicides – no hail, heavy rain, drought or other crop failures. Optimally supplied with water, light, nutrients, temperature, humidity &&& CO² and can be optimally combined with fish farming /algae farming.

Another crazy idea. You would need vast numbers of high rise tower blocks to do this growing, if you want to make a significant difference. The costs would be horrendous and resources for construction are not unlimited.

Growing trees to sequester carbon is not looking as viable as it once did. Plenty of studies on this if you get out of your confirmation bias bubble. The most viable solution is making soils sequester carbon using the right types of farming, because you don’t have to commit more resources and its just a change of techniques. Although even that has its limits.

@nigelj: – Another crazy idea… – Growing trees to sequester carbon is not looking as viable as it once did. – …that has its limits.

— Vertical growing is soooo crazy that it has actually existed for years. Plants have long been grown under controlled, highly automated conditions and this system is stacked on top of one another for reasons of space and efficiency. The energy efficiency of the artificial light will be more than tripled by my water-cooled LED technology. BTW, this makes me the world champion in the field of efficient lighting technology. I could say the same for my development of water-cooled PV modules … another important building block for my vision of future energy production.

People like you, who grant trees and forests neither a useful storage function for CO² nor a cooling function for rural and urban areas, should understand that your own limitation of imagination, intelligence and economic calculation cannot be the benchmark for trendsetters. Out of respect and politeness, just shut up.

“People like you, who grant trees and forests neither a useful storage function for CO² nor a cooling function for rural and urban areas, should understand that your own limitation of imagination, intelligence and economic calculation cannot be the benchmark for trendsetters. Out of respect and politeness, just shut up.”

Stop posting lies. I didn’t say either of those things. I made no reference to the cooling function of trees and I didnt say trees dont sequester carbon. I only stated that devoting vast new areas to planting forests may not be the best use of the land resource and that studies suggest this. Take it up with the authors of the studies.

The rest of your comments are just empty insults. Not once have I seen you post a proper economic analysis of your proposals. You are in no position to criticise me on economics. And its frigging well obvious that to make a significant difference to the climate problem would need a vast number of new highrise buildings. Its beyond debate and its crazy.

@N: As usual, they don’t even understand the simplest, fundamental connections between my suggestions … regardless of whether it is about water-cooled LED & PV technology or water-cooling the earth through more clouds. Maybe you have so much brains to understand my heating system with negative emissions (CO²) in its smallest, simplest version for a floor heating, if my skyscrapers are too high for you. – For this heating system I buy: – – 2 PV modules / a total of 600Wp / 60VDC 10A / $ 400, – – ~ 3.5m ² material for the absorber of the water cooling / $ 50, – – ~ 2000Wp LED chips / $ 100, – – Aluminum profiles, small parts, hoses, pumps … / $ 100 – 200L water boiler with heat exchangers / $ 250, – – Larger seasonal water storage optional / 1000L = ~ 60KWH / the bigger the better

For $ 1000, – I will harvest in the next 30 years ~: – ~ 60,000KWh heat / hot water – ~ 300kg strawberries … or whatever has relatively low growth. So the investment has paid for itself through the strawberries alone.

Some people in London use former subway tunnels and other square meters underground for vertical growing (but without water-cooled LED light) and deliver salads and vegetables within the city – so you don’t necessarily have to build new, expensive high-rise buildings – you do can also rent suitable sqm.

MS. The costs of component parts of a water cooled LED system do not constitute an economic analysis. You have to analyse the costs of this system per quantity of climate mitigation you achieve , measured appropriately, and compare that against other uses of the money to mitigate climate change.

N. – ” You have to analyse the costs of this system…”

— I have just explained to you how I can make a profit with my heating system, which other types of CO² recovery cannot achieve without government subsidies and CO² certificate trading. So if, with an investment of $ 1000, I harvest 60000KWh of heat in 30 years, I have paid 1.6 cents for one KWh. At the moment I am paying ~ 10 cents / KWh – what I will have to pay for fossil heating over the coming years – is written in the stars, but can multiply in 30 years.

Strawberries currently cost $ 7 and contain ~ 47g carbon / 172.5g CO² per kilo. After 30 years I have saved at least $ 7000-14000, – avoided about 18t CO² and absorbed about 50kg CO² in strawberries. I could increase the admittedly ridiculous 50Kg CO² up to ~ 400Kg CO² if I had grown cauliflower instead of strawberries in my 1m² mini greenhouse on 6 floors (6m² in total). Every cultivated plant has its specific C content in dry matter per m² and year.

http://www.lessco2.es/pdfs/noticias/ponencia_cisc_ingles.pdf

For the industrial scale of vertical growing on 100 x 100 x 80m described above, completely different dimensions naturally apply. As a vertical grower, food producer and farmer, you do not invest in leases, tractors, harvesting machines, fertilizers, plant protection and the whole rat tail that goes with a classic agricultural operation of 20km², but primarily in renewable energies. Wind, water, solar energy, biogas and efficient lighting technology & hydroponic systems. The entrepreneur not only sells food products, but also heat, cold, electricity, biogas, fertilizer, CO² absorption and buffer storage capacity. There, CO² becomes a profit-increasing growth accelerator !!! Over the years, a renatured average forest stock can store ~ ​​400,000 t CO² (200 t / hectare) on the 20 km² of agricultural area that has become free. If you compare this relatively natural system of photosynthesis for CO² retrieval with other techniques (CCS, DAC …) you will notice that you cannot eat CO² – pressed into the ground …

There is no such thing as “net zero” or “zero carbon” or “carbon free” or any similar term. Dishonest and dubious accounting tricks, like using the phony 1850 “pre-industrial” found in this article and countless other sources, is the only way such dishonest math adds up to give false meaning and counter-productive “hope” for a lowered carbon future.

