An engineering solution to climate change?

[ruffrecords]

"Contrarians frequently object that water vapor, not CO2, is the most abundant and powerful greenhouse gas; they insist that climate scientists routinely leave it out of their models. The latter is simply untrue: from Arrhenius on, climatologists have incorporated water vapor into their models. In fact, water vapor is why rising CO2 has such a big effect on climate. CO2 absorbs some wavelengths of infrared that water does not, so it independently adds heat to the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere and multiplies CO2's greenhouse effect; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that water vapor may “approximately double the increase in the greenhouse effect due to the added CO2 alone.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/7-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense/

I do not recall saying they left it out of their models.

Cheers

ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Tens of millions of voters voted for Donald Trump. They can't even choose between right and wrong, let alone take a responsible position on climate change.

sweet...  ???

I offered a response earlier in terms of an engineering solution. The main issue facing climate change is inaction due to greed and stupidity(inaction on the part of some of earth's most powerful leaders).

Measure twice cut once.....  We need to be damn sure about what we are doing before actively cooling the planet.

Seeing as greed and stupidity are human personality characteristics(flaws), we should find ways to remove those flaws either with genetic physical engineering(more extreme) or programmed psychological retraining. However, greed and stupidity remain as obstacles to objective action, so it's probably best to lock these people up so they can't continue on their path of destruction.

Removal is the only fix.

That is not an option available, but thanks for clearly stating your preference.  : :

JR

 

[dmp]

No, those figures showed the amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere by humans is insignificant.

Can you post the numbers showing it was insignificant? I remember the human contribution of CO2 every ten years was about equal to the exchange rates, which seemed pretty significant.
I have done calculations on the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and the numbers are small - but small numbers do not necessarily mean something is insignificant.

Atmospheric CO2 levels do correlate with global temps from geological records. However, the geological records show that CO2 changes tend to happen around 600 years after the event the initiated them. In other words, the current increase in atmospheric CO2 is an effect not a cause of changing temperatures.

In the geologic record, CO2 lagged temperature changes.  That is true. But never before have the stored CO2 reserves (fossil fuels) been rapidly converted to atmospheric CO2, like humans have been doing for the last 100 years. The current rise in CO2 is having a leading effect on temperature rise. It's uncharted territory.

Unfortunately CO2 is a very mild greenhouse gas. Unfortunately water vapour, which is exists in much greater abundance than CO2, is is much more powerful greenhouse gas.

The fact is there is a lot more water vapour than there is CO2. The fact is water vapour is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

The change in CO2 is called a forcing term in science. It may be weak effect if considered in isolation, but in a complicated system, the small change in CO2 may shift the equilibrium significantly. Why? Think of the atmosphere in equilibrium. If CO2 increases, causing a slight temperature increase, but then water vapor increases due to the rise in temp and has a multiplicative effect, then the new equilibrium will be significantly further off than the simple change in CO2 would do on its own. 
This would be a positive feedback scenario.
Ideally a stable equilibrium would have negative feedback instead of positive feedback.

The prudent thing to do would stop modifying the system until we know more. That is why the world is transitioning to non-fossil fuel energy. Changing the status quo of converting stored hydrocarbon reserves to atmospheric CO2 is the first step in an engineering solution to climate change.

As to what to do if more is needed - imagine a technology that was self sustaining, absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere, and provided a great building material on top of it. Yes, trees. Pretty amazing
As has been posted before though, the unsustainable rise in population is the elephant in the room .

 

[Matador]

and I repeat that isn't even the question...

But we apparently can't even get to the question....

I do not recall saying they left it out of their models.

I think we arrived at this place in other threads:  you seem unwilling to point out where you believe the flaws are in the modelling, and you seem to just be flat out opposed to modelling in general as part and parcel of the scientific method.

I hate to break it to you:  the 'Standard Model' of particle physics was born simply out of observation and some underlying assumptions, yet is highly accurate.  It doesn't explain why there are 12 particles, or two spins or three charges, or why the masses of the W and Z bosons are what they are.  It is also completely at odds with general relativity.  Yet these lacks of understanding don't seem to be much in the way of making progress in technology.

How do you propose to refute the accuracy of climate models?

 

[dmp]

Is this good news? Or relevant to anything? I'm seriously asking to get input from everyone.... Kinda confusing to me.

Study shows global forest loss over past 35 years has been more than offset by new forest growth

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-forest-loss-years-offset.html

It is interesting I think because people take some pretty amazing things for granted, like trees. The problem is that trees are cyclical - i.e. they adsorb CO2 but release it again when they die and rot. The only way to increase the amount they are storing out of the atmosphere would be to increase the tonnage in cyclical growth cycles, which would be hard to do to any significant degree. Or the trees would need to be sequestered like oil in the depths of the earth to store carbon out of the atmosphere.

