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    More than 100 comments found. Only the most recent 100 have been displayed.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    One Planet Only Forever at 02:59 AM on 28 March, 2024

    Two Dog @26,


    The movie in question is still questionable and misleading even if it contains 'points that have merit'.


    I am a structural engineer with an MBA. I present two examples for the merit of my opening point:



    1. A structure design is unacceptable even if some parts of the design could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the design to be unacceptable.

    2. A business plan is unacceptable even if some parts of the plan could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the plan to be unacceptable.


    As for the ‘merit’ of things in the questionable misleading movie you perceive to have merit:



    1. Climate Change can be understood to be the term applied to the vast body of science that has proven conclusively that human impacts, not just CO2 from fossil fuel use, have caused significant rapid changes to the climate conditions of regions on this planet. “Climate Change Denial” is a term referring to people who resist learning about the constantly improving understanding of Climate Change science.

    2. The answer provided above questions the merit of your second ‘perceived point of merit’ about the significance of human impacts. There are many presentations of better understanding that shatter the ‘merit of what you perceive is a point of merit’. One example is SkS Myth/Argument 192 “The IPCC confidence in human-caused global warming is based on solid scientific research”. A related presentation is the Carbon Brief item form 2017 “Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans” (and more recent investigations have strengthened that understanding).


    I will conclude with the following: “Resistance to learning”, not “shutting down debate”, is the real problem. Being ‘hard-of-learning’ (see my comment @18), can cause people to claim that justifiably criticizing their ‘questionable attempts to debate points they unjustifiably believe have merit’, and pointing out that ‘repetition of already well-debunked misunderstandings has no merit’, is “shutting down debate”.


    Note: Regarding ‘covid’ you did not present an example of a ‘conspiracy theory’ you believe was proven to be correct. But I would suggest that for this topic on this website you should focus on presenting an example of what you believe is a ‘climate change conspiracy theory’ that has proven to be correct. One example I am aware of is the ‘conspiracy theory’ that undeserving wealthy powerful people have been deliberately misleading regarding Climate Change science resulting is massive amounts of unjustified “Climate Change Denial”.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    Two Dog at 00:33 AM on 28 March, 2024

    I am relatively new to criticisms of the man-made global warming narrrative but it seems to me that some of the points made in this film have merit.


    First, the use of emotive language in a critique like "climate change denial" (what does that even mean?) is problematic. The climate has never been in perfect equilibrium, so presumably nobody denies it changes - best to stick to the arguments. Second, we seem to focus on the wrong question. I think very few anthropogenic climate change skeptics would deny we are pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere right now than ever before and that has a warming effect (the "greenhouse effect"). Surely the question is: "To what extent are man-made increases in CO2 emissions driving the current warming we are experiencing?". It clearly cannot be 100% and for me that is the nub of the question.



    Given the huge unknowns about the factors that drive climate (and their significance) it seems unfortunate to me that there is an intolerance around this question. The BBC, for instance, should consider other theories on this. It may well be that the scientific weight suggests anthropogenic CO2 is by far the major cause, but in my reading there are some good reasons to doubt that.



    The problem with “shutting down debate” is best evidenced with covid where many of the “conspiracy theories” proved to be correct.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    Nick Palmer at 07:13 AM on 26 March, 2024

    As it can be cumbersome to explain why CO2 fertilisation is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card in fora such as Twitter/X, I usually try to get the 'sceptic' to look up Liebig's Law of the Minimum, which states why all nutrients need to be optimised in order to get more healthy growth.


    Link to wiki article

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    nigelj at 05:51 AM on 26 March, 2024

    The greening of the Earth is approaching its limit.


    When plants absorb this gas to grow, they remove it from the atmosphere and it is sequestered in their branches, trunk or roots. An article published today in Science shows that this fertilizing effect of CO2 is decreasing worldwide, according to the text co-directed by Professor Josep Peñuelas of the CSIC at CREAF and Professor Yongguan Zhang of the University of Nanjin, with the participation of CREAF researchers Jordi Sardans and Marcos Fernández. The study, carried out by an international team, concludes that the reduction has reached 50% progressively since 1982 due basically to two key factors: the availability of water and nutrients.


    "There is no mystery about the formula, plants need CO2, water and nutrients in order to grow. However much the CO2 increases, if the nutrients and water do not increase in parallel, the plants will not be able to take advantage of the increase in this gas", explains Professor Josep Peñuelas. In fact, three years ago Prof. Peñuelas already warned in an article in Nature Ecology and Evolution that the fertilizing effect of CO2 would not last forever, that plants cannot grow indefinitely, because there are other factors that limit them.


    If the fertilizing capacity of CO2 decreases, there will be strong consequences on the carbon cycle and therefore on the climate. Forests have received a veritable CO2 bonus for decades, which has allowed them to sequester tons of carbon dioxide that enabled them to do more photosynthesis and grow more. In fact, this increased sequestration has managed to reduce the CO2 accumulated in the air, but now it is over. "These unprecedented results indicate that the absorption of carbon by vegetation is beginning to become saturated. This has very important climate implications that must be taken into account in possible climate change mitigation strategies and policies at the global level. Nature's capacity to sequester carbon is decreasing and with it society's dependence on future strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions is increasing," warns Josep Peñuelas.


    The study published in Science has been carried out using satellite, atmospheric, ecosystem and modeling information. It highlights the use of sensors that use near-infrared and fluorescence and are thus capable of measuring vegetation growth activity.


    phys.org/news/2020-12-greening-earth-approaching-limit.html#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20carried%20out%20by,nutrients%20in%20order%20to%20grow.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    John Mason at 03:07 AM on 26 March, 2024

    Thanks, Nick!


    You're right - 'CO2 is plant-food' is the one that comes closest. The specific claim that the planet is greening does not have a rebuttal. Onto the to-do list. We ran into a similar situation last summer when claims that surface temperature had somehow been swapped for surface air temperature started doing the rounds.

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    Nick Palmer at 02:50 AM on 26 March, 2024

    I've just checked and SKS does not appear to have a rebuttal yet to the 'Earth is getting greener due to CO2 fertilisation' meme, which is currently a very popular argument in the 'Climate Brawl' online and in the media.


    My current response is to point out that the 'sceptic' almost always refers to the first paper from NASA, that does indeed conclude that there has been a greening and that it has been most likely caused by the CO2 fertilisation effect. However, the second paper several years later in fact noted that alarge part of the hreening was actually down to China and India planting millions of trees to reforest areas, de-desertification and expansion of agriculture.


    There are papers which say that, in fact, the greening stopped a while back and Earth is now browning although there are others that say the greeninh has continued. Thoughts?


     

  • Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

    Doug Bostrom at 04:04 AM on 24 March, 2024

    "Climate vs. Freedom" is the main point of the movie, the mainspring of the climate denialist clockwork. Careful disassembly and reverse engineering of this particular brand of synthetic ignorance inevitably reveals solipsism expressed in ideology as the movement's power source; so-called "freedom" here means "I get to do whatever I want regardless of costs to others," and powers the entire affair. 


    The film's funders would like us to confuse the freedom to think that is central to enlightened governance with freedom to dump sewage at our property line. This brings us into the territory of irony. Enlightenment thinking delivered the facts governing the anxieties of the film's producers— and this film is essentially trying to wind back the clock on several hundred years of the results of freedom to think. 


    The producers of the film are not at all concerned with freedom of thought and its outcome of science and enlightened understanding of our world. Their fears are centered on application of scientific results to public policy dealing with climate effects of CO2 emissions, circumspect and informed decisions proscribing unaccounted external costs. This will threaten any ideology founded on "everything's all about me." 


    Is application of climate science to public policy decisions itself ideological, even socialist? In a way it's true that climate policy is "socialist" if we're thinking in terms of social vs. antisocial, if we're employing the word "social" in its basic meaning.


    Climate policy is an outcome of "socialist ideology" in the same sense that traffic regulations are a social response to selfish automobile drivers. Individual irresponsible actions come at cost to bystanders. Society is generally concerned with fairness and rejects that one person may destroy another for no good reason. 


    Some small percentage of persons are so poorly socialized as to care nothing about others, so we must resort to various forms of coercion to force societally-compatible behaviors. Reckless driving is discouraged by force of policy and law, ranging from fines to imprisonment because we attach such high value to fairness.


    So it's proving to be the case with the external costs of vending fossil fuels, and hence we end up with climate policy that ultimately will end up with sharp edges of coercion to deal with diehard antisocial elements, given that some very tiny fraction of our society is composed of people truly uncaring of anybody but themselves.


    If vast amounts of money were to be made by driving over the speed limit, we'd find a vigorous public relations industry centered on denying that e=1/2mv2. The intent would be the same as with climate science and climate policy, to fool us into thinking we don't know established facts and by extension the outcomes of those facts.


    We'll never see "Traffic Tickets: The Movie" because there's no group of people for whom a vast revenue stream is threatened by being forced to drive safely. In this case of climate science and (more importantly) climate policy there is indeed a postively astronomical vector of money that will change due to policy arranged around facts and fairness and informed by science. So here we are, dealing with a slickly produced film created entirely for the purpose of prolonging profoundly anti-social behavior and employing the tactic of propagating synthetic ignorance. 


    Freedumb isn't freedom. It's the opposite. Freedom to think well and to make informed choices isn't the same as freedumb, feeling free to make stupid decisions because we've been fooled into believing we're ignorant. 

  • CO2 lags temperature

    Charlie_Brown at 02:31 AM on 17 March, 2024

    The mention of quantum mechanics warrants further discussion so one is not baffled or misled by a misrepresentation of it. Besides, the science is fascinating, and the concept is not that hard to understand. All molecules above absolute zero have internal energy. They vibrate, bend, and stretch in a limited number of ways that depend on their structure and ability to interact with electromagnetic radiation. Absorption and emittance of a photon changes the internal energy level by a discrete amount, which gives rise to discrete absorptance/emittance lines. CO2 is a linear, non-polar molecule that can stretch symmetrically and asymmetrically, but also polarizes temporarily when it bends. When molecules in the atmosphere have absorptance/emittance lines that fall within the wavelength range of IR at moderate temperatures by the Planck distribution, they become greenhouse gases. Discrete lines for CO2 and H2O are illustrated in Figure 3 in Introduction to an Atmospheric Radiation Model.
    One more comment about the “quantum process” which is described incorrectly by RBurr @ 654. CO2 is “additive” and increasing. Thus, it is affecting the accumulation term in the global energy balance.

  • CO2 lags temperature

    Charlie_Brown at 09:26 AM on 16 March, 2024

    RBurr @ 654


    1) CO2 lags temperature rise at the end of an ice age because CO2 evolves from ocean waters as the temperature rises. This is Henry’s Law. In that case, temperature rises first due to the Milankovitch Cycles. Note that ice age temperatures cool slowly and warm rapidly. Modern CO2 emissions are different because they come from burning fossil fuels. Therefore, temperature rises as a result of CO2. Cause and effect in both cases is clear in both cases, and different in both cases.
    2) The quantum mechanical mechanism on IR radiation that explains the greenhouse warming theory has been proven. It is based on fundamental principles of energy balance and radiant energy transfer and has been verified by massive amounts of data, cross-checks, and validation.
    3) The Earth’s energy “balance” is fundamental:
    Input = Output + Accumulation
    Output is reduced as greenhouse gases increase. Thus, energy accumulates.
    4) Your description of quantum mechanics does not make sense. Quantum mechanics is fundamental to the specific frequencies (i.e., wavelengths) that are absorbed and emitted by CO2, CH4, and H2O. There is a huge amount of energy carried by IR radiation. It is naturally emitted (not dissipated) and lost to outer space by IR. By the overall global energy balance at steady state:
    Input solar = Reflected solar + Emitted IR
    Accumulation is zero at steady state, as before CO2 emissions of the industrial revolution.
    5) The hot object in this case is the sun at about 5800 Kelvin. That is more than hot enough to warm the earth. The temperature profile is 5800 K of the sun to 288 K (60F) of the Earth 217 K of the lower stratosphere to 2 K of outer space. Increasing CO2 reduces the energy loss to space at specific wavelengths (e.g., approx. 13-17 microns). The absorptance/emittance lines in that range increase, meaning that energy is emitted from a cold 217 K instead of a warm 288 K. This upsets the energy balance. The balance is restored by accumulating energy until the surface temperature increases enough to make up the reduction by CO2. Nothing about this violates either the 1st or 2nd law of thermodynamics. Some mistake the 2nd law by describing the energy balance being at steady state, but the steady state was upset by increasing GHG.
    6) Neither the Milankovitch Cycles nor the Schwabe Cycles (sunspots) explain the cause of modern global warming. The long-term Milankovitch Cycles have not been in a period of significant change for the last 12,000 years after warming from the last ice age. Measured radiosity data from the sun show that short-term Schwabe Cycles have not changed significantly either and do not explain modern warming.


     

  • CO2 lags temperature

    RBurr at 08:51 AM on 15 March, 2024

    The analogy was cute, that the observation that CO2 rises lag temperature rises, means that the Temp rise causes the CO2 rise, is a bit like saying that chickens do not lay eggs because they have been observed to hatch from them. I would submit that, by the same token, opining that CO2 increases cause global warming is a bit like saying that chickens to not hatch from eggs, because they they’ve been observed to lay them.
    This all suggests (as inferred) a co-dependent process.
    However, this overlooks the same thing that MOST public blogs overlook, and that is the quantum mechanical mechanism on IR radiation (per greenhouse warming theory) has never been proven, and is actually false. New research indicates the fundamental error in the theory, presumes that Heat is ADDITIVE (eg. The Earth’s energy ‘budget’). The quantum process for Thermal transference is not additive. It is a function of frequency resonance. This is why microwave ovens work. Solar heating occurs because the spectrum of frequencies included in sunlight (which reaches the Earth’s surface) sets the maximum temperature which the recipient object may reach. An object in an oven set to 400 degrees will never reach 500 degrees no longer how long it is in the oven, because heat transference is not additive over time. The low energy IR waves received by CO2 molecules will naturally dissipate into the atmosphere with negligible net effect upon the atmosphere, but will never cause planetary ‘heating’ because, per thermodynamic law, no object can heat something beyond the temperature it possesses. Irradiated CO2 molecules can never heat the earth beyond the temperature frequency that already exists within the earth, which generated the IR light waves to begin with. IR Radiation does not raise the temperature of the Earth. The greenhouse warming theory is flawed. THAT is why the universally accepted historical record shows zero correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and average temperature over the entirety of the past 4 Billion years. Zeroing in on the last 400k or 800k years, and pointing to an anomaly amounts to cherry picking, which disregards the other dynamics in play, such as Milankovitch Cycles. Note: Ozone depletion CAN increase surface temperatures because the range of UV frequencies that reach the surface is expanded.

