Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[aleCcowaN]

... that would accomplish very little in global terms, but would come at an enormous economic cost. It seems it would be wiser to spend the money preparing for the consequences of rising sea levels, etc.

That's what they want us to think.

The global costs attached to any effective strategy against global warming fall between the US' government expenditures in defence and worlwide expenditures in interests paid over public debt.

 

[Perpetual Student]

deleted

 

[DC]

India has already a CO2 tax on coal. does the US have that?

 

[Hans]

Lesson One: Never judge a book or a magazine by its cover.

Lesson Two: Never judge a book or a magazine by its cover.

To All Climate Change Deep Thinkers: Pay Attention.

Ah a classic troll comment Robert

Yeah Robert you were caught lying twice... (again)

What does the Bible say about those who don't speak the truth?

lol

Of course we should point out that Robert got those images from right wing nut sites who told him to believe what they say.......and he does

 

[Perpetual Student]

It seems to me that the comments made here about meaningful reductions in CO₂ involve a lot of wishful thinking. My take is that significant increases are inevitable given that the underdeveloped world is playing catchup with the rest of us.
I have not seen any convincing arguments here to the contrary -- yet.
In any case, looking at what needs to be done to our (USA) infrastructure, policies concerning housing, etc. should be a priority. How many years do we have before much of Florida is gone?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Yes, things seem to be quite unclear. I would guess that it is extremely unlikely that China, India and South American countries, etc...

Let "South American" countries aside. In America the only countries that make a ruckus in the CO2 front are the United States and Canada.

You can look at the problem from many angles: You can say that from about 37 GT of emission in 2012 (5.2 T per inhabitant), some 17 (2.3 T/inh) are absorbed by the ocean (and this may be counted as fixed for many decades). Let's say all human beings are equal, and that we forgive Usians, British, Germans and others for polluting viciously 90 or 60 years ago. Well, we're guilty for this yearly amount of CO2 "in excess" in America (I ignored all countries with less that 5 million inhabitants):

United States = 4900 MT
Canada = 470 MT
Mexico = 180 MT
Venezuela = 90 MT
Argentina = 80 MT
Chile = 30 MT
Cuba = 9 MT
Brazil = 5 MT

And the rest of the countries, starting by populated ones like Colombia and Peru are in negative numbers (they emit less that what the ocean absorb on a per capita basis)

When Canada amounts more that the rest of America south of Rio Grande it's time to stop blaming others.

 

[DC]

It seems to me that the comments made here about meaningful reductions in CO₂ involve a lot of wishful thinking. My take is that significant increases are inevitable given that the underdeveloped world is playing catchup with the rest of us.
I have not seen any convincing arguments here to the contrary -- yet.
In any case, looking at what needs to be done to our (USA) infrastructure, policies concerning housing, etc. should be a priority. How many years do we have before much of Florida is gone?

what is your plan? keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere untill we have no fossil fuels left anymore? what would that do to the climate?
its said to reach the goal of 2°C warming we once thought would be a good idea, would require that 80% of the proven reserves in fossil fuel must stay in the ground.
now when we just burn it all up, how would our climate look and what would the impacts be? and how would you adapt to it?

and who will pay for the impacts to poor people? what happens to the countries that do not have the money for fancy walls keeping the sea out of their city?

 

[DC]

i would argue that those that say we can adapt and ignore mitigation are the wishfull thinkers.

 

[bit_pattern]

From SkS - doing as they asked, propagating as widely as possible

Frequently Asked Questions About Ocean Acidification

Posted on 4 January 2013 by Rob Painting
Skeptical Science is rather fortunate to have had three experts on ocean chemistry write an entire series (OA not OK) about ocean acidification (OA). Now the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) has released a FAQ document, prepared by some of the world's foremost ocean acidification researchers, which answers many of the frequently asked questions about OA.

Figure 1 - A scanning electron microsope image of the pteropod (marine snail) Limacina helicina antarctica showing acute levels of shell dissolution. This species is a cornerstone of the Antarctic marine food web and is at imminent risk due to ocean acidification. Despite possessing a highly corroded shell, the pictured specimen was alive at point of capture. Image courtesy of the British Antarctic Survey.

As the above image graphically demonstrates, ocean acidification is not some far-flung future problem, it is a dire threat to many marine organisms that is happening in our oceans right now, and will progressively get worse with continued fossil fuel emissions.

So if you happen to be traversing the blogosphere and stumble upon some contrarian spouting pseudo-scientific gibberish about ocean acidification, not only do you have the SkS OA not OK series of blog posts with which to educate lurkers, but the WHOI FAQ document is also likely to provide a factual response to the typical climate contrarian talking points.

