Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SailOar

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Think of the people that died just so they could build that wall

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by jackdale

I was responding to Reefmagnet, not you. Pay attention.

Reefmagnet's point was that CO2 has been produced by natural sources for a very long time and I was merely providing the hard data on how much of the annual CO2 that finds its way into the atmosphere is attributable to humans.

But you haven't addressed my questions, nor do I expect you to. When one looks at how anthropogenic CO2 is dwarfed by natural sources, and how trivial the reduction of human sourced CO2 would be under even the most extreme leftist proposals, one understands why warmists cannot be taken seriously.

You're fighting something that so far, has produced only benefits instead of the projected harm, using tactics that won't work yet will cost trillions upon trillions.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Actually, natural carbon sinks are quite capable of handling the 'excess' CO2 that we humans are emitting. The problem isn't the quantity but rather the rate of release. Natural carbon sinks operate much more slowly then we currently emit.


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Not all carbon sinks are equal. The reason the planet is greening with all the benefits that accrues to the poor is because plants respond instantly to enhanced CO2, including phytoplankton which absorb an enormous amount of carbon.

Speaking of which, do you know what the optimal level of CO2 is for most plant species grown in hot houses? Around 900 ppm.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Folks,

Can we stop with the name calling and presidential candidate like/hate stuff? If you want to do that please start your own thread.

You don't have to be a terrible person for supporting either side of this debate. Looking at how thin our atmosphere is compared to the size of the planet would make anyone think twice about filling it with anything "unnatural". Likewise, we have observed that for many thousands upon thousands of years the planet has become more and more suitable to life as we know it. So there must be something in nature that drives the planet to be suitable for life. No one knows with certainty whether or how people in their daily lives can affect the climate long term. Personally, I doubt we are as significant a factor as some believe. But nobody knows for sure. But one thing is sure. Name-calling is a juvenile way to express ones opinion.

In general I would agree with you. The problem with promotion of AGW and the schemes to fight it is that it diverts trillions in resources to a completely pointless endeavor, and along the way increases the cost of energy such that poor people become poorer. And when poor people become poorer, more of them die of poverty related causes.

So one way to look at this debate is that if AGW is as false a hypothesis as the data suggests, promoting it is killing people for no reason. We've already had one poster note that malaria, which kills 400,000 people a year and could be pretty much eradicated with the use of different chlorinated hydrocarbons is no big deal since people die all the time. If that isn't a completely morally bankrupt position to take, I don't know what is, but that is a consistent attitude with the idea of spending trillions to reduce warming by 1/5th of a degree in 85 years, instead of spending that money on something useful.

For some of us, debating warmists is a bit like debating someone supporting Eugenics. No doubt that person believes that humanity would be better without 'defectives' but it is hard not to hold them and the consequences of their beliefs in contempt.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Delfin

How profound. And based on the math, the journey is going to cost trillions of dollars and when you are finally at your destination you will find out you are right back where you started.

Brilliant.

I don't know whether Lindzen's figures are correct or not, but I don't think anyone disagrees with you that the Paris agreements are insufficient to the task.

What I see as the current biggest problem is the insanely stupid intransigence of many Republicans and fundamentalist Christians (often one and the same). If that log jamb can be picked loose there is a possibility that clever scientists and engineers, supported by government coffers, can come up with a technological solution that won't send us back to the Dark Ages... Maybe...

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by SailOar

I don't know whether Lindzen's figures are correct or not, but I don't think anyone disagrees with you that the Paris agreements are insufficient to the task.

What I see as the current biggest problem is the insanely stupid intransigence of many Republicans and fundamentalist Christians (often one and the same). If that log jamb can be picked loose there is a possibility that clever scientists and engineers, supported by government coffers, can come up with a technological solution that won't send us back to the Dark Ages... Maybe...

The cost of carbon sequestration ranges from 12 trillion to three times that number, depending on whether you count these avoidance costs as "investments", like Solyndra, or what they are, which is subsidies for inefficient or impractical alternatives to fossil fuels. Lindzen is one of many sources of information and estimation but most of the data I relay on come from warmist sources since I presume they will be on the low side.