All energy systems produce carbon during their course of their lifecycle. All attempts to build energy source produce carbon. “Off-setting” all sources of carbon created or simply ignoring it will never be “net zero”. Non-inclusion of carbon inputs (and outputs) is disingenuous at best, criminal at worst. Future-posting and predictions is simply useless conjecture.

These terms being used are politically expedient but generally dishonest and misleading and will in effect, have virtually no impact upon carbon emissions or a lower-carbon present (or future), but they will garner support and funding while distracting from the real problem which is energy consumption and overshoot.

None of these claims will solve our carbon production and waste streams, but they will waste enormous amounts of time while permitting carbon pollution to remain firmly entrenched for as long as resource possible.

Large scale CO2 reclamation is expensive at the current moment, so I think it is reasonable for people to consider Net Zero a diversion from actually reducing GHG as soon as possible to mitigate climate effects.

This highlights the ‘Honest Government Ad” Nigel linked.

lets say you can capture a mole of CO2 per liter of water (you probably can’t) then we need 1000 million olympic pools to capture a years worth of CO2 emisions. (Wiki says informal metric is 1Ml https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic-size_swimming_pool)

“Earth scientists find a way to drain the ocean using technology”

No they don’t. Likewise large scale reclamation is not going to happen (SF laws to the contary “When an elderly and distinguished scientist says something is impossible he is nearly always wrong)

The other misconception often touted is that “If we stop emitting then warming stops or even if we reach 1C5 or 2c7 whatever warming is over

No it’s not! https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/losing-time-not-buying-time/

I live in Western Australia and cringe mightily at the huge LNG plant we just approved. Honest Government Ad says it succienctly. James

Would the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere been of any concern when these recorded historical occurrence were taking place?

Subsequently, the Glasgow text clarified this for the COP process as well: “[The Conference of the Parties] also recognizes that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net zero around mid-century, as well as deep reductions in other greenhouse gases; Glasgow Pact final text, section 17”

History: Extreme Weather during the Maunder Minimum source: [1] Many of these correspond directly with the Grand Solar Minimum Symptoms, and we should not be surprised to be seeing these sorts of things happening again now. Extreme Weather during the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 A.D.)

The region around the eastern Mediterranean (the Ottoman Empire) was severely affected by adverse climate during the Maunder Minimum. Most areas suffered drought and plague in the 1640’s, the 1650’s and again in the 1670’s, while the winter of 1684 was the wettest recorded in the eastern Mediterranean during the past five centuries, and the winters of the later 1680’s were at least 3° C cooler than today. In 1687 a chronicler in Istanbul, Turkey reported ‘This winter was severe to a degree that had not been seen in a very long time. For fifty days the roads were closed and people could not go outside. In cities and villages, the snow buried many houses. In the Golden Horn [major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul], the snow ‘came up higher than one’s face.’ The following year, floods destroyed crops around Edirne [close to Turkey’s borders with Greece and Bulgaria], ruining the estates that normally supplied the imperial capital with food. In the 1640’s and 1650’s, a civil war gripped the British Empire. This war combined with the effects of a series of failed harvest that led to famines, and plague epidemics killed approximately a quarter of a million people in England, Scotland and Wales or 7% of the population. The population in Ireland alone fell by 20%. In 1655, it was recorded that ‘a man might travel twenty or thirty miles [in Ireland] and not see a living creature’ except for ‘very aged men with women and children’ whose skin was ‘black like an oven because of the terrible famine.’ It produced in Scotland a famine of which ‘the lyke had never beine seine in this kingdome heretofor, since it was a natione.’ From Newfoundland [Canada] to Patagonia [the southern end of South America], the Americas experienced notably colder winter and cooler summers in the 1640s and 1660s. In 1675 a ‘year without summer’, remains the second coldest recorded in North America during the last six centuries. All surviving harvest records show dearth in the 1640s and 1650s. The Canadian Rockies experienced a severe and prolonged drought from 1641 to 1653. Between 1643 and 1671, Indonesia experienced the longest drought recorded during the past four centuries with intense episodes between 1659 and 1664. In 1645 A.D. in England, the summer was excessively hot and dry. ‘The air very warm and so infectious that dogs, cats, mice, and rats died, and several birds in their flight over the town dropped dead.’ The plague was very violent. In 1645 and 1646 in Russia, there was a drought and plague of locust; and early frosts and poor harvests in the south in 1647 and 1648, creating widespread food shortages. In 1645, a great storm struck Shanghai, China, which caused the sea to break the dikes, spread saltwater over the land and destroyed the rice crop. In 1645, rains in Crete more intense than anything recorded in the twentieth century destroyed crops and buildings. Starting in September 1645, rain fell almost continuously on Sicily for a year, destroying first the winter crops and then drastically reducing the yield of the summer harvest. http://wiki.iceagefarmer.com/wiki/History:_Extreme_Weather_during_the_Maunder_Minimum?fbclid=IwAR2NnmTRMdFZgDipLKJeXHwY0f97MsT5db1Euc0stvV7OO47Qx3J9yr5maE

You, like KIA and Victor, have no clue about the fundamental difference between weather and climate. Yet you flaunt that on a climate science site. Busted!