Climate-related myths tend to propagate like rabbits in the absence of scientific facts, so please disseminate the WHOI FAQ as widely as possible.

 

[Perpetual Student]

what is your plan? keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere untill we have no fossil fuels left anymore? what would that do to the climate?
its said to reach the goal of 2°C warming we once thought would be a good idea, would require that 80% of the proven reserves in fossil fuel must stay in the ground.
now when we just burn it all up, how would our climate look and what would the impacts be? and how would you adapt to it?

and who will pay for the impacts to poor people? what happens to the countries that do not have the money for fancy walls keeping the sea out of their city?

Plans concocted by laymen with no expertise are worthless, so -- no -- I would not waste my or your time. However, it is good to see that there are people here who seem to think the situation is not as dire as I have believed. I hope they are right.
My own naive take is that when dealing with issues that require some sacrifice, political leaders are hopeless. The current fractured national debt negotiations in the USA are an example. Politicians do not commit to resolve difficult problems until a crisis is imminent.
I cannot imagine a scenario where politicians throughout the world would make difficult decisions regarding CO₂ emissions and global warming, which would likely require sacrifice for some segment of their constituencies. At this point it seems to me that humans will act to deal with rising seas and other consequences of global warming when the threats become imminent. It might help if specialists in this area would begin to outline plans for dealing with coming multiple crises. For example, all the retired US north-easterners in Florida would have to be moved to Ohio as the Atlantic Ocean impinges on their condos.

 

[macdoc]

Focusing on sealevel changes in my view plays into the hands of the denier crowd as they then - with some justification - claim a "catastrophe" view is not supported which in the short term is correct.

Altered climate bands and more extreme weather events are immediate consequences. There are any number of issues with coastal cities....rising sea levels over a century being a minor one in the short term.

Mitigation and coping are both in the cards - the countries that can afford to - like Sweden will do so and even China is doing well under the adverse circumstances it faces with an upwardly mobile population and infrastructure growth.

Yet it is applying it's monetary wealth to long term projects like the world's largest solar installation and multiple nuclear plants.
It's vehicle emissions standards are higher than in North America.

What is unforgiveable in the US is letting coal get away, literally, with murder.

With the cost and available supplies of gas ( fracking has it's issues as well but I'll take them over continued coal use ) - there is no reason to continue to allow ancient dirty coal plants to operate.

They were phased out in Ontario and can be elsewhere. Those are mitigation goals that are necessary and achievable.
I see even Japan is coming out of it's stupidity on nuclear and putting plants back on line.

The climate is already altered for several millenia out - it will alter more. Porgress is not being made globally but more at the city and small state level and even with dedicated companies and individuals.

Getting a general carbon tax in place would accelerate that. With the disinformation campaign continued to be waged that's a difficult proposition.
This is well worth taking the time to watch.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Global criminals the lot. Perhaps on a scale beyond tobacco even.

 

[aleCcowaN]

... I cannot imagine a scenario where politicians throughout the world would make difficult decisions regarding CO₂ emissions and global warming, which would likely require sacrifice for some segment of their constituencies...

This is the way it is usually regarded, the simplest way of doing nothing: the false dilemma "democracy vs. global warming".

But there are visible structures between mere constituents and the globe: they are called districts, states, provinces, countries, and associations of countries ... megatribes if you want. That's the level were the problem is to be solved with the aid and not opposition of the constituencies.

The simplest way I envision is via tariffs on CO2 equivalent: let's say that during 2013 it is expected an global emission of GHG equivalent to 44 GT of carbon dioxide and that the estimated cost of the battery of measures needed to curb AGW and control its direr effects is some 880 G$. That gives a cost of 20$ per ton of CO2 equivalent. Let's say that we want to charge this on a foreign trade that will total some 18 T$ CIF globally, but based on emissions, well, China exports 200$ of goods by each ton of climate changing pollutants she vomits, so an additional tariff of 10% is to be applied worldwide to pay the indirect costs or it. For the United States, as the ratio is 400, the tariff is 5%, for Germany, 1%, and so on. The money is to be used or assigned mainly by the importer. Every country who feels that additional tariffs damage her foreign trade can perfectly use her own money to subsidize her exports up to the amount of the additional tariff without that being considering illegal dumping.

What I described is a wilful oversimplification -which means that the subject has been studied by who need to and I'm asking nobody to "complete" the idea-. This kind of system can start gradually, in a 10 or 20% of its plenty value, in order to fund a new international institution, like a World Bank but for climate oriented projects. Soft financing solar and wind power projects is one of multiple possible actions. Subsidizing nuclear power plant heavy insurances, another one.