So, we understand that as a leftist as far as you are concerned the problem here is those rascally Republicans in Congress. Unfortunately for that position, it isn't the rascally Republicans that have made the IPCC models fail, it is the IPCC's assumptions for those models that do that. In the U.S. it is the Republicans who should be blocking some of this lunacy because it is pointless and will kill poor people. I wish they were doing a better job of it.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Delfin

Not all carbon sinks are equal. The reason the planet is greening with all the benefits that accrues to the poor is because plants respond instantly to enhanced CO2,

It's more complicated than that. The higher temperatures that come with the increases of CO2 can eliminate many of the benefits.

How climate change is causing a bumper crop
April 26, 2016
...a new study in Nature Climate Change suggests that some local farmers are actually seeing higher crop yields because of the carbon that we're pumping into the atmosphere...

The key, the authors write, is water storage. Plants usually take in carbon dioxide through tiny holes in their leaves known as stomata. When these holes open, water inevitably leaks out. If there is a high concentration of carbon in the air, plants seldom need to open their stomata and so conserve moisture. Scientists call this phenomenon carbon fertilization...

Their results suggest that wheat crops will begin to use water 27 percent more efficiently, soybeans will increase their efficiency by 18 percent, and that corn and rice would both become roughly 10 percent more water efficient. Then, the scientists calculated the expected crop losses due to rising temperatures, including extreme weather conditions. They conclude that we'll probably see a net gain in wheat crops despite rising temperatures, but that corn is in trouble and expected to take a net loss. Meanwhile, the losses and gains for soybeans and rice are still too close to call.

Still, greater crop yield is not necessarily a win. Since prior studies have shown that high levels of carbon increase biomass but not nutrition in crops (because nitrogen and other mineral levels cannot keep up with the carbon boost) it is possible that even wheat may suffer under climate change — albeit not in crop quantity, but in crop quality. Worse, Bruce Kimball of the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed the paper, and noted that other studies have shown that the benefits of higher carbon concentrations eventually bottom out, but that the damage caused by rising temperatures continue to multiply with every degree.

Delfin said:
including phytoplankton which absorb an enormous amount of carbon.

Again, reality is more complex. The bottleneck in phytoplankton growth is not availability of CO2, but of iron in seawater.

A Way to Trap Carbon Deep in the Ocean
July 19, 2012
After an eight-year analysis, an international team of scientists has announced a breakthrough in the understanding of how algae and iron interact to sequester atmospheric carbon.

By adding iron to the ocean, the researchers induced a massive algal bloom. A significant portion died and sank to the ocean floor, carrying its sequestered carbon along with it to the depths. The finding contributes to science’s understanding of the global carbon cycle and has implications for potential ways of mitigating rising levels of carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change...

So that sounds pretty good, until you start crunching numbers...

Tiny solution for climate change shown to be a big waste of money
December 17, 2012
...But research by Sydney University and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science found large-scale iron fertilisation would be a waste of time and money in almost all conditions.

''It blows iron fertilisation out of the water,'' said Daniel Harrison, whose paper on the subject is published in the International Journal of Global Warming. ''It is possible to do iron fertilisation efficiently but the perfect conditions you would need are so rare that it would be a very limited contribution to the problem.''

By analysing all known iron fertilisation experiments, and calibrating them with computer models estimating the ebb and flow of the oceans, he established storing carbon dioxide in the ocean would cost about $433 per tonne. This compares unfavourably with the $23 per tonne Australian carbon price.

The process works because iron is a nutrient plankton needs in order to grow. When they die, some sink so deep the carbon dioxide they harvest from the atmosphere is removed from the Earth's carbon cycle for over 100 years.

But Mr Harrison's work shows fertilising a square kilometre of the Southern Ocean would only store about 10 kilograms of carbon dioxide - about as much as a car would emit from burning four litres of petrol.

Ocean study reveals carbon not sinking
The Southern Ocean contains about 40 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions absorbed by the world's oceans.

Researchers from the CSIRO and British Antarctic Survey examined the way the Southern Ocean sucks carbon absorbed from the surface layer into the deeper ocean...

He says it was previously thought this process, known as subduction, happened uniformly across the ocean.

"A conventional thought would be that once it gets out of this surface layer, it's kind of been tucked away and won't appear for a long time; many years of hundreds of years," he said.

"But with this re-ventilation, there's some places where actually it doesn't get put away into the deep ocean for long at all, re-ventilating in the time-scale of a decade."

Using information collected across 10 years from robotic probes known as Argo floats and various sensors, the team has shown subduction happens at specific locations as a result of interplay between winds, currents and massive whirlpools.

