Cont: Global warming discussion V

[lomiller]

When is the next Milankovitch minimum ??

In ~1500 years IIRC. Not thought to be enough to have triggered a glaciation even without human intervention.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I did not.....I mentioned active CO2 removal.

Reduce methane by eating kangaroo instead of beef
There are pretty decent low methane feeds in the works as well.

Fewer people is really the only solution in the long and aside from Japan that ain't happening much. Even if we disappeared in a wave of the wand we are in the Anthropocene anyways.....and we are dealing with those consequences.

Fewer people solves nothing.

As a thought experiment consider a single last surviving human family gone insane from loneliness who launches a few nukes every hour on the hour at anything resembling an ecosystem or biology.... That one family is overpopulated as they are degrading the environment that supports their life.

Meanwhile consider adding 3 billion more people to our current population making 10 billion, but have all 3 billion of them actively engaged and working tirelessly at ecosystem recovery projects, mitigating AGW, recycling and renewable energy. I mean that being their full time jobs. In this case we would no longer be overpopulated all else equal..and at a higher population level than now.

People who say we have too many people are taking a cop out. What in essence they are saying is that populations don't have the capability of making choices in how they interact with the world. The harm they are causing is not their fault as it is impossible to even exist and be beneficial to the ecology rather than harmful to the Biosphere.

I reject that narrow minded set of ideas as nothing more than excuses by those unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions.

As for Kangaroo meat, by all means eat away if you like it and it is available. However these low emissions feeds? Useless. Now matter how efficient they can't even get to net zero, much less net negative like the old standby, a cow on healthy grassland managed correctly. And that means both net negative CO2 and net negative CH4. Consider again what you just posted you liked in post #20 above. It's the accumulation ie the net, that matters far more than emissions.

 

[Trakar]

In ~1500 years IIRC. Not thought to be enough to have triggered a glaciation even without human intervention.

Well, absent the human impact of the last 8000years or so, it probably wouldn't have caused a whole lot of increased glaciation spreading toward the equator, but, it would have (should have already begun) led to expanding mass and extent in polar and mountain icecaps and permafrost zones. If I'm not mistaken the primary Milankovitch factor driving the next min is driven by a deep decrease in precession (angular tilt of axis - decreases lead to milder seasons) with the other factors being pretty mild influencers at the same time (actually somewhat offsetting). But it has been quite a while since I studied this issue in any detail.

Handy little tool for looking at these cycles and how they interact over time:

http://biocycle.atmos.colostate.edu/shiny/Milankovitch/

 

[Trakar]

...interesting times indeed.
One encouraging aspect is the rapid pace of EV tech but that's not going to address the existing levels.

Until we get a lot closer to net zero emissions as a civilization, large scale carbon capture and sequestration is probably not going to be an economically viable proposition. Sucks, but no one wants to spend money to clean up the messes others are making profits from creating.

 

[macdoc]

true unless there is strong economic reasons to do so ....I suspect there are.
This has to come down to economics.
Right now what is driving EV is a combination of policy and lower costs to operate and not least performance.

We do pay people to deal with the garbage .....CO2 just hard to stuff in the trash can.

 

[Trakar]

true unless there is strong economic reasons to do so ....I suspect there are.
This has to come down to economics.
Right now what is driving EV is a combination of policy and lower costs to operate and not least performance.

We do pay people to deal with the garbage .....CO2 just hard to stuff in the trash can.

and even more difficult to effectively, long-term, sequester in a landfill.

But nothing happens in a vacuum, and the first step is generally to remove the profitability of dumping the waste of private production into the Commons.

 

[Trakar]

Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implement

Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implementation and termination
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0431-0

Abstract
Solar geoengineering is receiving increased policy attention as a potential tool to offset climate warming. While climate responses to geoengineering have been studied in detail, the potential biodiversity consequences are largely unknown. To avoid extinction, species must either adapt or move to track shifting climates. Here, we assess the effects of the rapid implementation, continuation and sudden termination of geoengineering on climate velocities—the speeds and directions that species would need to move to track changes in climate. Compared to a moderate climate change scenario (RCP4.5), rapid geoengineering implementation reduces temperature velocities towards zero in terrestrial biodiversity hotspots. In contrast, sudden termination increases both ocean and land temperature velocities to unprecedented speeds (global medians >10 km yr−1) that are more than double the temperature velocities for recent and future climate change in global biodiversity hotspots. Furthermore, as climate velocities more than double in speed, rapid climate fragmentation occurs in biomes such as temperate grasslands and forests where temperature and precipitation velocity vectors diverge spatially by >90°. Rapid geoengineering termination would significantly increase the threats to biodiversity from climate change.

The best laid plans of man and mouse...