This is only a sketch of an incomplete sketch of the idea, just for the sake of setting out the basic notion here. The inevitable conflict is dealt diplomatically and institutionally and not by demagogues trying to please their constituencies at a parochial level.

 

[DC]

Plans concocted by laymen with no expertise are worthless, so -- no -- I would not waste my or your time. However, it is good to see that there are people here who seem to think the situation is not as dire as I have believed. I hope they are right.
My own naive take is that when dealing with issues that require some sacrifice, political leaders are hopeless. The current fractured national debt negotiations in the USA are an example. Politicians do not commit to resolve difficult problems until a crisis is imminent.
I cannot imagine a scenario where politicians throughout the world would make difficult decisions regarding CO₂ emissions and global warming, which would likely require sacrifice for some segment of their constituencies. At this point it seems to me that humans will act to deal with rising seas and other consequences of global warming when the threats become imminent. It might help if specialists in this area would begin to outline plans for dealing with coming multiple crises. For example, all the retired US north-easterners in Florida would have to be moved to Ohio as the Atlantic Ocean impinges on their condos.

Mayn countries have already implemented carbon taxes. and are working on even more, are working hard to get alternative energy sources. but mostly in those countries, industrial lobbism is not as strong as in the US. and those countries are slowly making progress in regard to CO2 mitigation.
but to plan on not mitigate and just have plans to deal with the impacts is dumb. especially as there are no plans. how would a plan look that deals with food shortage? water shortage? etc etc? then the poor countries. do we help them? will we let them die? what is the plan for them? many countries are now already panicing because so many people want to come here. what do you think this will look like when they are hungry and move towards our borders? how does that plan look like?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Cryosphere 2013

What about starting a thread on the cryosphere, or Arctic sea ice if you prefer the traditional approach?

According to PIOMAS, Arctic sea ice volume was 1,100 km3 under the previous year's value by November 30th (2010 and 2011 were similar to that date) so, there's a first brick laid to build a new record low by September (though NIÑO3.4 index turned negative again 25 days ago).

Related to that, maybe some of you have already taken a look to Tedesco et al (pdf, 17 Mb) paper, the first one about the recent melting episode in Greenland. They conclude that the mass change during the last melting season was 627 GT and the ice mass drop from September 2011 to September 2012 was 574 GT (take a look to figure 8 in page 4973 for the trend).

This means a contribution of 1.5 mm in a year to sea level rise from Greenland alone <could have been that I used well four prepositions in a row? that would be a first> (I have estimated 1 mm or more here one month ago from both ice shelves, but this is pretty alarming)

 

[Halsu]

i don't think its a good conclusion at all.
the problems it will cause are far bigger than the problems we will face with mitigation.

A good talk, thanks for the link!

 

[macdoc]

Ben had a thread on that - why not revive that.

They conclude that the mass change during the last melting season was 627 GT and the ice mass drop from September 2011 to September 2012 was 574 GT

that is unreal - as they had altered the mass loss downward from 200 GT per annum to 100 due to a change in the way it was calculated - so a jump to 3 - 5 x that is wild.

NASA have a fascinating article Greenland's Ice Island Alarm which looks at the difficulties of measuring ice loss in Greenland and how different techniques using different date (eg - satellites measuring gravity or surface height changes) all agree that Greenland is losing between 150 to 180 gigatonnes of ice per year.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-cooling-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm

 

[DC]

A good talk, thanks for the link!

yeah i miss the guy, he had such a talent to explain the complexety of the topic and why it is so important to act. He was good at bringing that point across.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Ben had a thread on that - why not revive that.



that is unreal - as they had altered the mass loss downward from 200 GT per annum to 100 due to a change in the way it was calculated - so a jump to 3 - 5 x that is wild.


http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-cooling-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm

I superposed both figures in Tedesco et al and in SkepticalScience and they match pretty well:

There's a trend of about 200-230 GT lost each year for 2002-2009 in both graphics. That's the trend that some have revised some 100 GT down because of rebounding, sensor skidding -pun intended- and other issues. Anyway, as all those issues are a constant for any practical approach, the loss during the 2012 season is at least 450 GT (1.3 mm sea level rise) so mamma mía! as this year's surface temperatures above 80°N have been a couple of degrees above those from previous year's. There's also a certain probability that El Niño is kicking in by July-September, so, get front row tickets.

 

[seycyrus]

There's a trend of about 200-230 GT lost each year for 2002-2009 in both graphics.

Do they have data of the same caliber for years prior to 2002? If so, how far back?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Do they have data of the same caliber for years prior to 2002? If so, how far back?

Not by NASA/DLR GRACE which was launched in March 2002. Previously there are other estimates from glacier retreat, glacier thinning, ice sheet movement and precipitations. A reference value for the '80s is a yearly loss of 40 GT.