The Carbon Budget - Civilization's Epic Fail

[siti]

There is no empirical link between a couple extra molecules CO2 in 10000 air, and significant heat trapping- the Ordovician ice age had 10 times our CO2 'pollution'. Our GH effect is primarily driven by water vapor, as is any computer simulation that claims to predict significant warming. Our CO2 contribution cannot trap nearly enough itself, not even climastrologers claim this, only journalists and politicians

Nobody who has any idea about it at all claims that...but the problem is that more CO2 (and methane etc.) also means more water vapour in the atmosphere which amplifies the warming effect in a positive feedback loop (which is why it is such an important factor in climate models). CO2 is a particular problem because it does not go away quickly - it will stay in the atmosphere for a thousand years whereas water vapour quickly condenses if the temperature falls and methane (for example) reacts chemically (by oxidation) - mostly to form - guess what? - more CO2 and water. Yes - farting cows really are a problem.

The Ordovician ice age thing is another complete red herring - the point about that was that solar output was significantly lower so even ten times more CO2 in the atmosphere (compared to now) was low enough for an ice age. But I don't get the point of rolling out these unscientific comparisons anyway - how many mammals were there on earth 450 million years ago? So what possible lessons could be learned about human survival by comparing current (undeniably anthropogenic) carbon emissions to an era in which the most advanced land-based organisms were mosses growing around the edge of the seas and gradually absorbing the naturally occurring CO2 from the atmosphere.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

I'm a pragmatist.
Whether something is "free" or not isn't the issue...it's one option relative to another.
So I prefer to ration gas by price than by more wasteful (eg, waiting in lines) or
oppressive (eg, quantity rationing) means.

Ok I misunderstood you when you said you liked the free market approach I thought you were saying you would like for the free market to set prices which would regulate usage. I was pointing out that there is no such thing as a free market these days because the market is not free to set price on supply and demand because its manipulated.

; {>

 

[Revoltingest]

As in your economics PhD example, they both suffer the inherent instability of any model that relies 100% on feedback loops, not direct empirical cause and effect, tiny tweaks can spit out any result you like.

Not all system models are so unstable.

There is no empirical link between a couple extra molecules CO2 in 10000 air, and significant heat trapping- the Ordovician ice age had 10 times our CO2 'pollution'. Our GH effect is primarily driven by water vapor, as is any computer simulation that claims to predict significant warming. Our CO2 contribution cannot trap nearly enough itself, not even climastrologers claim this, only journalists and politicians




I can guarantee you that they will always make the same prediction they always have, that climate disaster is about 10-20 years away unless we start handing over wealth and rights immediately. Because 5 is implausible and 30 is too long to care- 10-20 has the maximum desired scare effect. that's the only practical calculation going on here.

Meanwhile the current average is a couple of degrees cooler than it was when the same prediction was made 20 years ago

A stopped watch is right twice a day as they say, but there is no reason to expect this to ever happen

Tell me what you are most afraid of, what do you think will happen if politicians allow citizens access to cheap energy and personal mobility?

Without getting into excruciating details, just consider the worldwide loss of glaciers.
With the planet albedo lessening, this sure points towards warming.

I'm not afraid....living in MI at about 1000' of elevation,
I'll see no flooding...just poorer snowboarding conditions.

 

[Revoltingest]

Ok I misunderstood you when you said you liked the free market approach I thought you were saying you would like for the free market to set prices which would regulate usage. I was pointing out that there is no such thing as a free market these days because the market is not free to set price on supply and demand because its manipulated.

; {>

Setting aside conspiracy theories of gasoline prices,
let's just agree that supply & demand should set the price,
allowing the buyers to allocate the resource according to
their own individual needs.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Without getting into excruciating details, just consider the worldwide loss of glaciers.
With the planet albedo lessening, this sure points towards warming.

I'm not afraid....living in MI at about 1000' of elevation,
I'll see no flooding...just poorer snowboarding conditions.

Yeh, MI is a beautiful state, never been there, well save for 10, 000 over it in a jet plane as J. starship would say. I am sure GW is occurring my friend the thing is I sincerely doubt there is much we can do about it, to wit ;

1. Ice age occurred when CO2 levels were 800 percent higher ...
   Ice age occurred when CO2 levels were 800 percent higher than now - Ice Age Now...
   Continue reading Ice age occurred when CO2 levels were 800 percent higher ... Ice age occurred when CO2 ... an abrupt ice age despite carbon dioxide levels ..

