Question about climate change

[Warmer1]

Here is the history of CO2 on the Earth.

"NAS member Richard Alley presents on 4.6 Billion Years of Earth’s Climate History: The Role of CO2, during the Symposium—Earths, Moons, Mars & Stars at the National Academy of Sciences 152nd Annual Meeting."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkcTZZlikg

Also we need to remove hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere at 22:00 in the following presentation. Please take the time to watch the entire program. Kevin Anderson works at the Tyndall Center. Meeting the 2 degree target will be a miracle and in private a lot of scientists claim that 1.6 degree C increase is the red line we must not cross.

On January 24th 2019, Professor Kevin Anderson addressed the Oxford Climate Society on "climate’s holy trinity: how cogency, tenacity & courage could yet deliver on our Paris 2°C commitment".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZFvc-ZOa8

This next article most warmers try to ignore.

In a new report by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC), senior scientists from across Europe have evaluated the potential contribution of negative emission technologies (NETs) to allow humanity to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets of avoiding dangerous climate change. They find that NETs have “limited realistic potential” to halt increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the scale envisioned in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. This new report finds that none of the NETs has the potential to deliver carbon removals at the gigaton (Gt) scale and at the rate of deployment envisaged by the IPCC, including reforestation, afforestation, carbon-friendly agriculture, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCs), enhanced weathering, ocean fertilisation, or direct air capture and carbon storage (DACCs).

“Scenarios and projections that suggest that NETs’ future contribution to CO2 removal will allow Paris targets to be met appear optimistic on the basis of current knowledge and should not form the basis of developing, analysing, and comparing scenarios of longer-term energy pathways for the EU. Relying on NETs to compensate for failures to adequately mitigate emissions may have serious implications for future generations," state the European science academies.

https://easac.eu/publications/details/easac-net/

If you watch and read all of this you will have a good idea of how far along we are headed toward mass die off, and how quickly we have to find a massive carbon capture solution.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

This next article mostsome warmerspeople try to ignore.

In a new report by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC), senior scientists from across Europe have evaluated the potential contribution of negative emission technologies (NETs) to allow humanity to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets of avoiding dangerous climate change. They find that NETs have “limited realistic potential” to halt increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the scale envisioned in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. This new report finds that none of the NETs has the potential to deliver carbon removals at the gigaton (Gt) scale and at the rate of deployment envisaged by the IPCC, including reforestation, afforestation, carbon-friendly agriculture, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCs), enhanced weathering, ocean fertilisation, or direct air capture and carbon storage (DACCs).

“Scenarios and projections that suggest that NETs’ future contribution to CO2 removal will allow Paris targets to be met appear optimistic on the basis of current knowledge and should not form the basis of developing, analysing, and comparing scenarios of longer-term energy pathways for the EU. Relying on NETs to compensate for failures to adequately mitigate emissions may have serious implications for future generations," state the European science academies.

https://easac.eu/publications/details/easac-net/

If you watch and read all of this you will have a good idea of how far along we are headed toward mass die off, and how quickly we have to find a massive carbon capture solution.

Lets try to remember, all these are human beings we are talking about. Using such labels tends to shut down conversation.

Next though I have serious issues with the conclusions of EASAC.
Lets take them one by one:
1)reforestation, afforestation
This can help substantially. Even in the Gt range! But I partially agree with EASAC here. There are not enough suitable areas to grow enough trees. Also the maximum pool size saturates relatively quickly. Albedo can even decrease in many cases. Somewhere near 80-100 years later the pools finally completely saturate and their net drops to near zero on in the carbon cycle. So too little too late, but a significant help if it were taken seriously.
2)carbon-friendly agriculture
This could easily offset far more than the EASAC are admitting. This is because they are using outdated soil carbon models like the Roth C model. However, for example worldwide permanent pastures are in the range of 33,585,676 square kilometers and 80% are mismanaged, either overgrazed or undergrazed. That leaves roughly ~2,686,854,080 hectares that could be managed by modern scientific grazing methods and sequester annually ~ 13Gt to 53Gt CO2e/yr more than they are now. 78% of that into the deep carbon cycle and 22% into mid term carbon cycles that eventually saturate like the forests. That's before we even start to talk about arable ground or restoring desertified ground. So clearly the EASAC missed the boat here completely. Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised
3)BeCCS
Actually the EASAC got this part wrong too, but the opposite way. The whole planned system of behind BeCCS is flawed mainly because it runs counter to the above. Scientific American ran a pretty good article why the corn system planned for BeCCS will ultimately fail. It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System It's worse than even EASAC wants to admit and should be completely scraped because even attempting it is screwing up the ability of agriculture to mitigate AGW. Worse than failing itself, it is also dragging down other more realistic measures.
4)enhanced weathering, ocean fertilization, or direct air capture and carbon storage
The EASAC analysis of these seems good. I have no knowledge of any mistakes here.

