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2C limit?

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by bwilson4web, Apr 1, 2015.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    There are technical issues involved in trying to figure out how high should be the limit for global warming. If we can park the 'political' nonsense over in Fred's, this could be an interesting discussion:
    Source: Global-warming limit of 2 °C hangs in the balance : Nature News & Comment

    It may be impossible to keep a technical discussion in this forum but we can at least try.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #1 bwilson4web, Apr 1, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2015
  2. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Before a technical discussion on a single number (e.g. the global degrees variation from pre-industrial level) can be discussed, there is a more fundamental issue. Is it a sensible parameter to discuss or use in international discussions between countries?

    What if temperature has a totally non-linear behavior to pollution. Seriously, the assumption is that X amount of CO2 dumping = Y amount of global temperature change. Who said that relationship is guaranteed to be linear? What happens if it is eventually discovered, the relationship is intensely non-linear. That could work against those who are trying to come up with sustainable (non-polluting) ways of providing energy if it is discovered that a lot more carbon can be dumped before some temperature threshold is exceeded (negative feedback mechanism). Or it could work the other way if positive feedback mechanisms are unleashed.
     
  3. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Two degrees global would mean more than that at high latitudes and less near the equator. I don't know that anyone would disagree (because I phrased it carefully.

    At yer high latitudes, most of the terrestrial carbon is in soils, while in tropics it is in live vegetation. Different amounts of warming could have a wide range of effects in different places.

    I also understand (but with less certainty) that much of the net ocean uptake happens at high latitudes, but there, ocean currents redistributing heat make very complex temperature trends.

    So, my inability to engage in this discussion arises because the planet seems to me to complicated a thing to address by way of a single number.

    The biosphere has certainly survived such temperature excursions before. But, as I say here too often, they did not occur when 7 (unto 9) billion people were present.
     
  4. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    The core of my point is that trying to control a temperature number resulting from a thousand different uncontrollable interactions just does not make either scientific or economic sense. It ultimately leads to gamesmanship attempting to control the number directly instead of keeping the focus on the real issue...pollution. (Is putting huge solar reflectors in the atmosphere to reduce solar heating actually making us more sustainable or just some stupidity of missing the real issue?) Whereas coming up with an pollution reduction targets that can be directly measured make excellent economic and scientific sense.
     
  5. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    "climate models predict that the world is on track for about 3 °C of warming this century."
    Climate models have been wrong for the first 18 years .What difference does it make what incorrect models predict for the next 85 years ,when they have been wrong for the initial 18 years?The climate models are worthless.Get over it already.

    The article is about politics but you dont want to address the political aspect?
    "The science is settled ." "Lets not discuss the political aspects."
    Its no wonder the latest Gallop poll has AGW believers at only 25% of Americans.
     
  6. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Mojo, I agree that climate models on decadal scales are missing 'the ocean thing', and this might limit their utility on longer scales. That is all about air temperature where people live.

    Yet it might be well to consider if (obviously) melting ice could raise seas to where coastal populations might have agricultural problems, coastal shipping might have economic problems, ocean protein harvests might have 'pH' problems, and extreme weather events might exceed our ability to adapt to them.

    I agree with you that nothing we have seen so far proves that carelessly adding CO2 to the atmosphere will 'crush' the human enterprise. But I disagree completely that carelessly adding CO2 will be all to the good. In that, my appeal is to physics, chemistry and biology. Already presented here, too many times.

    I argue for caution in the continued 'big fossil-C burn', and further argue that renewable energy is coming along nicely. Further, that energy efficiency in buildings and transportation are not coming along nicely, rather that we have been dragging our heels there. It also seems obvious that we could be doing much more to combine carbon sequestration with agricultural productivity.

    I do not suppose this 'slow boating' is your fault, nor that of the affinity websites you point us to here. It seems more like general inertia of people who have seen great benefits from burning fossil C. NO ONE COULD DENY THOSE BENEFITS!

    But now, as the human enterprise grows and atmospheric CO2 increases, it might be well to consider whether this is the thing we all want.

    If inadequate climate models can't answer that question, then we need something better. Something that mainstream science has not offered. Something that climate skeptics have not offered either.

    This thread is about temperature, but I am not at all sure that it is the thing that matters most for the human enterprise. All the other things I mentioned above are in play, and they need to be examined, and that would take money, and who knows where that money would come from?