Hmm'

; {>

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Without getting into excruciating details, just consider the worldwide loss of glaciers.
With the planet albedo lessening, this sure points towards warming.

glaciers have been melting and retreating since the last glacial maximum about 20000 years ago, when humans were already blaming each other for bad weather and demanding sacrifices to appease the weather Gods.

There is nothing new here, and if this ever stopped or reversed in our lifetimes, then I'd be scared, the next glacial event is due and can descend quite quickly.

I'm not afraid....living in MI at about 1000' of elevation,
I'll see no flooding...just poorer snowboarding conditions.

I have a couple hundred feet on you then! but ice still sat > a mile above my head, all of which melted and retreated thousands of miles in thousands of years, that's a very fast pace without a single SUV needed to help!


I have not heard much of the albedo argument for a while, it was very popular 20 years ago, and then attention turned away to try to find another feedback loop

I wonder why?

But you identify my point, the whole the theory relies 100% on some sort of feedback loop, which can be almost anything at hand, and can be used to extrapolate cocktail umbrella sales into a global catastrophe, if there was enough money in doing so.

 

[Revoltingest]

glaciers have been melting and retreating since the last glacial maximum about 20000 years ago, when humans were already blaming each other for bad weather and demanding sacrifices to appease the weather Gods.

Of course, the planet has historically been alternately warmer & cooler many times.
But this doesn't make it desirable.

There is nothing new here, and if this ever stopped or reversed in our lifetimes, then I'd be scared, the next glacial event is due and can descend quite quickly.

The planet is big....really big, relative to our efforts.
So if we reverse the effects of AGW, I see it happening slowly.

I have a couple hundred feet on you then! but ice still sat > a mile above my head, all of which melted and retreated thousands of miles in thousands of years, that's a very fast pace without a single SUV needed to help!

I have not heard much of the albedo argument for a while, it was very popular 20 years ago, and then attention turned away to try to find another feedback loop

I wonder why?

But you identify my point, the whole the theory relies 100% on some sort of feedback loop, which can be almost anything at hand, and can be used to extrapolate cocktail umbrella sales into a global catastrophe, if there was enough money in doing so.

You keep saying "feedback loop" as though this singular feature describes complex systems.
It's not like that.
The risk I see isn't the sky-is-falling catastrophic "killing the planet" hysteria
which afflicts our friends on the left. Instead, it's going to population exodus
from withering areas, & the inevitable conflict & strife.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Of course, the planet has historically been alternately warmer & cooler many times.
But this doesn't make it desirable.

warmer is certainly desirable over cooler, and anything we can do to stave off the next imminent ice age is a good thing, but a tiny tiny dose of CO2 ain't going to do it, we'd need something vastly more potent

The planet is big....really big, relative to our efforts.

^ bingo!

You keep saying "feedback loop" as though this singular feature describes complex systems.
It's not like that.
The risk I see isn't the sky-is-falling catastrophic "killing the planet" hysteria
which afflicts our friends on the left. Instead, it's going to population exodus
from withering areas, & the inevitable conflict & strife.

this singular feature is utterly essential to the theory, because our CO2 contribution, which is slightly over ONE molecule in 10000 of air, simply cannot trap a significant amount of heat. That's not my opinion, but one thing that's accepted on both sides scientifically (not by Leonardo DiCaprio or Al Gore perhaps)


Anything remotely noticeable requires that the 5.5 quadrillion ton rock, representing Earths atmosphere, is teetering on the edge of a cliff, and only needs an ant to lean on it, to topple it. This in a world where giants, vastly greater forces have already been dribbling this rock around like a soccer ball for billions of years. our CO2 just isn't a significant factor here

But that one molecule IS enough, to enhance the growth and drought resistance of nearly every plant on Earth. And spinning this into a negative takes some creativity.The greatest negative consequence is likely that we have to mow our lawns a little more often.

talking of which, I gotta get to that today

 

[Revoltingest]

warmer is certainly desirable over cooler, and anything we can do to stave off the next imminent ice age is a good thing, but a tiny tiny dose of CO2 ain't going to do it, we'd need something vastly more potent


^ bingo!



this singular feature is utterly essential to the theory, because our CO2 contribution, which is slightly over ONE molecule in 10000 of air, simply cannot trap a significant amount of heat. That's not my opinion, but one thing that's accepted on both sides scientifically (not by Leonardo DiCaprio or Al Gore perhaps)