 

[Warmer1]

I addressed the statement to warmers, not "some people" which is pretty much meaningless, and it was meant to have a little shock factor because warmers don't want to hear this news and can easily dismiss the information.

" Using such labels tends to shut down conversation." I didn't realize how insensitive it is to refer to someone as being a "warmer." - Warmer1

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I addressed the statement to warmers, not "some people" which is pretty much meaningless, and it was meant to have a little shock factor because warmers don't want to hear this news and can easily dismiss the information.

" Using such labels tends to shut down conversation." I didn't realize how insensitive it is to refer to someone as being a "warmer." - Warmer1

Most Skeptics follow the evidence wherever it leads. They don't start by choosing a "camp" to identify with first. If tomorrow the balance of evidence should change, so would a skeptic's opinion on AGW.

 

[Hercules56]

In 1989, the UN predicted disaster if we did not stop GHG emissions by 2020.

https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf1..._DmWR8iPlCfUog7Bp7HPj67Vk7Fj9s4vkVOKVZt68Gvhk

Of course we know disaster did not strike in 2000. Or 2010. Or will it likely occur in 2020.

What are folks to think when they see such chicken-little predictions that clearly did not come true? We're supposed to listen to folks who say "well, back then the chicken littles were wrong, but now we are right!!!!".

Something tells me in 20 years, someone will ask the same question again. And we'll likely get the same response: "oh, its coming, don't you worry!!!".

 

[Hercules56]

You mean like Venus?

Venus, is not Earth.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

In 1989, the UN predicted disaster if we did not stop GHG emissions by 2020.

https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf1..._DmWR8iPlCfUog7Bp7HPj67Vk7Fj9s4vkVOKVZt68Gvhk

Of course we know disaster did not strike in 2000. Or 2010. Or will it likely occur in 2020.

What are folks to think when they see such chicken-little predictions that clearly did not come true? We're supposed to listen to folks who say "well, back then the chicken littles were wrong, but now we are right!!!!".

Something tells me in 20 years, someone will ask the same question again. And we'll likely get the same response: "oh, its coming, don't you worry!!!".

The best analogy is the slow train wreck. You can see it coming and there is time to get off the tracks. And because it is so slow people keep trying to get around the hazard barriers and warning bells. About the only way to get hurt by it is to ignore the warnings. But if you did and judged it even a little off, the train wreck is devastating because it has such huge momentum even though the speed isn't that bad.

The Earth has many orders of magnitude more momentum than a train. The critical time to make sure we "get off the tracks" is now. But this is geological time "now" which seems incredibly slow to fast paced humans.

 

[Hercules56]

The best analogy is the slow train wreck. You can see it coming and there is time to get off the tracks. And because it is so slow people keep trying to get around the hazard barriers and warning bells. About the only way to get hurt by it is to ignore the warnings. But if you did and judged it even a little off, the train wreck is devastating because it has such huge momentum even though the speed isn't that bad.

The Earth has many orders of magnitude more momentum than a train. The critical time to make sure we "get off the tracks" is now. But this is geological time "now" which seems incredibly slow to fast paced humans.

I'd honestly be more likely to accept the Doom & Gloom predictions if they were being driven by scientists and not politicians and former waitresses.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I'd honestly be more likely to accept the Doom & Gloom predictions if they were being driven by scientists and not politicians and former waitresses.