  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #09

    ChangeTheName at 11:20 AM on 4 March, 2024

    As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!


    The term "climate change" is an Orwellian BENIGN and VAGUE term for a civilization threatening DISEASE. 


    A medical approach to naming this disease would result in a term such as "Atmospheric Carbon Poisoning". 


    Atmospheric is the LOCATION of the POISON


    Carbon Gases (CO2 and CH4) are the NAME of the primary POISONS.


    Poisoning is an unequivocal declaration of dangerous toxicity.


    A skeptical scientist should think about telling the public the TRUTH and not shy away from naming the disease like a good scientist would. Climate change is clearly vague and inadequate. The generally public is woefully ignorant about this DISEASE. 


    https://www.change.org/p/change-name-of-climate-change-to-atmospheric-carbon-poisoning?recruiter=261487266&recruited_by_id=d2d62b10-d0fa-11e4-b3f4-bd4f0f527c9b&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=petition_dashboard_share_modal&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_37915781_en-US%3A3

  • CO2 is just a trace gas

    Bob Loblaw at 06:13 AM on 2 March, 2024

    In addition to what OPOF says about ozone, it should be noted that ozone in the stratosphere is an important absorber of UV radiation as well. Not that absorption of UV radiation in the stratosphere causes any noticeable heating. Oh, wait. It does.


    Atmospheric temperature profile


    As for the errors in using % or ppm as a measure of CO2 quantities, I'll beat my own drum and point to this blog post from a couple of years ago.

  • CO2 is just a trace gas

    One Planet Only Forever at 04:52 AM on 2 March, 2024

    JJones1960 @48,


    I hope the following helps you understand that John and Bob have correctly pointed out that you have made a very weak counter-presentation regarding the significance of small amounts. The points presented in the Argument effectively counter the simplistic and understandably incorrect belief that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is too small to make a difference.


    A major weakness of your counter-presentation is that you appear to lack even a small amount of knowledge regarding the matter, here’s why:


    You stated • You don’t use trace amounts of ozone to trap a significant amount of heat


    That belief is contradicted by improved evidence-based understanding (contradicted by learning what is already known). One of the many presentations about the global surface temperature impacts of ozone is the NASA Aura item: The greenhouse effect of tropospheric ozone. It opens with the following:


    Tropospheric ozone (O3) is the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Ozone absorbs infrared radiation (heat) from the Earth's surface, reducing the amount of radiation that escapes to space.


    A lot can be learned from the items presented on SkS and other reliable information sources.


    Learning from reliable sources can make a world of difference.

  • CO2 is just a trace gas

    Bob Loblaw at 00:03 AM on 2 March, 2024

    JJones1960 even misses his own point.


    CO2 is not "colourless" when it comes to infrared radiation. Just because JJones1960 can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

  • CO2 is just a trace gas

    JJones1960 at 17:47 PM on 1 March, 2024

    This is a very weak article, here’s why:


    • You don’t use trace amounts of blood alcohol to trap a significant amount of heat
    • You don’t use trace amounts of iron to trap a significant amount of heat
    • You don’t use trace amounts of ibuprofen to trap a significant amount of heat
    • You don’t use trace amounts of Earth to trap a significant amount of heat in the solar system
    • You don’t use trace amounts of arsenic to trap a significant amount of heat
    • You don’t use trace amounts of ozone to trap a significant amount of heat
    • You don’t use trace amounts of hydrogen sulphide to trap a significant amount of heat


    You might be able to use a trace amount of colour to trap a significant amount of heat, but here’s the thing, CO2 is colourless.

  • Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John ONeill at 07:32 AM on 24 February, 2024

    'Nuclear is not economic' - the 17 countries building new nuclear missed your memo.


    '..takes too long to build..' Mean construction time was 7.5 years, with a long tail. Countries involved in a concerted buildout do rather better - Japan averaged less than 5 years, China and South Korea less than 6. Sheffield Forgemasters, one of the few companies qualified to make reactor pressure vessels, has just demonstrated a new method of ion beam welding, letting them weld around the girth of an RPV ring in one day. This weld, on a 4 metre diameter, 200 mm thick piece, with very tight inspection requirements, would normally take up to a year. RPVs have been one of the bottlenecks for nuclear growth. Other solutions, such as the heavy water reactors used in India, don't have RPVs. 


    '..there is not enough uranium.' This was the perceived reality when the industry was just starting up - and when Cold War bomb-making led to a frantic search for uranium reserves, since enriching to 90% U235 bomb-grade uses up far more feedstock than does the 3-5% used in light-water reactors, or the natural uranium used in mainly Canadian and Indian heavy water reactors. At the time, it was also assumed that energy demand would keep growing at 1960s rates, and that most of the growth would be from nuclear. L Ron Hubbard's famous graph of human energy use rising sharply from a low base, as fossil fuel reserves are used up, and dropping equally sharply back to pre-industrial levels, was used by Peak Oil doomers to predict a coming crash, to be followed by unending scarcity. In fact, Hubbard original graph showed nuclear growing as fast as fossil fuel energy, completely replacing it, and then maintaining that level indefinitely. Plans were in place to switch to fast reactors, converting the 99.3% U238 of natural uranium to fissile plutonium, and to use thorium, 3x more abundant again, as fissile U233. This effort stalled when demand fell, and uranium proved to be much more abundant than thought. Until recently, global production has been well below demand, due to oversupply causing very low prices. Many high grade mines, like MacArthur River in Saskatchewan, were closed during the drop in demand after Fukushima, with the word's third and fourth largest users, Japan and Germany, temporarily shutting their whole industries. With demand now booming, these mines are reopening, and new prospecting has resumed. (Many nuclear operators are on long-term contracts, and have existing stocks, so are not immediately affected.) 


    Hubbard's fossil peak has been slower to arrive than expected, and so has the nuclear growth he expected to replace it. Long term though, I expect his insight to be accurate. The drive for increasing energy use is still there - nobody wants to stay poor (religious orders aside). The down-ramp on fossil use will be steeper than the rise, as climate concerns spread. Can weather-based energy fill the gap? Not judging by the view out my window (mid summer, 8/8ths cloud cover, national wind fleet at 1/3 of capacity).


    I've read some of Mark Jacobson's papers - all the way back to his cover article on Scientific American, in 2009. Before him, there was Amory Lovins' vision of a 'soft path' energy future, very influential on Jimmy Carter's policy. The two were actually diametrically opposite in their prescriptions. Lovins decried the cost and energy waste of the transmission grid, calling for efficiency ('negawatts'), small-scale, local wind and solar, backed by fluidised bed coal. Jacobson wants a maximal grid, moving greatly overbuilt wind and solar across continents, with probably battery backup, no biofuels or combustion energy, no new hydro. Neither prescription has done well when put into practice in reducing emissions. US CO2 emissions per capita hardly changed from the 70s to the 2000s, only falling with the switch from coal to gas (though increased methane leakage may have negated some of the climate benefit). Widespread, government-sponsored wind and solar growth, most notably in Germany, has bought a rapid rise in installation, but though the individual solar plants and wind turbines became much cheaper, their integration into the grid led to increasing power costs, while fossil fuel use persisted at a higher level than on grids that had already switched to nuclear for largely economic reasons.


    Some countries whose governments had declared that nuclear power would cease have reversed course, and plan new build - notably Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and Italy. Others - Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, which had 20 to 40% of their power from nuclear - currently persist in de-nuclearising. Russia is building plants in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, India, Bangla Desh, and shortly Hungary. Russia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, and possibly soon Saudi Arabia, are building nuclear plants at home because it displaces gas, which earns much more money as exports. Japan and South Korea are building nuclear for the opposite reason - it makes power much more cheaply than imported liquefied natural gas, at East Asian prices. The important question for the future is whether nuclear can take more than a toehold share in countries like India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Indonesia, where energy use is rising fast, and coal is now the chosen option.

  • New study suggests the Atlantic overturning circulation AMOC “is on tipping course”

    Paul Pukite at 20:32 PM on 18 February, 2024

    If the strength of AMOC is being correlated with AMO as shown in Fig 3 of the paper, does that mean that AMOC will oscillate as AMO does?Comparison of time series of SST anomalies and the strength of the overturning circulation in the CM2.6 model.The graph shows time series of SST anomalies (relative to global mean SSTs) in the subpolar gyre (sg; dark blue) and Gulf Stream (gs; red) regions in the CO2-doubling run relative to the control run, as predicted by the CM2.6 model. These two regions are defined as shown in the inset (see Methods). The anomaly of the actual AMOC overturning rate relative to the control run is also shown (light blue). Thin lines show individual years (November to May for SSTs), and thick lines show 20-year locally weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) filtered data. Using the CMIP5 ensemble, we independently determined a conversion factor of 3.8 Sv K−1 between the SST anomaly and the AMOC anomaly.


     


     


     

  • Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Charlie_Brown at 15:26 PM on 3 February, 2024

    The problem with the articles by Seim, et al., is that the poor experimental design is inadequate to simulate an Earth/Atmosphere environment. It does not simulate and cannot demonstrate the mechanism of global warming. This is a result of an incorrect description of the mechanism provided by the authors, who apparently do not understand the descriptions offered by their references. The authors fail to describe the global energy balance properly by focusing on backscatter (an incorrect term for re-radiation) or back radiation. Instead, the correct mechanism for global warming is a result of reduced energy lost to space emitted from the cold atmospheric layer at the bottom of the stratosphere. This is neglected in both the description and the experimental design. Reduced energy loss to space emitted by CO2 from this layer is obvious from the spectrum. Global warming is a result of upsetting the steady state global energy balance as increasing CO2 further reduces emittance to space. To learn more about the mechanism, please read my guest post at: Introducing-an-Atmospheric-Radiation-Model-to-Learn-About-Global-Warming.html
    This is in addition to the comments made on Seim’s paper a year ago, as pointed out by Bob Loblaw @453, by Bob, MA Rodger, and myself. MA Rodger also uses the MILIA model in those comments.

  • Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

    Bob Loblaw at 02:42 AM on 3 February, 2024

    Dominic68:


    Both those papers are published in "journals" from Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP), which has a pretty bad reputation. In addition to the Wikipedia link, note that SCIRP is listed on Beall's list of predatory publishers. Not a good start.


    The first one also mentions Hermann Harde in the abstract, who is a known crank.


    Third strike: the abstracts both refer to "backscatter" of IR radiation. CO2 does not scatter IR radiation - it absorbs it. The absorbed energy heats the air via collision with other gas molecules, and that warmer air leads to increased radiation (as IR, for earth-atmosphere temperatures). Any competent climate scientist understands the difference between absorption and later emission of IR radiation (what greenhouse gases cause) versus scattering of radiation (which happens to sunlight in the visible spectrum).


    The experiments they propose are not worth looking at.


    The second paper was previously discussed in comment on this post at SkS.

  • Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

    John ONeill at 19:59 PM on 2 February, 2024

    Sorry, nuclear, as you cite, only provides more power than either wind or solar separately, not together. Also as you say, it hasn't done much to cut emissions for the last twenty years, largely because in the west none was being built, and fairly successful efforts were going on to shut down those plants already existing. Whether wind and solar will manage to do so this year, we shall see.


    Figures for wind and solar production were from Elecricity Maps, which I can no longer access on my computer, only on my phone app. You could try www.Electricitymaps.com. You'll be pleased to see that since Jan 26, when wind only made 3% of Wyoming's power, it's been picking up, to about a quarter, and emissions are correspondingly down, to 'only' 580grams CO2/kWh.


    If you're charging your electric car off Florida Power and Light, 23% of it last year would have been from nuclear, 5% solar. Gas did the rest. Supposedly those gas plants are to be converted to hydrogen in the next decade or so. 

  • At a glance - Plants cannot live on CO2 alone

    John Mason at 03:31 AM on 13 January, 2024

    Elevated CO2 has all sorts of effects, but I think you have read this at-a-glance with too much expectation. It's designed to be highly accessible and readers who want more will go on to Further Details, or possibly Intermediate or Advanced.


    Grew Swiss Chard in big pots this year (with soil and 'organic standard' bagged compost) and had to really coax them, indeed requiring such a fertilizer as you describe. Some years ago I had a garden swap (for about 8 years) and there when I started out the 'soil' was sharp slate scree with a bit of interstitial leaf-mould. The solution was to dig out a decades old lambing barn (stratified dry sheep poo almost like chipboard!) to start things off -  but also because I live near the coast, working a few tons of seaweed a year into the beds, after every Atlantic storm. That made a huge difference. In the best year some of the chard plants were close to a metre high! Never had to add anything else. Just one man's experience.....

  • At a glance - Plants cannot live on CO2 alone

    PSBaker at 20:27 PM on 12 January, 2024

    I think this explainer needs a bit of work.
    In the first place it’s not necessarily true that plants in containers struggle without expensive liquid feeds. Provided the mix of soil and organic matter is adequate, in a reasonable sized pot, most vegetables can be grown quite easily, with some additional fertilizer as required. This can be a simple NPK fertilizer dissolved in water and will cost a few pennies per application.
    https://www.rhs.org.uk/vegetables/containers
    https://www.rhs.org.uk/herbs/growing-bags
    On the other hand, growing in some soils can be problematic, in some/many locations they may be sandy/compacted/acidic etc. and will need considerable work to improve.


