Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

We as (I have told you you numerous times) are talking about the Mauna Loa CO2 data. What don't you understand about this that I may be able to clarify for you?
Thanks for admitting (or seeming to admit) that it is is only your opinion that the Mauna Loa data has a linear % increase per year (for any %).

Then you're just plain wrong. I said (it) was increasing at a (constant) linear rate of approximately 1% per year...
If that's the rate and not the Mauna Loa data then we're not talking about the Mauna Loa data.

I NEVER MENTIONED THE MAUNA LOA DATA. So stop saying I did. This was just an attempt to derail the discussion about what's being done to curb emissions and what effect it's having.

If you want to platform and fear monger about the "super exponential increase" in CO2 then feel free, this is the place for it.

 

[Furcifer]

As discussed when I first presented the analysis I demonstrated, the period you were using which was primarily limited to the last 10 years (even though you talked about 30) was too short to make visibly apparent the actual curve of the data points. In the thirty year span the curve is more apparent but over the larger 50 year span of the data collection the curve of the data is blatantly obvious and by calculating the early average slope and the ending average slope we can very clearly see the nature of the accelerating increase of the rate of increase. Which at the time you were denying, asserting instead that there was a steady rate of increase. This steady increase assumption was due to you forcing a linearization upon the entire set of CO2 data (a short cut averaging method used by some researchers for dealing with historic data to give themselves a rough guide for simplified projections/senarios), but this is not accurate nor appropriate for any of the more likely detailed predictions and forecasts based upon past and current rates and trends.

Depending upon what the best fit equation for this curve is. If it is a geometric best fit, we'd be looking at a doubling of the rate of increase about every 50 years. If the best fit is more exponential, we may see doubling of rate at ever decreasing intervals, 25, 12.5, 6.25,...etc. (note - these are examples using approximations, not intended to be mistaken for calculated or determined results).

If you actually had the last 30 years of data I would be happy to explain why the scientists use a "typical" increase of 1% per year.

I'd also be happy to show you how this constant 1% increase results in an exponential growth in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

If you want to know why a 30 year period is also "typical" in discussions on climate change I can explain that as well.

I believe if I explain these things to you you will be able to see why it is both accurate and appropriate, and hence "typical".

 

[Halsu]

...it's not "accelerating"

Yes it is. See this graph:

The red curve is the measured increase in CO2 concentration from Mauna Loa as yearly averages. The green curve is the linear trend of those measurements (the highschooler's ruler thingy, you know).

As you can very clearly see, in the beginning of the measurements (1958 >), the yearly increase was much slower than the linear trend, and in the end of the measurements (< 2011) it's much faster than the linear trend.

The rate of increase in the concentration grows every year.

 

[CapelDodger]

If you actually had the last 30 years of data I would be happy to explain why the scientists use a "typical" increase of 1% per year.

Explain it anyway.

I'd also be happy to show you how this constant 1% increase results in an exponential growth in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

We're all well aware of the difference between linear and exponential growth.

If you want to know why a 30 year period is also "typical" in discussions on climate change I can explain that as well.

We know that as well, but I'd love to see your explanation.

I believe if I explain these things to you you will be able to see why it is both accurate and appropriate, and hence "typical".

When scientists run predictive global models of what might happen in the real world they use plausible scenarios, not 1% per year CO₂ increase. That doesn't need explaining, obviously.

 

[BenBurch]

Exponential growth in ANY physical system whose constancy we rely upon ought to be a cause for concern.

 

[Furcifer]

Yes it is. See this graph:

[qimg]http://woodfortrees.org/graph/esrl-co2/compress:12/plot/esrl-co2/trend[/qimg]

The red curve is the measured increase in CO2 concentration from Mauna Loa as yearly averages. The green curve is the linear trend of those measurements (the highschooler's ruler thingy, you know).

As you can very clearly see, in the beginning of the measurements (1958 >), the yearly increase was much slower than the linear trend, and in the end of the measurements (< 2011) it's much faster than the linear trend.

The rate of increase in the concentration grows every year.