On the other hand; progress one funeral at a time.

https://www.usnews.com/news/enterta...st-who-helped-launch-the-weather-channel-dies

John Coleman, who co-founded The Weather Channel and was the original meteorologist on ABC's 'Good Morning America' but later drew people's anger for his open skepticism of man-made climate change, has died at age 83.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

We do pay people to deal with the garbage .....CO2 just hard to stuff in the trash can.

Say's who? Have you tried it? Or are you simply assuming it is hard?

In my mind it is far harder keeping it OUT of the trash can. Just think of all the cumulative effort to plow, cultivate, plant, spray with pesticides, fertilize, harvest, dry, store, and transport an excessive surplus of grain, compared to letting the prairie biome recover and do it's "job" in the first place! You actually think all that effort is cheaper or easier than letting a cow walk over to the next pasture? If it is so easy and cheap then why are we spending billions in subsidies every year to prop up the ridiculously inefficient system that is actually the second leading cause of AGW? I mean come on the grasses are fighting hard for survival and working hard to restore the prairies that cool the planet, which is why farmers must work so hard at killing the prairie biome! They call it "weeds" because it is so tough.

"We try to grow things that want to die, and kill things that want to live. That is pretty much how (industrial) agriculture functions." Colin Seis

What makes you think this has to be hard or expensive? Why not easy and profitable?

You are making too many assumptions. Just as soon as we work with the natural systems instead of fighting against them, this problem either vanishes or it is radically reduced.

"If all farmland was a net sink rather than a net source for CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall at the same time as farm productivity and watershed function improved. This would solve the vast majority of our food production, environmental and human health ‘problems’." Dr. Christine Jones

 

[macdoc]

Maybe you should read things that are actually posted instead of looking for reasons for monomanical rants.
I was responding Trakar's "no economic incentive" to deal with carbon waste.
You've got your own hobby horse thread RB ....stick with it.

First you come up with a fabricasted question I didn't ask ..then totally take a comment about economic incentives for carbon sequestration off on some pasture rant.
FFS enough already

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Maybe you should read things that are actually posted instead of looking for reasons for monomanical rants.
I was responding Trakar's "no economic incentive" to deal with carbon waste.
You've got your own hobby horse thread RB ....stick with it.

First you come up with a fabricasted question I didn't ask ..then totally take a comment about economic incentives for carbon sequestration off on some pasture rant.
FFS enough already

If you don't want your posts critiqued by a skeptical eye, then don't post it here in a skeptics forum!

However, once posted and critiqued, crying about it is not the solution. Provide evidence that what you claimed is right, or concede you spoke out of place and were simply wrong.

As far as carbon sequestration goes, BeCCS and CCS are completely unworkable. Increasing biomass will work, but we reach saturation before sequestering enough to reverse AGW. The only proven carbon sequestration strategy that has any chances at all of working is the grasslands biome restored and managed correctly on a large enough area of land. Thus of course I answered with BCCS rather than BeCCS or CCS.

FARMING A
CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTION

"If all farmland was a net sink rather than a net source for CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall at the same time as farm productivity and watershed function improved. This would solve the vast majority of our food production, environmental and human health ‘problems’." Dr. Christine Jones

 

[macdoc]

I have no issue with my posts being critiqued - I have an issue with you lying about a question I didn't ask and using it for your own soapbox,

and with you, as in this thread, as you've done infinitum ad nauseum to beat your personal hobbyhorse.

 

[carlosy]

Growth in atmospheric CO2 continues to accelerate.

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/is-co2-still-accelerating/

Given the political realities IMO the RPC8.5 scenario remains the most likely and that means 4 more Deg C, or ~5 deg warming over a mere 200 years. It took 5000 years to warm that much when the last glaciation ended.

Even the RPC6 scenario would be bad and I see very little hope for sticking to any of the lower emission scenarios at this point

Seeing stuff like that makes me think that we are definitely past a realistic point for a less severe scenario. Seriously, I mean all the effort, and CO2 is not only climbing but even accelerating?

BTW, what is the delay for this CO2 measuring and CO2 emissions?
If all anthropogenic CO2 emission would stop in an instant, how long would it take to see an effect on e.g. Mauna Loa measures?

 

[macdoc]

Interesting question...from memory propagation in the atmosphere is quite quick ..months and I suspect an absolute stop would show very quickly but there are a lot of natural sources and conversion of methane to C02 occurs especially in the Arctic..there arte some papers I've seen.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I have no issue with my posts being critiqued - I have an issue with you lying about a question I didn't ask and using it for your own soapbox,

and with you, as in this thread, as you've done infinitum ad nauseum to beat your personal hobbyhorse.

Add evidence or once again admit you were wrong. Making claims without evidence is not a skeptic. Preferable you actually skip the ad hominem attacks without evidence completely, and go back to the beginning and provide the evidence for your silly claims about CO2 and AGW. Always helpful to stick to topic.