    Mojo, as much as I enjoy reading your porting of affinity websites here, YOU ARE NOT HELPING. Imagining that Earth is soon to sink into the next ice age is contrary to every recent decade T being above the previous. If you want to place a bet towards the future, I will unhappily take your money.

    We must look closely at how things are, and do our best to anticipate the future. This will be humanity's most difficult century so far.

    But, is that not a great thing? We are so effing smart etc. We are up to the task, right?
     
  7. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    ^^ I'll drink to that ... just we'll have to ask for a glass of water in California.

    Bob Wilson
     
  8. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    2 degrees is all about politics.
    Is The World’s Main Climate Goal Misguided? | Climate Central
    So the idea of changing a political goal of 2 degrees to something harder like 1.5 degrees or 350 ppm of Carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gasses has to be politics. I am not sure for the reason of this politics, but it sure won't reduce green house gas emissions or land use changes that are contributing to climate change.
     
  9. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    Some day the negative approach to sustainability (e.g. "We must destroy the oil companies to save civilization.") will be replaced with the positive approach (e.g. This solar power, electric car, no pollution way of doing things is actually economically rewarding. I wonder why we dithered so long?)
     
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  10. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    Hanson has been wrong about most everything he has ever predicted.According to this graph of observations,we can lower goal to 1.5C and still continue to burn much more hydrocarbon than we have for the past 50 years.Problem solved.
    You want to drastically alter society based on this science ?
    hansen.gif
    "Figure 1: Temperature forecast Hansen’s group from the year 1988. The various scenarios are 1.5% CO 2 increase (blue), constant increase in CO 2 emissions (green) and stagnant CO 2 emissions (red). In reality, the increase in CO 2 emissions by as much as 2.5%, which would correspond to the scenario above the blue curve. The black curve is the ultimate real-measured temperature (rolling 5-year average). Hansen’s model overestimates the temperature by 1.9 ° C, which is a whopping 150% wrong. Figure supplemented by Hansen et al. (1988) ."
    James Hansen’s climate forecast of 1988: a whopping 150% wrong | Watts Up With That?
     
    #10 mojo, Apr 2, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2015
  11. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    First of all your claiming extreme weather is related to AGW is dismissed by the current IPCC report .Im certain you are already well aware of that so why lie about it?
    I presume its because you dont have any true facts with which to substantiate your argument.But come on extreme weather really?
    At least you didnt mention fake declines in polar bear populations.

    The theory is the Earth has begun to enter a cooling period much like the "Little Ice Age" .Which is not an actual ice age but rather a cold period much like 1350-1850.But you already know that and are grandstanding with more BS.
    The problem with throttling CO2 at the present (besides the fact that it will have little effect on anything except economies)is, what happens if the planet cools to "Little Ice Age " levels?
    The entire Eastern USA and Canada an Northern Europe needs cheap heating to survive.Its a miracle that energy was cheap the past 2 years .It certainly was a surprise to Obama who plans to "skyrocket" energy costs.
    People are strapped to afford to keep from freezing even with cheap energy.
    Skyrocket energy prices and lower temperatures for the next 30 years and we have a major disaster in the making.
    People freezing to death isnt your concern.
    Besides the fact that the world economy has to absorb a huge cost increase.The world economy is hanging by a thread as you will see when Greece defaults on its IMF debt.
    Europe has crippled its economy for the past years by cutting CO2.
    Theres 55% unemployment in Greece.Germany is paying 25% more for energy than other manufacturing nations.
    No wonder Europe is now resorting to quantitative easing.Euro down 30% ! They screwed their economy with mandated rush to alternative energy which has proven to be impractical for manufacturing and an economic drain.
    The $ trillions spent on BS climate science and intermittent alternative energies could have provided us with practical ,safe, nuclear waste burning, thorium nukes.But Exelon bought Obama in order to profit ,not to develop a better nuke.
    Sunspot_Numbers.png
     
    #11 mojo, Apr 2, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2015
  12. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    Current Solar cycle in a freefall. CBlQ455W0AAOBkB.jpg
     
  13. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    The art (not to say science) of climate modeling has advanced since 1988. Current models do fit temperature trends better, though the decades when ocean heat uptake apparently dominates are still not handled well. I seem to recall mentioning some of those recent studies here. Anyway they are not hard to find, if the range of one's search extends beyond WUWT.