Dr Matear says the study also shows the Southern Ocean is not as efficient as first thought in capturing anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

"Once [the carbon] is out of the surface layer it is no longer communicating with the atmosphere so it is buried in the ocean and out of the equation," he said.

"But in many places it is a shallow burial and the carbon gets re-introduced into the atmosphere."...

Delfin said:
Speaking of which, do you know what the optimal level of CO2 is for most plant species grown in hot houses? Around 900 ppm.

If you had ever worked in a greenhouse (and I have), you would know that a lot of effort is put into keeping temperatures from getting too warm.

[Delfin]

Originally Posted by SailOar

It's more complicated than that. The higher temperatures that come with the increases of CO2 can eliminate many of the benefits.

Hardly, unless you've think plants grow more slowly in the summer than they do in the winter.

Originally Posted by SailOar

Again, reality is more complex. The bottleneck in phytoplankton growth is not availability of CO2, but of iron in seawater.

Then perhaps instead of wasting trillions accomplishing nothing we should spend a few billion seeding the oceans with iron, as many have already suggested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

Originally Posted by SailOar

If you had ever worked in a greenhouse (and I have), a lot of effort is put into keeping temperatures from getting too warm.

Having built an operated one of the largest greenhouse operations in the U.S. I have some familiarity with heating and cooling greenhouses. The reason greenhouses are cooled is not because plants don't like heat up to some reasonable limit, but because they grow too fast, get too lanky, don't hold up in the garden centers where it is cooler, have to be watered too much, require more growth regulators, are unpleasant for workers, etc. etc.

Strike three.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by SailOar

I don't know whether Lindzen's figures are correct or not, but I don't think anyone disagrees with you that the Paris agreements are insufficient to the task.

What I see as the current biggest problem is the insanely stupid intransigence of many Republicans and fundamentalist Christians (often one and the same). If that log jamb can be picked loose there is a possibility that clever scientists and engineers, supported by government coffers, can come up with a technological solution that won't send us back to the Dark Ages... Maybe...

That's one of the funniest picture I have seen but kinda scarey as well

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Good work. Now you're finally starting to think like a skeptic.


BTW, a couple of points about your chart. Firstly it uses a logarithmic period scale, so most of it falls within the last 600 million years which just happens to coincide with existence of complex life on the planet and secondly, you lifted the graph from a paper written by an author (whom even I would call a "denier", although having said that the data of the graph isn't his work) by the name of Nasif Nahle.

Carbon Dioxide Through the Geological Eras

By your definition the IPCC is populated by skeptics as well. Their reports includes many factors in climate change.




I know who Nahle is. The graph seems to attract little dispute; his interpretation and conclusions are simplistic at best.

See - I read deniers work as well.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by jackdale

By your definition the IPCC is populated by skeptics as well. Their reports includes many factors in climate change.

From the Introduction of IPCC 2014 Summary for Policymakers...

SPM 1. Observed Changes and their Causes

Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.

And

SPM 1.2 Causes of climate change

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

So, "many factors" are basically itemised as CO2, nitrous oxide and methane? Even H2O fails to get a mention. Although I guess the inclusion of the phrase "other anthropogenic drivers" provides an out. I mean this is only the all important Summary for Policy Makers document, after all.

Originally Posted by jackdale

I know who Nahle is. The graph seems to attract little dispute; his interpretation and conclusions are simplistic at best.

See - I read deniers work as well.

So you don't think he might be buddies with Jo Nova and be collaborating in data faking too?

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

From the Introduction of IPCC 2014 Summary for Policymakers...

[Even H2O fails to get a mention. Although I guess the inclusion of the phrase "other anthropogenic drivers" provides an out. I mean this is only the all important Summary for Policy Makers document, after all.