Dan says; “You, like KIA and Victor, have no clue about the fundamental difference between weather and climate”. I am left to wonder if Dan knows that the extreme weather during the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 A.D.) lasted for 70 years.

JDS: Dan says; “You, like KIA and Victor, have no clue about the fundamental difference between weather and climate”. I am left to wonder if Dan knows that the extreme weather during the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 A.D.) lasted for 70 years.

BPL: Who wants to bet he doesn’t see it?

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

Tell you what, JDS, why don’t you personally contact each and every person in British Columbia who just lost loved ones and/or property to the atmospheric river floods and landslides and try to convince them that they are not personally experiencing Anthropogenic Climate Change first hand.

You are less than irrelevant.

Jim Eager says; “Tell you what, JDS, why don’t you personally contact each and every person in British Columbia who just lost loved ones and/or property to the atmospheric river floods and landslides and try to convince them that they are not personally experiencing Anthropogenic Climate Change first hand. You are less than irrelevant.” Jim Eager needs to tell me which of the two, the drought that preceded the floods, that he is most likely to attribute to his Anthropogenic Climate Change. It appears to be almost impossible in the real world to have the ‘Just Right Climate and Weather’ that folks such as Jim Eager crave.

A geographic drought level information system for the Province of British Columbia

Drought is a recurrent feature of climate involving a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time, resulting in a water shortage. The British Columbia Drought Information Portal (DIP) was created as a single source geographic drought level information system for British Columbians. The application uses multiple embedded maps to provide information on provincial drought levels, historical drought time-lapse information and other drought information. Drought levels and other data are updated regularly as it becomes available.

Seasonal BC Drought Information Portal updates are complete as of November 1, 2021. Regular updates will resume May 2022. https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=838d533d8062411c820eef50b08f7ebc

Both drought and flooding can be exacerbated by warming, because both enhance evaporation. In low moisture situations, the former means drier soils; in high moisture situations, more water vapor in the atmosphere to precipitate.

Kevin McKinney says; “Both drought and flooding can be exacerbated by warming, because both enhance evaporation. In low moisture situations, the former means drier soils; in high moisture situations, more water vapor in the atmosphere to precipitate”. Kevin McKinney needs to know that droughts are not a new phenomenon. He needs to explain in understandable terms what CO₂ had to do with these ancient severe droughts in California. “Severe Ancient Droughts: A Warning to California BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur. The evidence for the big droughts comes from an analysis of the trunks of trees that grew in the dry beds of lakes, swamps and rivers in and adjacent to the Sierra Nevada, but died when the droughts ended and the water levels rose. Immersion in water has preserved the trunks over the centuries.” https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1994/07/19/704261.html?pageNumber=39

They can be exasperated if warming is leading to more frequent blocked weather patterns resulting in places experiencing weeks of soaking rains or scorching heat. I am convinced locked in weather patterns are becoming more common in the UK at least.

No one needs to explain anything to the less than irrelevant habitual troll JWS. No one owes him a single thing.

Fact: AGW induced Climate Change is real. Fact: Climate change is killing people. Here. Now. Fact: Trolls like JWS have sought to deny, delay and deliberately spread FUD about Climate Change for decades now.

Make no mistake, trolls like JWS have blood on their hands.

Jim Eager says; “Fact: Climate change is killing people. Here. Now.” I will take the liberty to try to draw Jim Eager’s attention away from unsubstantiated conjecture with a look at what researched facts show; “What we see is that in the early-to-mid 20th century, the annual death toll from disasters was high, often reaching over one million per year. In recent decades we have seen a substantial decline in deaths”. Annual deaths from natural disasters In the visualization shown here we see the long-term global trend in natural disaster deaths. This shows the estimated annual number of deaths from disasters from 1900 onwards from the EMDAT International Disaster Database.1 What we see is that in the early-to-mid 20th century, the annual death toll from disasters was high, often reaching over one million per year. In recent decades we have seen a substantial decline in deaths. In most years fewer than 20,000 die (and in the most recent decade, this has often been less than 10,000). Even in peak years with high-impact events, the death toll has not exceeded 500,000 since the mid-1960s. This decline is even more impressive when we consider the rate of population growth over this period. When we correct for population – showing this data in terms of death rates (measured per 100,000 people) – we see an even greater decline over the past century. This chart can be viewed here. The annual number of deaths from natural disasters is also available by country since 1990. This can be explored in the interactive map. https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters#number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters

JDS, I’ll try to explain something to you. You won’t listen, but maybe some lurker reading this will get the point.

More than one thing can affect an outcome.

For instance, take a car crash. If the cars’ paths don’t intersect, there won’t be a crash at all. If it’s in a parking lot and both cars are traveling 5 miles per hour, no one will be hurt. If it’s on a highway and they meet head-on at 80 mph, both drivers might be killed. And if both cars are automated, no one might be killed even at that speed.

Now, you contend that since deaths from weather disasters have been dropping, weather disasters can’t be getting worse. But let’s think about what goes into the casualty list for a weather disaster.

* How severe the disaster is * What path it takes * Whether the people have adequate warning * Whether they pay attention to the warning * How well the infrastructure is built

So, for example, even if earthquakes have been getting worse in Japan, fewer people might be killed by them, because Japanese buildings these days are built of steel and concrete rather than wood frame and bamboo.

Even if floods are worse in Florida, fewer people might be killed these days because we have weather satellites now and we didn’t have them in 1950.

But there will come a time when the weather disasters are so frequent and so intense that that factor will overcome the other factors. That will be bad. That’s what we want to prevent if possible.