    It would be interesting to know the source of the temperature curve presented in post#10. Goes back too far in time to be satellites. Cooler in recent years than the global surface T compilations I am familiar with.

    I certainly hope, along with mojo and many others that future decadal Ts will not accelerate upward. They will increase, but it is the second derivative that is more concerning. Given such gentleness, we could perhaps place more attention on 'other than T' effects ( I mentioned several above). More attention on renewals and energy efficiency where they obviously save money. More attention on health effects of fossil-C from extraction through burning. I suppose you all saw that another Gulf of Mexico rig recently went 'grill baby grill'. It was Pemex this time.

    As thermometers are NOT shooting skyward, perhaps we have time to decide the roles to be played fossil-E and all other E in this century. And yes, to do that, we should look to the best science now available and recognize that it is a constantly updated thing. Mired in the past is somebody else's self-imposed limitation.

    If I had a nickel for every new mention of Newsweek's 1970's 'coming ice age' article...(disowned by its author, dontcha know)

    +++
    I don't agree with AustinG that 2 oC is arbitrary, but have no plan to defend it either. The human enterprise is a complicated thing, being conducted on a complicated planet that we still understand poorly. It seems appropriate to accept and explore the complications. If affinity websites or their acolytes here push instead for 'simplicity', I claim they are missing the point. Work it out for yourselves.

    +++
    An insidious notion is that we can't understand this planet better, and that we should not spend even a tiny fraction of GDP to do so. 'Oppose that' is my call, and do not fear that climate scientists are buying mansions and yachts and Ferraris with your money. All here are of course free to disagree, but it would be fair to ask for a better framework, before the current one is scrapped.

    We ought to be looking for a plan for the future. If we do not, it suggests we have not exceeded the primates that sprung us.

    This is not about temperature. This is about making the earth better fit to support human goals. More CO2 in the atmosphere might help with that, but there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

    It may be that focused attention on 2 oC won't get 'er done. It may be that IPCC won't get 'er done either. Has anyone a better way to proceed?
     
  14. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    ...
     
    #14 tochatihu, Apr 3, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2015
  15. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    You refer to Time magazine which is a reference to ice age.
    You need to differentiate ice age from "Little Ice Age" which has nothing to do with the Time magazine article.
    But of course everyone understands this.Except for idiots or BS artists.
     
  16. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    Pure BS.
    I used to have some respect for your opinion.
    But lately you you spew ignorant bile.
    Did a lying monkey commandeer your computer?
    Climate modeling has never been accurate.
    Earths temps have not risen for 18+ years ,while CO2 has risen.
    Thats reality.Which models predicted that?

     
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  17. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    I think the best description so far of relationships between extreme weather and average climate is in Bulletin of the Amer Meteorological Society. May have mentioned it here already. What we know, don't know, appropriate levels of evidence and all that. It was more recent than the latest IPCC report.

    Sure that I have cited a recent polar bear study showing which populations are increasing, decreasing, or which ones we just don't know. That was because AustinG expressed interest int he subject, mainly.

    I am also concerned by the economic situation of Greece, but tying it to CO2 is novel to say the least. Here may be an attempt by mojo to innovate rather than echo affinity websites. Give us more of that please :)

    I share your interest in thorium-based fission energy, but it is not a topic I have explored. Has anyone built a prototype? On what scale? Does it 'burn' other nuclear waste?

    With air temperatures increasing each decade, predictions of ice ages, little or otherwise, are bold. To use the kindest term that comes to mind.The posted graph of 400 years of sunspot numbers helps. They were low from about 1870 to 1930, without persistent icy consequences. Trouble with the 0.1 watt/m2 variation between sunspot number 'peaks and valleys' is that they are trumped by the current 2 watt/m2 heat trapping by extra CO2. This is a factor of 20, and it takes real effort to ignore.

    Ah, looking to the past, when you you used to have respect. What would it take to return us to such times? For me to stop reading science and thinking critically? I'd have to give that some thought... Meanwhile I'll thank mojo as I have before, for stimulating me to examine climate science (particularly the models). Mojo and I agree (I think) that such models won't be of great use until they do a halfway decent job handling ocean heat fluxes. I probably would not have come to that point without mojo's efforts here. So I'm going to like your post calling me a bile-spewing lying monkey.

