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[Continuation] Global warming discussion V

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Trakar said:
How's that working out for you so far?!
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pretty good so far. Got the plan and a few people willing to volunteer their land for soil samples. A guy willing to donate lawyer skills. etc....

The big issue is finding a commercial soil sample lab for the right SOC sample and testing protocol.
 
The collapse of the coal industry has already begun.

Energy Australia to close Yallourn power station early and build 350 megawatt battery

Energy Australia will close the Yallourn power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley in mid-2028 four years ahead of schedule and build a giant power-generating battery instead.

The brown coal-fired plant has been operating for 47 years and produces about a fifth of the state's electricity.

Yallourn is Victoria's oldest power station and was scheduled to close in 2032.

It employs 450 permanent workers plus hundreds of contractors.
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More at the link.
 
arthwollipot said:
My opinion is that by the time a viable solar geoengineering scheme is ready to be implemented, it will no longer be needed.
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I hope you're right, because trying something when you have no idea what the otucome might be is insane.
 
The Atheist said:
I hope you're right, because trying something when you have no idea what the otucome might be is insane.
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The length of time it would take to model and simulate and predict to a reasonable enough level of accuracy is why I reckon that by the time it's ready to implement we will have resolved the climate crisis by other means. But hey, research is research and if the National Academies want to throw money at this, they're perfectly entitled to.
 
This is not good news:

One of Earth’s giant carbon sinks may have been overestimated - study

The storage potential of one of the Earth’s biggest carbon sinks – soils – may have been overestimated, research shows. This could mean ecosystems on land soaking up less of humanity’s emissions than expected, and more rapid global heating.

Soils and the plants that grow in them absorb about a third of the carbon emissions that drive the climate crisis, partly limiting the impact of fossil-fuel burning. Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere can increase plant growth and, until now, it was assumed carbon storage in soils would increase too.

But the study, based on over 100 experiments, found the opposite. When plant growth increases, soil carbon does not. The finding is significant because the amount of organic carbon stored in soils is about three times that in living plants and double that in the atmosphere. Soils can also store carbon for centuries, whereas plants and trees rot quickly after they die.
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Pixel42 said:
This is not good news:

One of Earth’s giant carbon sinks may have been overestimated - study
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It's not even news to people working on carbon sequestration in the soil.

But to understand why you must dig deeper. For example the forest soils did not store any more organic carbon at all. Something I have repeatedly stressed over and over. That is the wrong biome. Forests store more biomass, they are not the terrestrial biome that sequesters stable carbon. The study also showed that in grasslands, elevated CO2 led to +9% plant growth, but soil carbon rose by 8%.

People have repeatedly been trying to say forests are the biological feedback to increased CO2, but the evidence shows it is grasslands not forests. Grasslands that at least in the US are estimated at ~80% degraded. There is huge potential in restoring grassland biomes.
 
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To poke at a link that's a little relevant...

API Wants You, The Consumer, To Pay The Price For Its Pollution

Short summation? American Petroleum Institute has signaled a willingness to come to the negotiating table on a carbon tax... provided a number of sabotage conditions are met. For example, removing other environmental and public health safeguards, getting the government to give them even more money to clean up their natural gas messes and sell that gas, for them to receive credit when their product is used in other products... like plastics, that consumers know how much the any carbon tax is theoretically costing them, clearly marked at gas pumps because it's the consumers that truly need taxed instead of API as the petroleum is pumped out of the ground, and the like.

**** them.
 
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Hmm...

Because this Daily Kos community article seems up Red Baron Farms' alley, though likely not telling him anything especially new, I feel like linking to it so he can take a look if he wants and judge it for himself. Really short summation, Biden apparently mentioned "cover crops" and this person decided to try to give a short run down of what they are, how beneficial they are, how valuable soil can be for handling climate change, and some government actions related to that.
 
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Aridas said:
Hmm...

Because this Daily Kos community article seems up Red Baron Farms' alley, though likely not telling him anything especially new, I feel like linking to it so he can take a look if he wants and judge it for himself. Really short summation, Biden apparently mentioned "cover crops" and this person decided to try to give a short run down of what they are, how beneficial they are, how valuable soil can be for handling climate change, and some government actions related to that.
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Thanks and you are correct. It's a pretty basic primer. However, if it helps people understand, all good.

Personally I prefer actually stating what is happening with more scientific terminology. Even if it is new knowledge, it seems people learn it faster when they can use the proper terms like Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, and Saprophytic Fungi, symbiosis etc.... instead of generic and vague "beneficial microorganisms".

When the article author says things like this, it seems to me to be talking down to the reader, and purposely making it too vague to have any possibility to understand. Just my opinion though. The article is basically correct. It's just not very useful in my opinion. Maybe the author could have explained it better if they had more space available?
 
LA County doesn't have enough prison slaves, because of the pandemic, in order to fight wildfires. Beyond parody.

He said L.A. County would normally have 24 inmate firefighting crews but is down to eight, as many were sent home from prison after the state granted them early release because of the pandemic. That has forced the department to dip into its budget to train more paid crew members, he said.
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-26/drought-wildfire-conditions-evolving-at-unprecedented-pace
 
Mr Clingford said:
It's got a bit madly hot in Canada, setting new records by a hell of a margin.
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Weather is not climate Mr. Clingford.

Careful not to make the same mistake deniers make when a record cold snap hits. (We had a few here like that in Oklahoma too.)

But yes, if the trends hold true over long periods of time, doesn't look good for certain parts of Canada.