    And while it’s true that atmospheric CO2 increases have led to ‘global greening’ which has helped ameliorate warming (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming) trying to figure out how things will continue in the future turns out to be very complicated (https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108/ ; https://ripe.illinois.edu/press/press-releases/photosynthesis-unaffected-increasing-carbon-dioxide-channels-plant-membranes ; https://botany.one/2021/08/rising-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-are-making-the-worlds-most-destructive-toxic-weed-more-toxic/ )


    Elevated CO2 has a strong impact on the other aspects of C3 plants' physiology, especially nutrient metabolism which can be attributed to:
    • increase in the biomass of plant leaves results in a lower mineral concentration via a dilution effect,
    • reduced transpiration cause reduced mass flow in the soil, and hindered nutrient translocation via the xylem sap,
    • reduced photorespiration & production of NADH, leading to a decreased NO3 assimilation,
    • disturbance in the regulations of root N uptake and signaling.
    https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-science/fulltext/S1360-1385(22)00247-3

  • At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

    Just Dean at 09:44 AM on 11 January, 2024

    I think this is where data from paleoclimatology can help as well.  Three recent studies have looked at the earth's temperature vs CO2 during the Cenozoic period, Rae et al.Honisch et al., and Tierney et al. .  Each of those show that the temperature of ancient earth continues to rise as CO2 increases.  As I understand it the first two are based solely on proxy data while the Tierney effort includes modeling to try and correlate the data geographically and temporally.


    All of these are concerned with earth system sensitivities that include both short term climate responses plus slower feedback processes that can take millenia, e.g. growth and melting of continental ice sheets. Both Rae and Honisch include reference lines for 8 C / doubling of CO2. In both cases, almost all the data lie below those reference lines suggesting that 8 C / doubling is an upper bound or estimate of earth's equilibrium between temperature and CO2. Also notice that there quite is a bit of spread in the data.


    In contrast, when Tierney et al. include modeling they get a much better correlation of T and CO2. They find that their data is best correlated with 8.2 C / doubling, r = 0.97.  Again, this represents an equilibrium that can take millenia to achieve but does to my way of thinking represent "nature's equilibrium" between T and CO2. 


    In these comparisons, the researchers define changes in temperature relative to preindustrial conditions, CO2 = 280 ppm. For Tierney's correlation then on geological timescale, the temperature would increase by 8.2 C at 560 ppm.  At our present value of 420 ppm there would be 3.7 C of apparent warming potential above our 1.1 C increase already achieved as of 2022, i.e., global warming in the pipeline if you will.


    Bottom line, based on paleoclimatological data, there is no apparent saturation level of CO2.

  • At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

    nigelj at 06:49 AM on 11 January, 2024

    The sceptics claim that the CO2 warming effect is already saturated or is close to being saturated is clearly false. It seems to originate with the assertion that the surface receives about 3.7 W/m2 more energy each time CO2 is doubled ie: a logarthmic curve. This means eventually it would take a huge volume of additional CO2 (presumably over a long time period) to add an extra 3.7W / m2. Which they suggest means the effect is essentially then saturated, but without specifying a precise number (how convenient of them).


    I see that the article mentions that this assertion about a logarithmic relationship may have been proven false by He et al. 2023, (?) and it also depends on emissions trajectories and other factors, but assuming the logarithmic relationship is simplistically true a look at radiative forcing versus CO2 concentration below and a bit of maths and its obvious the warming effect is not saturated and we are not yet near saturation:


    skepticalscience.com/why-global-warming-can-accelerate.html


    My back of envelope maths: In 1960s CO2 was 320 ppm ppm so doubling would be 640 ppm at around roughly year 2100 assuming BAU emissions. This coincides with the IPCC warming projection of 3 - 5 degrees C by 2100.


    The next doubling is from from 640 to 1280 is a larger volume of CO2 and would presumably take longer to around year 2300 assuming the same BAU CO2 growth trend and other things being equal. Projections of warming by the IPCC by 2300 are not surprisingly around 8 - 10 degress C for this further doubling of CO2. Such a quantity of CO2 is large but may possibly be feasible given reserves of fossil fuels and uncertainties arount that.


    The next doubling from 1280 to 2560 would lead to something like 15 degrees C and is a huge volume of CO2 that would take many centuries and would almost certainly exhaust reserves of fossil fuels, and most probably well before 15 degrees is reached. We could say this is the point of saturation in a practical sense. Its of no comfort because we would have had at least 5 degrees of warming and probably more, and not even factoring in tipping points.


    Someone check my maths its very rough, but the sceptics claims are clearly false and meaningless.

  • Cranky Uncle with Dr. John Cook

    Ben Laycock at 07:17 AM on 7 January, 2024

    I have collated some important climate data that might come in handy when trying to counteract disinformation.
    It is not rocket science, but it is science.
    As Cranky Uncle might say, it is just plain common sense.
    Every single government in the whole world, bar none, is desperately trying to increase economic growth, blissfully unaware that economic growth is the primary driving force of the climate catastrophe. We point the finger at the evil fossil fuel merchants and their enablers in government, but they are just struggling to keep up with our insatiable demand for more stuff!
    Since 1990 global clean energy generation has increased 1000 fold, but our emissions have been going up at the same time, by 60% since 1990. We have burnt more fossil fuels since we learnt about climate change than all the rest of history put together! Our emissions have been rising by about 10% every year since 1950, though the rate has slowed a bit lately, which is encouraging.
    The reason they keep going up is because the global economy keeps growing. The economy grows by about 4% per anum. So clean energy must replace emissions at the same rate, just to break even. Clean energy generates 17% of our global energy needs. So to replace 4% of
    CO2, it must increase by 18% every single year. If we are to achieve Zero Net Emissions by 2050 we must reduce our CO2 by another 4% p.a. every single year for nearly 30 years. That means increasing clean energy by another 18% p.a. So we must increase our clean energy by 36% every year. Last year we our clean energy went up 10%, a shortfall of 26%. So this year that 26% gets added onto this years target, bringing it up to 62%. Next year it will be 88%, and so on.
    If you know anyone who thinks that is even remotely possible, please refer them to a psychiatrist!
    There is only one solution to this predicament.


    Ben Laycock


     

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #26 2023

    Eclectic at 05:14 AM on 2 January, 2024

    Just Dean @9 :


    Thanks for the J.Tierney video reference [not yet viewed by me].


    I note the name Osman listed in the video credits, and also note that the video is marked as having had 135 views in 2 months.  So, not yet setting the the world on fire [apologies to Secretary-General Guterres of the U.N.].


    Just Dean ~ broadly speaking, the paleo record conforms with the present-day understanding of the climatic actions of CO2.   Is there a special point that you are wishing to make, regarding the paleo climate?

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #26 2023

    Just Dean at 01:24 AM on 2 January, 2024

    I am also leery of single author papers.  


    If you are interested in the some of the latest thinking in correlations between ancient CO2 and T, I recommend this presentation by Dr. Jessica Tierney, REF .  


    If you are interested in just the bottom line, you can skip to the time marker around an hour into the presentation.  If you look at her plot of GMST vs CO2 (ppmv) introduced at 1:04:08, you might imagine how if you wanted to play fast and loose with the data and do some cherrypicking you could make the correlation look fairly poor.

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #26 2023

    Just Dean at 08:32 AM on 1 January, 2024

    I was looking for recent articles on paleoclimatogical data for CO2 vs Temperature and happened to this posting about the work of W. Jackson Davis. Based on a previous work of his claiming that CO2 concentrations did not cause temperature changes in ancient climates, REF , I would definitely advise caution when considering his works.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 05:12 AM on 29 December, 2023

    A follow-on to my comment @18,


    If CO2 is injected to produce oil with the end result hoped to be trapped CO2, then the long period of pressure testing to prove that the CO2 is truly trapped can only begin after the ending of the oil extraction ... and sampling for CO2 coming out with the oil, and capturing it for reinjection, is required during the oil extraction.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 05:00 AM on 29 December, 2023

    michael sweet @17,


    Agreed that the use of CO2 to scrub oil off of rock formations, a possible benefit of CO2 injection to increase the production of oil as presented in the article, would almost certainly mean that CO2 comes out with the oil. But, to be fair, CO2 injection can potentially lock-away CO2 while producing more oil from an oil deposit.


    Here are potential stages of oil production:



    • Natural pressure of the trapped oil deposit forces oil to the surface when it is drilled into – the ‘gusher’.

    • Pressure drops as the oil flows out.

    • A pump-jack increases the rate of extraction by ‘lifting’ oil out of the well – like a water well pump.

    • As more oil is removed the rate of flow to a well point pump-jack declines.

    • Injecting gasses like captured CO2 can increase the pressure in the oil deposit and force more oil out of the well locations. Current operations inject CO2 captured from the exhaust of burned fossil fuels. This process potentially traps the injected CO2 in the rock formation that the oil was trapped in.


    So oil can be produced by injecting and trapping CO2. But scrubbing oil off of the formation that the oil is in would mean CO2 comes out with the oil.


    However, CO2 thought to be trapped in an oil deposit may not be truly trapped. Accurate pressure monitoring over a long time frame would be required to prove that the CO2 is staying where it was put. And until the completion of that pressure testing it is uncertain that the ‘claimed to be trapped’ CO2 is properly trapped. If a pressure test fails, the pressure drops, then the ‘carbon removal’ action plan is failing. And there would be little that could be done to keep the rest of the ‘believed to have been locked away’ CO2 from leaking out.


     


    Who will pay for removing it and locking it away? Everybody essentially pays for the profit obtained, or pays for the government subsidy (worse when the government subsidizes the obtaining of profit - nobody should profit from publicly funded harm reduction like CO2 removal).


    It would be nice if the ones who benefited most from the developed total current problem paid the most to limit the harm done ... but the current systems have a histry of making the least fortunate, who do not deserve to be penalized, suffer the most harm. Refer to the lead article in the Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2023 for a detailed presentation of concerns regarding free-market development of Carbon Capture.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #51

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:51 AM on 28 December, 2023

    The following NPR News item is new recommended reading for anyone interested in what is happening regarding Direct Air Carbon capture.


    It is a comprehensive report showing how 'the fundamentally ethics-free marketplace' is developing Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage. And it shows how governments can be motivated to subsidise harmful unsustainable 'misguided' developments to protect unjustified perceptions of status (including unjustified perceptions of people like Warren Buffett being concerned about being less harmful and more helpful).


    "This oil company invests in pulling CO2 out of the sky — so it can keep selling crude"


    Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage is almost certain to be needed to bring human climate impacts back down to 1.5 C levels of impact. Plans like Occidental's, and many other 'profitable or popular net-zero efforts', do not help achieve that undeniably desirable result.

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2023

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:39 AM on 28 December, 2023

    NPR News has published the following comprehensive report on Carbon Capture. It shows how 'the fundamentally ethics-free marketplace' is causing Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage to be pursued for the benefit of people who unjustifiably developed ways to have higher status by getting away with ‘excused’ harmful unsustainable activity.


    "This oil company invests in pulling CO2 out of the sky — so it can keep selling crude"

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 03:36 AM on 28 December, 2023

    NPR News has just published the following comprehensive report on Carbon Capture. It shows how 'the fundamentally ethics-free marketplace' is causing Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage to be pursued for the benefit of people who unjustifiably developed ways to have higher status by getting away with ‘excused’ harmful unsustainable activity.


    "This oil company invests in pulling CO2 out of the sky — so it can keep selling crude"


    This Market-drive development undeniably makes the future worse than it needs to be by protecting unjustified unsustainable developed perceptions of status. Burning fossil fuels is not sustainable. Getting more of the non-renewable stuff out does not have a future ... but it sure can increase current day ‘enjoyment of life’ by some people.


    Marketplace competition ‘freer from ethical governing’ develops very little motivation to learn to be less harmful and more helpful. There is a tragic diversity of examples of harmful unsustainable activity becoming popular and profitable, some benefit at the detriment of other, including cases of the current generation benefiting to the detriment of future generations.


    Competition for status undeniably develops interests that very powerfully motivate people to oppose and resist learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 14:37 PM on 18 December, 2023

    michael sweet,


    I agree that focusing on building the renewable energy systems, along with reducing unnecessary ‘luxury’ ghg emissions, is the most rewarding action, from the perspective of the future of humanity. It is far better to do that than build partial fixes like Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) in an attempt to make ‘parts of unsustainable damaging systems – like the fossil fuel systems – appear to be ‘helping to achieve’ global net-zero.


    In addition to wasting effort attempting to prolong an unsustainable damaging developed system with CCUS, getting those parts of the fossil fuel system to appear to be net-zero will require significant amounts of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR).


    A serious concern is the use of CDR to make those parts of the ‘system that is still, all things considered, very damaging’ appear to be excusable/acceptable. The article I linked to in my comment @3 explains things well in the following quote from the part titled A CDR thesis:


    CDR is a limited resource [Citation14]. For-profit goals inherently prioritize the activities for which some entity will pay the most, which are likely disproportionately related to compensatory removals in high wealth contexts. Allocation of more CDR to compensatory functions constrains availability for drawdown while increasing overall demand for CDR and CDR scaling. These incentives create a structural bias toward providing offsets to high-wealth emitters who can provide ongoing revenue streams, and away from offsets for low-wealth emitters or remedial drawdown activities. In effect, unconstrained for-profit governance of CDR allows for luxury consumption to colonize [and tragically abuse] an emergent global commons.


    Another example of plans, not started to be built, for a major CCUS operation with an eventual demand to unnecessarily consume CDR resources is the action plans of the Alberta oil sands operators in Pathways Alliance. Refer to this linked CBC News article “Oilsands giants continue work on proposed $16.5B carbon capture project, despite lingering questions”


    Alberta already has some CCUS, similar to the Middle East capture of CO2 and its use to produce more oil or gas. But a major collective CCUS project, subsidized by public funding, is the first part of the Pathways Alliance plan to be able to claim to be ‘net-zero’ producers of exported fossil fuels by 2050.


    By 2050 there will hopefully be a very small market for exported fossil fuels. And that fossil fuel use would hopefully be restricted to assisting people who live less than basic decent lives.


    The Alberta oil sands operators, with the support of government in Alberta and Canada, plan to compete to be exporting 5 million bpd or more in 2050 and beyond (being an exporter of choice). Other regions with already discovered exportable fossil fuel resources can be expected to do the same. Who would give up on such a potentially lucrative opportunity? And they will all potentially end up fighting to be among the few who end up with the least ‘stranded fossil fuel reserves’. Tragically, that marketplace for-profit competition to be the biggest winner will also consume massive effort and resources, public and private, to build CCUS facilities that will also end up ‘stranded’.


    If, instead of being assisted to build CCUS, they were required to build DAC facilities, those DAC facilities could continue to be beneficial after the need for ‘dead-end fossil fuel extraction for export’ is substantially ‘transitioned away from’ (by 2050).


