AN ANTI-SCIENCE MANIA TAKES OVER GOP

[istodolez]

Green Energy so far lacks the seasonal grid scale storage, needed to make it viable.
Nature shows us the short term path of hydrocarbons, but hydrocarbons have been demonized
to the point that there is resistance to that path.

And rightfully so. Unlike you most of the earth's climate experts know that more CO2 will lead to more warming. You have not yet proven that this ideal of "carbon neutral hydrocarbons" will even scale economically. Right now it's an idea and likely won't work at scale economically. But we need to act NOW in regards to CO2. We can't just put it off in hopes that the "boffins fix the problems"

 

[watsup]

Green Energy so far lacks the seasonal grid scale storage, needed to make it viable.
Nature shows us the short term path of hydrocarbons, but hydrocarbons have been demonized
to the point that there is resistance to that path.

“So far” being the operative word. There is a huge amount of research going into green energy. It is already showing up in great strides in electric car mileage, for instance.

 

[longview]

I’ve read a couple of the articles that’s you have cited and could find no disagreement at all that CO2 is the prime mover of the present global warming. When is the last time that there was this much CO2 in the air and what was the result?

CO2 can be the "prime mover", and still not be of concern.
Just because the portion of the observed warming that is cause by CO2 is greater than 50%,
does not increase the climate's sensitivity to CO2!
Let's say that total warming since 1900 is ~1.1C,
and CO2 increased from 296 ppm to 412 ppm.
The forcing warming would be 5.35 X ln(412/296) X .3 = .53C, roughly half of the observed warming,
but this has no bearing on if strong positive feedbacks exists!

 

[watsup]

We can disagree on this, but I can disagree with data and not words.
Consider that the entire globe emits the targeted 15 um photons, claimed to be CO2's contribution to AGW.
(Everywhere above -60C)
In spite of the same physics being involved, the response to the increase in CO2 is vastly different by hemisphere.
Here is the GISS zone data, GISS Zones
I included a line for the Equator.
View attachment 67313264
CO2 is the same level everywhere, and absorbs the same 15 um photons, which excite the same dipole moment (667 cm-1), and
all those CO2 molecules spontaneously decay back to ground state the same way.
The question becomes, why if all the CO2 related variables are the same, North and South, are the levels of warming so vastly different?
The answer is that the norther warming has other factors besides CO2 involved.

And exactly what other factors?

 

[watsup]

CO2 can be the "prime mover", and still not be of concern.
Just because the portion of the observed warming that is cause by CO2 is greater than 50%,
does not increase the climate's sensitivity to CO2!
Let's say that total warming since 1900 is ~1.1C,
and CO2 increased from 296 ppm to 412 ppm.
The forcing warming would be 5.35 X ln(412/296) X .3 = .53C, roughly half of the observed warming,
but this has no bearing on if strong positive feedbacks exists!

The articles that I cited do indeed talk of strong positive feedbacks. It’s not “climate’s sensitivity to CO2” that we are talking about, but rather how increased CO2 in the climate is causing other factors to develop that further increase global warming. Do you have any disagreements with items #220 and 221?

 

[longview]

And rightfully so. Unlike you most of the earth's climate experts know that more CO2 will lead to more warming. You have not yet proven that this ideal of "carbon neutral hydrocarbons" will even scale economically. Right now it's an idea and likely won't work at scale economically. But we need to act NOW in regards to CO2. We can't just put it off in hopes that the "boffins fix the problems"

Scaling up is always an engineering problem, and one of the simpler ones, a Plant to make jet fuels is being built as we type.
What is the fastest way to reduce emissions? They are already falling in the US, we could build a lot more nuclear power plants,
but short of that, the conversion to electric vehicles could take decades, and will require parallel massive improvements to the electrical grid.
if all vehicle new emissions dropped to zero, it would cut US emissions by about 1/3, to 1/2.
If the technology produced fuels cheaper than fuels made from oil, it would be adopted globally.

 

[longview]

And exactly what other factors?

