An engineering solution to climate change?

[JohnRoberts]

It is likely to be a function of several variables but one of them will be temperature.

Cheers

Ian

Coincidentally my avatar image is from when I helped my brother (back in the 60's ) with his doctoral thesis experiments. He was pushing super-saturated steam through a supersonic nozzle (thus the hearing protection).

I believe there may have been a pressure term involved with how much moisture the air could hold.  ;D ;D (he was looking at droplet size and formation with a ruby laser thus the glasses).

When dealing with climate on a global scale resist the temptation to KISS. Many moving parts that must all be factored in.

JR

 

[Matador]

Do you agree that the 'recent' (recent meaning over the past 150 years) increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is due to combustion of fossil fuels?  In other words, periods in the past with comparable CO2 concentrations (like in the Pliocene age) are explainable via other mechanisms?

 

[Gene Pink]

Coincidentally my avatar image is from when I helped my brother...

Looks like you are in jail, and want out.  :'(

Gene

 

[Matador]

When dealing with climate on a global scale resist the temptation to KISS. Many moving parts that must all be factored in.

I would agree with that, and add: also resist the temptation to assume unnecessary complication, lest you end up arguing that it becomes unknowable.

 

[ruffrecords]

I would agree with that, and add: also resist the temptation to assume unnecessary complication, lest you end up arguing that it becomes unknowable.

Which should be tempered with avoiding the the temptation to over simplify and arrive at an erroneous conclusion. In isolation, I would expect water vapour to act as a perfect gas. But in the mix with air things are more complicated. For starters, water vapour is lighter than air so it tends to rise. Secondly it moves from the gaseous phase to the liquid phase quite readily at the temperatures prevalent in the atmosphere, something the other gases definitely do not do.

But no matter, let's carry on.

Cheers

Ian

 

[boji]

Pause to reflect: since the 90's the average temperature in the U.S. has risen 1.6 degrees.
https://www.apnews.com/dbd81ca2a7244ea088a8208bab1c87e2

What I can't understand is if lots of smart scientists- who presumably love the world as much as anyone else-  find that the stakes of the climate game is pretty much as high as it can get, perhaps only second to the threat of nuclear annihilation, why that does not in turn convince the people they share data with to prepare for the worst, or at least work to validate the claims instead of find ways to undermine the data.

If I had intel from thousands of scientists that assure me there's a 90% probability of a bomb in the tail section of the plane we are flying in, and I told you this, would you call your family and tell them you love them and start to take down one of the parachutes I wisely stowed in the top compartment, or would you sit with your arms folded and reply, "I call BS. I don't buy in to your emergency. I have a few dozen smart friends of my own that told me the bomb is not really a bomb, and there's nothing to worry about".

Edit: fixed some grammar.

 

[boji]

Can someone tell me a little more about who presently stands to gain from believing GW is real?  No question the fossil fuel industry has everything to lose, and I regard their ability to sway public opinion on be on par with organised religion.  Phillip morris and cigarette litigation comes to mind.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Can someone tell me a little more about who presently stands to gain from believing GW is real?

You are asking the wrong question. If the earth is warming, believing that is a matter of believing a long range weather report(looking backwards).  I expect you are talking about anthropogenic (man caused) global warming, which is a guilt trip to get the west to fund massive spending in poor nations.  The global elites planning to distribute this money are the immediate beneficiaries.  Technically the poor nations "should" benefit but we know how most big spending projects go in poor nations.  :

No question the fossil fuel industry has everything to lose, and I regard their ability to sway public opinion on be on par with organised religion.  Phillip morris and cigarette litigation comes to mind.

Ironically perhaps Exxon was sued to disclose secret internal research about climate change. It turns out there secret internal research was the same international reports every body was using. 

More expensive energy costs will affect everybody negatively. Those of us in the wealthy nations will not feel it as hard as people living in poor nations.
========
The cigarette litigation settlement is interesting to inspect (MS was ground zero for that lawsuit). The cigarette industry flipped the punishment (fines) into regular payments to states that turned them into willing partners. So far states have been paid $100B in fines.  Does anybody think they want to kill that golden goose by outlawing cigarettes?