    Global leadership focusing on rapidly building the transition away from fossil fuels, along with reducing unnecessary energy demand, will reduce the unnecessarily tragic damage being done to the global commons by making the ‘deservedly tragic future’ of all the ‘pursuers of maximum benefit from fossil fuels’ harder to deny.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    michael sweet at 03:11 AM on 18 December, 2023

    It seems to me that to find the bottom line for carbon capture used to keep fossil fuel production going in the future all you have to do is look at the production facilities that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the oil majors have built or planned.  As I understand it, they combined have about one large facility world wide.  They recover CO2 from their refinery operations and pump that back into the ground to recover more oil, but that is not carbon capture and storage.


    If the fossil fuel produceers were serious about carbon capture there would be many facilities planned or under constrution.  These facilities take 5 years or more to build, and longer to plan and permit.  The lack of proposed facilities indicates that this is the last gasp of the oil producers hoping everyone will look at the squirrel instead of installing solar and wind.


    The only realistic solution is to build out wind and solar as fast as possible.  If all fossil fuel subsidies were transferred to building renewable energy we would finish the system in a decade.


    China alone will install over 300 gigawatts of renewable energy this year.  If the entire world put in as much effort as China we would be in a much better place.  The fossil plants China is building will be obsolete before they are commissioned.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    nigelj at 10:53 AM on 17 December, 2023

    OPOF @4


    Thank's for correcting the math. I think I know what happened. I scribbled some numbers and calcs. for different scenarious on a piece of paper and came back to it later, and transposed the wrong number into the computer. The main thing is the total is 925,000 DACs, or even  more using the assumptions in your copy and paste. 


    We clearly need some sort of way of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. But the thing I was trying to get across  about the DAC industrial plant option is that 925,000 DAC's would clearly require  a  vast quantity of materials and energy, and over a 30 year span if its function is just to offset certain emissions. These plants are not small. Photo of worlds largest existing  instillation here.


    For comparison purposes the world currently has 600,000 bridges and about 24,000 coal fired power stations built over our entire history. The issue is whether the world has enough materials and spare energy for something like 925,000 DACS, -  especially if they are all built over about 30 years. Remember we are also building renewable energy at the same time.


    Known reserves of concentrated deposits  key minerals are only expected to last another century or two at current rates of use. There are enough apparently to build out a renewable energy grid, (Jacobson)  but add in  925,000 DAC's and its another matter entirely. I'm not a minerals depletion pessimist and we will probably discover new reserves, but it intuitively looks like we might not have enough materials to do everything. 


    The other options you list for extracting  CO2 from the air ( biomass, soil sinks, enhanced rock weathering, marine storage, etc ) look interesting an dpotentially useful,  and intuitively look less materials and energy intensive given natural processes do some of the work. But they are very land intensive.   DAC does have the advantage that its a rapid extraction, and less land intensive and CO2 storage is permanent or close enough.


    I might try and find or calculate some comparisons of materials and energy required if I have time.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 08:44 AM on 17 December, 2023

    nigelj,


    While reading the report I mention in my comment @3, I came back to re-read your comment.


    There is indeed a concern about the scale of required DAC's. But the math appears to be:



    • currently 37 Gte of emissions

    • 20% assumed to be impractical to stop is 7.4 Gt, not 4,625 Gte

    • Number of 8 kte DAC plants is 925,000 (as you correctly indicated)


    The report I refer to @3 indicates a higher possible range of required Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) in the following quote:


    Thus far, estimates of how much CDR might be needed range from almost none up to more than 300 gigatonnes (Gt) cumulatively by 2050, or over 1,200 Gt cumulatively by 2100 [Citation10] – that is, up to about 10–15 GtCO2/year starting immediately, contingent on simultaneous rapid emissions mitigation, to meet 1.5° or 2 °C targets. Such estimates are purely mathematical, balancing positive with negative emissions: in theory, CDR could be used to counteract any emission (currently about 60 GtCO2e/year [Citation5]). As such, CDR requirements will be higher for less rapid and/or lower levels of emissions mitigation. To date, binding requirements for decarbonization that clearly articulate which emissions should be mitigated and which remain residual emissions to be addressed via CDR [Citation12] are rare, and CDR remains voluntary, contributing to a lack of clarity on necessary scope, scale, pace, and degree of resource competition.


    Also note that the author's CDR includes many actions, not just mechanical DAC, as described in this quote:


    Here, we define CDR to mean intentional, additional actions taken to capture CO2 from the atmosphere (either directly or via intermediaries like biomass or the ocean) and permanently store it such that the CO2 will not return to the atmosphere on time scales that at least match the lifespan of its impacts on the atmosphere and ocean [Citation5]. Commonly proposed approaches that are potentially capable of delivering CDR include (but are not limited to) direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS); biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS);Footnote1 direct ocean carbon capture and storage (DOCCS); enhanced rock weathering (ERW); forestry; and soil carbon management. Some storage mechanisms, particularly those that rely on biological sinks like forests and soils, are not permanent in the sense of matching the lifespan of CO2’s impacts. As such, we distinguish between CDR-capable interventions (e.g. an afforestation project) and actual CDR, which might entail consistent rehabilitation or replacement for projects where CO2 is stored for less than geologic time (and which necessarily imposes greater administrative burden for strategies requiring relatively short replacement intervals).

  • Greenhouse effect has been falsified

    MA Rodger at 18:48 PM on 15 December, 2023

    Is it healthy to pander to crazy sock-puppet nonsense by discussing 'what-if' ideas when the sock-puppet is wedded to a 'surely it is' idea?


    The idea that the existing GHE can be attributed to 50% water vapour, 25% cloud and this forced by 25% CO2 which thus attributes cloud as a warming agent does overlook the full impact of cloud on planetray albedo and which could be used to calculate cloud as a cooling agent.


    The sock-puppet @176 suggests a cloudless Earth would see albedo drop from 30% to 15%, the latter being roughly the Moon's effective albedo which would suggest the Moon woud have an average temperature of 267K. However the measured temperature of the Moon averages at 201K and this because the Moon rotation is so slow that it sheds massive amounts of energy during its day with Moon equatorial temperatures reaching 390K.


    Of course, the Earth spins fast enough to prevent such a large duirnal range and if there had never been CO2 to form a GHE, there would never have been oceans to slow it down from its 4 hour day back when the Earth-Moon began.


    But unlike the Moon, there is a lot of water on Earth and the albedo of ice is high. That is reduced by the dust which would cover the ice on a GHE-free Earth but albedo would remain high, and perhaps higher than today. De Vrese et al (2021) suggests the albedo of 'meteoric ice' is 65% which, if the Earth's albedo, would indicate a 250K Earth and a GHE of 38K.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    One Planet Only Forever at 15:21 PM on 14 December, 2023

    Excellent point Nigel.


    I would add that the lack of reduction of climate change impacts by the portion of the global population that benefit most from the harm being done has made 'Carbon capture from the atmosphere and locking it away' an essential action to bring the level of impact back down to 1.5 C.


    The people today who have benefited most from the damage done to date owe the future of humanity a significant number of DAC facilities being built and beginning operation in the near future, no matter how expensive that is.


    Excessive levels of impact, far beyond 1.5 C, are now almost certain. The accounting of credit for actions to limit the harm done during the curtailing of human caused climate change impacts, during the transition away from unsustainable developed activity, needs to exclude any 'credit' from DAC facilities (or extra trees planted). Those CO2 removal actions need to be understood to be a 'debt penalty owed' in addition to the Loss and Damages penalties owed.

  • Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

    nigelj at 12:31 PM on 14 December, 2023

    Informative video as always. Its true that fitting CO2 capture technology to coal fired power stations isn't compelling because it just prolongs our reliance on coal fired power and the technology is plagued with problems. DAC (direct air capture) that removes CO2 directly form the air sounds helpful in dealing with areas of the economy that are hard to decarbonise. Or would it? Consider the maths:


    We emit about 37 giga tons of CO2 globally each year.
    Lets assume we use direct air capture to extract 20% of this each year, so 4,625 giga tons, because about 20% of the economy is really hard to decarbonise.
    There are about 20 DAC facilities operating globally. The  largest existing DAC facility extracts 8,000 tons CO2 each year. And this plant is large and complex and energy intensive.
    This means you would need 925,000 DAC plants!!!!!


    I feel the number speaks for itself. Yes you would not necessarily rely just on DAC but even so it would be a collosal challenge. 


     

  • A New 66 Million-Year History of Carbon Dioxide Offers Little Comfort for Today

    MA Rodger at 19:46 PM on 13 December, 2023

    One Planet Only Forever @3,


    Where do you source your "set of scenarios with equal 2100 temperature values of 1.7 C" ?


    I do note the use of IAMs to create scenarios & MAGICC to calculate the climatic outcomes does provide a route to developing such scenarios with a lot less effort than the SSP -> GCM approach. And I also note the rather worrying way such scenarios are presented simply as % cuts by 2050 along with a temperature rise. This is worrying as the cuts required over shorter and longer timescales are airbrushed away, this often along with the substitution of CO2 emissions timings for CO2(equivalent) emissions which can be very significant (as per AR6 WGIII Fig3.6 below).IPCC AR6 WGIII FIG3.6

  • A New 66 Million-Year History of Carbon Dioxide Offers Little Comfort for Today

    Evan at 01:07 AM on 13 December, 2023

    Some say that current CO2 emissions have no effect on future warming (global warming, climate change deniers).


    Some say that past CO2 emissions have no effect on future warming (no-warming in the pipeline climate modelers).


    This study suggests that maybe we are not in as much control of the environment as these other two groups of people would like to think.

  • CO2 limits will harm the economy

    One Planet Only Forever at 08:20 AM on 11 December, 2023

    PollutionMonster @120


    I appreciate your concerns. Thanks for the link to the ccdh Toxic Ten.


    I was unaware of the evaluation and identification of the Toxic Ten regarding climate change. It is indeed a helpful compilation and sharing of information. However, the results of the investigation are no surprise. The problem is much more than the success of the likes of the Toxic Ten.


    Increasing the number of people who are determined to ‘learn to be less harmful and more helpful to others’ is a key to correcting the developed systemic socioeconomic-political problems and the diversity of resulting developed problems.


    Keeping the Toxic Ten from being popular and profitable is helpful. But it is unlikely to solve the fundamental problem of ‘the success of efforts against learning to be more helpful and less harmful to others’. How and why the Toxic Ten, and other efforts against ethical learning, succeed is more of a concern.


    A way of understanding the Toxic Ten ‘success’ is presented by Alan MacLeod in Propaganda in the Information Age, Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group), 2019. It is a social media era update of Edward S. Herman’s Propaganda Model that Herman presented (with Noam Chomsky) in Manufacturing Consent, New York: Pantheon Books, 1988 updated 2002 (a movie of the same name was made in 1992).


    A significant point of the Propaganda Model is that developed socioeconomic-political systems can be systemically biased to develop and promote misinformation and disinformation to defend and excuse unjustified ‘successful powerful interests’.


    In 2000 Herman stated the following update “Although the new technologies have great potential for democratic communication, there is little reason to expect the Internet to serve democratic ends if it is left to the market.”


    An example of the free-marketplace failure Herman referred to is new in the news. Members of X have voted to allow proven massive-dis-informer Alex Jones to be eligible to post again on what used to be Twitter (the version of the social media platform that justifiably kicked Jones off of its communication platform). The harmful disinformation actors now thriving on X voted to allow one of their worst examples to ‘Shine Fine Again’ ... because more freedom is argued to always be better. (PS Alex Jones making money through X could help him pay court settlements. But that is no justification for increasing his Freedom to ‘almost certainly try to profit more from disinformation’).


    I agree with the need to cripple the ability of ‘bad actors’ to proliferate harmful misunderstandings through social media and other means. However, I am also aware that the ‘bad actors’ include everyone involved in the recent US Court actions (an example article is NBC News item “Supreme Court blocks restrictions on Biden administration efforts to get platforms to remove social media posts”), including some members of the US Supreme Court, fighting against government efforts to limit the harm done through social media ... arguing that efforts to limit the harm done are harmful, often based on arguments of the glory of Freedom (especially Freedom from the responsibility to ethically learn to be less harmful and more helpful to Others).


    Similar arguments have been made, including the opening line of the Myth “CO2 limits will harm the economy”. That is arguing that ‘harm is done by efforts to limit the harm done by fossil fuel use’. A significant ‘harm done’ would be the loss of undeserved perceptions of superior status by people who benefited most from the harm done so far.


    Merchants of Doubt defending undeserved developed perceptions of status are an expected product of a socioeconomic-political system that lacks ethical self-governing or external governing of the competition for impressions of status, especially in a marketplace of ideas and actions driven to ‘over-protect freedoms’ to the detriment of ‘fundamental ethical responsibility to learn to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’.


    This is an age-old problem. Protecting unjustified perceptions of superiority relative to Others has always included arguing for unjustifiable ways of obtaining and maintaining perceptions of status - including any argument that attempts to increase or prolong the ability of 'already fortunate people' to benefit more from fossil fuel use.

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2023

    nigelj at 04:35 AM on 10 December, 2023

    MS Sweet. Good information to know. 


    "I note that Dr. Hansen has long held an Earth System Sensitivity of 6 C. The IPCC consensus has been 3C"


    The IPCC number is "equilibrium climate sensitivity", a different thing from earth system sensativity  as below. Making it hard to compare the two numbers. 


    "By definition, equilibrium climate sensitivity does not include feedbacks that take millennia to emerge, such as long-term changes in Earth's albedo because of changes in ice sheets and vegetation. It includes the slow response of the deep oceans' warming, which also takes millennia, and so ECS fails to reflect the actual future warming that would occur if CO2 is stabilized at double pre-industrial values.[38] Earth system sensitivity (ESS) incorporates the effects of these slower feedback loops, such as the change in Earth's albedo from the melting of large continental ice sheets, which covered much of the Northern Hemisphere during the Last Glacial Maximum and still cover Greenland and Antarctica)...."


    (Climate sensitivity, wikipedia)


    We will probably never know any of these numbers for sure because you can't put the planet in the laboratory. (Although I think paleo studies like the one you posted have a lot of credibility - because they are based on real world conditions). But IMHO that uncertainty is not necessarily a crucial problem. Current rates of warming are bad and are having very visible effects, and huge implicatrion in the short to medium term, and so whatever the level of climate sensitivity using whatever definition, we clearly have a huge problem.