But seeing as how you are so butt hurt about me criticizing your silly CO2 claims, and can't even converse like a civilized person, by all means provide evidence for your lowbrow ad hominem.

 

[bobdroege7]

But seeing as how you are so butt hurt about me criticizing your silly CO2 claims, and can't even converse like a civilized person, by all means provide evidence for your lowbrow ad hominem.

Why don't you play nice so we can keep this thread out of the heavily moderated status?

Would it help if I said please?

 

[Belz...]

Making claims without evidence is not a skeptic.

Of course it isn't. A skeptic is a person. Making claims is an action!

 

[macdoc]

http://www.thenrgroup.net/climatechange/index.htm

not about to shoved back in a bottle anytime soon.
We would need to invert the curve with sequestration over the next 100 years to get even close....ain't gonna happen.

Humanity's carbon budget set at one trillion tonnes | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/.../dn17051-humanitys-carbon-budget-set-at-one-trillio...
Apr 29, 2009 - Industrial activity since the mid-18th century means we have already emitted 500 billion tonnes of carbon – half of the 1-trillion-tonne budget. “At some point in the last few years, we released the 500-billionth tonne of carbon,” says Allen. We can afford to dump only 250 billion tonnes more – or perhaps 500 ...

so round figures we have to stop emissions entirely and remove 5 billion tons of C02 per annum

so far ..

There are presently 21 large-scale CCS facilities in operation or under construction globally; these facilities can remove 37 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of CO2 that otherwise could have entered the atmosphere. This is the equivalent to taking almost eight million passenger vehicles off our roads.

and that's before even stopped the increase....'t'wil be a toasty 21st

this is reality ....

Slam on the climate brakes

What would happen to the climate if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide today, right now? Would we return to the climate of our elders?

The simple answer is no. Once we release the carbon dioxide stored in the fossil fuels we burn, it accumulates in and moves among the atmosphere, the oceans, the land and the plants and animals of the biosphere. The released carbon dioxide will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Only after many millennia will it return to rocks, for example, through the formation of calcium carbonate – limestone – as marine organisms’ shells settle to the bottom of the ocean. But on time spans relevant to humans, once released the carbon dioxide is in our environment essentially forever. It does not go away, unless we, ourselves, remove it.

In order to stop the accumulation of heat, we would have to eliminate not just carbon dioxide emissions, but all greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide. We’d also need to reverse deforestation and other land uses that affect the Earth’s energy balance (the difference between incoming energy from the sun and what’s returned to space). We would have to radically change our agriculture. If we did this, it would eliminate additional planetary warming, and limit the rise of air temperature. Such a cessation of warming is not possible.

So if we stop emitting carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels today, it’s not the end of the story for global warming. There’s a delay in air-temperature increase as the atmosphere catches up with all the heat that the Earth has accumulated. After maybe 40 more years, scientists hypothesize the climate will stabilize at a temperature higher than what was normal for previous generations.

This decades-long lag between cause and effect is due to the long time it takes to heat the ocean’s huge mass. The energy that is held in the Earth by increased carbon dioxide does more than heat the air. It melts ice; it heats the ocean. Compared to air, it’s harder to raise the temperature of water; it takes time – decades. However, once the ocean temperature is elevated, it will release heat back to the air, and be measured as surface heating.

more

https://theconversation.com/if-we-s...-right-now-would-we-stop-climate-change-78882

 

[Mr Clingford]

Seeing stuff like that makes me think that we are definitely past a realistic point for a less severe scenario. Seriously, I mean all the effort, and CO2 is not only climbing but even accelerating?
...

"All the effort"? There has been some effort but also a colossal resistance from some parts which have successfully held progress back for 20 years.

And now, there is only 1 country in the entire world not backing the Paris accord; now which one is that?

 

[Trakar]

...not about to shoved back in a bottle anytime soon.
We would need to invert the curve with sequestration over the next 100 years to get even close....ain't gonna happen.
(snip)
so round figures we have to stop emissions entirely and remove 5 billion tons of C02 per annum

so far ..

and that's before even stopped the increase....'t'wil be a toasty 21st

this is reality ...

Agreed,

And that doesn't even take into account the 8000years of deforestation, resource stripping, ranching/farming, and land-use changes which reshaped the planet and its ecosystems by humanity's civilization devoting itself to before the industrial age ever reared its head.

That said, we don't need to return the planet to its "pristine" pre-humanity state, to survive our own hubris, nature has always been a cruel and often treacherous mother. Time for Humanity to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities for its reckless adolescence as well as its future role on this planet,...or not. In which case, if nothing else, we will have an answer to Fermi's query.

 

[macdoc]

Hehe yes that