There is no reason to accept the doom and gloom at all. Just get off the tracks so the train won't hit you.

Do you literally start crying doom and gloom every time a train goes by? I sure don't. Trains are only scary if you are too stupid to get off the Damn tracks!

AGW is even less scary than a train, if we simply balance the carbon cycle. It isn't really even that hard or expensive. NOT avoiding AGW is far more scary and more expensive.

 

[Pixel42]

In 1989, the UN predicted disaster if we did not stop GHG emissions by 2020.

https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf1..._DmWR8iPlCfUog7Bp7HPj67Vk7Fj9s4vkVOKVZt68Gvhk

This article is from 1989 and is quoting the words of "the director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program", not an official IPCC report. There's a weird reference to a "1 to 7" degrees (C or F is not specified) temperature rise in the next 30 years. I suspect the 7 is a typo and should have been a 2. The long term consequences of failing to reduce emissions to halt AGW are described accurately. No date is specified for these consequences.

The temperature rise actually predicted by the IPCC in its first (1990) report was around 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade, dropping to 0.15- 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade in subsequent reports.

Here's the graph of observed global surface temperature. There has been a rise of about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) since 1989:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instr...rd#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg

 

[Delvo]

The long term consequences of failing to reduce emissions to halt AGW are described accurately. No date is specified for these consequences.

"If we don't prevent Thing X from happening at Time X, then Thing Y will happen at Time Y"

Response: "Time X is here and Thing Y hasn't happened yet, so it was a hoax!"

 

[Belz...]

Venus, is not Earth.

It's remarkably similar, if conditions go too far here.

 

[macdoc]

It's not

Koll calculated that for Earth the runaway temperature threshold was at 340 °K (67 °C) – thankfully far beyond the current average surface temperature of about 285 °K (12 °C).
Such dramatic temperature rises could only be possible through cataclysmic events, such as increasing solar outputs over billions of years of the sun’s evolution. The EAPS work suggests that the more modest, yet still dangerous, climate change-inducing temperature rises the existing model predicts for Earth will see the linear relation hold true.

So, while Earth won’t go the way of Venus any time soon, a warming planet still means a hotter world despite the increasing heat escaping into space.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/...ventually-copy-the-greenhouse-effect-of-venus

Even if we burned all the fossil fuels available ....we don't even come close to a runaway temp.

Won't be very happy biome tho.

 

[Delvo]

All of the CO₂ we could put in the air by burning fossil fuels now was there before. The result at the time was a world of a lot more swamps & jungles and no sign of ice caps or tundras... not a place where low-melting-point metals vaporize & precipitate out of the air & accumulate into shiny caps on the mountaintops like H₂O does on earth, the sky is never visible through the constant clouds, and alien science probes like ours are crushed, melted, & chemically dissolved within a couple of hours.

 

[Hercules56]

Here's the graph of observed global surface temperature. There has been a rise of about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) since 1989:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instr...rd#/media/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg

I hate this graph and ones like it. And I'll tell you why.

Did Earth's temperatures begin in 1880?

The graph doesn't suggest they did, but by limiting info to just the last 140 years, it leaves the audience ignorant as to what trends over the last 300, 500, 1,000, 10,000 years have been. Information these days is a weapon, and this graph and ones like it, are clearly weaponized.

Wanna see some more clearly weaponized graphs?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I hate this graph and ones like it. And I'll tell you why.

Did Earth's temperatures begin in 1880?

The graph doesn't suggest they did, but by limiting info to just the last 140 years, it leaves the audience ignorant as to what trends over the last 300, 500, 1,000, 10,000 years have been. Information these days is a weapon, and this graph and ones like it, are clearly weaponized.

Wanna see some more clearly weaponized graphs?

[qimg]https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2013/05/mauna-loa-C02-ppm-full_record.png.860x0_q70_crop-scale.png[/qimg]

How can you call that weaponized when it goes all the way back to when the readings started?

Sure CO2 existed prior to that but this is specifically results from this particular observatory.

 

[macdoc]

Did Earth's temperatures begin in 1880?