The funds are supposed to be spent on smoking cessation, and some point to the reduction in smoking over the last ten years as evidence of success, but I suspect instead a cultural shift with movie stars no longer smoking in movies and on TV.  States have discretion in how they use the money so YMMV.  Some states have already traded the future revenue stream for lump sum payments, so that money is long gone.

JR

 

[dmp]

I expect you are talking about anthropogenic (man caused) global warming, which is a guilt trip to get the west to fund massive spending in poor nations.  The global elites planning to distribute this money are the immediate beneficiaries.

I work in energy. I have personally have met climate scientists. I have a sufficiently skeptical mindset and know enough about thermodynamics to have my BS alarm go off if there was even a shred of truth to this. Yes, the political propaganda gives you enough nuggets to chew on  (by design) but on the whole it is ridiculous as Pizzagate.

Wind and solar have declined in cost enough that there is no reason not to be rapidly switching away from fossil fuels.

Putting more CO2 in the atmosphere while we wait for better science is a terrible decision.

 

[dmp]

I saw Tesla people at Home Depot pushing their solar program. I was too busy to stop but, I think they do no money up front and you basically make payments like you would to the power company......Not sure if it's a credit rating based thing though.....

I'd like to see the prices of everything get a bit less scary but, I can see myself getting on board in my lifetime........

I wasn't talking about the home install - I was talking about the utility install, i.e. your electricity provider does it, not the homeowner.
Economy of scale is significant.
I got an estimate a few years ago to put solar panels on the roof but they said the roof would need structural reinforcements - just didn't make sense. Much easier and cheaper for the power utility to do it

 

[ruffrecords]

Pause to reflect: since the 90's the average temperature in the U.S. has risen 1.6 degrees.
https://www.apnews.com/dbd81ca2a7244ea088a8208bab1c87e2

What I can't understand is if lots of smart scientists- who presumably love the world as much as anyone else-  find that the stakes of the climate game is pretty much as high as it can get, perhaps only second to the threat of nuclear annihilation, why that does not in turn convince the people they share data with to prepare for the worst, or at least work to validate the claims instead of find ways to undermine the data.

If I had intel from thousands of scientists that assure me there's a 90% probability of a bomb in the tail section of the plane we are flying in, and I told you this, would you call your family and tell them you love them and start to take down one of the parachutes I wisely stowed in the top compartment, or would you sit with your arms folded and reply, "I call BS. I don't buy in to your emergency. I have a few dozen smart friends of my own that told me the bomb is not really a bomb, and there's nothing to worry about".

Edit: fixed some grammar.

The answer is simple. It is possible the general temperature is increasing. After all we have been in a warm (interglacial) segment for the last 12,000 years (probably explains why we had enough time to be spare from gathering enough food to stay alive to build civilisations).

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

At the beginning of that era, the North Sea did not exist and there was a vast plain between England and what is now the European continent. As the glaciers melted, the sea level rose and eventually the North Sea flooded:

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

So the climate has been warming and sea levels have been rising for thousands of years and nobody is suggesting mankind made any contribution to this. What is now asserted is that the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution is a) principally caused my man's activities and b) makes a significant increase in the average temperature.

We really need to be very certain of the truth before we spend lots of money trying to do something about it. Suppose for example that world temperatures are increasing but human activities are a minor element of this. There would be no point trying to extract all the CO2 we have emitted because it would make little difference. We would be much better spending that money on preparing to live in a warmer climate.

Lots of people say the consensus is man's contribution is significant. This is not true. In fact there are several different consensuses.  For example there is the Bali Letter (2007), the Copenhagen letter (2009), and the Manhattan Declaration (2008).

Cheers

Ian

 

[dmp]

We really need to be very certain of the truth before we spend lots of money trying to do something about it. Suppose for example that world temperatures are increasing but human activities are a minor element of this. There would be no point trying to extract all the CO2 we have emitted because it would make little difference.

Shouldn't the science have to be conclusive that increasing the CO2 concentration won't have a negative effect before we continue to burn fossil fuels?  just because it is what we are used to doing (alter the environment by burning fossil fuels) doesn't make that is the thing that we should be doing.