New assignment for JDS: Stop tapping away on your blood-stained keyboard and personally contact each and every person in Westphalia who lost loved ones and/or property to the floods and landslides earlier this year and try to convince them that they are not personally experiencing Anthropogenic Climate Change first hand.

It’s called sealioning; a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity.

see https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsCVfMtW8AI0KiV?format=png&name=900×900

Nope, the less than irrelevant fool doesn’t get to steer the conversation.

Thanks, Jim. I must say, I don’t feel particularly obliged to dance to JDS’s tune whenever he plays the Strawman Polka.

@nigelj a post script re outside possibility of CCS getting to scale by 2050 with temps still below 2C.

Dessler with the most flippant retort of the century … 35:56 staying below the paris targets therefore may require uh solar radiation management geoengineering, at least until at least unless we can figure out some way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere at a really economic cost — on the other hand if we have as many fires as we’re having now maybe that will reflect enough sunlight to offset the co2 at least until all the vegetation burns ….

maybe pickup his late 2020 lecture Pattern effect & committed warming seminar here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlolDdnSHCE&t=1340s

a commenter said — This work has been independently confirmed by NOAA and NASA. Our committed warming is 3C at today’s GHG levels. At this point, only the full-scale nationalization of the energy sector and the rapid dismantling of all fossil fuel systems will prevent 4C. and NASA/NOAA work found here: https://nasa.gov/feature/langley/joint-nasa-noaa-study-finds-earths-energy-imbalance-has-doubled – They used the same satellite data as above but also confirmed it with the ARGO buoy network. Surprisingly, the cloud effects only really kick-in since the 2014 shift to +PDO https://twitter.com/RisetoClimate/status/1411033161723641857

My observation is that Dessler was far more excited and enthusiastic about the Models being shown to be really good – matching real world dynamics / temps energy balance etc – than anything about the reality of ongoing warming and it’s effects which “seemed” of no interest to him whatsoever. This also shows up in his general twitter commentary/demeanor too. The credibility of the “science and math” is really more important to him, and to many others than anything else is.

Similarly, here we are on a thread discussing the technical differences between net zero/not zero. Good to have these matters clarified … but considering everything that went down at COP26 is this really the most important/interesting “thing” to be discussed on RC about the COP and what it means …. seriously?

There are imho disconnects like this arising all over the place. The talking points are weird. I am not all but convinced we are not be told the truth the whole truth. It might be there in the papers and reports but it is being hidden or glossed over, overlooked side stepped …. kind of like we cannot see the forest for the trees.

Talking about the trees (the odd details) keeps one’s eyes off the ball, the forest. 1.5C is blown circa 2027 or soon after…. it’s only a matter of time. It’s basically totally locked in already. COP26 made no difference to this scientific fact of Physics. Fossil fuel use and GHG emissions are increasing from here not decreasing. AS warming increases so does GHG feedbacks from everywhere rise ever faster.

No one is talking about the urgent emergency need to rapidly cut CO2 emissions by 45% of 2010 levels in 2030 …. instead they will be 15-16% higher than in 2010 and higher than they are now today in 2021.

Gavin says, correctly, that: “… it is the timetable and cumulative emissions up until ‘net zero’ that will determine the eventual temperatures (with some additional influence from cuts to other GHGs and short-lived forcings).”

And it is the temperature that drives climate impacts and destabilization and future increasing dangers to humanity, right?

Before that Gavin was quoting the COP26 pact text which said: “… limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level “

IN the lead up to COP26 Michael Mann was on every outlet who let him calling for the urgent need to cut CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 …. Mann and others were calling for annual CO2 emissions need to be cut by ~7% per year every year this decade to have a long shot chance at meeting Net-Zero GHG emissions by 2050 and therefore remain below +1.5C.

During COP26 Mann never mentioned it, and since the end of COP26 he has not mentioned this critical urgent issue once! On the last page of The New Climate War, Mann speculates that in a decade or so we may look back on 2019, or thereabouts, as ‘the turning point on the climate crisis’.

Pollyanna syndrome means “an excessively or blindly optimistic person.”

the final text states: “Also recognises that limiting global warming to 1.5C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net-zero around mid-century, as well as deep reductions in other greenhouse gases.” see https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/11/unforced-variations-nov-2021/#comment-798195

Note that bold and above, and what that means. It means both parts of that sentence are required, yes? Not only one. If the 45% does not happen then by default the Net Zero in 2050 will not happen either. It’s Math. It’s basic Physics.

That part of the sentence is totally moot now, utterly irrelevant because the “… rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 relative to the 2010 level part is not happening now and is not going to happen!!!

So how is it that politicians, the journalists, and academic experts alike are only talking about that Net Zero part of the sentence??? Has everyone suddenly gone stupid or something?

There is something rotten in Denmark imho. Nothing about this and COP26 overall adds up.

RC. Fair comment. Is there something rotten, nefarious or conspiratorial going on? It does make you wonder. However the simpler explanation (Occams Razor principle) is probably just that the politicians and other main players don’t see the urgency of the climate problem. Its all about the psychology of how our brains respond best to immediate threats like covid, and are poor at processing high risk longer term threats.

And they are probably scared of making massive and rapid cuts to emissions because of potential public backlash, and so studiously avoid discussing making 45% emissions cuts. And things like geoengineering and CCS give them another excuse to kick the can down the road. Its like a frustrating combination of things slowing down progress and I don’t see a solution to this.