The graph doesn't suggest they did, but by limiting info to just the last 140 years, it leaves the audience ignorant as to what trends over the last 300, 500, 1,000, 10,000 years have been. Information these days is a weapon, and this graph and ones like it, are clearly weaponized.

I see the OPs not very well educated on climate science despite the reading suggestions.

Are you conflating global temperatures with CO2 levels??

1880 is considered the beginning of the industrial age so that is a benchmark spot where human influence begins to overwhelm natural variation.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/paris-1-5-2c-target-far-from-safe-say-world-leading-scientists-81532/

In the recent years human influence on climate can be seen earlier with land clearing which can also influence CO2 levels.

Not sure what you mean be "weaponized" but the climate change wars are over in terms of "yes it's getting warmer, yes we're responsible" as the major contributors to that public acknowledge a reality that they knew about 40 years ago.

Exxon Knew about Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago - Scientific ...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/.../exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-...
Oct 26, 2015 - Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago ... the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels," ...

there are several challenges ahead.

Litigation of the fossil fuel companies to pay for damages....in progress but difficult.

Mitigation...reducing the pace of CO2 emmissions to keep the damage down.....Paris agreement ...great idea...not getting there yet.

Move to a zero carbon industrial society...coming along but hardly fast enough.

The battle has been moved to what do about it....and that is mostly political. The consequences of failure quite dire in the long term and even now coming home to roost in terms of very expensive extreme weather events.

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warmi...pacts/global-warming-rain-snow-tornadoes.html

https://www.c2es.org/content/extreme-weather-and-climate-change/

The global insurance companies understand the risks only too well

Record high temperatures and more extreme weather
Climate change and its consequences
Wildfires in Sweden, record highs of over 30°C in the northern Arctic Circle, heat and drought in central Europe, Asia and parts of North America. By the end of August, 2018 was one of the four warmest years of all time and by the end of the year is expected to be among the six warmest since records began.
27.09.2018
Dr. Eberhard Faust, Ernst Rauch

https://www.munichre.com/topics-onl...-change-heat-records-and-extreme-weather.html

 

[Pixel42]

I hate this graph and ones like it. And I'll tell you why.

Did Earth's temperatures begin in 1880?

The graph is clearly titled "Instrumental Temperature Record". It starts as early as it can start, i.e. after thermometers had been invented and become ubiquitous enough for estimates of global surface temperature to be obtained based on their readings. As that interval includes the period under discussion, i.e. the last 30 years, it was the appropriate graph to post.

For periods prior to the invention of the thermometer average surface temperature has to be estimated using various proxies, e.g. ice cores and tree rings. Graphs showing the global temperature record obtained using these proxies are freely available and can be examined by anyone who bothers to look them up:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record

 

[Pixel42]

This documentary may help to fill the obviously huge gaps in the knowledge of the OP and others like him:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47666007

Sir David Attenborough is to present an "urgent" new documentary about climate change for BBC One.

The one-off film will focus on the potential threats to our planet and the possible solutions.

The broadcaster says "conditions have changed far faster" than he ever imagined when he first started talking about the environment 20 years ago.

The documentary will show footage showing the impact global warming has already had.
It will also feature interviews with climatologists and meteorologists to explore the science behind recent extreme weather conditions, including the California wildfires in November 2018.

 

[Reality Check]

I hate this graph and ones like it. And I'll tell you why.

Did Earth's temperatures begin in 1880?

That is a graph of the National Climatic Data Center instrumental temperature record which starts in 1880. The records before this are not generally used: Why does GISS show no data from before 1880?

The analysis is limited to the period since 1880 because of poor spatial coverage of stations and decreasing data quality prior to that time. Meteorological station data provide a useful indication of temperature change in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics for a few decades prior to 1880, and there are a small number of station records that extend back to previous centuries. However, we believe that analyses for these earlier years need to be carried out on a station by station basis with an attempt to discern the method and reliability of measurements at each station, a task beyond the scope of our analysis. Global studies of still earlier times depend upon incorporation of proxy measures of temperature change.

The Berkeley Earth project uses data back to 1750: Data Overview

We have to use proxy measurements to go back further than the first instruments used to measure temperatures. See Global temperature record