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2023

    michael sweet at 01:16 AM on 10 December, 2023

    This MSN article, Which is apparently a press release from the Columbia Climate school describes a paper in Science.  The paper is a collaboration of many scientists summarizing knowledge of CO2 concentrations for the past 65 million years.  The MSN article is easy to read.  Since it is a press release it would be a good OP here at SkS.  I have not yet read the paper.


    Unfortunately, they conclude that Earth system sensitivity, the climate response when all slow feedbacks respond, is 5-8 C.  The processes involved can take a long time to equilibrate (as much as thousands of years).  Still, it is a very grim conclusion.  I note that Dr. Hansen has long held an Earth System Sensitivity of 6 C.  The IPCC consensus has been 3C.  This is unlikely to affect  anyone living but bodes very bad for 1000 years from now.  The question of how long the slow processes take to equilibrate is left unanswered.

  • At a glance - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?

    nigelj at 05:04 AM on 7 December, 2023

    "By the end of that century, Eunice Foote and John Tyndall had proved him quite correct through their experiments with various gases..."


    Exactly so. It might be good to include a brief  statement about how the experiments worked (with canisters of CO2 exposed to a radiant heat source and measurements taken?). I say this because this is really the crucial foundation of things, along with observations of the planets climates and deducations from that. 


    In order to make sense of the whole complicated issue as a non expert, I have always done this. It  seems to we know for a fact from laboratory experiments that CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it (simplifying) absorbs heat while oxygen and nitrogen etc,etc do not. Therefore if you add even very, very small quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere, even one single molecule,  it must absorb heat and thus have at least some  warming effect on the atmosphere, and the issue is entirely about how much CO2 is added to the atmosphere, and what  warming  effect results in total. This is simple logic.


    Arrhenius did some calculations in the 1890s I dont fully understand but they seem robust as they made accurate predictions about warming in the 20th century. While I generally dont like assumptions, it seems safe to assume our current climate calculations are more sophisticated. So I see no need to be scepetical any longer about the greenhouse effect, and the proclamations in the climate myth box that the greenhouse effect contradicts so called physical laws is just ignorance or made up nonsense.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

    Evan at 21:49 PM on 3 December, 2023

    Although I do not disagree with the conclusion of the lead article here that CO2 concentrations are rising at alarming rates, it is incorrect to compare levels from one year to the next, simply because natural variability causes up and down swings in individual readings.


    A 10-year running average shows that the rate of increase of CO2 is continuing to increase. This alone is alarming and concerning, but focusing on changes during a single year is excessively alarming.

  • John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

    michael sweet at 03:01 AM on 30 November, 2023

    AB19:


    In support of John Mason at 64, here is the carbon dioxide graph:


    carbon dioxide graph


    The graph is from the Royal Society CO2 concentrations from ice cores go back about 800,000 years.  As you can see, the last 200 years are completely exceptional.  The antarctic temperature has not yet responded as much as global temperatures above.

  • John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

    John Mason at 22:34 PM on 29 November, 2023

    Re #63: " I believe it's also true that in the last ice age the level of atmospheric CO2 was at least 10 times current levels - which according to IPCC thinking ought to have produced a blisteringly hot climate - yet there was an ice age. "


    You believe incorrectly unless by "last ice age" you are referring to something hundreds of millions of years ago.


    During the last glacial maximum of the Quaternary, ca. 23,000 years ago, CO2 was around 180 ppm.

  • John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

    AB19 at 21:32 PM on 29 November, 2023

    I quote from the article introduction:


    "It’s a familiar story – the physicist who draws attention for declaring that climate scientists have got climate science all wrong. He (it’s always a ‘he’) was born before color television was invented, usually retired, perhaps having won a Nobel Prize, but with zero climate science research or expertise. William Happer."



    I don't know if the writer of the article is a scientist or not but it starts with some rather unscientific viewpoints, namely by suggesting that male, retired physicists are not qualified to comment on climate matters. What does it matter what sex they are or how old they are? In relation to physicists, I don't know about the others in the list given, but William Happer would, I would have thought, certainly qualify to comment on the global warming debate given that if you have watched any of his presentations on this topic, you'll know that his field of research was the absorption of infra-red radiation by CO2 molecular stretches and bends - very apt in the climate debate I would have thought, given that it is precisely CO2 that is being posited as the culprit in current global warming trends. He also openly admits that he was once a climate alarmist until his work led him to believe he was wrong. 
    I am not a climate scientist- my background is chemistry- but there are certain apparent facts that appear to be ignored in the current debate, namely that we know the earth warmed before about 1000 years ago in the medieval warming period and again about 2000 years ago in the Roman period. These warmings cannot have been due to human activity given that there were no combustion engines or factories around and world population was vastly lower than today. I believe it's also true that in the last ice age the level of atmospheric CO2 was at least 10 times current levels - which according to IPCC thinking ought to have produced a blisteringly hot climate - yet there was an ice age. Whilst not denying that CO2 is x greenhouse gas, these facts do tend to cast doubt on just how potent a greenhouse gas CO2 really is. I believe Dr Roy Spencer, who is a meteorologist not a physicist and also not retired ( though he is male) has similar views to the listed physicists. 

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    Eclectic at 06:04 AM on 13 November, 2023

    Michael @44 , I must modestly disagree with you.


    Yes, there is a real concern about the adverse effect of high local ambient CO2 levels in classrooms, submarines, and other enclosed spaces.   A perfectly valid concern, for health and intellectual performance (and most especially the performance of crew in a nuclear-armed submarine ! ).


    But please read again through the O.P.  ~ and note the panicky crescendo in the final few paragraphs.   [quote] "... we may end up intellectually a lot closer to plants."


    Sure, that was an expression of dramatic hyperbole ~ but hyperbole more fitted to a rally of Extinction Rebellion adherents, than to the sober annals of SkepticalScience.   Even in the comments thread, some seem to have taken that apocalyptic message seriously.   And I am thinking the propagandists at WUWT  would take it even further, as an example of them thar crazy Alarmists.


    But I am not so much interested in the final paragraph, as in the build-up evident in those lattermost paragraphs.   Even in the sly reference to D.Zappulla,2013  ~ a reference which actually discusses effects at CO2 ambients in the range 5,000 - 30,000 ppm.   Golly !


    The O.P. starts with matters of technical interest . . . but then gradually slides into unwarranted alarmism.   And it entirely fails to mention the human body's well-evolved compensation system [the kidneys].


    I do not wish to see the O.P. deleted  ~ but suggest a prominent CAUTION for the casual reader.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    michael sweet at 00:43 AM on 13 November, 2023

    Eclectic:


    I think your concern is misplaced.


    This paper, from 2015 finds concentrations of CO2 in classrooms in New York at levels up to 1591 ppm.  They report teachers had more headaches the higher the concentration of carbon dioxide.  Obviously students are negatively affected.  Since background levels have increased since then you would expect classroom levels to increase.


    I taught in Florida.  Our classrooms are more crowded and often the air conditioning systems do not work.  I woud expect classroom conentrations to be hgher in Florida.  New York spends more on classroom maintenance than most states so I would expect New York data to be lower than most other states.


    If the external CO2 concentration increases that has a disproportionate on inclosed space concentrations.  If you are diluting the internal space with 300 ppm air the internal concentration stays lower than when you dilute the internal space with 450 ppm air.  Anywhere there are crowded buldings the concentration of CO2 becomes severely elevated.  Theatres, crowded offices, manufacturing areas all have elevated CO2.  Restaraunts that use gas stoves are severely affected.  


    The external air in cities is not 425 ppm.  This paper reports an hourly average of CO2 in Salt Lake City USA as high as 700 ppm in 2016.  I would expect other locations to be higher.


    Even 1000 ppm affects how people work and feel.    Most of us do not live on the top of Mauna Loa where the air is well mixed. (They delete the data when hgh CO2 air from the volcano mixes in).  You are looking at outside air.  The spaces where people work and live have increased carbon dioxide and exceed the limits that affect people.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    Eclectic at 22:40 PM on 12 November, 2023

    A modest suggestion  [ not Modest Proposal ] :-


    In the absence of any information to the contrary during the past 8 days in this thread, I would like to suggest that this O.P. from 2014 be marked with a prominent note of Warning or Caution for readers.


    The O.P. starts well, by evidencing mild impairment of human intellectual function at an ambient (air) level of 1000 ppm of CO2.   Fortunately, a reversible impairment.


    But in the final 4 paragraphs, the O.P. implies that we humans should be alarmed, medically, at the prospect of a terrestrial atmospheric CO2 level of even 426ppm - 900ppm.    (The O.P. also links to the [bookish]  D.Zappullo~2013 ,  wherein is discussed major health problems from air CO2 of 5,000ppm - 30,000ppm.)


    However, in actuality,  an ambient CO2  426ppm-900ppm level would be swiftly compensated inside the body (within hours to days) through the activity of the kidneys which possess routine mechanisms to normalize total body acidity.   The adverse planetary effects of high CO2 are an entirely separate matter.


    SkS staff may wish to consider adding an up-front note, such as :-


    CAUTION : parts of this 2014 post are very misleading.


    .

  • SkS Analogy 26 - Earth's Beating Hearts

    Bob Loblaw at 11:19 AM on 10 November, 2023

    groovimus @2:


    Congratulations. Your second post at SkS, and  you've provided two incredibly bad arguments in a single paragraph.


    First, you're making an "argument from incredulity" I can't believe that people are still making "I can't believe" types of arguments these days. [See how that works?]


    Second, you're making an "it's only a trace" argument. Usually people that are making an "it's only a trace" argument are doing it with respect to CO2 concentrations. At least we should give you some points for originality - for making it about the mass of humans vs. the mass of the earth - but you're still only scoring 2-3 points out of 100. If you were really creative, you'd go onto the CO2 is a trace gas thread and tell us how the mass of CO2 is sooo small in comparison to the mass of the earth, instead of the usual comparison with the mass of the atmosphere alone. It would still be a completely bogus argument, but boy oh boy could you really throw around some huge ratios!


    Also, you never did go back to follow up your first SkS comment, where you completely failed to provide any argument why anyone should listen to John F Clauser (the subject of the post you were supposed to be commenting on). All you had there was ad hominem rants and insults.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Andrew741 at 04:01 AM on 10 November, 2023

    @Evan
    Your perspective on the Keeling curve and the challenges ahead is thought-provoking. Acknowledging the current upward acceleration in CO2 concentrations and the potential difficulty in even stabilizing them paints a stark reality. Your caution about assuming we can achieve more than stabilization is a call to recognize the Herculean task at hand, balancing hopeful trends with the resistance to necessary change. It's a sobering reminder to plan for the worst while striving for the best, given the uncertainties and the collective will required for significant global shifts,

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    MA Rodger at 21:23 PM on 8 November, 2023

    This Hansen et al (2023) paper was pre-published back in January and did result in a bit of discussion here at SkS. And there was supposed to be a second paper specifically on SLR.


    Hansen et al rattle through a pile of stuff, some of which I would agree has merit and some which I find difficult to accept, some very difficult. The high ECS is one of the very difficult ones. (Perhaps the point that the big part of the difference between high ECS values and the IPCC's most likely value ECS=3ºC, [something the IPCC tend not to identify preferring a range of values as in AR6 Fig1.16]: the difference is due to warming that follows the forcing by a century or more. That time-lag is one of the reasons the ECS estimates are not better nailed down and still has its 'fat tail' . It also would give mankind a fighting chance of dodging it.)


    SLR is certainly a big subject of concern. It is a long-term problem, multi-century. The equilibrium position for a +1.5ºC is perhaps 3m and the threat of setting Greenland into unstoppable meltdown at higher levels of warming would triple that. I do tend to get irked by the SLR by 2100 being the sole subject of discussion.


    Of course, predictions of that 2100 SLR being massive (5m) is one of Hansen's foibles. The worry is, I think, specific to Antarctica and it is a genuine worry. But to achieve 5m by 2100 would need massive numbers of icebergs bobbing around in the southern oceans and result in global cooling. And there is also the awkward point for climatologists that increased snowfall over Greenland/Antarctica could provide a significant reversal of SLR.


    The final issue raised by Hansen et al (2023) is the impact of the reduction of aerosols from our falling SO2 emissions. Quantifying the impact of SO2 emissions is not entirely global a thing, so emissions in, say, China may induce more cooling than, say, Europe. But that said, global SO2 emissions data I identify tends to be way out-of-date. The most recent is this one from a Green Peace publication. This shows the reduction in SO2 is well in hand over the last decade. And the CERES data showing EEI does show a drop in albedo (yellow trace in the 2nd graphic) through that period. My own view of these CERES numbers is that they include a lot of bog-standard AGW-feedback-at-work.


    SO2 emissions 2005-19


    CERES TOA fluxes


    There is also the last 5 months of crazy global temperatures (so post-dating Hansen et al's pre-publication). I don't see these as being sign of things to come. I'd suggest it is casued by the January 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption which threw both SO2 and H2O into the stratosphere, the cooling SO2 dropping out leaving the warming H2O to do its thing before eventually it too dropping out.


    And the in-the-pipeline thing. Climatology is/has-been saying we need to halve CO2 emissions b 2030, and following the point of net zero in mid century we enter a century-plus of net-negative CO2 emissions. That would see all emissions 2008 to year-of-net-zero removed by human hand and stored away safely. So that is on top of the natural draw-down of CO2 into the oceans. And if we don't do that, it will not be from ignorance of the situation.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Evan at 23:51 PM on 7 November, 2023

    Rob@8, can we agree on the following. If the Keeling curve (i.e., plot of CO2 concentration vs year) does no better than level off, then we have warming in the pipeline. Currently the CO2 concentration is accelerating upwards (these are the words that Ralph Keeling himself uses). It is possible that we do many wonderful things to control our emissions and do no better than to simply stop the upward acceleration. In that case, we still have a disastrous situation.


    Even if we do much, much better than to stop the upward acceleration, the next big challenge is to stabilize CO2 concentrations. If we do not better than that, then we have warming in the pipeline.


    My point is simply that it is prudent to assume that we will never do better than to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations, because getting to that point will require a Herculean task. Yes, there are hopeful trends, but there is also a lot of resistance in the world to the kind of change needed to reach Net Zero emissions. These trends could quickly slow down.


