Some random thoughts on climate change

[gill77]

Well, there have been massive climate changes over geologic times (but we haven't been here to actually see them ). And the "somethings" you list are factors that contributed to them, and as you say will continue to contribute to changes in climate. That said, it is worth recognizing that these climate swings aren't generally favorable to our survival as a species. We are best served by a steady, predictable climate. Just because climate change occurs for non-manmade reasons doesn't mean it is good for us.

And the fact that there are many factors that have contributed to climate change in the past does not mean that we cannot be adding a new factor by releasing sequestered carbon back into the environment. It makes a certain amount of sense that releasing that carbon would take us back to the warmer climates enjoyed by the dinosaurs.

Here is a better chart showing the rapid rise in CO2 levels.

View attachment 16659

https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/

I think it makes sense for us as a species to do what we can about the things that we can control to minimize climate change, and CO2 emissions is one of those things.

I also want to bemoan the tendency these days for people to distrust those who have studied and are more knowledgeable in particular area than most of us will ever be. Some cynicism is a good thing, but the populist feeling seems to be that if you cannot explain it to me in language that I understand (i.e. prove it to me) then I am going not believe what you tell me. Quantum physics and many other areas of science are beyond the capability of most people to grasp. Yes, everyone has a right to an opinion - but not all opinions are equally valuable.

I think we can all agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is probably a bad thing. Don't mess with mother nature.

I don't know who your "we" is that have not seen massive climate change. The ice age was only 15K years ago. It has been warming ever since. We can no longer walk to Russia and the French can't walk to England. I am not sure why folks think there was no such thing as climate change until 1950.

I am not sure what quantum physics has to do with this, but according to Richard Feynman, if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics.

The cynicism thing probably runs both ways. "Prove it too me" that there can be anything other than carbon emissions controlling climate change. It is an opinion.

 

[gill77]

That's not my usage of "reductionism", I mean "hey, let's base our entire decision on this one chart instead of lots of data" is absurd.

 

[nakedfrog]

OH GODS YOU'RE RIGHT
Let's just do fucking nothing, everything will be fine.

 

[ElFenix]

. It was surprisingly difficult to find the current CO2 percentage.

wut?

 

[gill77]

wut?

Did you even try to search for it?

Link after link about the increase in ppm.

Key was searching for atmosphere composition and good old Wikipedia.

I searched a few weeks ago expecting it to be maybe 15% or probably higher. .04% I am amazed that plants can grow.

Beats Krypton, but not Argon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

 

[renz20003]

IMO I don’t think we will ever stop the GHG pollution.

Hopefully some of you smart people will quit trying to convince others this is a real issue and start working on some kind of GHG scrubber for the atmosphere.

 

[Paratus]

I think we can all agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is probably a bad thing. Don't mess with mother nature.

I don't know who your "we" is that have not seen massive climate change. The ice age was only 15K years ago. It has been warming ever since. We can no longer walk to Russia and the French can't walk to England. I am not sure why folks think there was no such thing as climate change until 1950.

I am not sure what quantum physics has to do with this, but according to Richard Feynman, if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics.

The cynicism thing probably runs both ways. "Prove it too me" that there can be anything other than carbon emissions controlling climate change. It is an opinion.

Do you feel comfortable that the first law Thermodynamics is true (conservation of energy)?

Do you feel comfortable with the term energy balance and what that entails? That a system that has equal amounts of energy arriving and leaving will be in equilibrium and it’s temperature will be constant. That if more energy is arriving than leaving it will warm up and if more energy is leaving than arriving it will cool down?

(I hope so because anyone on ATOT should be familiar with how CPU temps behave under load and what happens when you ramp the fans up or down)

If you’re fine with all that I’ll explain how man is responsible for 100+% of warming since the 1950’s.

The sun is the biggest driver of the climate. It delivers ~1361 W/m^2 (A watt is a joule per second. A joule is a unit of energy /heat and m^2 is an area 1 meter by 1 meter) of energy at Earths distance from the sun.

Averaged over the surface of the Earth that works out to ~341W/m^2 for every square meter of surface area. This is equivalent to about 500x10^18 joules/ hour or 1.5x10^17W

So one of the first places to look is at the sun. If it’s output has gone up slightly over the last 50 years that would explain our warming.

So from 1880 to 1950 global surface temperature seems to be correlated with solar output. But late in the 20th century solar output had dropped yet global surface temperatures continued to rise significantly.

Let’s take a look at how much energy.
Just the oceans have increase by 3.4x10^23 joules of energy since the late 50’s

That’s equivalent to 70% the impact energy of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, the energy delivered from about 200 A bombs a minute since 1960, or the energy delivered to the earth by the sun in one month.