Wrong graph, try using the correct axes. We're talking about percentage and the last 30 years. Try using 1980-2010 and percentage increase in rate, it's 1%.

 

[CapelDodger]

Exponential growth in ANY physical system whose constancy we rely upon ought to be a cause for concern.

It will always come to a crash. In a finite system it has to, and history is full of examples.

We can continue with exponential energy use for a good while yet, but getting it via the physical system of oxidising carbon has almost run its course. It happened for charcoal, and it's happening for fossil fuels (climate change or no).

There's a desperate effort on to keep it going, but that can only postpone the inevitable. Meanwhile the real challenge is widely ignored. It was ever thus ...

 

[Furcifer]

Explain it anyway.

The increase in GHG's is very well estimated in a 1% increase every year in the rate of emissions.

We're all well aware of the difference between linear and exponential growth.

1%,1%,1%......1%, is a linear increase in percentage. It may result in an exponential growth but that's irrelevant when the discussion is about the rate.

We know that as well, but I'd love to see your explanation.

I'd like to see your explanation of why 1958 is involved in discussion about the last 30 years.

When scientists run predictive global models of what might happen in the real world they use plausible scenarios, not 1% per year CO₂ increase. That doesn't need explaining, obviously.

That's because it accounts for ALL GHG's, not just CO2.

There's more to global warming than just CO2.

 

[Furcifer]

Exponential growth in ANY physical system whose constancy we rely upon ought to be a cause for concern.

What does this even mean?

The exponential growth in food production would be a good thing.
Exponential growth in housing is a good thing. The exponential growth in alternative energy sources would also be a good thing.

These are all "physical systems" whose consistency we rely on. I don't believe your above statement is very well thought out. There seem to be many "physical systems" that grow exponentially, it's a necessity given the world's population grows exponentially.

 

[DC]

The increase in GHG's is very well estimated in a 1% increase every year in the rate of emissions.



1%,1%,1%......1%, is a linear increase in percentage. It may result in an exponential growth but that's irrelevant when the discussion is about the rate.



I'd like to see your explanation of why 1958 is involved in discussion about the last 30 years.



That's because it accounts for ALL GHG's, not just CO2.

There's more to global warming than just CO2.

where are you geting your 1% annual increase from? show some studies pls.

 

[Furcifer]

where are you geting your 1% annual increase from? show some studies pls.

It's based on the parameter used in numerous modeling studies. I've already cited a few, but most notably the study that refers it it as a "typical' value.

It's fairly easy to deduce from the Mauna Loa data and knowing there are other greenhouse gases to see it's around 1%. That's a back of the envelope type estimate.

I don't see what the fixation is on the 1%, it's irrelevant. If it's 1%, 0.1% or 10% the question is is it constant or is it continuing to increase.

It's probably easier and makes more sense to consider it as a percentage increase rather than "how exponential" or it's "exponentiality".

 

[DC]

It's based on the parameter used in numerous modeling studies. I've already cited a few, but most notably the study that refers it it as a "typical' value.

It's fairly easy to deduce from the Mauna Loa data and knowing there are other greenhouse gases to see it's around 1%. That's a back of the envelope type estimate.

I don't see what the fixation is on the 1%, it's irrelevant. If it's 1%, 0.1% or 10% the question is is it constant or is it continuing to increase.

It's probably easier and makes more sense to consider it as a percentage increase rather than "how exponential" or it's "exponentiality".

you are the one making the claim its constant with your linear percentual increase.

thats why i asked for something that would back it up.

 

[BenBurch]

What does this even mean?

The exponential growth in food production would be a good thing.
Exponential growth in housing is a good thing. The exponential growth in alternative energy sources would also be a good thing.

These are all "physical systems" whose consistency we rely on. I don't believe your above statement is very well thought out. There seem to be many "physical systems" that grow exponentially, it's a necessity given the world's population grows exponentially.

No, exponential growth is almost universally bad except in a few systems where we can intentionally either check the growth or where the crash caused by the growth is the desired result.