It does not matter, since the same level if CO2 is present in both hemispheres.
I can speculate, but it would be irrelevant, as it cannot be CO2!

 

[istodolez]

Scaling up is always an engineering problem, and one of the simpler ones, a Plant to make jet fuels is being built as we type.

Yes, I understand that one can build a plant to do this. That does not mean that these carbon neutral hydrocarbons will scale economically across the board to supplant petroleum, and certainly not in time to address the problem that pretty much every experts in the field sees.

but short of that, the conversion to electric vehicles could take decades, and will require parallel massive improvements to the electrical grid.

See this makes no sense to me. You think that it's a no-brainer to scale up carbon neutral hydrocarbons which will, by definition, be inefficient (ie more energy to make than they produce) and you think it can be scaled quickly but you think it will take decades to convert to electric cars which are already commercially available?

If the technology produced fuels cheaper than fuels made from oil, it would be adopted globally.

And it doesn't make much sense to think the idea of "carbon neutral hydrocarbons" will be "cheaper than oil" until oil is so prohibitively expensive that we wouldn't use it anyway.

Remember: you are proposing taking oxidized carbon and reducing it and then rebuilding the longer chain molecules.

That is NOT going to be economical and not in the short term and likely never on the same scale as we currently use petroleum and fossil fuels.

 

[watsup]

You missed the point, Your quoted statement was an absolute,
"Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for about two-thirds of the total energy imbalance that is causing Earth's temperature to rise. "
An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide causes an increase in Earth's energy imbalance!
The graph shows Earth's Energy Imbalance declining, during a period that we know CO2 was increasing,
invalidating one of the core tenants of AGW, that CO2 is the dominant driver of the climate.

If it is not CO2 as the dominant driver of global warming, then what is it?

 

[istodolez]

It does not matter, since the same level if CO2 is present in both hemispheres.
I can speculate, but it would be irrelevant, as it cannot be CO2!

Interesting. So you think there's a "mystery" material that humans produce that is leading to the warming but no one on earth has found this mystery material...but you "know" it can't be CO2.

Yet almost every expert in this topic says CO2 is a major contributor.

Do you see the problem here?

 

[longview]

The articles that I cited do indeed talk of strong positive feedbacks. It’s not “climate’s sensitivity to CO2” that we are talking about, but rather how increased CO2 in the climate is causing other factors to develop that further increase global warming. Do you have any disagreements with items #220 and 221?

There is no evidence that the net of all the feedbacks is a strong positive!
There is evidence that the net of all the feedbacks may be a slight negative.
As for the descriptions of possible feedbacks in #220, #221, arctic thawing has been ongoing for 20,000 years,
it's inputs, could already be part of the system, and a lessening part as there is less permafrost remaining.

 

[watsup]

It does not matter, since the same level if CO2 is present in both hemispheres.
I can speculate, but it would be irrelevant, as it cannot be CO2!

Of course there are other factors present, but that in no way suggests that CO2 is not the prime factor and any others are relatively minimal. I am sure that scientists are looking into any other factors, but it’s quite clear that they are minor factors.

 

[watsup]

It does not matter, since the same level if CO2 is present in both hemispheres.
I can speculate, but it would be irrelevant, as it cannot be CO2!

Wow, it took me about 10 seconds of googling to find this:

“Berkeley and the University of Washington, the Northern Hemisphere has led the Southern Hemisphere in its rate of warming since about 1980, largely because the Northern Hemisphere has more land and less ocean than the Southern Hemisphere, and oceans warm relatively slowly.”

So it’s not some mystery substance as you seemed to indicate, it’s just a difference in land mass. Mystery solved!

In Warming, Northern Hemisphere is Outpacing the South

The Northern Hemisphere is warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere, which may help shift tropical rainfall, such as monsoons.

www.climatecentral.org

 

[watsup]

There is no evidence that the net of all the feedbacks is a strong positive!
There is evidence that the net of all the feedbacks may be a slight negative.
As for the descriptions of possible feedbacks in #220, #221, arctic thawing has been ongoing for 20,000 years,
it's inputs, could already be part of the system, and a lessening part as there is less permafrost remaining.