Anything remotely noticeable requires that the 5.5 quadrillion ton rock, representing Earths atmosphere, is teetering on the edge of a cliff, and only needs an ant to lean on it, to topple it. This in a world where giants, vastly greater forces have already been dribbling this rock around like a soccer ball for billions of years. our CO2 just isn't a significant factor here

But that one molecule IS enough, to enhance the growth and drought resistance of nearly every plant on Earth. And spinning this into a negative takes some creativity.The greatest negative consequence is likely that we have to mow our lawns a little more often.

talking of which, I gotta get to that today

The problem I see with climate change isn't that warmer is worse or that cooler is worse.
We'd survive if it headed either way. But there are costs associated with any change, ie,
populations will need to move, & we see what happens when one culture moves in with
another. It'll be a spendy & rancorous process.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The problem I see with climate change isn't that warmer is worse or that cooler is worse.
We'd survive if it headed either way. But there are costs associated with any change, ie,
populations will need to move, & we see what happens when one culture moves in with
another. It'll be a spendy & rancorous process.

Since it's a form of heat insulation, any effects of an enhanced GH effect would primarily affect the coldest latitudes, times of day, year and elevation. Just as if you add insulation to your attic, you'll notice the bulk of the effect there at night

So if we were ever able to double atmos. CO2 levels (a long shot) and then someone flew a Sopwith Camel in the middle of Antarctica, in winter, at night, in the troposphere- , they would be feeling the harshest brunt of global warming, perhaps -80F instead of -83F. ( All other things being even, which of course they are not. )


The last place this effect would be felt is a hot region in summer during the day, because the wattage of sunlight is what determines this, not GH insulation, of which there is already very little in cloudless skies.

Ultimately though I agree there is a happy medium. But it's probably a couple degrees higher than the global ave today, before we'd even start to slide back in a negative direction. Even the IPCC concluded this, largely based on longer, more productive growing seasons, less global energy requirement, (heating being by far the greatest), we'd also see less violent weather systems as global temp contrasts are reduced

you have probably heard all this this spun as 2 degrees being a 'tipping point' beyond which we are doomed,- but check the studies yourself, not the political 'summaries for policy makers'

 

[metis]

Frankly, I'm gonna go with what well over 90% of all climate scientists worldwide have concluded.

 

[Revoltingest]

Since it's a form of heat insulation, any effects of an enhanced GH effect would primarily affect the coldest latitudes, times of day, year and elevation. Just as if you add insulation to your attic, you'll notice the bulk of the effect there at night

So if we were ever able to double atmos. CO2 levels (a long shot) and then someone flew a Sopwith Camel in the middle of Antarctica, in winter, at night, in the troposphere- , they would be feeling the harshest brunt of global warming, perhaps -80F instead of -83F. ( All other things being even, which of course they are not. )


The last place this effect would be felt is a hot region in summer during the day, because the wattage of sunlight is what determines this, not GH insulation, of which there is already very little in cloudless skies.

Ultimately though I agree there is a happy medium. But it's probably a couple degrees higher than the global ave today, before we'd even start to slide back in a negative direction. Even the IPCC concluded this, largely based on longer, more productive growing seasons, less global energy requirement, (heating being by far the greatest), we'd also see less violent weather systems as global temp contrasts are reduced

you have probably heard all this this spun as 2 degrees being a 'tipping point' beyond which we are doomed,- but check the studies yourself, not the political 'summaries for policy makers'

The primary effect in many places wouldn't temperature change, but sea level rise.
Florida would eventually disappear beneath the waves. Imagine how much we
taxpayers would have to pay to rebuild underwater homes every year!

 

[Guy Threepwood]

The primary effect in many places wouldn't temperature change, but sea level rise.
Florida would eventually disappear beneath the waves. Imagine how much we
taxpayers would have to pay to rebuild underwater homes every year!

Once again, sea levels have been rising as glacial ice has retreated for MILLENIA, count yourself very lucky that nothing has changed

IPCC itself noted that 'no significant acceleration in sea level rise was detected over the 20th C; a technically accurate, but very telling way to describe a slight deceleration.