Makes sense what you say there. I didn’t mean to be sound conspiratorial either, only that too many things are not adding up or self-explanatory. I don’t see a solution either. So I am dropping it. Thx

Our collective failure to deal with climate change is really quite easy to understand. It is precisely the sort of problem humans absolutely suck at solving.

The risk calculus is complex and it is difficult t express it in the sort of anecdotal, emotional terms to which humans typically respond. The immediate impacts either affect those far from us–e.g. KIiribati–or we can come up with ways of blaming the victims and thereby suppressing our empathy–e.g. “well why are they living out in the woods anyway?”….

The responsibility is shared, and the cost would have to be borne by each and every one of us. This makes if easy to postpone our own action, so that we benefit just a little more, while expecting others to incur the cost in the name of the common good.

And the solutions are difficult–indeed, the full path to solving the problem requires innovations in every aspect of our civilization–technical, quotidian, economic, political… So much so, that it is unclear what society will look like on the other side–and who may benefit.

Solving the problem requires a commitment with no certain path or duration and no promise of future personal benefit. The closest analogues we have to this situation were probably the two world wars of the past century, but these were short term affairs in comparison. Securing public commitment to these efforts required a promise that the society that would emerge from the conflagration would be better–a war to end war, or a war to make the world safe for democracy. What can we promise the average global citizen when we know that he/she will have to consume much less and act with greater circumspection? And moreover, when we cannot even be assured of success?

RL. Good points. I can think of a dozen more including the fact carbon is in so many things. This is orders of magnitude harder to fix than the ozone problem. I’m not a huge fan of capitalism, but about the only progress we have made is solar and wind power driven by government subsidies, good economics and the profit motive.

Yes, thx, and well put @Ray.

Nigels prior noting of human short termism bias equally a barrier. And maybe also consider unknown knowns – what we don’t know we know?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E8NOJTrWYAEr8v4?format=png&name=large

I’m content to accept it is all beyond my wheel house and way above above my pay grade.

Ray Ladbury says; “Our collective failure to deal with climate change is really quite easy to understand. It is precisely the sort of problem humans absolutely suck at solving”. I would hope that Ray Ladbury could, or would, take the time to elucidate on what he sees as being, “Our collective failure to deal with climate change”. Does he think that humanities ability to feed more people than what have ever existed on the Earth before, to be a failure?

Grain market review: Wheat 07.14.2021 The USDA issued an updated WASDE report on June 11 that put the US 2021-22 wheat crop at 51.66 million tonnes, up from its May forecast of 50.95 million, with “increased hard red winter and soft red winter production more than offsetting lower white winter production.” “The global wheat outlook for 2021-22 is for larger supplies, higher consumption, increased trade, and higher stocks,” the USDA said. “Supplies are projected to increase 4.3 million tonnes to 1.087.9 billion, mainly on higher production for the EU, Russia, and Ukraine as world production is projected at a record 794.4 million.” https://www.world-grain.com/articles/15548-grain-market-review-wheat

nigelj says; “However the simpler explanation (Occams Razor principle) is probably just that the politicians and other main players don’t see the urgency of the climate problem. Its all about the psychology of how our brains respond best to immediate threats like covid, and are poor at processing high risk longer term threats”.

Nigel’s remarks above means that he could well be onto something of importance when we consider recent occurrence that have taken place regarding the Earth’s climate. Major weather stations’ new all-time heat or cold records in January 2021 Among global stations with a record of at least 40 years, 34 set, not just tied, a new all-time cold record in January, and two stations set all-time heat records: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/02/noaa-january-2021-was-ninth-warmest-on-record-in-the-u-s-seventh-warmest-globally/

Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin are the 26 states that set the record temperature for cold after the record for high temperature was set. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records

South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, a surprise in a warming world October 2, 2021 at 8:45 a.m. EDT https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/10/01/south-pole-coldest-winter-record/

More than 1.4 million homes without power as unprecedented winter storm hits Texas February 15, 2021 https://watchers.news/2021/02/15/massive-power-outages-winter-storm-texas-february-2021/

RECORD-SMASHING SNOW AND ICE STORMS LEAVE 5 MILLION AMERICANS WITHOUT POWER (AND COUNTING): “THE SITUATION IS CRITICAL” FEBRUARY 16, 2021 https://electroverse.net/record-smashing-snow-and-ice-storms-leave-5-million-americans-without-power-and-counting/

Severe snowstorm hits northern Japan, JMA warns it could become the strongest in years February 16, 2021 https://watchers.news/2021/02/16/northern-japan-snowstorm-february-2021/

Widespread disruption after heaviest snowfall in 12 years hits Greece February 16, 2021 https://watchers.news/2021/02/16/widespread-disruption-after-heaviest-snowfall-in-12-years-hits-greece/

Extreme cold kills 16 during mountain marathon in China May 23, 2021 https://nation.com.pk/23-May-2021/extreme-cold-kills-16-during-mountain-marathon-in-china

RECORD COLD AND LATE-MAY SNOW SWEEPS THE WESTERN U.S. MAY 21, 2021 https://electroverse.net/record-cold-and-late-may-snow-sweeps-western-us/

Spain records coldest ever temperature at -35.8°C 08/01/2021 https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/07/spain-records-coldest-ever-temperature-at-35-8-c

Europe shivered through coldest April in decades, and it’s not relenting May 6, 2021 The United Kingdom saw its coldest average low temperature in April since 1922. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/05/europe-cold-april-2021/ Europe’s winter temperatures have been extreme this year. Here’s why. 23/02/2021 https://www.euronews.com/2021/02/23/climate-change-are-europe-s-winter-weather-extremes-linked-to-global-warming

RECORD BREAKING COLD BLASTS AUSTRALIA AND CANADA: “GLOBAL” COOLING MAY 20, 2021 https://electroverse.net/record-breaking-cold-blasts-australia-and-canada-global-cooling/ It is proving to be a real problem to get people to worry about global warming when they are trying to put their heavy coats on because it is too cold outside.