So you disagree with NASA scientists. Well enough. Guess who I will believe!

 

[longview]

Yes, I understand that one can build a plant to do this. That does not mean that these carbon neutral hydrocarbons will scale economically across the board to supplant petroleum, and certainly not in time to address the problem that pretty much every experts in the field sees.



See this makes no sense to me. You think that it's a no-brainer to scale up carbon neutral hydrocarbons which will, by definition, be inefficient (ie more energy to make than they produce) and you think it can be scaled quickly but you think it will take decades to convert to electric cars which are already commercially available?



And it doesn't make much sense to think the idea of "carbon neutral hydrocarbons" will be "cheaper than oil" until oil is so prohibitively expensive that we wouldn't use it anyway.

Remember: you are proposing taking oxidized carbon and reducing it and then rebuilding the longer chain molecules.

That is NOT going to be economical and not in the short term and likely never on the same scale as we currently use petroleum and fossil fuels.

You are unable visualize how close we are to economic viability for man made fuels, and the economic curves are getting closer all the time.
A few years ago, the people who are publishing their research, were saying they had a conversion efficiency of 60%,
so you need 55 Kwh to create 1 gallon of gasoline. This would equate to oil at ~$96 a barrel.
In 2019 Sunfire was saying that at an industrial scale they could hit an 80% efficiency.
sunfire
Now Sunfire is saying 84%
sunfire
"By integrating off-heat from industrial processes, our SOECs achieve an electrical
efficiency of up to 84 %LHV to AC, realizing substantial savings on renewable electricity."
This would equate to oil at $41.25 a barrel, at 80% efficiency, and $.05 per kilowatt wholesale electricity.
Do you remember a few years ago, when some Saudi Prince said that oil would never again be over $100 a barrel, He was right!

 

[longview]

Interesting. So you think there's a "mystery" material that humans produce that is leading to the warming but no one on earth has found this mystery material...but you "know" it can't be CO2.

Yet almost every expert in this topic says CO2 is a major contributor.

Do you see the problem here?

It is not that CO2 is not a major contributor, but that it's contribution is still low.
Who says the other factors have to be Human produced?

 

[longview]

Wow, it took me about 10 seconds of googling to find this:

“Berkeley and the University of Washington, the Northern Hemisphere has led the Southern Hemisphere in its rate of warming since about 1980, largely because the Northern Hemisphere has more land and less ocean than the Southern Hemisphere, and oceans warm relatively slowly.”

So it’s not some mystery substance as you seemed to indicate, it’s just a difference in land mass. Mystery solved!

In Warming, Northern Hemisphere is Outpacing the South

The Northern Hemisphere is warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere, which may help shift tropical rainfall, such as monsoons.

www.climatecentral.org

Nice words, but the mechanism of CO2 forcing is exactly the same in both hemispheres. both land and ocean emit 15 um photons.
Here is Hansen's prediction of warming by latitude.
Note, the model does not show a large difference between the NH and SH!

 

[longview]

So you disagree with NASA scientists. Well enough. Guess who I will believe!

What evidence in the empirical record do they present to validate a strong positive feedback?

 

[watsup]

It is not that CO2 is not a major contributor, but that it's contribution is still low.
Who says the other factors have to be Human produced?

I have repeatedly asked you to list other factors and you consistently deflect. What other factors are you claiming?

 

[longview]

I have repeatedly asked you to list other factors and you consistently deflect. What other factors are you claiming?

Other factors, let's see the Northern Hemisphere had massive dimming and brightening from aerosols, which line up with the observed warming,
while the Southern hemisphere still had warming, it was much less than the Northern hemisphere.
So ether the aerosols themselves being reduced, or the soot form the coal plants, changed the energy imbalance.
What we do know is that CO2 levels are the same in both hemispheres and 15 um photons are the same in both hemispheres.

 

[istodolez]

What evidence in the empirical record do they present to validate a strong positive feedback?