So find a 100 year old guy, who lived all his live in Florida, through the Great Depression, 2 world wars, the cold war

Ask him to list the biggest, most ominous global events he witnessed in his lifetime, do you think 'sea level rise' would be anywhere in the top 100? would he even have been aware there was any?!

we're talking couple of mm a year, enough to get an ant's knees wet if he stood still for a year- and subsidizing 300k electric toys for rich people isn't going to stop this even if we wanted to

was there anything else? or was that the scariest part?

 

[Revoltingest]

Once again, sea levels have been rising as glacial ice has retreated for MILLENIA, count yourself very lucky that nothing has changed

Without getting into quantifying the claims, what
you point out still means there is trouble ahead.
The questions....
- How much?
- How soon?
- What to do to prevent it?
- What to do to cope with it?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Without getting into quantifying the claims, what
you point out still means there is trouble ahead.
The questions....

- How much?
- How soon?

an utterly insignificant amount that you would never notice if journalists, celebs, politicians were not screaming about it


- What to do to prevent it?
That's entirely possible. We could quite easily bring this brief inter-glacial warm period to an end any time, very quickly. It would simply require a large but attainable amount of particulates introduced into the atmosphere.
The vast majority of all global temp at any time comes from the forcing of the sun's 1300+ watts/ sq/m, filter this a tiny amount, and you get a huge impact. That's why a single major volcanic eruption can ruin summer for an entire hemisphere. The tricky part would be not overdoing it.

And there's the ultimate rub. There are several real threats we know of, which can absolutely plunge our planet into a multi-year winter, no computer sims needed: major meteor impacts, volcanic eruptions, nuclear war- and if/when this happens, there is no such emergency measure to magically warm the planet back up again quickly. we won't be sitting around debating whether the hairy woodpecker can migrate a few miles, we'll all be too busy dropping dead of starvation


- What to do to cope with it?[/QUOTE]
As long as you remember to take a couple of steps away from the ocean every century or so, you'll be just fine. Otherwise more drastic action may be required, purchasing a pair of 'welly boots'

 

[metis]

So, the NASA, NOAA, the NAS, and even the DoD are all worried for no reason whatsoever?

 

[siti]

So if we were ever able to double atmos. CO2 levels (a long shot) and then someone flew a Sopwith Camel in the middle of Antarctica, in winter, at night, in the troposphere- , they would be feeling the harshest brunt of global warming, perhaps -80F instead of -83F. ( All other things being even, which of course they are not. )

Is this your version of a climate model? I can see you have worked really hard on it. Unfortunately, the real data shows that average temperature at high altitudes, night time and in winter in Antarctica has already risen by more than that since the 1950s.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/full/ngeo1671.html?foxtrotcallback=true
And your oft repeated argument that 1 molecule in 10,000 is insignificant is just nonsense. If 2 molecules in 10,000 absorbs x photons with energy E then 4 molecules in 10,000 will absorb 2x photons with energy E (i.e. twice as much energy). It is just a plain fact of physical science that having twice as much absorbing material will result in twice as much energy being absorbed. So if you are denying that industrial age CO2 emissions do not contribute to an enhanced greenhouse effect, I suggest you get cracking on your thesis - you will be overturning more than a century of physical science (not just climatology) and I can definitely sense a hint of a Nobel Prize on the warming breeze.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Is this your version of a climate model? I can see you have worked really hard on it. Unfortunately, the real data shows that average temperature at high altitudes, night time and in winter in Antarctica has already risen by that much since the 1950s.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/full/ngeo1671.html?foxtrotcallback=true
And your oft repeated argument that 1 molecule in 10,000 is insignificant is just nonsense.

In terms of the heat trapped by this amount yes, it is insignificant, and if you disagree, you would be the one arguing against consensus on both sides here, - it's actually one of the few things everybody agrees on.

again any significant warming relies entirely on computer simulated feedback loops involving primarily water vapor, not CO2, since water vapor is the primary GH gas, by a long long way. CO2 in contrast reacts to global temps with a lag of around 800-900 years.

So I do understand your confusion with doubling CO2 and doubling heat trapped, what you have to understand is that CO2 in itself constitutes a very small part of Earths GH gases. I realize this is very rarely mentioned but it is an undisputed fact you can find anywhere

Any road up, doubling CO2 levels would translate directly to approx 1 degree of warming, (all other things being even, which they aint!) again primarily at high latitudes and altitudes, and not something significant enough to notice sitting in your garden during a heat wave. And we are a long way from doing achieving even that.