    I understand the arguments you and others are making. I just don't believe we have the collective will to do what is needed to make the model assumptions come true. Hence, I will continue to urge people to plan as though current atmospheric concentrations represent our commitment level.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Rob Honeycutt at 12:46 PM on 7 November, 2023

    Dean... Seems the buried lede is here: "... Hansen’s assumptions will not happen. We are not going to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases fixed for thousands of years. We will definitely stop burning fossil fuels in somewhere between a few decades to a few centuries and the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will decline after that."  


    My point here is, you seem to be going off topic talking about the rate of increasing CO2 concentrations (@7) rather than discussing warming in the pipeline.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Just Dean at 05:33 AM on 7 November, 2023

    Rob@8, Zeke and Andrew Dessler take issue with how Hansen is defining "warming in the pipeline." Basically, he is assuming constant atmospheric concentrations and then he is holding it there for millenia to allow slow feedback mechanisms to kick in, Ref. theclimatebrink.com 5/22/23 . 


    Evan@7, If you wait to see a significant decrease of the rate of increase of CO2, it will be too late. You won't see that until we have made significant progress in reducing man made emissions, see projected CO2 ppm vs emission scenarios, Climate change:Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide .

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Rob Honeycutt at 04:11 AM on 7 November, 2023

    Evan @7... I believe the rate of increase in CO2 concentrations is a different issue than warming in the pipeline, though. Mann (and Hausfather) are taking issue with Hansen's claim there would potentially be decades of warming even after bringing CO2 emissions under control.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Evan at 01:16 AM on 7 November, 2023

    Dean@6, I hope you're correct. Personally, I will only change my view when there is a statistically significant decrease of the rate of increase of CO2, because ultimately the three facts you cite do not determine how the environment will respond. Collectively they are an important component, but only one component that affects the rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Noting that our emissions are only about 4% of natural emissions, we only have to affect natural emissions, or sinks, by a small amount to overwhelm our efforts to control the rate of accumulation of CO2.


    I am not really arguing against you, but using this forum to remind the readers of other factors involved. I respect that the facts you're quoting are accurate and come from reliable sources. So I am merely noting that they only represent one piece of the puzzle, and noting that we may still be a bit optimistic about how the natural world will respond to what we have already done and continue to do. I think Hansen differs from other because he has a different view of how sensitive the natural world is to our actions.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Evan at 23:59 PM on 6 November, 2023

    Dean@4, When the IPCC was just being formed, it was Hansen in 1988 who was sounding the alarm. Hansen has always been at the forefront of climate predictions, preceding the IPCC in his assessment of how severe the climate crisis is and will likely become. The IPCC has always represented a baseline assessment of where we're heading, and not necessrily an accurate assessment of just how bad things could get.


    But let's find common agreement, because I've read the paper by Hausfather (read here) where he shows that temperatures will be frozen if we reach Net 0 emissions. I understand the arguments you're making.; But with CO2 concentrations rising at 2.5 ppm/year, and the state of world affairs leaning ever more to the right, it will be a long long time before I hold any hope for reaching Net 0 emissions. I will continue to encourage others to view our warming commitment as corresponding to the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Anything beyond that is contingent on global actions that are still struggling in their infancy. Yes, we have lots of talk and agreements, yes wind power has been increasing, but with CO2 rising at 2.5 ppm/year, apparently we have yet to sufficiently impress the natural world that we're doing enough.

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

    Evan at 11:09 AM on 6 November, 2023

    Rob, that does not make Michael Mann correct. "No warming in the pipeline is a theoretical concept that requires us to completely restructure society. Hansen cannot be easily dismissed by simply citing a different researcher. I live my life assuming that we are committed to the level of warming reflected by the current CO2 concentration. I think this is a reasonable approach. I hope I'm wrong and that Michael Mann is correct. But I tend to side with Hansen.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    Eclectic at 16:34 PM on 4 November, 2023

    Thanks, Res01 @41  (and forgive my perhaps over-courteous usage of a capital letter for your moniker ~ that is simply my customary literary style).


    Time is precious in this modern age . . . and so, no  ,  have not read the OP's Robertson  paper [the link showed as Page Not Found]  nor the Stumm  paper [unlinked].    Yes, it is quick to read a paper's Extract; and where that is insufficiently informative, still it is usually possible to skim through the body/conclusion of a paper to identify the salient points.   But it's even better if one can "Cut To The Chase".


    All the same, there is so much information "out there" on the internet ~ that the SkS  website staff have created a Comments Policy which requests all commenters to respect readers' time . . . by giving a sufficiently detailed relevant description/summary of (linked) citations.  Whether the citation/link is an actual scientific paper or simply a journalistic article.


    # That request applies in Spades, to video links (even if the video is only 5 minutes long).   As you know, videos can be a great time-waster.   That's why a summary of the video's message and significance can be a great help to the flow of the discussion happening in the thread here.


    Res01 ~  I particularly ask for your deeper discussion of the essential science of this topic of "CO2 impact" on human (and animal) bodies.  That is because I fear that a major mistake is being raised (and I would be pleased to be corrected if I am wrong about that).


    Evolution has designed the body to operate at a specific set point (or very narrow range)  of acidity/pH.   You can temporarily disturb that pH by hyperventilating (to raise the pH)  or by re-breathing into the classic paper bag (to lower the pH).   But in the long run, it is the kidney (as mentioned earlier)  which maintains the body's day-by-day acidity level.   Renal function is vital !


    And it is (as yet) unclear to me if Robertson / Stumm / and other sources, have made allowance for those basic facts of physiology.   Are they making a giant blunder ~ or am I making a blundering assessment of their warnings?   Please discuss.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    res01 at 13:24 PM on 4 November, 2023

    Eclectic @40,


    Thank you noting my post.


    I am not sure if you read the RE Stumm article*, or watched the movie,  but the calculations made by Stumm in his article shifts the curve by Robertson over a bit, but generally confirms what is being said here by M. Popkiewicz; the CO2 physiological danger is not being overblown. If we are not already done in by climate change, the direct effects of CO2 on us and other life forms will start haunting us around the end of the century.  I suppose it depends on one's age if this is alarmist or not. If you're a senior with no kids like I am who is going to check out in a few years anyways then the whole subject is simply academic. However, if I were a twenty something or younger who may likely otherwise live to see the end of the century, I'd be freaking out right now.


    *The R.E. Stumm article unfortunately is behind a paywall. However a preprint that is not too significantly off from the peer reviewed published article can be found at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4500439.  Recommend reading as it should answer your questions on CO2 impact on human body physiology.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    Eclectic at 20:01 PM on 3 November, 2023

    Res01 @39 :


    Agreed ~ as stated in a number of comments [2014 onwards] earlier in this thread, this whole question of CO2 physiological danger is overblown.


    The original research article was of poor quality and poor experimental methodology, and hence poor conclusions.  Or so I gather from others' comments [for me, the linked Robertson article showed as Page Not Found].   I would also argue from basic principles of bodily homeostasis, that whatever transient mental incapacitation (minor, I gather) would occur for a few hours at higher ambient CO2  ~ the body would respond (by increased renal excretion of acid) in the longer run, with the effect of raising the blood pH back to the normal range.


    No need for any alarm, for man nor beast (nor fish).


    Res01 ~ pehaps you might be kind enough to comment specifically on that R.E.Stumm  article, and also the "Die Back" video you mentioned.   I am unclear whether you mean they are alarmist or not.

  • Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

    res01 at 11:38 AM on 3 November, 2023

    Not to detract from the general argument, but as noted by other posts, Figure 1from D. Robertson is a little off. What D. Robertson overlooks in his calculations is that arterial CO2 partial pressure in the human bloodstream, as it is in most mammals, is a significantly higher than what it is in ambient atmosphere. That means a percentage rise in CO2 in the atmosphere makes for a much smaller percentage rise of CO2 concentration in the bloodstream. In short at low CO2 levels the effect is a whole lot less. Not until CO2 levels reach about 1000ppm in the does the change become notable in the bloodstream. That means the effects of CO2 will not be notable in the human body until around 1000ppm (ok, maybe around 600ppm for a few canaries among us.) Nevertheless, direct impact of CO2 on the human body should still be a big concern because 1000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere will be what we see by the end of this century if the world keeps on the course that it is presently on. Now consider fish whose arterial CO2 pressures are generally an order of magnitude less than that of mammals. They will see the effects much earlier, and most likely by the end of the century will die off significantly. Also, while plants do thrive on a little extra CO2, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations over 1000ppm they tend to die off. So, what we may see is that fish and plants will die back first leaving humans without sufficient means for sustainment. For a more concise treatment of the subject please refer to, “ Carbon Dioxide’s Direct Impact on Down-Regulating the Human Species”, by R.E. Stumm, published in Science of the Total Environment, 19 September 2023.* *https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37734619/


     


    Also check out the video short “The Die Back” on Rumble** **https://rumble.com/v23ofba-the-die-back-2.1.html

  • Climate scientists are in it for the money

    Eclectic at 19:40 PM on 2 November, 2023

    WasAScientist @10 :


          "That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with a high certainty & confirmed by observations."


    Dang right !


          "it seems that the climate scientists have completed their work and there is no longer any need for their research positions."


    Well mebbe so . . . mebbe taint so.   Us common folks would sure kinda like a whole lot more idea of zactly how fast this here global warming is gurn on.   Could be mighty useful in our plans.   Could make a helluva big difference, I reckon.


    And cos some of them fancy elites is still a-saying there's no problem in sight and we all should kinda relax and do nuthing . . . well, we'd like a good bit more confirmation about all that, for or agin.   If'n that's okay with y'all.

  • Climate scientists are in it for the money

    WasAScientist at 18:41 PM on 2 November, 2023

    In the opening statement of this Climate Myth, it is claimed that climate scientists could make far more money in other careers, and I believe it is time they did just that.  According to Climate Myth 69 which states


    That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.


    it seems that the climate scientists have completed their work and there is no longer any need for their research positions.  At this point, people are either convinced of AGW or they are not.  If they are not convinced, as is the case with most common folks, it's highly unlikely that more science is going to change them.


    In my case, I was a US defense scientist with a Ph.D. in physics when the "End of the Cold War" (or "Outbreak of Peace") terminated my career after just eight years.  I was simply told that there was no longer a need for the service I was providing since the former East Block countries promised to behave themselves from now on. 


    Well, I sure hope the climate scientists have much better luck than I did in finding a new career if their current one vanishes.  Whenever I tried to break into anything new, I was always beat out by those with more experience.


    At any rate, there is little more the climate scientists can do to get people converted over to carbon-free energy.  Instead, what would be needed is a global Gestapo to enforce the no-carbon provisions on folks regardless of the harm they cause, and I know of no nation that would go for that.

  • John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

    Rob Honeycutt at 00:26 AM on 28 October, 2023

    TWFA: "... if the atmosphere and planet is heating up, so should the temperatures at 20,000' or 40,000', or even deep ocean temperatures, there should be plenty of data available at least for the former, weather balloons and PIREPs, it should track the models just as well and if not we would need to know why."


    Each of these comments from you is a fascinating demonstration of how little you've actually looked at the science of climate change. There is published research on all these topics and there is a very broad, deep agreement across research fields that human emissions of CO2 are the primary cause of warming of the past 50 years.


    And the PIREP bit is espectially bizarre. Being a pilot myself I know what you're talking about, but you should also know that PIREP's tend to be few and far between. They're helpful but not reliable. In addition, those PROG charts you pull in to ForeFlight or download via ADS-B in, those are produced through the same models used for climate models. They're merely initial conditions modeling (weather) as opposed to boundary conditions modeling (climate).


    All this and still you have yet to say one word about Clauser's claims.

  • CO2 effect is saturated

    MA Rodger at 18:47 PM on 27 October, 2023

    chuck22 @709,


    I would suggest it is more that Venus shows what a thick atmosphere does to climate while Mars shows it for a thin atmosphere. Both have an atmosphere comprising about 95% CO2. Yet the surface of Mars has zero GH-warming while on Venus it is an impressive +407ºC.


    Venus has about 80% of the solar warning relative to Earth, this due to its higher albedo (left hand graphic below) which more than compensates for being closer to the Sun. Thus the "naked planet" temperature for Venus (230K) is lower that Earth's (254K). Venus has a 92 bar atmosphere and the clouds in such a thick atmosphere are a major insulation mechanism preventing IR across the entire spectrum from escaping to space from anywhere near the surface.


    OLR spectra for Earth & Venus


    Zhong & Haig (2013) show (their Fig6b) that the climate forcing on Earth from CO2 (which at 389ppm provides with feedbacks GH-warming of +34ºC) would be perhaps trebled by CO2 levels up near the 90% mark, (Fig6b shows the direct forcing up to ~30% CO2) an unrealistically high level, but it does show that additional CO2 does not "saturate".

  • What’s the deal with carbon capture and storage?

    pattimer at 19:42 PM on 26 October, 2023

    I think an important point to make about CCS is that if in the future we successfully make use of CCS there will be benefits but it will not reverse the effects of past and present CO2 emissions. It will not replace lost glaciers,  bring sea levels back down, etc. This is for the simple reason that when tipping points are crossed we creat a new Earth that will be around for millennia.

  • CO2 effect is saturated

    chuck22 at 13:24 PM on 26 October, 2023

    Thanks, doesnt venus provide some evidence of what levels of CO2 would be needed to saturate? 

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    nigelj at 10:08 AM on 21 October, 2023

    Fred Torssander @5


    "It's great - in a way - to have my suspicions and my amateurish comparisions between reported emissions of GHG and measured atmospheric CO2 confirmed by Washington Post no less!"


    Yes although I think we all had those suspicions. However IMO while the under measurement of emissions is very concerning, for our purposes it isn't the big issue, because its been reasonably constant going well back. As I stated the big issue is the trend in emissions whether increasing or declining over time, and that trend is likely to be roughly accurate and the growth in emissions looks like it is nearing a plateau from data I've seen.


    "Variations in atmospheric CO2, when and if such changes appear, will be hard or even impossible to claim this as an effect of human political (democratic?!) activity. "


    Not really. Fistly atmopsheric CO2 levels have been increasing reasonably steadily except that the trend includes a lot of short term wiggles up and down, but those wiggles only last a year or two. They are a result of such things as the yearly seasonal growth cycle, el nino, and the occasional volcanic activity. But these all have very short term effects and known causes.