I believe they are saying the loss of perennial ice in the arctic is effecting ocean currents, which then effects air currents and land temperatures. If this complexity winds up being true, it will not be good for the ecosystems adapted to milder temps but now existing in very different climatic conditions. Not time enough to adapt and change without significant ecosystem damage.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
Mr Clingford said:
It's got a bit madly hot in Canada, setting new records by a hell of a margin.
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Weather is not climate Mr. Clingford.
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There are ways to investigate whether a weather event is likely related to climate change. Over the last 2 decades there have been several heat waves that turned out to have a high probability of being climate change related.

The numbers haven't been crunched on this one yet to the warning on weather vs climate are wroth noting but given the severity of the heat wave I would not be surprised if this one turns out to be climate related. We won't know either way for a year or more.
 
lomiller said:
The numbers haven't been crunched on this one yet, so the warning on weather vs climate are worth noting, but given the severity of the heat wave I would not be surprised if this one turns out to be climate related.
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I would not be surprised either. I just prefer to take a cautionary approach and wait till we have a better idea.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
I would not be surprised either. I just prefer to take a cautionary approach and wait till we have a better idea.
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Yeah some caution is advisable, but the scale of this heatwave is crazy. Lytton BC just set new Canadian temperature records for the third day in a row. Yesterday it hit 49.6 deg C (121.3 Def F), only a few higher temperatures have ever been reliably recorded in the America's. The places to have recorded higher temperatures are all in the desert regions of the US southwest or across the border in Mexico. Lytton isn't in a desert like Las Vega (all time high of 117Deg F) or Phoenix (122 Deg F). Lytton is located on the Frazer River in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

Whether it ends up being attributed to global warming or not, this is a remarkable climate story.
 
It's the sheer margin of the new records that is astounding. If I were talking to a sceptic/denier I would indeed talk about trends. But this is just off the charts.
 
Mr Clingford said:
It's got a bit madly hot in Canada, setting new records by a hell of a margin.
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Haven't seen you for a while, mate!

It's also killing more oldies than Covid. They're dropping like flies, which was entirely predictable, given Canadian residences aren't built for extreme heat.

I made the comment on another forum that Canada's new all-time high (at latitude 53 deg N) is over two degrees hotter than the hottest temperature ever recorded in Alice Springs.

Alice is bang in the middle of Australia, latitude 23 deg S.

And nobody's even mentioned the heatwave in Siberia which is even further above normal than Canada/USA.

Red Baron Farms said:
Weather is not climate Mr. Clingford.
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Oh, bollocks.

Climate science has predicted more and hotter heatwaves for a long time, and these are the direct result of that science coming true.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...n-pacific-northwest-driven-by-climate-change/
 
Word from the experts
Rapid attribution of PNW heatwave
Filed under: Climate impacts Climate modelling Climate Science heatwaves Instrumental Record statistics — group @ 7 July 2021
Summary: It was almost impossible for the temperatures seen recently in the Pacific North West heatwave to have occurred without global warming. And only improbable with it.

It’s been clear for at least a decade that global warming has been in general increasing the intensity of heat waves, with clear trends in observed maximum temperatures that match what climate models have been predicting. For the specific situation in the Pacific NorthWest at the end of June, we now have the first attribution analysis from the World Weather Attribution group – a consortium of climate experts from around the world working on extreme event attribution. Their preprint (Philip et al.) is available here.
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https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/
 
ouch
U.N. climate panel confronts implausibly hot forecasts of future warming
By Paul VoosenJul. 27, 2021 , 4:50 PM
Next month, after a yearlong delay because of the pandemic, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will begin to release its first major assessment of human-caused global warming since 2013. The report, the first part of which will appear on 9 August, will drop on a world that has starkly changed in 8 years, warming by more than 0.3°C to nearly 1.3°C above preindustrial levels.
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more

so much for 1.2 :rolleyes:
 
Meanwhile, two big pieces of news from Australia:

Australia’s energy market operator plans for net zero by 2050 as Morrison stalls

Aemo says new planning scenarios, including a ‘hydrogen superpower’ option, reflect accelerating transition in energy market


While Scott Morrison is yet to give a formal commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, Australia’s energy market operator has added the mid-century scenario to its forward planning.

In its latest Inputs, Assumptions and Scenarios Report, released on Friday, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) has added new planning scenarios – including net zero by 2050 and a “hydrogen superpower” option.

Aemo’s chief system design officer, Alex Wonhas, said the updated scenario planning reflected the accelerating transition in Australia’s energy market and “overwhelming” calls from stakeholders for the energy market operator to produce scenarios “to reflect the observed rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector and pathways to achieve net-zero emissions across the economy”.

Stakeholders say Aemo initially floated a more prominent transitional role for gas in line with the Morrison government’s “gas-fired recovery” rhetoric, but this idea was resisted during consultation. Aemo spent 10 months consulting with consumer groups, governments, individuals and industry on its plans.
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Origin Energy slashes value of Australia’s biggest coal-fired plant due to impact of cheap renewables

Shares tumble after company announces $1.5bn asset writedown and lower expected earnings


Origin Energy has slashed the value of its assets, including Australia’s biggest coal-fired power plant, by more than $1.5bn as cheap power from renewables floods the national grid.

Company shares tumbled as much as 10% on Friday morning after Origin announced the writedown and lower expected earnings next year to the Australian Securities Exchange, before recovering slightly to be down about 7.85% about 12.45pm.

Origin owns Eraring power station in New South Wales. It is the company’s and the nation’s biggest coal-fired power plant, supplying NSW with about 25% of its electricity.

In a statement to the ASX, the company said it had cut the value of its power stations by $583m due to lower power prices “driven by new supply expected to come online, including both renewable and dispatchable capacity, impacting the valuation of the generation fleet, particularly Eraring power station”.
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