Since we know energy is conserved those joules had to come from somewhere. They could have come from the Earths core but there’s been no evidence of extreme vulcanism. So that leaves us with energy failing to escape from the Earth.

The only thing in between the surface of the Earth and Space is the atmosphere. We routinely measure the constituents in the atmosphere and the greenhouse gases are increasing. CO2, methane and others.

Thanks to radiocarbon dating we know that the bulk of new Carbon in the atmosphere is old carbon the kind that comes from fossil fuels.

Greenhouse gases absorb and scatter the wavelengths of light that Earth radiates at

As the atmosphere warms it can hold more water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas. Warming melts snow and ice which reflect solar energy and allows the underlying water and rock to absorb energy further heating.

So what’s happened in the past is irrelevant. This is incontrovertibly what is happening now.

Any questions?

 

[pmv]

I could have said that, but I did not. You did.

What I am saying is that it is a bit a mute point. It is like complaining (the new past time) that all the motor boats have made the water too choppy. The mother of all tsunamis is coming, at some point.

It's not political, it's not philosophical, all you have to do is look at the chart.

You have three basic choices. Deny the data, accept that change occurs, or argue that the chart will now flat line.

Or accept that change occurs, but natural change occurs much more slowly than the current warming, and also accept that the known science about CO2 pretty well explains this warming when nothing else does, and that not only do you have to show what is causing the current warming if not CO2, you also have to explain why CO2 is not doing what physics tells us it would do.

You are a denier, and you are bringing nothing remotely original to the denialist party.

And you can't spell 'moot', either. Spelling errors might be trivial, but they don't mesh well with an attempted tone of magisterial dismissal ("You have three basic choices...." [ dammit, why can't I find the eye-roll emoticon? Where's that blighter gone on the smiley list?])

 

[Paratus]

IMO I don’t think we will ever stop the GHG pollution.

Hopefully some of you smart people will quit trying to convince others this is a real issue and start working on some kind of GHG scrubber for the atmosphere.

here’s an article about how to turn CO2 back into fuel

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2018-06-carbon-dioxide-sky-fuels.amp

otherwise allowing more trees to grow is good way to sequester carbon. Deep rainforest holds 180 tonnes per hectare

 

[ElFenix]

Did you even try to search for it?

Link after link about the increase in ppm.

Key was searching for atmosphere composition and good old Wikipedia.

I searched a few weeks ago expecting it to be maybe 15% or probably higher. .04% I am amazed that plants can grow.

Beats Krypton, but not Argon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

they don't hide that it's 400 ppm. your google-fu must be terrible.

 

[gill77]

Or accept that change occurs, but natural change occurs much more slowly than the current warming, and also accept that the known science about CO2 pretty well explains this warming when nothing else does, and that not only do you have to show what is causing the current warming if not CO2, you also have to explain why CO2 is not doing what physics tells us it would do.

You are a denier, and you are bringing nothing remotely original to the denialist party.

And you can't spell 'moot', either. Spelling errors might be trivial, but they don't mesh well with an attempted tone of magisterial dismissal ("You have three basic choices...." [ dammit, why can't I find the eye-roll emoticon? Where's that blighter gone on the smiley list?])

You are correct, I tried to edit, but it would not let me at the time. There is a fourth choice. The ppm we have put in will overwhelm any of the other factors that have caused enormous climate swings in the past.

Why would you need to prove what caused climate change prior to the industrial revolution. It did not occur if you cannot hypothesize a cause?

Sorry about the misspelling.

What comes after denier, fascist? LOL Maybe blasphemer.

 

[gill77]

Do you feel comfortable that the first law Thermodynamics is true (conservation of energy)?

Do you feel comfortable with the term energy balance and what that entails? That a system that has equal amounts of energy arriving and leaving will be in equilibrium and it’s temperature will be constant. That if more energy is arriving than leaving it will warm up and if more energy is leaving than arriving it will cool down?

(I hope so because anyone on ATOT should be familiar with how CPU temps behave under load and what happens when you ramp the fans up or down)

If you’re fine with all that I’ll explain how man is responsible for 100+% of warming since the 1950’s.

The sun is the biggest driver of the climate. It delivers ~1361 W/m^2 (A watt is a joule per second. A joule is a unit of energy /heat and m^2 is an area 1 meter by 1 meter) of energy at Earths distance from the sun.

Averaged over the surface of the Earth that works out to ~341W/m^2 for every square meter of surface area. This is equivalent to about 500x10^18 joules/ hour or 1.5x10^17W

So one of the first places to look is at the sun. If it’s output has gone up slightly over the last 50 years that would explain our warming.

So from 1880 to 1950 global surface temperature seems to be correlated with solar output. But late in the 20th century solar output had dropped yet global surface temperatures continued to rise significantly.