Nigel forgot to add that some people are just morons. Thanks for reminding us.

TheWarOnEntropy says; “Nigel forgot to add that some people are just morons. Thanks for reminding us.” Do the morons among us know about this happening and can they explain why or how the extreme high temperature records still stand for 108 years and for 98 years in a world where carbon dioxide is supposed to be causing for it to be incinerated? A Real Heat Wave (Image credit: Dreamstime.) The town of Marble Bar in Western Australia is legendary for its hot weather. From Oct. 31, 1923, to April 7, 1924, the tiny town scorched with 160 consecutive days over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius). That’s a world record. Think of the 194 people in Marble Bar next time it gets hot in your hometown. Their average high temperature is over 100 F for January, February, March, November and December (the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere). https://www.livescience.com/30198-weird-weather-anomalies-110302.html

World Meteorological Organization Assessment of the Purported World Record 58°C Temperature Extreme at El Azizia, Libya (13 September 1922) “On 13 September 1922, a temperature of 58°C (136.4°F) was purportedly recorded at El Azizia (approximately 40 kilometers south-southwest of Tripoli) in what is now modern-day Libya…………. The WMO assessment is that the highest recorded surface temperature of 56.7°C (134°F) was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley) CA USA.” http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00093.1?af=R&amp;

JDS still cant understand what BPL said above:: “Global warming refers to the global average. You will still get occasional cold records. However, worldwide, hot records are outnumbering cold records two to one. This is why statisticians warn against “cherry picking,” a short term for “the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances.” You have to use all the data, not just the part that supports your views.” No matter how many times you explain this to JDS and KIA it goes in one ear and out the other. Maybe its deliberate or learned stupidity, but stupidity is still stupidity.

To solve the climate change problem, we only need to reduce solar radiation by about 1%. The simplest way to do that is just move the Earth 50,000 miles farther from the sun. A simple engineering problem, like Exxon said! That is not even quarter the way to the moon!

You’re off by a factor of 10. It would take closer to 500,000 miles (not that we could actually move it by 1 cm).

John Pollack, Just one centimetre? Come on!! If we could sort a method that wasn’t too inefficient, surely we could manage one centimetre. After all it would only take five-&-a-half centuries of today’s global primary energy if the process was 100% efficient. Child’s play!!!

Child’s play, indeed! I suggest using a directed beam of unicorns composed of invisible dark matter. I’ll even develop an invisible prototype unicorn accelerator, if OW will provide the financing. However, in order for it to work properly, the money must be real, no crypto.

We could move the Earth’s orbit by directing a comet past it at the right distance and angle, something within our present technological capabilities. We would have to do it a large number of times, however, to get any significant effect.

So the claim is that our (the USA I assume) present technological capabilities enable us to intentionally direct (ie redirect) a moving comet past the Earth at just the right distance and angle enough to move the Earth’s orbit.

I had no idea. Amazing.

Is that a particular Comet or any one of them out there passing through this solar system?

We would have to direct one that was moving in approximately the right orbit already. The more it deviated from the orbit we wanted, the more energy we would have to spend in redirecting it. But this method has already been proposed in the professional literature for eventually moving the Earth away from the sun to avoid the sun’s gradual brightening along the main sequence. One comet pass-by every 13,000 years could extend the Earth’s habitable lifetime by a billion years or more.

For the mathematical details, consult the book “Fundamentals of Astrodynamics” (Mueller et al. 1971). It’s a simple orbital energy transfer, although the vector details can be complex.

that something may have been “proposed in the professional literature” is no reason to read it or believe it. or waste a moment thinking about it.

But feel free to make your own choices.

I wasn’t proposing that we move Earth away from the sun to combat global warming, RC. I was merely pointing out that it was theoretically possible.

– Too stupid to go to the river in autumn with 2 buckets in order to have enough water available next summer – but move planets? – no problem for our moon dancer. People like you give me the assurance that the main cause of the climate catastrophe is stupidity and arrogance.

ms: Too stupid to go to the river in autumn with 2 buckets in order to have enough water available next summer – but move planets? – no problem for our moon dancer. People like you give me the assurance that the main cause of the climate catastrophe is stupidity and arrogance.

BPL: If you don’t like science, what are you doing in a science forum?

Try this to see how carbon reduction sells: Starting Jan. 1 raise the price of motor fuel by $2.00 / gallon over the price on Dec. 31. How many politicians who advocated that would be reelected! The political solution is to kick the can down the road and wait for Gaia’s solution!

You are correct. I lost a zero. Sorry!!

Oscar Wehmanen seems to know what drives the Earth’s climate, the SUN, as through that fact could have possibly escaped any thinking and educated person. How large is the Sun compared to Earth? Compared to Earth, the Sun is enormous! It contains 99.86% of all of the mass of the entire Solar System. The Sun is 864,400 miles (1,391,000 kilometers) across. This is about 109 times the diameter of Earth. The Sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth. It is so large that about 1,300,000 planet Earths can fit inside of it. Earth is about the size of an average sunspot! http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/5-How-large-is-the-Sun-compared-to-Earth- What is the atmosphere of Earth made of? Earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, and 0.03% carbon dioxide with very small percentages of other elements. Our atmosphere also contains water vapor. In addition, Earth’s atmosphere contains traces of dust particles, pollen, plant grains and other solid particles. http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/64-What-is-the-atmosphere-of-Earth-made-of-

Incredible. Obviously this profound life altering information was posted by a very educated and intelligent person. Dare I say ‘brilliant’?