 

[ruffrecords]

I think we arrived at this place in other threads:  you seem unwilling to point out where you believe the flaws are in the modelling, and you seem to just be flat out opposed to modelling in general as part and parcel of the scientific method.

To the best of my knowledge I have not said a single thing about the modelling. Please point out where I mentioned this in my posts.

Cheers

ian

 

[Matador]

To the best of my knowledge I have not said a single thing about the modelling. Please point out where I mentioned this in my posts.

A model is only as good as its predictions that can be verified. Trouble is the timescale of these models is so long they can't be verified right now. All they are is speculation. If you really want to know just how crude these models are you should read Climate: The Counter Consensus by Professor Robert M. Carter.

 

[ruffrecords]

Crikey that was two years ago. Was that in this thread?? I stand corrected. My apologies.

So, have you read the book?

Cheers

Ian

 

[Matador]

Crikey that was two years ago. Was that in this thread?? I stand corrected. My apologies.

So, have you read the book?

Cheers

Ian

I have not.  Here are the first 5 Amazon reviews:

..."This is not propaganda, obviously, because Professor Carter has the FACTS on his side, unlike the alarmists, and he backs up what he says constantly."...
..."Want to destroy Liberal climate religious sheep?"...
..."Also, the global warming lie as a minimum should necessitate the more than welcome outright scrapping of the UN (useless nations)."...
..."It's unbelievable that these fabrications are still being taught in universities. Don't college students read books any more?"...
..."Exposes the truth of the Leftist lies on global warming."...

This does not bode well.

One author of the critique was the retired James Cook University professor Bob Carter. Professor Carter, whose background is in marine geology, appears to have little, if any, standing in the Australian climate science community. He is on the research committee at the Institute of Public Affairs, a think tank that has received funding from oil and tobacco companies, and whose directors sit on the boards of companies in the fossil fuel sector.

"I don't think it is the point whether or not you are paid by the coal or petroleum industry," said Professor Carter. "I will address the evidence."

This really doesn't bode well.

I will read some of the published rebuttals to see if there is anything worth studying.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I still think this argument is missing the point.

I have seen some highlights of one of the Nobel prize winning economists, and he appears to be a real economist, weighing the economic cost of various schemes. 

I will look for a link to share maybe... but as I have been saying for years huge economic cost.

------

Interesting (in an eww way) Exxon is now lobbying in Washington in favor of a carbon tax. They want to eliminate a crazy quilt of random regulations in favor of single tax....The article I saw suggested returning something like $2,000 of tax proceeds to each individual.

I am not comfortable trusting the government to not keep some of all of a new $600B tax revenue stream.  : (caveat all hypothetical at this point).

JR

 

[dmp]

I still think this argument is missing the point.

I have seen some highlights of one of the Nobel prize winning economists, and he appears to be a real economist, weighing the economic cost of various schemes. 

I agree - but you can't start talking about how technology will address a problem when a lot of people think the problem doesn't exists, or is made up by a conspiracy of scientists (?).
I read a little about the economist that won the nobel prize.  The simple summary is you create market incentives (carbon credits?) to lower pollution. I'm curious what are some examples of this working?  Does it work better / worse than government mandates?
I think of the economy as an optimization system (probably since I work in technology optimization). Unencumbered, it optimizes for $$.  For example, higher pollution usually makes production cheaper. So traditionally products produced with higher pollution are cheaper and win in the free market. Much of economics is devoted to externalities - how to control pollution for example (and ideas like the tragedy of the commons - that shared resources will be overused in a free market)
Of course this uses the efficient markets hypothesis, which has it's own caveats (the subject of last year's nobel winner's work).

The reduction of transportation emissions has been a remarkable success over the past 20 years and it was done by government mandates.  While renewable energy has had some market incentives (first 200k EVs sold/manufacturer get a tax credit, home insulation tax credits, etc...) there are also mandates in other parts of the world.

Whenever a company like Exxon starts lobbying I immediately think it is a market capture scheme. Whatever happens with regulation (mandates vs incentives) hopefully it let's technology run and doesn't just help the big corporations cement their market dominance.

The emissions regulations has allowed some technology startups for advanced engine concepts into the ballgame

http://achatespower.com/our-formula/opposed-piston/

Go to 1 min in to see the engine design. Pretty cool.

