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Cont: Global warming discussion V

Pixel42 said:
NOAA say equal warmest May and second warmest year to date.

What makes it surprising is that this is an ENSO neutral year. Years which set, or come close to setting, new record highs are usually El Nino years, for obvious reasons.

I'm wondering if the lack of the usual global dimming due to the lockdown might be a factor?
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I haven’t seen any model results that would say one way or the other if a COVID-19 signal would show up. Global dimming from large volcanic eruptions are very apparent both in the model results and in the temperature record, but it could be that global dimming doesn’t respond quickly enough to reduced aerosol emissions for it to show up in the same way.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there is a COVID-19 related signal though.
 
Slash CO2, Then Wait—and Wait—for Temperatures to Drop (Scientific American)

Climate action today will take decades to manifest in global temperatures because of “climate inertia”
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Climate action taken by the world today wouldn't be noticed for decades to come, according to researchers who say warming on Earth won't start to slow down for at least 20 years.

And that's probably an optimistic scenario.

A study published Tuesday in Nature Communications illustrates how the rewards for aggressive action would come much later. If global carbon dioxide emissions began falling tomorrow by at least 5% every year, the rate at which the Earth is warming wouldn't begin to change —at least in a detectable way —until after the year 2040 or so.
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Given human nature it's near impossible to get people to sacrifice something in the here and now for a hypothetical benefit decades in the future. That's the problem.

But this isn't really new news, is it?
 
Puppycow said:
Slash CO2, Then Wait—and Wait—for Temperatures to Drop (Scientific American)



Given human nature it's near impossible to get people to sacrifice something in the here and now for a hypothetical benefit decades in the future. That's the problem.

But this isn't really new news, is it?
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No, it's been explained since the mid seventies, as far as I know.

(It was covered in High School science as 'The Greenhouse Effect')
 
Puppycow said:
Slash CO2, Then Wait—and Wait—for Temperatures to Drop (Scientific American)



Given human nature it's near impossible to get people to sacrifice something in the here and now for a hypothetical benefit decades in the future. That's the problem.

But this isn't really new news, is it?
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Right exactly true. All well known for quite some time, and spot on regarding human nature too.

This is why for my Red Baron Project I have come up with a plan that requires no sacrifice at all. Every part of the plan is wholly beneficial and profitable, both on an individual and macro scale.... with only the side effect of reducing atmospheric CO2.

This way we avoid this particularly nasty side of human nature.
 
Puppycow said:
Given human nature it's near impossible to get people to sacrifice something in the here and now for a hypothetical benefit decades in the future.
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Decades? For many people even two weeks is too long, even when facing the possibility of imminent death if they don't (Covid-19).

But we don't need to 'sacrifice', we just need to choose better options. Not overeating is not a sacrifice, it makes me healthier! Not buying junk and cherishing the good stuff I have is no sacrifice, it makes me happier! I bought an electric car and the only thing I 'sacrificed' was having to deal with a dirty smelly gas engine!

So it's not about 'sacrifice', but attitude. If global carbon dioxide emissions began falling tomorrow by at least 5% every year, knowing that things are getting better could in itself be enough to make you feel happy. The end goal may still be a long way off, but just making progress can be a sufficient reward.

People tend to be afraid of change. They worry that if we go 'green' it will cause prices to rise and make them poorer, so they will have to sacrifice their lifestyle for a worse one. But would it actually be worse? Over 40% of Americans are obese (20% severely), costing an estimated $120 billion and contributing to 400,000 deaths per year. Cutting back on consumption would not be a 'sacrifice' - it would actually make us feel better, save money, and possibly even save our lives! Being sustainable is more enjoyable than buying mountains of junk and continuously throwing it away. Renewable energy is cheaper than coal, cleaner and more convenient than fossil fuels. LED bulbs run cooler and put out better light. Electric cars are cheaper to run, require less maintenance and are nicer to drive.

How is not destroying the environment, living a healthy life, saving money and enjoying the latest technology a sacrifice?
 