An example of the former is a loaf of bread. Yeast grow exponentially. But if you leave a loaf too long, the yeast eats all the sugars, creates enough alcohol to kill the colony off, and you have a stinking slimy mess. But we know this, and at a certain point, before the Malthusian crash, we pop the loaf in a 350 degree oven, swiftly killing all the yeast while the load is in the desired state for baking.

An example of the latter is a nuclear detonation; It is a runaway exponential growth that is stopped only by the effects of its own operation, by exhaustion of fuel and disruption of the conditions required to burn it.

Lets take your example, exponential growth of food.

In fact, this is a classic Malthusian case.

Say we have an island on which there exist a population of foxes and a population of rabbits.

The conditions on the island are idea for rabbits, and they will reproduce, well, like bunnies.

If then ratio of foxes to rabbits is 0:1, that is, no foxes, the population of rabbits acts like our loaf of bread; Population expands until the island is stripped of anything that the rabbits can eat, and famine happens, and the population dies back severely to whatever population can get by on the tiny amount of food still growing, and the population levels do not recover until after the food sources do.

Any other ratio of foxes to rabbits, and the fox population grows along with the rabbit population but eventually, because rabbits leave the system through being eaten, but foxes accumulate, the foxes soon are eating rabbits faster than they can reproduce, the rabbit population crashes, and then the foxes are the ones to suffer the malthusian crash.

You can create a simple simulation and draw some very nice graphs to illustrate this and indeed you likely would have seen this in your high school biology text had you been paying attention.

Now, what if the food supply in the first case is artificially extended?

We add to the model a wildlife conservancy. They own Rabbit Island, and see that the rabbits are multiplying and that they will soon strip the island of food and have a crash. So they hire local lads with rowboats to bring bales of alfalfa to the island to feed the rabbits. Crisis averted? Nope.

What happens is that the population keeps growing, and the boys have to bring over more and more food for it, until they can no longer row fast enough to stay ahead of the growth curve, and the crash happens, but is MUCH WORSE than the natural crash we would have had if we had allowed the system to reach its own crisis. The island will have been utterly stripped of vegetation such that recovery at all would be in doubt, and the die-off may be so severe that extinction results.

This is the situation humanity is in. We were on track to have a world famine in the late 1970s; Human populations had not only outstripped arible land, but intensive use of the land was degrading it.

But then the Green Revolution happened; hybrids that were the result of increasingly-sophisticated genetic engineering techniques, pesticides, fertilizer, and mechanization meant that we had no Malthusian crisis, and that human population has continued to grow unchecked.

In this, we are now like the situation where the boys are adding food to the island system.

But the end is in sight; Crop yields have actually begun to decline in many parts of the world. Too-intensive agriculture depletes soil beyond the capacity of chemical fertilizers to deal with. Population pressure means that traditional crop rotation has been abandoned on much of the planet. Bugs are getting resistant to pesticides and weeds to herbicides. And we are running out of the oil required to feed the maws of the mechanical oxen we now use to farm on much of the planet.

The inevitable result, no matter what new technology is added to the system to forestall it, is the worst Malthusian crisis the planet has ever seen.

And at about the time it is happening, our CO2 greenhouse will be kicking in and will be making formerly arable lands useless, will be swamping fertile deltas and coastal areas, and displacing huge numbers of impoverished people.

If we get out of this without a MAJOR war over the last of the food, I will be astounded.

 

[Trakar]

I don't see what the fixation is on the 1%, it's irrelevant. If it's 1%, 0.1% or 10% the question is is it constant or is it continuing to increase.

And the science says that not only is the rate increasing, but that it is still accelerating in its increasing rate of increase. Which is where this rather circular do-si-do began a month or so ago.

 

[CapelDodger]

What does this even mean?

The exponential growth in food production would be a good thing.

It cannot continue indefinitely in a finite system, so depending on it is a bad thing. And that's not even to bring in obesity.

Exponential growth in housing is a good thing.

Why? How many houses do people need?

The exponential growth in alternative energy sources would also be a good thing.

There would come a point when it began to intrude on other uses for land and capital investment.