Frankly I think the question is posed wrong when you say the science has to be conclusive before we change our behavior on atmospheric CO2 levels.

Especially since non-fossil fuel energy technology is within reach.

 

[boji]

Thanks for the replies folks. I'll chew on your reply RR.

"So far states have been paid $100B in fines.  Does anybody think they want to kill that golden goose by outlawing cigarettes?"

Sadly falls in line with my expectations of human behavior. It's a devil's bargain and rings true. It also adds to my feelings about the energy sector though.  I know I risk sounding conspiratorial, but in my limited understand of geoeconomics I do get the sense our relationship with Saudi Arabia is paramount, (Syriana, what a great movie) as they have, in exchange for advanced military weapons agreed to sell everyone else their oil, but in US dollars only. This props up the dollar, and in turn our country, and keeps us in play as a superpower. That's a darn good reason to fight consensus on climate change alone, as our entire economic system depends on keeping the petrodollar in play.

 

[boji]

My favorite excerpt from Syriana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks9XVcLT69g
Syrana director interview (scary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jve46iSX6-8

 

[Matador]

The tobacco analogy to climate change is a particularly good one. 

Nobody credible thinks that cigarette smoking doesn't greatly increase the probability of cancers (notably lung and throat) and cardio-pulmonary disease.  This wasn't always the case, as 100 years ago people thought smoking might actually have health benefits.  And it was also subject to a large disinformation campaign by the monied interests.

However this damaging inference only applies to a population of people.  As of today, the evidence is overwhelming that amongst a population of smokers, their health outcomes are severely worse than another population of non-smokers, even when other factors are accounted for.

However the exact mechanisms behind this aren't known - nobody can ever provide proof that a specific person's lung cancer was definitively caused by their two-pack a day habit.  It is highly likely, but it's (currently) impossible to prove this.  The fact that we can find a handful of 50+ year two-pack a day smokers that die at age 95 from other causes doesn't disprove that smoking harms a population of people, and doesn't disprove that smoking on a whole is dangerous.  Another handful of people that die of lung-cancer at age 35 having never smoked, once again, doesn't disprove the conclusion either.  The fact that people die of other causes doesn't disprove the harm.  That fact that everyone, eventually, dies, doesn't disprove the effect.

All of this is despite the fact that the exact mechanism behind cigarette smoke's interaction with the cells of the lung isn't known.  There is a large body of research that implicates the vast number of carcinogenic chemicals in the smoke is a culprit, and other research that points to other causes.  This is not cause to label the field as 'unsettled'.

So tacking back to the Bali letter, it seems to take the 'we found a few people who didn't die from smoking' angle.  As a representative example:

Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today´s computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

This takes the whole "You can't prove the exact number of people who will die from smoking, hence it's all bunk" angle...and it leaves out that climate models already accounted for this effect as part of the Super El Nino of 1998.  And it's amusing that they describe it as a plateau, and since that letter, global temperatures have risen every year once the El Nino effect dissipated.

The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

So, people have always died of lung cancers, probably before tobacco was even discovered.  This also neglects that warming is accelerating faster than at any period outside of major cataclysmic events.

Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

Another variation of 'people have died for centuries', and also doesn't address the differences between stratospheric warming versus tropospheric warming.

Lastly, none of the authors of this letter cite any research that proves their points:  taking the first three listed authors:  Don Aitkin, is not a climate researcher, and his degrees are in social science, William J.R. Alexander, published most of his work in Energy and Environment, which didn't even have a double-blind review procedure (and those were papers on flooding).  Timothy F. Ball, hasn't published anything since 1986.

Can't we find better sources for this dissention?

 

[dmp]

I know I risk sounding conspiratorial, but in my limited understand of geoeconomics I do get the sense our relationship with Saudi Arabia is paramount, (Syriana, what a great movie) as they have, in exchange for advanced military weapons agreed to sell everyone else their oil, but in US dollars only. This props up the dollar, and in turn our country, and keeps us in play as a superpower. That's a darn good reason to fight consensus on climate change alone, as our entire economic system depends on keeping the petrodollar in play.