Global heating: best and worst case scenarios less likely than thought

Doomsayers and hopemongers alike may need to revise their climate predictions after a study that almost rules out the most optimistic forecasts for global heating while downplaying the likelihood of worst-case scenarios.

The international team of scientists involved in the research say they have narrowed the range of probable climate outcomes, which reduces the uncertainty that has long plagued public debate about this field.
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This confluence of sources has allowed scientists to estimate with a 90% level of probability that climate sensitivity is between 2.3C and 4.7C. The most likely level of climate sensitivity has nudged slightly above 3C. Hausfather says a figure below 2C is extremely unlikely. Above 5C remains possible, though the study lowers that likelihood to 10%.
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Pixel42 said:
Global heating: best and worst case scenarios less likely than thought
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RealClimate discusses the new assessment in depth here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/07/climate-sensitivity-a-new-assessment/

Not all that much of a change, the error bars have narrowed a bit and mean is slightly higher. Most of the uncertainly is still on the high side but there isn't as much as before.

This assessment was apparently done before CIMP6 model results were know, so that discrepancy is not addressed or resolved.

In the meantime, it’s certainly worth stressing that the spread of sensitivities across the models is not itself a probability function. That the CMIP5 (and CMIP3) models all fell within the assessed range of climate sensitivity is probably best seen as a fortunate coincidence. That the CMIP6 range goes beyond the assessed range merely underscores that. Given too that CMIP6 is ongoing, metrics like the mean and spread of the climate sensitivities across the ensemble are not stable, and should not be used to bracket projections.
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The "worst case" RCP 8.5 emissions scenario is actually the most likely out to at least 2050 based on current policy and emissions trends.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/30/2007117117


Abstract

Climate simulation-based scenarios are routinely used to characterize a range of plausible climate futures. Despite some recent progress on bending the emissions curve, RCP8.5, the most aggressive scenario in assumed fossil fuel use for global climate models, will continue to serve as a useful tool for quantifying physical climate risk, especially over near- to midterm policy-relevant time horizons. Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to midcentury under current and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO2 emissions in 2100.
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Hmm. I'm just popping in here since I saw something potentially interesting.

Project Vesta. Really short version - using olivine and beaches to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and de acidify the ocean a bit. Haven't looked at the relevant science myself, though.
 
Aridas said:
Hmm. I'm just popping in here since I saw something potentially interesting.

Project Vesta. Really short version - using olivine and beaches to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and de acidify the ocean a bit. Haven't looked at the relevant science myself, though.
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Yes it is real. No it is not anywhere near enough. Abiotic weathering of rock is between ~ 10% -20% of the terrestrial carbon cycle depending on the study you look at... So enhanced weathering could be some help. However, it is like picking up pennies while hundred dollar bills fly by in the wind overhead.

Conservatively 80% of weathering is biotic, and the vast majority of that is in the soils worldwide. Restoring this important part of the ecosystem function in degraded soils is vastly more important than all the energy and expense needed to mine olivine and place it on beaches.

Remember this important statistic. There is more carbon missing from soils worldwide than extra in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel use. So changing agriculture to a net sink for carbon is a vastly superior strategy, with multiple benefits.....including, but not limited to, increased biodiversity, increased yields of quality food, improvements in the hydrological cycle, reduced erosion, decreased pollution, increase profitability for farmers, reduced health costs to society, and many many more.

And lets just hypothesize for a moment somehow we do manage to significantly lower atmospheric CO2 by artificial abiotic means like Olivine mining, now where will we get the badly needed carbon to restore our degraded soils? Burn more fossil fuels? Really? It is working way too hard for way too little benefit.

"Permaculture (permanently sustainable agriculture) is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labor; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison
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Nothing meets the definition of "protracted & thoughtless labor" more than mining olivine and crushing it to remove CO2, in my honest opinion.

Yes we can reverse Global Warming.

It does not require expensive untested risky technologies like olivine mining.

It will require a three pronged approach worldwide.