Paleoclimate data constraints on climate sensitivity: The paleocalibration method

The relationship between paleoclimates and the future climate, while not as simple as implied in the ‘paleoanalog’ studies of Budyko and others, nevertheless provides sufficient constraints to broadly confirm the climate sensitivity range of theoretical models and perhaps eventually narrow the...

link.springer.com

 

[istodolez]

Other factors, let's see the Northern Hemisphere had massive dimming and brightening from aerosols, which line up with the observed warming,

The mid century cooling from the 1940's to the 1970's was apparently due to sulfate aerosols. WWII industrialization with few pollution controls led to a lot of sulfate aerosol pollution which we cleaned up in the 1970's. And the warming due to CO2 and other greenhouse gases resumed as expected.

It's almost like this science about human activities impact on climate is real!

What we do know is that CO2 levels are the same in both hemispheres and 15 um photons are the same in both hemispheres.

SO you are going to ignore what @watsup found in regards to differences between n and s hemispheres? You think that the only factor hypothesizes is CO2 and so you'd expect the temperatures trends to be exactly the same?

 

[longview]

Paleoclimate data constraints on climate sensitivity: The paleocalibration method

The relationship between paleoclimates and the future climate, while not as simple as implied in the ‘paleoanalog’ studies of Budyko and others, nevertheless provides sufficient constraints to broadly confirm the climate sensitivity range of theoretical models and perhaps eventually narrow the...

link.springer.com

It is an interesting idea, but we have to consider that we are out of the high gain portion of the curve.
At some level we can consider that sea level is a type of thermometer.
like mercury expanding in a tube, the sea level rises with thermal expansion.
In the glacial, inter glacial warming transition, we see strong feedbacks to strong feedbacks,
up until about 8,000 years ago, and then everything slowed to a gentle warming slope.

I think it is perhaps misleading to expect the same amount of response to warming today, as was seen in a very different portion of the curve!

 

[istodolez]

It is an interesting idea, but we have to consider that we are out of the high gain portion of the curve.
At some level we can consider that sea level is a type of thermometer.
like mercury expanding in a tube, the sea level rises with thermal expansion.
In the glacial, inter glacial warming transition, we see strong feedbacks to strong feedbacks,
up until about 8,000 years ago, and then everything slowed to a gentle warming slope.

I think it is perhaps misleading to expect the same amount of response to warming today, as was seen in a very different portion of the curve!

Basically you are just going to ignore anything that is provided in response to your requests? Everything in science is wrong except your interpretation?

I like how you take large-scale changes like glacial/interglacial stuff and ignore the shorter term stuff going on since 1850. It's like thinking that a volcanic precursor expansion is meaningless since the earth itself isn't expanded as much as during the initial accretion stage. (Also sea level rise may have been increased after glaciation as LAND-BASED continental glaciation melts and raises sea water as well)

The glacial-interglacial stuff is interesting because we SHOULD BE GOING INTO A COOLING phase given what we know about Milankovich Cycles, yet we aren't. But I guess we just ignore that because it is incovenient?

 

[longview]

The mid century cooling from the 1940's to the 1970's was apparently due to sulfate aerosols. WWII industrialization with few pollution controls led to a lot of sulfate aerosol pollution which we cleaned up in the 1970's. And the warming due to CO2 and other greenhouse gases resumed as expected.

It's almost like this science about human activities impact on climate is real!



SO you are going to ignore what @watsup found in regards to differences between n and s hemispheres? You think that the only factor hypothesizes is CO2 and so you'd expect the temperatures trends to be exactly the same?

The brightening and dimming is well documented by Wild, here is a graphic from his 2014 publication.
I suspect that the very large brightening phase from 1985 to 2000, likely impacted the model inputs, looking at warming from 1978 to 1998.



I do not need to ignore the article from climatecentral, it's basis is that land emits more 15 um photons than ocean,
and that is simply not the case. Any surface at above ~-60 C will emit 15 um photons.
Since all of the liquid portions of the ocean are above -60C, they all emit 15 um photons.