I've gone down the wormhole reading about the petrodollar and I can't really decide if it is bunk or not.
I know there was an agreement with Saudi Arabia that oil is priced in dollars (1970s?). Therefore, everyone that wants to buy oil needs to exchange into dollars first. This strengthens the dollar, right?

So the theory is that after the US went off the gold standard (when the dollar was pegged to gold) and the dollar became priced against other currencies and gold by the market, the dollar was 'propped' up by everyone converting other currencies into dollars to buy oil? And once oil rich countries sold oil for dollars, they would take those dollars and horde them?  And the dollar would be stronger in comparison to other currencies?

 

[ruffrecords]

Do you agree that the 'recent' (recent meaning over the past 150 years) increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is due to combustion of fossil fuels?  In other words, periods in the past with comparable CO2 concentrations (like in the Pliocene age) are explainable via other mechanisms?

No, I do not agree. That there has been an increase is undeniable. That the increase coincides with combustion of fossil fuels is also undeniable. But there is no hard evidence one largely causes the other.

The effect of human emissions on global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide is not well understood because no-one, including the IPCC, can satisfactorily account for the observed levels in detail: our best estimates of carbon dioxides sinks and sources have large error bars.

However, for the sake of this discussion I am happy to take the IPCC's own estimate of 50% of the 7Gtonne of human carbon emissions being added to the atmosphere each year even though it is likely to be a serious over estimate.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Matador]

No, I do not agree. That there has been an increase is undeniable. That the increase coincides with combustion of fossil fuels is also undeniable. But there is no hard evidence one largely causes the other.

You don't agree with the combustion of hydrocarbon equation, which states that all combustion of hydrocarbon derivitaves in the presence of oxygen produce CO2 and water?

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemical-engineering/10-571j-atmospheric-physics-and-chemistry-spring-2006/assignments/psn_1.pdf

You don't find any of the research on C13/C12 carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere convincing?  Or on C14 composition?

 

[ruffrecords]

You don't agree with the combustion of hydrocarbon equation, which states that all combustion of hydrocarbon derivitaves in the presence of oxygen produce CO2 and water?

I agree with that statement. But that is not what I said. Read my post again.

You don't find any of the research on C13/C12 carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere convincing?  Or on C14 composition?

I find the C14 work very convincing. It shows, since the cessation of nuclear tests in the early 60s that the observed decrease in C14 confirms the half life of carbon in the atmosphere is less than ten years. The residence time, at around 5 years is more than 10 times shorter than that assumed by the IPCC.

The real question you seem to want to avoid is where does all the carbon come from and go to? The atmosphere contains about 780 Gtonne of of carbon of which about 90Gtonne is exchanged each year with the oceans, and about 120Gtonne with plants. Thus about 25% of atmospheric carbon is turned over every year. I addition the oceans have about39,000 Gtonne of carbon dissolved in them, some of which is sequestered each year in the formation of sea floor limestone. 70 million Gtonne of carbon has accrued cumulatively over geological time and soils, vegetation and humus contain another 2300 Gtonne.

In amongst these figures, the 7.8Gtonne produced by humans annually is tiny. One  estimate says it is a quarter of the  error in the estimate (32Gtonne) of the estimated carbon dioxide production from all other sources.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Matador]

So if I can paraphrase your argument correctly, you a) agree atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing, yet b) the contribution of man is small, ergo, the increase must be due to something else?  In order to be true, there must be some 'carbon sink' that is not keeping up with the additional input, albeit through some natural process.  Which sink do you propose explains this?

BTW, the fact that man's contribution is small relative to the cycle overall isn't confirmation that CO2 increase can't be based on fossil fuel burning.  If I have a 100L bathtub, and the drain removes 1L per day, and the faucet adds 1L per day, then the system is in balance.  I can add 1 drop per hour, and over the course of hours/days/weeks/months the water level in the tub will rise.  The fact that 1 drop per hour is small relative to 1L being added by the faucet doesn't disprove this.