 

[hodad]

What's really sad about Human-caused climate change deniers is that they're believing propaganda that even the folks paying for it (large oil companies) don't actually believe in.  For decades oil companies have utilized research that supports human-caused global warming in their future plans.  Part of the plan, obviously, was to create an army of useful idiots to spew their propaganda and slow any political action that might hurt their business. 

Buying into the oil companies' BS is almost as sad as getting hooked into the Nigerian prince scam.  Pathetic.

 

[ruffrecords]

What's really sad about Human-caused climate change deniers is that they're believing propaganda that even the folks paying for it (large oil companies) don't actually believe in.  For decades oil companies have utilized research that supports human-caused global warming in their future plans.  Part of the plan, obviously, was to create an army of useful idiots to spew their propaganda and slow any political action that might hurt their business. 

Buying into the oil companies' BS is almost as sad as getting hooked into the Nigerian prince scam.  Pathetic.

I guess scepticism should be made illegal.

Cheers

Ian

 

[desol]

I guess scepticism should be made illegal.

Cheers

Ian

What would you call it then, when solid evidence is provided, yet one continues to choose to remain part of the problem?

The problem being the avoidance of facts in lieu of facts that support one's own bias? Hence, which only leads to procrastination and worsening of the problem?

Is taking an active stance on reducing pollution and implementing more responsible energy practices a bad thing?
Is 96 percent of the scientific community convinced that it's having a negative effect?

Should we remain petty about this, or actually become a part of the solution...

The entire scientific world(nearly) is accepting of the facts or a reasonable enough scenario, apart from the ones that demand facts.

Maybe we should enlist the help of aliens to conduct an objective analysis as we're floating down stream?

 

[dmp]

I guess scepticism should be made illegal.

Cheers

Ian

Nobody here is saying dissent or skepticism should be outlawed (or at least I am not).
But imagine someone posts in this forum an electronics idea that goes against the opinion of a consensus of experts here.
Is it possible that the idea is valid and all the experts here are wrong? Yes , but it is unlikely. But how would you react to a new poster getting into electronics (with an idea that appears wrong to everyone with advanced knowledge of electronics)  saying "I guess my skepticism should be illegal then". And that new poster being completely set in his/her belief - a belief that is dismissed by experts in the field?
I've been trying to explain the science on climate change based on my understanding in ways that would be understandable to someone with expertise in a different field  (electronics) but it seems like it is a competition rather than an exchange of ideas.
Anyway, 100% consensus on anything is impossible..
FWIW, I work in simulation of thermo-fluid systems and I took three grad level classes in thermodynamics, two in heat transfer, and three in fluid dynamics.

 

[JohnRoberts]

again arguing about wrong questions... right question is what to do and when/how...

here is from one of the recent Nobel prize winners
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-ignores-economics-of-climate-1539125496

Limiting temperatures to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges, is economically and practically impossible
---
Models actually reveal that to achieve the 2.7-degree goal the world must stop all fossil fuel use in less than four years. Yet the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2040 fossil fuels will still meet three-quarters of world energy needs, even if the Paris agreement is fully implemented.
---
In reality, it is likely to cost much more because EU climate legislation has been an inefficient patchwork. If that continues, the policy will make the EU 24% poorer in 2050.
---
Copenhagen Consensus analysis shows a ramped-up green-energy research-and-development budget of around $100 billion a year would be the most effective global-warming policy. It would be much cheaper than the approach pushed by the IPCC, and would not require global consensus. Most important, it would have a much better chance of ameliorating temperature rises.

Like I have been saying more research, less arm waving.

JR

 

[desol]

again arguing about wrong questions... right question is what to do and when/how...

here is from one of the recent Nobel prize winners
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-ignores-economics-of-climate-1539125496

Like I have been saying more research, less arm waving.

JR

It costs too much to save the world, so let's destroy ourselves?

 

[Matador]

again arguing about wrong questions... right question is what to do and when/how...

Like I have been saying more research, less arm waving.

In other words, it's likely too late.  It would seem that running out the clock is still a very effective strategy.
The real crime is that our baby-boomer lead Congress is more than happy to continue the tradition of punting this down the road, since they'll be long dead before the impacts start to really be felt.

Since I like tobacco analogies:  let's smoke a pack a day until lung cancer has invaded our bodies, then increase to two packs per day because 'There's nothing that could have been done to prevent this!!!', then with our dying breath leave the $1M dollar hospital bill to our kids to pay back.

 

[ruffrecords]

What would you call it then, when solid evidence is provided, yet one continues to choose to remain part of the problem?

Dunno. Nobody has yet been able to provide me with any solid evidence.

Cheers

Ian

 

[desol]

Dunno. Nobody has yet been able to provide me with any solid evidence.

Cheers

Ian

I think I've provided you with more than enough.