    Once we see something like a change in this atmospheric CO2 trend that lasts at least ten years we could be pretty confident its because of reducing human emissions. It's very difficult to see what else it could be, because no natural cause of emissions is likely to cause a ten year effect on the trend. And if it did it would have to be massive, unprecedented volcanic /  geothermal activity of some sort and we would certainly notice that.


    "Even in the case that the figures and charts showing temperature confirmed the good news, they would have a margin of error +23%, -0%(!) depending on what the reporting parties (states/nations) pleases."


    Temperatures will not be 100% accurately measured, but I doubt temperatures would be that innacurate as 23% out. Where did you get the number?


    However I would say atmospheric CO2 levels would be a bit more accurate than temperatures (or emissions trends)  and would be the most compelling  proof we have made a difference provided we see a decent 5 - 10 year difference in the trend.  CO2 levels are quite accurately measured.


    "And worse. The emissions of type iii in my first comment, will be compleatly hidden!"


    You mentioned el nino and volcanoes. But el nino is not hidden. It is a well known cycle and we know approximately what effect it has on CO2 emissions and its a very short term effect of a couple of years. El nino does not explain long term (greater than five years) trends in CO2 levels.


    And volcanic activity is not hidden. Scientists monitor this activity. Unless there is a massive krakatoa sized eruption it is not a significant generator of CO2. Its more significant related to aerosols.


    "Lastly: More power produced by "significant solar and wind power" does not neccesarily result in less power produced by burning fossil fuels.Remember Jevons Paradox!"


    Jevons paradox says (roughly) that making energy use more efficient does not decrease total energy use, and this has proven to be true, unless you actively fight against the paradox. Germany has had some moderate success making energy use more efficient and also decreasing total energy use, but its required some tight government lead incentives and programmes. And Germany is very disciplined as a people, so other countries might struggle to emulate their modest success.


    Regarding the wind and solar power issue, I'm not sure its strictly a Jevons paradox issue because we are not trying to achieve more efficent energy use "per se". We are substituting renewables for fossil fuels. So far those efforts have only stopped the growth in fossil fuels, but as wind and solar power uptake improves in scale,  fossil fuel use will fall in absolute terms and has already done in some places. For example, Paraguay, Iceland, Sweden, and Uruguay and France get something like 90% of their electricity from low carbon sources.

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    Fred Torssander at 08:00 AM on 21 October, 2023

    nigelj @5

    It's great - in a way - to have my suspicions and my amateurish comparisions between reported emissions of GHG and measured atmospheric CO2 confirmed by Washington Post no less! But the problem is still there. Variations in atmospheric CO2, when and if such changes appear, will be hard or even impossible to claim this as an effect of human political (democratic?!) activity. So how can we build an informed opinion on claims that "governments have made substantial progress in curbing their climate pollution" and even that "global temperatures are on a less dangerous path than they were a decade ago" which can't be seen, at least I can't see it in the temperature data? Or in the CO2 data.
    Even in the case that the figures and charts showing temperature confirmed the good news, they would have a margin of error +23%, -0%(!) depending on what the reporting parties (states/nations) pleases.
    And worse. The emissions of type iii in my first comment, will be compleatly hidden!
    Lastly: More power produced by "significant solar and wind power" does not neccesarily result in less power produced by burning fossil fuels.Remember Jevons Paradox!


    Yours
    Fred Torssander

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    nigelj at 06:08 AM on 21 October, 2023

    Fred Torssander @5


    "The still accelerating growth of the CO2 part of the atmosphere can have several types explainations - I think. i) First of all (Occhams razor) itt might be that the growth is actually accelerating, and the measurements of emissions of GHG are wrong or falsified. There is still very big money being invested in further expanded use of fossil fuels. "


    There is good evidence measurements of humanities total yearly CO2 emissions under report emissions by as much as 23% (much of this is agricultural related emissions) as below:


    www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/greenhouse-gas-emissions-pledges-data/


    But this has probably been a roughly consistent under reporting over time. We are interested in rates of change and trends. I think its likely that emissions growth is starting to level off. Coal use has started to level off, and the world is definitely building significant solar and wind power and this sort of thing can be independently verified.

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    Fred Torssander at 21:22 PM on 20 October, 2023

    MA Roger @4; 
    Thanks for your answer. 


    a) My use of the word fraction was not meant to create misunderstanding. I ought to have used part or ppm instead. Sorry.
    1.) The still accelerating growth of the CO2 part of the atmosphere can have several types explainations - I think. i) First of all (Occhams razor) itt might be that the growth is actually accelerating, and the measurements of emissions of GHG are wrong or falsified. There is still very big money being invested in further expanded use of fossil fuels. ii) Then comes  non-antropogenic generation, which varies with the activity of volcanoes and the weather, like El Niño that you mention. iii) Then there is the different effects of growing CO2 part of the atmosphere and of rising temperature. Like for example melting ice-lids on gas kettles. Some containing methane.

    There seems to be an adequate amount of scientific work on the non-antropogenic and maby also on the iii) category. But how much is done on the question of mistaken or falsified measurements of the emissions?

    The temperature anomaly could be verified by scientific use of a common houshold thermometer. At least in populated areas.
    Maby that makes temperature the only useful and reliable measure? In that case mabe good news using other measures should comment on the discrepancies between those and the rising of the temperature?


    [Berkeley Earth story link]

    Yours
    Fred Torssander

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    MA Rodger at 18:28 PM on 20 October, 2023

    Fred Torssander @3,


    That's not so easy to fathom.


    You presumably** ask about atmospheric CO2 levels.
    They should theoretically begin to stop increasing at an accelerating rate when we stop pumping CO2 into the air at increasing rates. So far, our emissions are leveling off but not yet levelled off.
    And if we could actually begin to drop the rate of emissions (and we need to do this quickly), the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 levels would begin to slow and helpfully they would level off roughly when we have halved emissions***.
    So a long way to go, theoretically.


    As for when we should see the good news, the increase in annual CO2 levels is impacted by El Niño (which changes many rainfall patterns across the globe and wobbles annual CO2 increases by some +/-0.5ppm). These resulting wobbles seen in the CO2 increase make it difficult to be precise as to the actual state-of-play. So we can see that the decadal increases**** since 1960 have been accelerating strongly (+0.9ppm/y, +1.2ppm/y, +1.6ppm/y, +1.5ppm/y, +1.9ppm/y, +2.4ppm/y) but being more precise is difficult. While the beginning of the present decade 2020-22 does show the lowest 3-year average increase (+2.2ppm/y) since 2012-14 and Covid would have not made a big change to that, the strong La Niña impacting 2020-22 will have made a big difference.


    (** The word "fraction" is not so useful here as its usual use is in the 'Airborne Fraction' which is the ratio of [increase-in-atmospheric-burden] to [the-emissions]. It takes 2.16Gt(C) to raise atmspheric CO2 by 1ppm. So our emissions of ~10ppm would have seen atmospheric levels rise by +4.6ppm if Af=100% & all the emissions remained in the atmosphere.)
    (*** The 'Airborne Fraction' is running at about 50% but this is not all because of a single year's emissions. Only a few percent would be due to the immediate annual emissions. The 50% is the sum of the decreasing 'few percents' from years running back many decades.)
    (**** The 'trend' numbers given by NOAA on their 'trend'page are a bit odd as they compare only the months at the start/end of the years, not the whole 12 months which I use in this comment. The NOAA method actually adds a bit more wobbliness to their numbers.)


     

  • New report has terrific news for the climate

    Fred Torssander at 00:50 AM on 20 October, 2023

    When is the good news expected to be visible as some change in the still accelerating CO2 fraction in the atmosphere? https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    MA Rodger at 22:07 PM on 18 October, 2023

    I'm reluctant to engage with a commenter that peppers a comment thread at a rate of one every couple of hours for almost two full days without establishing some form of understanding as to their purpose. But here goes...


    Rabelt @46,


    The OP does not claim to show that "emission from FF are responsible" for changing levels of atmospheric CO2. It is providing an explanation of "how measurements of changing isotopic ratios are described" and this in regard to the atmospheric 13C:12C ratio.


    This ratio is shown in the OP fig3 waggling over a whole millennium in a very similar way to the level of atmospheric CO2. CO2 levels go up/down and the 13C:12C ratio goes down/up. Such a remarkable correlation tells us (although this is beyond the message of the OP) that the source (and sink) responsible for the changing CO2 levels has a 13C:12C ratio far lower than the atmosphere. Thus that the oceans cannot be the source/sink of that extra carbon waggling the atmospheric CO2 levels.


    The source of this rogue CO2 messing up the atmosphere is thus plants, either by their direct destruction or indirectly via fossil fuels which retain the low 13C:12C ratio.


    (The middle section of your comment @46 mentions "this change" but does not make entirely plain whether you refer to the "changes in discourse" or the "changes in Delta C13". So, if it is in any way relevant, it is not clear which you don't accept.)


    Your comment make two final assertions which I find a little odd. You suggest annual and cumulative CO2 emissions 1750-1900 do not explain the changing atmospheric CO2 levels, the latter being "too small". Further you suggest a mismatch in the AtmosCO2:Delta C13 ratio "the 1950s-2010s periods."


    The Global Carbon Project is always a good go-to source for annual carbon emissions. Although their historic LUC data only runs back to 1850, it is plain from their various source-sink numbers that the Atmospheric Fraction does not show emissions that are "too small" prior to 1850. You may have sight of other numbers which show it different and if so you do need to explain such 'other numbers' properly. (I note @34 you put the CO2 emissions for 1850 = 0.2Gt(CO2). This is presumably ignoring the LUC emissions which would increase the full 1850 emissions to 2.6Gt(CO2) using the Global Carbon Project numbers.)


    It is also not clear what you are considering with this 1950s-2010s mismatch which you perceive between accelerating CO2 levels and steadily decreasing Delta C13 levels. If it is the OP's Fig 3 (& I don't see a problem there), perhaps a sight of the original may help as it shows the data points without the assumed solid δ13C trace.


    Delta13C graph - no assumed trace

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 16:48 PM on 18 October, 2023

    Rob Honeycutt,


    This post claims emission from FF are responsible yet decides to use a completely different measurement, that changes the discourse from emissions to co2 concentrations, which as the other kid mentioned can not be the cause of changes in Delta C13; even accepting this change, which I dont, the problem still persist, 1750-1900 yearly and cumulative emissions are unable to explain the changes in co2 concentrations, they are too small, and the co2 concentrations show an acceleration during the 1950s-2010s periods that dont match with the steady decrease in Delta C13.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rob Honeycutt at 11:46 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Rabelt... Assuming your "main narrative" is "[d]elta C13 starts decreasing around 1750 and continues to decrease ever since, the main narrative blames it on FF"... Your narrative is a basic misinterpretation of the science.


    The C13 narrative (if you want to call it that) is merely the physics behind carbon isotopes for natural sources vs through burning hydrocarbons. That it. If you're saying this area of physics is wrong, you need to explain why.


    The accepted understanding of this physics merely creates a prediction that can be tested. If the increasing concentrations of CO2 are primarily due to the buring of FF's, then we should see a corresponding relationship with C13. And that's all this is. It's just one piece of evidence that contributes to the scientific understanding that our uses of FF's is the source of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rob Honeycutt at 11:35 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Rabelt @31... "I am talking about emissions not co2 concentrations."


    Well, therein may lay your problem since the graph is concentrations.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 06:07 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Bob Loblaw,


    Let me explain your own field of expertise: Delta C13 starts decreasing around 1750 and continues to decrease ever since, the main narrative blames it on FF.


    I see that the human emissions are too low for the mayority of this 270 years period, as we can see in the cumulative and yearly emissions.


    I also see that even though the emissions multiply by tens and hundreds of times the speed of Delta C13 decreasing doesnt show any meaningful acceleration.


    You use the wildcard "Carbon Cycle", as if that explains something; supposedly this wildcard is able to produce massive amount of co2 with a "deficit" in C13 to compensate the 1750-1850 yearly emissions, as the emission from this years are 0.048 GT of CO2 per year on average with a max of 0.2 GT in 1850, while also making the decline of Delta C13 steady from 1750-1950, even though the yearly emissions have multiplied from 0.01 GT of CO2 per year to 6 GT of CO2 per year.


    This also happens during the 1960-2015 period in which the decrease of Delta C13 is quite steady even while the yearly emissions change from 9 GT of CO2 per year to 35 GT of CO2 per year.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 05:45 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Bob Loblaw,


    So you dont have an argument so you evade the topic, great.


    Again no argument so you avoid responding to you putting words in my mouth and not responding to the strawmaning mentioning the "Carbon cycle" as if it was so kind of deity, I am sure you are of much help in the debate. If you are gonna accuse me of not understanding the effects of the Carbon Cycle in Delta C13 I would like to see a quote or a set of specific pages, not a extremely vague statement that mentions the entirety of the concept "Carbon Cycle".


    So follow to you means caused, got it, it is my fault for expecting a minimum of comprehension; still I already said that there had to be a natural process that changed co2 concentrations and Delta C13, not sure why you continue to not read it.


    Didnt adress any point just wanted to score another "debate bro" point using that joke called FLICC, debate the argument not your ego, please, and thank you. We even have a name for people like you, imagine how unoriginal your tactics of debate are.


    "I am talking about emissions not co2 concentrations" It is not directed at you, but following (not causing) another line of debate with another person, but using your own fantasies now I am gonna start accusing the author of this post of believing that co2 concentrations causes changes in Delta C13, because mister Bob teached me how I am supposed to read others people words.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Bob Loblaw at 04:33 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Rabelt @ 28: "quote which part I said anything dismissive about the carbon cycle."


    The fact that you say virtually nothing coherent at all about it - when it is essential to understanding the graph/data you criticize - is all the evidence that is needed.


    @ 29: "I love how the guy putting words in my mouth is acussing me of strawmaning his arguments,"


    I am not accusing you of strawmanning my arguments - you have strawmanned "the main narrative" (in the context of what climate science - e.g., the IPCC - has said). If you want to provide a counter-argument, you need to give a thorough explanation of "the main narrative" (including the carbon cycle). Until you provide actual evidence that you have at least a basic level of understanding the carbon cycle (not just an assertion), then you're just blowing smoke.


    Also @ 29: "Quote my comments and explain why they follow your supposed "logical consequences"


    I did quote you, in my comment 19.