These are all "physical systems" whose consistency we rely on. I don't believe your above statement is very well thought out. There seem to be many "physical systems" that grow exponentially, it's a necessity given the world's population grows exponentially.

That is also unsustainable. Malthus made the same assumption and in practice it's turned out he was right, although he's wrong in principle (given control over family-size, populations actually fall after a few generations).

Exponential growth without limit in a finite system must always result in crisis and crash. That's a truism.

 

[CapelDodger]

The increase in GHG's is very well estimated in a 1% increase every year in the rate of emissions.

No, it isn't.

1%,1%,1%......1%, is a linear increase in percentage.

"Linear increase in percentage" does not mean anything.

It may result in an exponential growth but that's irrelevant when the discussion is about the rate.

A constant percentage increase must result in exponential growth, so what you're goiing on about here escapes me.

I'd like to see your explanation of why 1958 is involved in discussion about the last 30 years.

Cryptic diversion. Why do you think 30 years is regarded as a sensible period to find a detectable trend in climate? And why does the reason not apply to CO₂ emissions?

That's because it accounts for ALL GHG's, not just CO2.

If predictive models include methane, CFC's and so on they do so directly, not as some sort of carbon equivalent figure. The scenarios for other greenhouse gases have independent as well as dependent factors (except for water vapour); CFC's, for instance, are expected to fall because of Montreal, which had nothing to do with climate change. Methane production depends on consumer demand for food and on farming practices, as well as permafrost melt. There's no way to just lump all these elements together.

There's more to global warming than just CO2.

Yes there is, and there's more to projecting emissions than you seem to have dreamt of.

 

[CapelDodger]

This is the situation humanity is in. We were on track to have a world famine in the late 1970s; Human populations had not only outstripped arible land, but intensive use of the land was degrading it.

We were actually on track for it in the 1830's, but technology and the great open spaces of the Americas and Australia forestalled it. Steam-driven transport meant that those expanses could be brought into production and start feeding the world. That was a bullet dodged. (Such expanses are still available on Mars, I gather. They sure ain't hiding under the permafrost.)

Peak Guano in the 1880's coincided with the growth of chemical engineering and the emergence of artificial fertilisers; another bullet dodged. That combination fed the Great War in Europe. It's a funny old world.

But then the Green Revolution happened; hybrids that were the result of increasingly-sophisticated genetic engineering techniques, pesticides, fertilizer, and mechanization meant that we had no Malthusian crisis, and that human population has continued to grow unchecked.

Another bullet dodged, and there's a Panglossian idea going around that another Green Revolution can be piled on top of that one, and so ad infinitum. Exponentially. Yeah right, we can see where that's going ...

Wheat now has little stalk because there are no weeds competing and the harvesting technology can cope with what's left. Not much more to gain there. Root systems are vestigial because they're doused in nutrients directly : not much more to gain there. These varieties are as seed-oriented as they can reasonably get, and they don't even waste effort on making the seed viable.

Sub-marginal land has been turned into marginal land (by the application of technology) but there's a limited amount and there's not much more to gain. In fact it's reverting quite rapidly.

Cheap chemicals dependent on cheap oil for feedstock and energy, there's no bright future there.

If we get out of this without a MAJOR war over the last of the food, I will be astounded.

How many minor wars amount to a major war? I predict relatively small conflicts within regions, and mostly within societies. It'll still be ugly.

 

[Furcifer]

No, exponential growth is almost universally bad except in a few systems where we can intentionally either check the growth or where the crash caused by the growth is the desired result.

Since fossil fuels aren't unlimited, and fossil fuels are the primary source of anthropogenic CO2, it stands to reason their is a check on growth.

An example of the former is a loaf of bread. Yeast grow exponentially. But if you leave a loaf too long, the yeast eats all the sugars, creates enough alcohol to kill the colony off, and you have a stinking slimy mess. But we know this, and at a certain point, before the Malthusian crash, we pop the loaf in a 350 degree oven, swiftly killing all the yeast while the load is in the desired state for baking.

That's fine if you're making bread, but I prefer to think we're making whiskey.