    Climate contrarians have come and gone at Prius Chat yet mojo persists. I hope that all of us can see the value of that, and pay less attention to the tangencies and ballistics.
     
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  18. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    We have a number of questions. First what can we learn from the climate projection?
    Hansen’s 1988 Predictions | Open Mind
    That is why we should use CO2e -> The greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide get converted to carbon dioxide equivalent grams. If we do this we will get a curve just over Hansen's B scenario. Certainly since the B scenario was predicting nothing like 1.9 degrees C, the criticism is completely wrong.

    Hansen's climate sensitivity appears high at 3.4, but really we have no idea if it really is high or its simply natural varation. There is no consensus here for a single number. The only consensus is that temperature is related to the log of green house gas concentration. Most agree that the likely range is between 1.5 degrees C to 4.5 degrees C which includes hansen's 1988 3.4 degrees, but that is all we know.

    As for the after effects or tipping point being double to direct sensitivity to green house gasses, here I beliieve Hansen pulled that numbr straight out of his nether regions. We do have good evidence for tipping points, and we may already be past one, but how big the point is or at what concentration of carbon dioxide is in big dispute.

    So again picking a number without scientifically knowing sensitivity or tipping point is a political not a scientific exercise. What science can say is something like this -

    We don't know all of the bad effects of raising carbon dioxide, but they may even cause a tipping point and a major extinction event. We therefore want to limit CO2e greenhouse gas to X grams by Y year so that we don't accidentally create a disaster. Then we could politically divy up the goals of each nation. 400 ppm seems a stupid goal, as we are already past it, there woudl be no buy in. Under 550 ppm in 2100 though may be a descent goal, and by 2100 scientists should have a sensitivity nailed down, and perhaps even better understanding of tipping points.

    Pretending that the atmosphere is not sensitive to ghg is also a political statement, and Mojo I don't think even you believe that. Certainly low cost government huricane insurance, encouraging people to build in harms way, is more expensive to tax payers than building sea walls or properely shoring up levies. Yet politics seem to cancel many mitigation projects, and have tax payers subsidize building in the wrong places, and ghg pollution of coal and oil. That just seems backwards.
     
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  19. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    As soon as we get into setting limits and action plans I believe that makes the assumption of a certain political position that says we need to set limits and control CO2.

    Yes I agree totally the climate change debate in the USA resembles the negative approach you mention above. If I ever get around to it, I'll write a book on it. I feel this is to some extent a U.S. characterization, I would not paint the whole world with the same brush.
     
  20. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I think there is consensus by most governments including the US government that the world should set limits as a kind of insurance policy against the effects of climate change. That was the senates position when gore negotiated kyoto.

    Unfortunately kyoto was mainly a political document to bash the US. It did not as the senate had asked set any limits for China or India. It was full of accounting schemes. No wonder President Clinton did not even try to get it ratified, and that Canada and Japan have walked away from their commitments.

    You can't reduce ghg by reducing shifting manufacturing from europe to china, and ignoring the chinese ghg. You can't put the genie in the bottle like 350.org seems to say, and reduce ghg from 400 to 350 ppm by blocking the keystone pipeline, and trucking the oil sands instead. You can't do it like California's AB32 where you cut down old growth and plant tree farms, or shift refinery pollution to other states. It requires reasonable goals and buy in from at least the 20 most countries with highest ghg including land use countries. China and the US are the top two countries and neither buys into the european led scheme. I think it will be difficult but there has to be reduction targets that don't totally wreck these economies.



    One really strange thing is happening. The US is leading from behind. It is actually repatrating manufacturing and producing the goods with lower ghg. It is shutting down old dirty coal, just not as fast as many of us would like. When asked in polls even people in coal states like kentucky answer that they don't like mountain top removal. The politics in the US seems to stem from the billionaire and political class, and ignores the hopes and dreams of most Americans. The people would not universally vote to clean up, but there would be more coal jobs and construction jobs, the end of mountain top removal, the closing of coal plants without scrubbers, but the building of some new ones with better efficiency and pollution controls. Plus lots more natural gas and wind to replace the outgoing coal. Most people would have rather fixed the levy's in New Orleans than to take care of the evacuees.