    You finish with "I said Delta changes previous to human emissions following co2 concentration not FF emissions as there were none, and the ones that existed were accountable for insignificant amounts of co2." The way you have worded this suggests that you think that either CO2 concentration changes cause C13 changes ("delta changes ... following CO2 concentration"), or that C13 changes cause CO2 concentration changes ("delta ... accountable for ... CO2").



    You have not responded directly to that, to provide any sort of clarification or indicate what you really meant. Yet you come back with "Again, never said co2 concentrations cause changes in Delta C13..." From this view, it looks as if you are just dodging the question.


    And now you are stating "Differences in the carbon cycle are expected, yet only are accepted if they dont contradict the main narrative,"


    Congratulations. You have now scored a third point on FLICC - the 5 techniques of science denial. - Conspiracy theories.


    Since you clearly are unable to actual specify what "the main narrative" is, your speculation about what contradicts it is not worth the electrons used to transmit it.


    And finally, @ 30 "I am talking about emissions not co2 concentrations"


    Yet the graph that you began this whole flood of nonsense over is a graph that shows two things as a function of time: CO2 concentrations, and C13 isotope ratios. There is no coherence or consistency to what you say. Buy a clue please: CO2 concentrations, CO2 emissions, CO2 uptake - all are part of the carbon cycle that you keep dismissing. Oh,, sorry - not "dismissing" but just "ignoring".

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 00:08 AM on 18 October, 2023

    Rob Honeycutt,


    I am talking about emissions not co2 concentrations.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 23:57 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Bob Loblaw,


    I love how the guy putting words in my mouth is acussing me of strawmaning his arguments, 10/10.


    Quote my comments and explain why they follow your supposed "logical consequences", just saying it again, as you dont show the ability to read the comments I am posting.


    "You see a correlation over the period 1750-1860, and then expect to see the exact same response at later times" During this entire period is a stable trend downwards, yet emissions during this period are incapable of generating such a trend. This is only one of the multiple periods I talked.


    Again, never said co2 concentrations cause changes in Delta C13, I even said that there had to be other natural mechanism capable of producing this effect. What a great ability to read.


    Differences in the carbon cycle are expected, yet only are accepted if they dont contradict the main narrative, unless you wanna say that the decrease during the beginning of the industrial revolution was natural, which I completely agree.


    Again another fantasy about what I belive or think, saying I am trying to invalidate climate science, I only talked about 1 specific thing but the entire field will crumble to the ground for just this specific inconsistency, what a joke of an argument.


    Sorry to say that your ability to read degrades quite quickly, I never said you didnt have knowledge on the carbon cycle, I said you didnt have any authority to say what the main narrative states, and I was right, as you are just another of the thousands of people that provide research and not a spokesman or director of the main organizations.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 23:25 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Michael Sweet,


    Again for the 50th time, I have never said that the carbon cycle is irrelevant, inexistent or not worth being mentioned, on the contrary, yet for some reason 3 of you have repeated the same dumb statements like it addresses anything I said; quote which part I said anything dismissive about the carbon cycle.


    I worry about your ability to see, if you are saying the 1000-1800 period is flat, there is multiple trends that vary from increase to decrease, those trends fit Delta C13 with co2 concentrations, not emissions; for industrial periods (1750-2015) we can see 3 main trends, 1750-1900, 1900-1960 and 1960-2015, this 3 trends periods encompass multiple different trends in co2 emissions

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Bob Loblaw at 23:20 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Rabelt:


    Again, you are saying "I never said..", and avoiding the logical consequences of what you are saying.


    The conversation has all the hallmarks of the following sequence:


    A person says:



    • A = 3

    • B = 8

    • C = A+B


    Someone else says "So, you are claiming that C =  11?


    And the first person says "I never said that C = 11. Stop putting words in my mouth."


    You keep referring to "the main narrative". Unfortunately, what you have written here tells me that your idea of  "the main narrative" is pretty much a strawman. I don't think you have any clue how the carbon cycle works, how different carbon isotopes fit into that cycle and why they would change over time.


    Your comment at 23 illustrates this very well. You see a correlation over the period 1750-1860, and then expect to see the exact same response at later times. You seem incapable of realizing the following:



    • There is no direct cause-effect between C13 ratios and atmospheric CO2 levels. They are part of the same large carbon cycle, but one does not cause the other, regardless of any fantasies you have about "the main narrative". As long as you ignore all the indirect connections (known as "the carbon cycle"), you will continue get everything wrong.

    • The different time periods have different conditions, different fluxes, and different relative important of atmospheric inputs and sinks of carbon as a result, they would be expected to show slight differences in the patterns.

    • Your overly-simplsitic "I see with my little eye..." analysis is telling us nothing about the global carbon cycle. Where you see inconsistencies you think can't be explained (because you won't look) and invalidate climate science, climate science sees the carbon cycle working as expected (because they have looked).


    You are hitting two of the five main components of FLICC - the 5 technicques of science denial:



    • Logical fallacies [your misunderstanding of "the main narrative" is just one]

    • Impossible expectations [your overly-simplistic view of what you think should be happening, and your belief that this disproves something]


    FYI, yes I have some authority with respect to carbon cycles, having been involved in analysis of forest carbon cycles and storage, and having my name on several publications related to that. You can read more about my background on the SkS Team page.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    michael sweet at 22:48 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Rabelt,


    If we decide to not consider most of what scientists know about the carbon cycle, for example by not considering fossil fuels, volcanoes, the ocean and terrestrial plants, than it is difficult to explain why the carbon 13 is changing.  When we consider all that is already known, the explaination for the change in C-13 is that it comes from burning fossil fuels.  There is no reason to only consider a fraction of scientific knowledge in our discussion.


    Looking at the graph in the OP, I see that before 1800 the concentration of C-13 is flat.  You are imagining that you see strong correlations between the carbon concentration and the delta C-13.  After 1800 the C-13 dramatically changes.  I do not underestand why you think this conplete change from the previous flat line is not significant.  The change in C-13 content cannot be from volcanoes or outgassing from the ocean.  The only option left is that the C-13 comes from fossil fuels.


    Keep in mind that scientists have measured the C-13 content of the air going back much further in time, a couple of hundred thousand years.  The only time in the past 400,000 years when there is a dramatic change in the C-13  content of the air in is the last 200 years.  


    The graph shows that the concentration of C-13 in the atmosphere changed dramatically around 1800.  That is when widespread use of fossil fuels started.  The C-13 change excludes a volcanic source of the CO2 and also excludes ocean outgassing.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    John Mason at 19:16 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Rabelt - The mantle typically has a δ13C of about −5‰, so volcanogenic CO2 emissions can be expected to carry a similar fingerprint. Biosphere carbon is much lighter e.g. in coals, Suto & Kawashima (2016) found −27.4‰ to −23.7‰ (from a sample population of 95 coals from 10 countries). So widespread burning of either vegetation or fossil fuel can be expected to cause a light carbon 'excursion' in the isotope record - and that's what we see. Fig. 3 explains.


    Ref:


    Suto, N., & Kawashima, H. (2016). Global mapping of carbon isotope ratios in coal. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 167, 12-19.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 18:30 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Rob Honeycutt,


    During the period 1750-1850, more specifically 1750-1860, there is the start of the industrial revolution as the IPCC says (1750) to 1860, an arbitrary point of time that I am using because the cumulative co2 emissions reach the 7.8 GT of co2 necessary to increase the co2 concentrations 1 ppm, also because its 100 years roughly; during this period there is a downward trend, yet the annual and cumulative emissions are too small to create any perceptible change, so it seems strange that we can see that trend and we can see that following periods, such as 1850-1900 and 1900-1950, show a very similar trend yet the annual and cumulative emissions are tens to hundreds of times bigger; I would expect a faster trend the bigger the emissions, not a 1 to 1, but there is no big change that correlates them.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 18:14 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Bob Loblaw,


    You dont have any authority to say what the main narrative says, so I will continue using the main narrative (IPCC, NASA, CSIRO, etc) as the argument I am debating, not your fantasy.


    Delta C13 is a measure that follows the emissions spectrum from human activities, there is no exact correlation indeed, that is what I am arguing, that it doesnt even follow a trend, it follows the co2 concentrations, If we look at the period 1000-1750 (pre-industrial), we can see variations in co2 concentrations are followed by Delta changes, when we look at the other periods, that you are incapable of addressing, we see the same behaviour, Delta follows co2 concentrations not emissions; the narrative from IPCC and similar say that Delta should follow the trends in co2 emissions.


    You continue to mention sources that respond and address nothing I say, they dont explain the difference in trends from Delta and co2 emissions, they are explaining the same things as this post (part 1 and 2); Part 1 is irrelevant to the trends in Delta and co2 emissions as it is a physics class, nothing else, maybe read the post and then comment, it would help.


    Your interpretation of my statements is irrelevant to what was written in them; I never said the period 1000-1800 is related to post 1800 periods, I exclusively talked about the relation in co2 concentrations and Delta trends in that 800 years period, that you cant read or comprehend is not my problem. Quote the specific part where I said what you accuse me of saying.


    The Carbon cycle can affect co2 concentrations and Delta C13, yet your narrative dismiss this and exclusively accuses the change to FF, from 1750-1860 the cumulative CO2 emissions are 8 GT, or the equivalent to 1 ppm, while the change in co2 concentrations was 9 ppm, that presents a mechanism that is not human action that can, and does, change the values and trends from Delta C13 and co2 concentrations.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rob Honeycutt at 12:07 PM on 17 October, 2023

    Rabelt... Maybe think of it this way: If burning fossil fuels was primarily responsible for the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, based on physics, the prediction would be that there should be an inverse relationship with C13 levels.


    The period prior to 1800 is merely the background state prior to the industrial revolution.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Bob Loblaw at 10:41 AM on 17 October, 2023

    Frankly, Rabelt, you are not making any sense. You are throwing out vague assertions, and you are not providing any logical argument for those assertions.


    Carbon cycles are not interpreted solely on the basis of correlations, which is essentially all that you have referred to.


    You state "..that Delta C13 is a precise indicator of FF usage...", which clearly shows that you do not understand what C13 ratios tell us. As I explained, it is one small piece of the puzzle, and it is combined with additional information to draw conclusions. You seem to expect a perfect correlation - but if you understood why C13 ratios change (different sources and sinks over time), then you would realize how the specific C isotope characteristics of different sources can help us identify which sources are active.


    I have provided additional links to places that will explain it to you, and all you can say is that you think part 1 is irrelevant. I see no evidence that you have understood anything in part 1, or any indication that you have bothered to read any of the other links I provided.


    You also state "I have never said that because there was change before any other change is normal/justified in nature", but that is essentially the logical consequence of what you say. Read Michael Sweet's comment at 10. You are assuming that behaviour patterns of C13 ratios and CO2 concentrations prior to 1800 must follow the same variations that occur once fossil fuel sources are added to the mix. Any argument that you make includes the logical consequences of what  you state, whether you state it explicitly or not.


    You finish with "I said Delta changes previous to human emissions following co2 concentration not FF emissions as there were none, and the ones that existed were accountable for insignificant amounts of co2." The way you have worded this suggests that you think that either CO2 concentration changes cause C13 changes ("delta changes ... following CO2 concentration"), or that C13 changes cause CO2 concentration changes ("delta ... accountable for ... CO2"). This is not even wrong. Both CO2 changes and C13 ratios are the result of other factors in the global carbon cycle. As long as you persist in ignoring the carbon cycle overall, you will be doomed to drawing erroneous conclusions.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 08:54 AM on 17 October, 2023

    Bob Loblaw,


    Delta C13 is the fingerprint left by FF, if the fingerprint doesnt match then one of the assumptions is wrong: that Delta C13 is a precise indicator of FF usage or that FF dont have an effect on Delta C13, we know the latter true, so it has to be the former. The proof to this is that even using the cumulative co2 gives you a too small amount to affect Delta C13 in any meaningful way, the period specifically is 1750-1850, physically impossible in fact.


    I have never said that because there was change before any other change is normal/justified in nature, I said Delta changes previous to human emissions following co2 concentration not FF emissions as there were none, and the ones that existed were accountable for insignificant amounts of co2.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Bob Loblaw at 07:40 AM on 17 October, 2023

    Rabelt @ 9, 11, 13, and 14:


    You are really missing the big picture on carbon isotope ratios. The C13 levels alone are not "proof" that the fossil fuels are causing the atmospheric rise in CO2 - they are one line of evidence that rules out other sources. You are over-interpreting what you are reading here (or elsewhere).


    This post is titled "Part 2". I suggest that you also read Part 1. It gives essential background about how isotope ratios differ across C12, C13, and C14, depending on the source.


    You should also read Climate Change Cluedo. Steps 4 and 5 note the significance of changing C14 and C13 levels. To quote,



    • Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);

    • Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;


    Isotope ratios are also discussed on How we know human CO2 emissions have disrupted the carbon cycle, and on What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2.


    The caption on figure 3, which states that declining C13 ratios tell us it is fossil fuel combustion should really be interpreted as "the declining C13 ratio tells us that it is not volcanic. Since volcanoes are the only other possible source of C14-depleted carbon, the only remaining explanation is fossil fuels".


    And none of those explanations require that C13 ratios be solely dependent on fossil fuel combustion. Figure 3 shows that for 800 years, C13 ratios were only slightly variable, and have now changed significantly once fossil fuel combustion began.


    Your argument that "it changed before, so it can't be fossil fuels now" is just a peculiar flavour of the general "climate's changed before" myth that is number one on the hit parade listed on the upper left of every SkS page.


    Just because you don't know of or understand an explanation does not mean that there isn't one.

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 07:08 AM on 17 October, 2023

    Rob Honeycutt,


    If FF was the only/main reason for the changes in Delta, why is the period 1750-1850 visible? If the cumulative co2 was just 5Gt, thats not even a full point increase in the co2 ppm, the reduction in Delta should be insignificant; for reference the drop from 1850-1900 is smaller but the cumulative co2 is 45Gt, 9 times greater

  • From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

    Rabelt at 04:55 AM on 17 October, 2023

    michael sweet,


    You don't see how delta c13 changes with the co2 concentrations, from 1000-1800? During this 800 years there is no emissions or they are negligible, in terms of yearly emissions and cumulative.


    Ignoring that problem with the theory of changes in delta = emissions, we have the problem of a steady decrease, in delta, from the 1960s to the 2010s, which do not match the increase in emissions, nor the accelerating growth of co2 concentrations.

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