A small correction though … it’s now 0.04% carbon dioxide, or above 400 ppm, about 417 last I checked in with those ‘crazy’ climate scientists who (apparently I am told) do not know anything about such matters. Well not as much as Oscar Wehmanen or Mr Swallow can swallow.

But I am still left with the perplexing question of: Why?

Life is full of mysteries. Far too many mysteries.

Very true. JDS is dumber than a rock. Might come naturally or be learned but the end result is the same level of dumbness. I don’t usually get blunt like that, but I think he deserves all he gets, because he refuses to learn even the simplest of scientific things, and he floods this website with repetition about weather records. Changes of solar output also don’t correlate with the recent warming, which should tell him something.

Shit, the sun’s huge! I never knew.

I wouldn’t want to park a planet near that big boy unless I had confidence that the atmosphere was stable for all relevant heat-trapping gasses.

Now I’m even more worried than I was before.

BTW, I must say, your cut-and-paste form is top notch.

Yes, JDS is confident that if he posts information enough times about how the sun is really, really big and carbon dioxide is really, really small, that we’ll realize it’s all the sun and carbon dioxide doesn’t matter. Just say it over and over and over and over and over again until it sinks in. Like we keep trying when we correct his obvious mistakes.

Too bad we can’t hitch a generator to JDS’s arms, they’re flapping faster than a windfarm full of windmills.

Don’t you just just love an AGW denier’s ability to tout CO2 as a life-giving gas one moment, and then belittle it as a mere .03% [sic] of the atmosphere the next. But then consistency and logic are not exactly their strong suits. No wonder they just can’t get no r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

Oscar Wehmanen, Presumably your comment “Like Exxon said” refers to the Tillerson comment of 2017 which was suggesting AGW adaptation could be achieved by engineering fixes without the need to stop pouring FF CO2 into the atmosphere. It;s not quite the same as solving AGW so that AGW doesn’t happen, which is what a shift in orbit would achieve. And, stone the crows, the suggestion of shifting orbit was made in a Congressional hearing this summer when for some reason an official at the Bureau of Land Management was asked if such an orbit-shift was possible. While the gallant Congressman Gohmert was fobbed of with an ‘I’ll-have-to-get-back-to-you’ type answer, this Scientific American piece sets out some of the more trivial problems such a fix would face. I see it reckons on a 3 million km change in orbit which is about right for a +8.7Wm^-2 dose of AGW, that being the business-as-usual value when we were allowed to burn good old coal.

As I see it, the real problem with such a fix is the new larger orbit would reduce the number of Xmas & birthdays we get, which is something humanity (and also the world economy) would never be able to cope with.

Wouldn’t it be easier to bomb the moon into orbit at Lagrange point to benefit from a constant solar eclipse at the equator?

The only idea that is even more elegant is my concept of lowering sea level rise & the earth’s temperature …which retains river water from global discharge to the seas and converts it into evaporation and clouds. https://climate-protecion-hardware.webnode.com/english/

It will happen in any case. Higher temperatures will give more H2O in the air and precipitation will increase globally simply because what goes up has to come down again.. But if it causes the Antarctic and Grønland glaciers to melt even faster, then sea level will rise.

Botyh Sahara and central Asia has been more moist and green during Max holocene.

It is hypothesized that humans played a role in altering the vegetation structure of North Africa at some point after 8,000 years ago by introducing domesticated animals, which contributed to the rapid transition to the arid conditions that are now found in many locations in the Sahara.

Also over 8000 years ago, the first settled people built wells and thus intervened on a large scale for the first time in the water balance.

YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETECT AN INCREASING EVAPORATION ABOVE SPREADING DESERT AREAS (~50MIO. KM²) BECAUSE THE GROUNDWATER LEVELS ARE OFTEN PUMPED OUT SEVERAL HUNDRED METERS BELOW THESE AREAS. ! So It will NOT happen in any case and NOT in those regions, that will get drier with AGW.

The slower warming of the oceans means that there has not been enough moisture evaporated into – and then held in – the air above the oceans to keep pace with the rising temperatures over land. This means that the air is not as saturated as it was and – as the chart below shows – relative humidity has decreased, desertification is spreading rapidly mainly caused by human activities. Dryness is a temperature driver and cloud killer.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Global-time-series-of-annual-average-relative-humidity-for-the-land-ocean-and-global-average-relative-to-1981-2010.jpg

Jim Eager must ‘think’ that the recent rains in BC have been the only time it has rained in Canada. I should be in awe that this true believer in Anthropogenic Climate Change believes that I, in some way, can influence what the weather is in western Canada.