An example of the latter is a nuclear detonation; It is a runaway exponential growth that is stopped only by the effects of its own operation, by exhaustion of fuel and disruption of the conditions required to burn it.

Or you channel off the heat and make electricity. Where some fanatics see a bomb visionaries see an almost limitless source of clean energy.

Lets take your example, exponential growth of food.

In fact, this is a classic Malthusian case.

Say we have an island on which there exist a population of foxes and a population of rabbits.

The conditions on the island are idea for rabbits, and they will reproduce, well, like bunnies.

If then ratio of foxes to rabbits is 0:1, that is, no foxes, the population of rabbits acts like our loaf of bread; Population expands until the island is stripped of anything that the rabbits can eat, and famine happens, and the population dies back severely to whatever population can get by on the tiny amount of food still growing, and the population levels do not recover until after the food sources do.

Any other ratio of foxes to rabbits, and the fox population grows along with the rabbit population but eventually, because rabbits leave the system through being eaten, but foxes accumulate, the foxes soon are eating rabbits faster than they can reproduce, the rabbit population crashes, and then the foxes are the ones to suffer the malthusian crash.

You can create a simple simulation and draw some very nice graphs to illustrate this and indeed you likely would have seen this in your high school biology text had you been paying attention.

I paid attention in biology. You're speaking of dumb beasts, incapable of mastering their own destiny. If any of this actually applied to the human animal we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
You'd have to be ignorant of the key characteristic of human behaviour that separates us from other animals in order to think this is in any way analogous to CO2.

But the end is in sight; Crop yields have actually begun to decline in many parts of the world. Too-intensive agriculture depletes soil beyond the capacity of chemical fertilizers to deal with. Population pressure means that traditional crop rotation has been abandoned on much of the planet. Bugs are getting resistant to pesticides and weeds to herbicides. And we are running out of the oil required to feed the maws of the mechanical oxen we now use to farm on much of the planet.

This is such a tired alarmist claim. I wish I could remember the TVO presentation I saw with a professor from Calgary? that calculated the land in the median of the Trans-Canada is sufficient to grow enough food to feed the entire country.
We've only maximized a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the land on this planet for food production. Perhaps a thousand years from now when that has been done we will finally have to change our decadent eating habits.
It's just inconceivable that things would ever proceed the same way for such a long period of time, and yet AR4 is based on their being no technological changes in the way food is produced.

The inevitable result, no matter what new technology is added to the system to forestall it, is the worst Malthusian crisis the planet has ever seen.

I'm sure somewhere in the history books there are predictions that if things proceeded in much the same way by the year 2000 the horse crap would be piled as high as the houses and horses would outnumber people.

And at about the time it is happening, our CO2 greenhouse will be kicking in and will be making formerly arable lands useless, will be swamping fertile deltas and coastal areas, and displacing huge numbers of impoverished people.

If we get out of this without a MAJOR war over the last of the food, I will be astounded.

Doomsday predictions are so very boring and never, ever come true. Global Warming is just the latest and greatest form of fanaticism.

 

[Halsu]

Try using 1980-2010 and percentage increase in rate, it's 1%.

If the growth percent remains the same every year, the actual growth rate increases exponentially. Your yearly 1% is exponential growth. You might wish to compare the yearly growth percent to the original number. In this case, the yearly percent grows.

50 + 10% = 55 = 10% growth and an actual increase of 5

55 + 10% = 60.5 = 10% growth compared to previous value but an actual increase of 5.5, and a 11% growth compared to original

60.5 + 10% =66.55 = 10% growth compared to previous value but an actual increase of 6.05, and a 12.1% growth compared to original

 

[Furcifer]

If the growth percent remains the same every year, the actual growth rate increases exponentially.

Nobody said otherwise.

A linear percentage increase is linear, plain and simple. It's 1%,1%,1%,1%. That's why I keep saying it's intellectually dishonest to move the goal posts and say "No it isn't it's exponential, 385, 388, 392, 398..." and then point to a graph that doesn't show the percentage, but the actual ppm.

I'm disappointed people would do this, and continue to do this.