Let’s take a look at how much energy.
Just the oceans have increase by 3.4x10^23 joules of energy since the late 50’s

That’s equivalent to 70% the impact energy of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, the energy delivered from about 200 A bombs a minute since 1960, or the energy delivered to the earth by the sun in one month.

Since we know energy is conserved those joules had to come from somewhere. They could have come from the Earths core but there’s been no evidence of extreme vulcanism. So that leaves us with energy failing to escape from the Earth.

The only thing in between the surface of the Earth and Space is the atmosphere. We routinely measure the constituents in the atmosphere and the greenhouse gases are increasing. CO2, methane and others.

Thanks to radiocarbon dating we know that the bulk of new Carbon in the atmosphere is old carbon the kind that comes from fossil fuels.

Greenhouse gases absorb and scatter the wavelengths of light that Earth radiates at

As the atmosphere warms it can hold more water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas. Warming melts snow and ice which reflect solar energy and allows the underlying water and rock to absorb energy further heating.

So what’s happened in the past is irrelevant. This is incontrovertibly what is happening now.

Any questions?

I'm fine with thermodynamics, greenhouse gasses, the whole gospel. I really find it humorous. It's like the old movies, if a puritan doesn't tow the line 100%, there are crowds screaming blasphemer. Never said climate isn't changing. Never said man isn't playing a part.

I don't see how he could be responsible for 100+ percent............ of anything.

Saying that what happened in the past is irrelevant is rarely true.

I do have one question. Is there any possible way I could prove the analysis you provided to be false?

 

[gill77]

they don't hide that it's 400 ppm. your google-fu must be terrible.


View attachment 16668

You must be really on top of this. I would have never guessed 412 ppm equates to .04 percent of our atmosphere.

 

[ElFenix]

412/1000000*100

 

[Jaskalas]

otherwise allowing more trees to grow is good way to sequester carbon. Deep rainforest holds 180 tonnes per hectare

*nervous laughter

Uhh... best enjoy the rainforest while you still can. Cause if the past few years are any indication... blink and you'll miss it.

 

[gill77]

412/1000000*100

Excellent.

Never gave that a second thought. Scanning for a percentage sign or the word percent.

I must admit that even if I did think that might be it, I would have thought It was something other than what I was looking for.

Still amazes me that it is .04% and plants can make it. Wonder what the world was like with it at 70%.

 

[Red Squirrel]

*nervous laughter

Uhh... best enjoy the rainforest while you still can. Cause if the past few years are any indication... blink and you'll miss it.

I wonder if there are any efforts to harvest seedlings from all the various vegetation there. I imagine there are some species that are practically exclusive to that area and it will be all gone soon and they will be extinct.

I imagine there are places in the states such as Florida where that type of vegetation could grow very well. There's probably not enough room to make an actual forest but it could at very least be planted in people's yards etc. Like grow in nurseries and sold in places like Home Depot etc. At very least it would be a way to preserve those species of plants.

It's actually one of the reason I've been obsessed with the idea of buying acreage land lately as it would act as a small nature reserve - as long as laws don't change where land ownership stops meaning anything. I feel in the future there won't be a lot of forest left, even here. As it gets too hot to live down south lot of population will come here and push north which will mean mass developments. The government wants to bring 100 million people in Canada and that's not even taking climate refugees into account, the numbers will be much higher over the decades.

 

[EliteRetard]

I wonder if there are any efforts to harvest seedlings from all the various vegetation there. I imagine there are some species that are practically exclusive to that area and it will be all gone soon and they will be extinct.

I imagine there are places in the states such as Florida where that type of vegetation could grow very well. There's probably not enough room to make an actual forest but it could at very least be planted in people's yards etc. Like grow in nurseries and sold in places like Home Depot etc. At very least it would be a way to preserve those species of plants.

It's actually one of the reason I've been obsessed with the idea of buying acreage land lately as it would act as a small nature reserve - as long as laws don't change where land ownership stops meaning anything. I feel in the future there won't be a lot of forest left, even here. As it gets too hot to live down south lot of population will come here and push north which will mean mass developments. The government wants to bring 100 million people in Canada and that's not even taking climate refugees into account, the numbers will be much higher over the decades.

Problem with mixing ecosystems is that it can destroy one or both. Much of Florida's ecosystems are already damaged/destroyed due to invasive species.
Actually it's a huge problem all across the world...

 

[Muse]

IMO I don’t think we will ever stop the GHG pollution.

Hopefully some of you smart people will quit trying to convince others this is a real issue and start working on some kind of GHG scrubber for the atmosphere.

oooooooo.... Guilty as charged! Uh, meantime keep driving your fart-ass automobile, nothing to see here...