The Highest Canadian Precipitation Amounts measured for periods from hours to years have been recorded at Environment Canada weather reporting stations in BC. Measurements are currently taken at nearly 2500 locations across the country. Over the years more than 8000 sites have been sampled for varying periods. The dubious distinction of the wettest day belongs to Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island. On 6 October 1967, 489 mm of rain fell, a Canadian record, but only one-quarter the amount that fell at the world’s wettest place, Cilaos, on La Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, which recorded 1870 mm on 15-16 March 1952. Canada’s wettest hour, 250 mm between 4:30 and 5:30 pm during that 1961 storm at Buffalo Gap, compares well with the world’s wettest hour of 305 mm at the Kilauea Sugar Plantation, Kauai, Hawaii. The accompanying table compares the wettest days on record in Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/rainfall-extremes

Barton Paul Levenson says; “Now, you contend that since deaths from weather disasters have been dropping, weather disasters can’t be getting worse. But let’s think about what goes into the casualty list for a weather disaster”. Why isn’t Barton Paul Levenson intelligent enough to understand that it is not MY contention but it is what EMDAT International Disaster Database.1 has supplied for Our World in Data to access and report on. https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters#number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters

Then Barton Paul Levenson issues this observation; “But there will come a time when the weather disasters are so frequent and so intense that that factor will overcome the other factors. That will be bad. That’s what we want to prevent if possible.” How is Barton Paul Levenson or Jim Eager going to prevent any weather event from happening by writing conjectures on this site, is the question? It is extremely doubtful if Gavin Schmidt will allow any of his loyal followers to be able to read the truth that I now present that seems to evade Barton Paul Levenson & Jim Eager. Top 10 Deadliest Weather Disasters 10. The 1935 Yangtze River Flood – China Estimated fatalities: 145,000 9. The 1881 Haiphong Typhoon – Vietnam Estimated fatalities: 150,000 8. The 1876 Great Backerganj Cyclone – Bangladesh Estimated fatalities: 200,000 7. The 1975 Super Typhoon Nina – China Estimated fatalities: 229,000 6. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Estimated fatalities: 280,000 5. The 1737 Calcutta Cyclone – India Estimated fatalities: 300,000 4. The 1839 Coringa Cyclone – India Estimated fatalities: 300,000 3. The 1970 Bhola Cyclone – Bangladesh Estimated fatalities: 375,000 2. The 1887 Yellow River (Huang He) Flood – China Estimated fatalities: 900,000 1. The 1931 China Floods Estimated fatalities: 1,000,000 https://www.elist10.com/top-10-deadliest-weather-disasters/

Here are five of the deadliest hurricanes in American History: 1. With wind gusts of more than 120 miles an hour, a Category 4 hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900 is considered the deadliest hurricane in American history. Between 8,000 and 12,000 people lost their lives, with more than 3,000 homes destroyed and more than $30 million in damage. https://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/most-deadly-hurricanes-american/2016/07/20/id/739714/

The Deadliest Tornado in U.S. History Blindsided the Midwest in 1925 The Tri-State Tornado claimed nearly 700 lives. Overturned trains. Timber found miles away from where it had been stored. Trees felled. Fires and close calls. A letter that flew almost 100 miles. On a normal day in the Midwest in 1925, any one of these stories would have been worthy of front-page coverage. But March 18, 1925 was a day like no other the region had ever seen.

That day, a huge outbreak of tornadoes marched across a swath of the Midwest and Southeast. The largest of them all—the deadliest tornado in United States history—laid waste to parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Now known as the Tri-State Tornado, it turned March 18 into a day of gruesome destruction and bizarre survival stories. https://www.history.com/news/deadliest-tornado-tri-state-1925-united-states

And JDS still doesn’t get it. What a SURPRISE!

Agreed, JDS generally lowers the quality of the Borehole–and I suppose that is some sort of accomplishment.

Shorter: J. Doug Swallow: still too dumb to understand the difference between climate and weather.

JDS must ‘think’ he thinks. He is mistaken.

JDS: “Please note that the temperature deviation is -0.24°F/-0.13°C”

In future, please express all temperatures relative to the expected temperature in 2100. Then the deviations can be negative for most of the century, and we can all relax.

“… requirements which uses GWP-100 to convert different gases to a CO2-equivalent to suggest that we should be aiming for net-zero emissions of CO2-e. However this does not have any particular geophysical significance since it could be associated with an increasing, decreasing or stable temperature depending entirely on what is happening to CH4, N2O and CFCs.”

I would argue that using GWP-100 is a category error which leads to wildly inaccurate assessments of the contributions of methane. A pulse of CH4 is gone from the atmosphere if I have it correctly (It is really hard to find a definitive figure for this on-line) in ten years, being converted to CO2 and water. But that CO2 is going to take more than 200,000 years to fully disappear. Using a 100-year window to measure the relative contributions of CH4 and CO2 seems to me very much suboptimal – 99.9% of the effect of CH4 is from its CO2 breakdown product, surely?

In The Definitive CH4 – CO2 thread, Gavin said the effect of the CO2 breakdown product is “small”. This, it seems to me, is in error. The GWP-100 it would appear to me, is a useful shorthand for comparing short term effects of various GHGs, but its ubiquitous (mis)use for analyses involving the longer-lived CO2 has lead us all to a very distorted idea about the Greenhouse contribution of biogenic methane.

But I am no expert and could well be wrong.

Rushing in where perhaps angels fear to tread, I’ll opine that the probable reason for the CO2 breakdown product being small is the relative concentrations: we’re at ~420 ppm CO2, whereas CH4 is currently ~1.9 ppm. (Usually, of course, it’s expressed not in ppm, but parts per *billion*.)

So the CO2 breakdown of the total atmospheric CH4 would be just a fraction of annual variation, or the current annual CO2 growth rate.

Major net zero loophole lies in temperature overshooting concept, which at later half of 21th century our children can overachieve CCS projects then they can go backward return to 1.5C. IPCC1.5cSR clearly said that is not the choice, but not one policymaker responded yet, isn’t it?

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