But you do bring up another important point, that the effect of this, (or any form of insulation), diminishes logarithmically. And so to directly produce an additional 1 degree of warming (the point at which the IPCC predicts negative consequences) would require an additional doubling of CO2 levels. i.e. four times pre-industrial levels, which is impossible in practice, since CO2 is absorbed at an increasing rate the more we add, the absorption rate merely lags the extra input slightly, so that a new equilibrium will be achieved regardless




and on Antarctic warming, you should get in touch with NASA and tell them where they messed up, the cooling trend is hardly even controversial

 

[siti]

Guy - it was your "model" that oversimplified the CO2/temp relationship. And you are partly correct about CO2 (and water vapour) following (rather than purely driving) warming (that is of course what is meant by a feedback loop), and about the establishment of a new equilibrium being achieved. But all of that is observed from data from times when there was no significant anthropogenic input. In the current case, we are removing the natural carbon sinks (aka trees) that naturally emerged as a result of elevated CO2 levels in past epochs, the populations of large herbivores are artificially kept orders of magnitude higher than pre-agricultural grasslands could possibly have entertained and on top of that, industrial productivity continues to balloon pushing additional levels of, not just CO2, but other GH gases into the sky. All of these factors are added to one side of the balance pushing the equilibrium further and further in one direction - a warmer climate - unless the sun kindly decides to cut output and tip the balance the other way or a massive volcanic eruption blots it out for a decade or two - but I don't think we should bet our grandchildren's prosperity on those possibilities - do you?

The fact is that a world in which every man, woman and child needs 3 live chickens and a choice of one live cow, sheep, goat or pig each and a car between four of them at any given moment is completely unsustainable. There has never been an epoch in which the earth's climate has been asked to deal with that level of biogenic waste gases - at least not since the great oxygenation event in which our bacterial ancestors invented photosynthesis and killed off everything else in the process.

So you are correct, a new equilibrium will indeed be achieved by the climate - that's not the question - the question is whether 10-15 billion of our progeny will be a viably sustainable part of it.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Nobody who has any idea about it at all claims that...but the problem is that more CO2 (and methane etc.) also means more water vapour in the atmosphere which amplifies the warming effect in a positive feedback loop (which is why it is such an important factor in climate models). CO2 is a particular problem because it does not go away quickly - it will stay in the atmosphere for a thousand years whereas water vapour quickly condenses if the temperature falls and methane (for example) reacts chemically (by oxidation) - mostly to form - guess what? - more CO2 and water. Yes - farting cows really are a problem.

The Ordovician ice age thing is another complete red herring - the point about that was that solar output was significantly lower so even ten times more CO2 in the atmosphere (compared to now) was low enough for an ice age. But I don't get the point of rolling out these unscientific comparisons anyway - how many mammals were there on earth 450 million years ago? So what possible lessons could be learned about human survival by comparing current (undeniably anthropogenic) carbon emissions to an era in which the most advanced land-based organisms were mosses growing around the edge of the seas and gradually absorbing the naturally occurring CO2 from the atmosphere.

right, the sun was estimated to be 4% lower- while the CO2 'pollution' was 1000% higher.... which utterly overwhelmed the other? So CO2 is simply not a major driver of climate at these levels, far less the tiny trace amounts we are contributing today. Rather it reacts to global temps with a lag of 800-900 years, due to the ocean absorbing less as it warms. (800-900 years ago was the medieval warm period)

If this in turn produced global warming... then we have a runaway feedback loop already, which has no need for SUVs

And yes absorption rates are key, the vast majority of annual CO2 emissions come from natural respiration, not human activity- the more that is produced, the more is absorbed by plants, many living things like like ants produce vastly more GH gases than all human activity- but they are not responsible for 'global warming' any more than we are, an equilibrium is reached either way, the more CO2, the more healthy green plants, the greater the productivity of crops. It's not something to be afraid of.

Most plants appeared on our planet with around 7000 PPM CO2 'pollution'. They consumed this resource over millions of years, burying it in the ground, diminishing it to a near starvation level of 270 ppm.. opening up vast deserts around the planet that used to be lush - we are recycling and restoring a tiny tiny fraction of this invaluable nutrient. It's literally the greenest form of recycling you can imagine.

The equilibrium is a carbon exchange between respiration,photosynthesis, absorption like available cash in circulation rather than buried in the ground, the more the better, it does not drive temperature in any significant way at these levels. It never has outside of computer simulations