 

[PowerEngineer]

I think we can all agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is probably a bad thing. Don't mess with mother nature.

I don't know who your "we" is that have not seen massive climate change. The ice age was only 15K years ago. It has been warming ever since. We can no longer walk to Russia and the French can't walk to England. I am not sure why folks think there was no such thing as climate change until 1950.

Yes, I agree with you that earth's climate has always changed over time, and since it started doing this long before man came on the scene we know that our activities cannot be totally responsible for climate change. This was in fact the reason for my tongue in cheek observation that we weren't around for much of the historical time scales used on the charts that people have been posting.

I am not sure what quantum physics has to do with this, but according to Richard Feynman, if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics.

Yes, I am familiar with that Feynman quote. The point I was trying to make is that few people have the intelligence and background to fully understand all the science that underpins some of these topics (like quantum physics). Not understanding does not make them any less true for you. As another example, I will never fully grasp general relativity as I cannot handle the math. Just because it cannot be explained to me in language that I can understand does not mean that it isn't something I should take into account in my decision making (as nuclear weapons so clearly demonstrate). I bemoan the tendency these days for people to put too much weight on the value of their own "common sense" opinions and too little on the conclusions of experts in their fields.

The cynicism thing probably runs both ways. "Prove it too me" that there can be anything other than carbon emissions controlling climate change. It is an opinion.

Yes, it can go both ways.

It is worth noting, however, that mother nature doesn't care at all what anyone's opinion is. Or which side might win a debate over climate change. The climate will change based on the factors that matter to mother nature. Given this, I think it makes sense for humankind to err on the conservative side by identifying and minimizing our own contributions to climate change just in case those climate change experts are somewhat right.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Problem with mixing ecosystems is that it can destroy one or both. Much of Florida's ecosystems are already damaged/destroyed due to invasive species.
Actually it's a huge problem all across the world...

Yeah I was thinking that too... could have other bad effects to introduce new species. Tough to say what is the best thing to do if we want to save these species. I guess you could get as many seeds as possible and just store them safely in many locations so that future generations can decide what to do. Maybe even send some to Mars if it ever gets colonized. I don't see that happening though, if we can't keep a proper living planet from being destroyed how are we going to turn a dead one into a living one.

 

[sandorski]

Yeah I was thinking that too... could have other bad effects to introduce new species. Tough to say what is the best thing to do if we want to save these species. I guess you could get as many seeds as possible and just store them safely in many locations so that future generations can decide what to do. Maybe even send some to Mars if it ever gets colonized. I don't see that happening though, if we can't keep a proper living planet from being destroyed how are we going to turn a dead one into a living one.

Saving the DNA is possibly all that is needed, but some kind of Seed Bank could be used.

 

[gill77]

Yes, I agree with you that earth's climate has always changed over time, and since it started doing this long before man came on the scene we know that our activities cannot be totally responsible for climate change. This was in fact the reason for my tongue in cheek observation that we weren't around for much of the historical time scales used on the charts that people have been posting.

Yes, I am familiar with that Feynman quote. The point I was trying to make is that few people have the intelligence and background to fully understand all the science that underpins some of these topics (like quantum physics). Not understanding does not make them any less true for you. As another example, I will never fully grasp general relativity as I cannot handle the math. Just because it cannot be explained to me in language that I can understand does not mean that it isn't something I should take into account in my decision making (as nuclear weapons so clearly demonstrate). I bemoan the tendency these days for people to put too much weight on the value of their own "common sense" opinions and too little on the conclusions of experts in their fields.

Yes, it can go both ways.

It is worth noting, however, that mother nature doesn't care at all what anyone's opinion is. Or which side might win a debate over climate change. The climate will change based on the factors that matter to mother nature. Given this, I think it makes sense for humankind to err on the conservative side by identifying and minimizing our own contributions to climate change just in case those climate change experts are somewhat right.

I pretty much in agreement with all of this, except for the experts part. Nassim Taleb has pretty much laid out how this has gone wrong in many cases.

One example of this might be Fukushima. Not purposely trying to single them out. I'm sure they had some terrifically smart experts doing all the statistics, but you can imagine a precocious junior high student asking, but what if it did flood. Taleb can really rub people the wrong way. It is said that he always talks like he is the smartest guy in the room and usually is.

 

[renz20003]

oooooooo.... Guilty as charged! Uh, meantime keep driving your fart-ass automobile, nothing to see here...

Fucking quit bitching about it and fix it dickhead

 

[JEDIYoda]

IMO I don’t think we will ever stop the GHG pollution.

Hopefully some of you smart people will quit trying to convince others this is a real issue and start working on some kind of GHG scrubber for the atmosphere.

i`m not fixing anything until you quit wasting valuable time on this posting nonsense, when you could become part of the solution!!