  1. Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many feasible renewables as current technology allows.
  2. Change Agricultural methods to high yielding regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
  3. Large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable.
 
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Red Baron Farms said:
Yes it is real. No it is not anywhere near enough.
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I figured that such is likely the case, regardless, and didn't mean to even imply that it would be a miracle cure. Still, I think that it looks like a interesting approach to be included as part of a notably larger strategy, with the ocean de-acidification part being of particular note to me, especially near coral reefs.

Red Baron Farms said:
Conservatively 80% of weathering is biotic, and the vast majority of that is in the soils worldwide. Restoring this important part of the ecosystem function in degraded soils is vastly more important than all the energy and expense needed to mine olivine and place it on beaches.
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As they note, a huge amount of olivine has already been mined while miners are seeking other things and is just being treated as waste rock. If, say, just that was used, that effectively takes the mining part of the energy and expense out of the picture, making it significantly more cost and energy effective. That wouldn't negate that soils likely are much more important to devote more resources to, though.



Red Baron Farms said:
It will require a three pronged approach worldwide.

  1. Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many feasible renewables as current technology allows.
  2. Change Agricultural methods to high yielding regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
  3. Large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable.
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I'm not going to argue with you there.
 
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Aridas said:
As they note, a huge amount of olivine has already been mined while miners are seeking other things and is just being treated as waste rock. If, say, just that was used, that effectively takes the mining part of the energy and expense out of the picture, making it significantly more cost and energy effective. .
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Very good point. I would try a larger trial just to see if there were any harmful ecological side effects (like excessive leaching of heavy metals or some such), and if not...great idea for disposal of certain types of mine tailings.....
 
(Answer to Aridas)
If you look at the actual warming statistics they show that it's only getting warmer during the winter time and in cold countries. There's also that storms and forest fires are down since 50 years ago. The only thing would be rising sea levels but from what I can see, the Oceans are large enough that they won't be going up by that much. Also what makes oil company executives an authority on global warming? With CO2 based global warming there's a special danger in that it's taken to be undisputable where the scientific process of retesting conclusions isn't allowed to function like it normally would. That's why after the models have all failed to predict the last 20 years, and the CO2 levels in the antarctic record went up after the earth got hotter, the theory still is prevalent.
 
Lupus said:
(Answer to Aridas)
If you look at the actual warming statistics they show that it's only getting warmer during the winter time and in cold countries. There's also that storms and forest fires are down since 50 years ago. The only thing would be rising sea levels but from what I can see,
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Perhaps if you removed those blinders...

Also what makes oil company executives an authority on global warming?
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I give up. What's the answer?

With CO2 based global warming there's a special danger in that it's taken to be undisputable
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It's certainly disputable. If you want to argue that 15ºC is lower than 14ºC then go ahead - nobody's stopping you.

That's why after the models have all failed to predict the last 20 years,
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All the models failed to 'predict' that the last 20 years would have a climate? Seems unlikely.

CO2 levels in the antarctic record went up after the earth got hotter,
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So you admit that the Earth is getting warmer?
 
Roger Ramjets said:
So you admit that the Earth is getting warmer?
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I think this is actually a reference to one of the deniers favourite cherry picked facts: that in most natural past climate change, the rise in temperature preceded the rise in CO2 levels. This, of course, is because CO2 levels do not simply rise for no reason whatsoever, the usual cause of them rising is a rise in temperature - i.e. the rise is a feedback, not a forcing. The dominant climate forcing on timescales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years is the Milankovitch cycles, but the changes in temperature produced are greatly amplified by the consequent change in atmospheric CO2. This positive feedback is due to the fact that CO2 is a water soluble gas, and cold water absorbs more than warm water.

This is all well known and well understood, and is information that anyone who could be bothered could easily look up for themselves.

ETA: oh, and no climate model claims to accurately predict climate over a period as short as 20 years, as they can only predict long term underlying trends, they can't predict the noise due to short term variations like ENSO etc. It takes at least 30 years of data to reliably distinguish underlying trends from noise.
 
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