Oh look from AR5

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ 8.1 | How Important Is Water Vapour to Climate Change?
As the largest contributor to the natural greenhouse effect, water vapour plays an essential role in the Earth’s
climate. However, the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is controlled mostly by air temperature, rather
than by emissions. For that reason, scientists consider it a feedback agent, rather than a forcing to climate change.
Anthropogenic emissions of water vapour through irrigation or power plant cooling have a negligible impact on
the global climate.
Water vapour is the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. The contribution of water vapour to the
natural greenhouse effect relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) depends on the accounting method, but can
be considered to be approximately two to three times greater. Additional water vapour is injected into the atmosphere
from anthropogenic activities, mostly through increased evaporation from irrigated crops, but also through
power plant cooling, and marginally through the combustion of fossil fuel. One may therefore question why there
is so much focus on CO2, and not on water vapour, as a forcing to climate change.
Water vapour behaves differently from CO2 in one fundamental way: it can condense and precipitate. When air
with high humidity cools, some of the vapour condenses into water droplets or ice particles and precipitates. The
typical residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere is ten days. The flux of water vapour into the atmosphere
from anthropogenic sources is considerably less than from ‘natural’ evaporation. Therefore, it has a negligible
impact on overall concentrations, and does not contribute significantly to the long-term greenhouse effect. This is
the main reason why tropospheric water vapour (typically below 10 km altitude) is not considered to be an anthropogenic
gas contributing to radiative forcing.
Anthropogenic emissions do have a significant impact on water vapour in the stratosphere, which is the part of
the atmosphere above about 10 km. Increased concentrations of methane (CH4) due to human activities lead to
an additional source of water, through oxidation, which partly explains the observed changes in that atmospheric
layer. That stratospheric water change has a radiative impact, is considered a forcing, and can be evaluated. Stratospheric
concentrations of water have varied significantly in past decades. The full extent of these variations is not
well understood and is probably less a forcing*than
a feedback process added to natural variability. The
contribution of stratospheric water vapour to warming,
both forcing and feedback, is much smaller than
from CH4 or CO2.
The maximum amount of water vapour in the air
is controlled by temperature. A typical column of
air extending from the surface to the stratosphere
in polar regions may contain only a few kilograms
of water vapour per square metre, while a similar
column of air in the tropics may contain up to
70 kg. With every extra degree of air temperature,
the atmosphere can retain around 7% more water
vapour (see upper-left insert in the FAQ 8.1, Figure
1). This increase in concentration amplifies the greenhouse
effect, and therefore leads to more warming.
This process, referred to as the water vapour feedback,
is well understood and quantified. It occurs in
all models used to estimate climate change, where
its strength is consistent with observations. Although
an increase in atmospheric water vapour has been
observed, this change is recognized as a climate feedback
(from increased atmospheric temperature) and
should not be interpreted as a radiative forcing from
anthropogenic emissions.

Currently, water vapour has the largest greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere. However, other greenhouse
gases, primarily CO2, are necessary to sustain the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere. Indeed, if these other
gases were removed from the atmosphere, its temperature would drop sufficiently to induce a decrease of water
vapour, leading to a runaway drop of the greenhouse effect that would plunge the Earth into a frozen state. So
greenhouse gases other than water vapour provide the temperature structure that sustains current levels of atmospheric
water vapour. Therefore, although CO2 is the main anthropogenic control knob on climate, water vapour
is a strong and fast feedback that amplifies any initial forcing by a typical factor between two and three. Water
vapour is not a significant initial forcing, but is nevertheless a fundamental agent of climate change.

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-r...er08_FINAL.pdf

pages 666 -667

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Oh look from AR5



https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-r...er08_FINAL.pdf

pages 666 -667

Do policy makers bother with AR5? Is this like insurance fineprint?

Oh wait. Pages 666-667. Hahahaha. Too funny.

To bad they "forgot" to include it within the first 10 pages of the summary for policy makers. You know, the stuff that actually gets read by those other than brainiacs with no social life.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Do policy makers bother with AR5? Is this like insurance fineprint?

Oh wait. Pages 666-667. Hahahaha. Too funny.

AR5 is the science. The SPM is more poltical. I tend to avoid quoting it.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by jackdale

AR5 is the science. The SPM is more poltical. I tend to avoid quoting it.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

You obviously don't read your own copy and pastes. The information on your graph and in AR5 (pg 666-667) only mentions H20 in the context of it's association with CH4 (methane, of anthropogenic origin) within the stratosphere.

Anthropogenic emissions do have a significant impact on water vapour in the stratosphere, which is the part of the atmosphere above about 10 km. Increased concentrations of methane (CH4) due to human activities lead to an additional source of water, through oxidation, which partly explains the observed changes in that atmospheric layer. That stratospheric water change has a radiative impact, is considered a forcing, and can be evaluated.

Apparently, we do in fact have anthropogenic H20 water vapour according to the IPCC.

Who'd have thunk?