Global warming

[pbrower2a]

(07-26-2017, 08:17 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Graphs.

Every once in a while I put up something from Real Climate, an organization of climate scientists.  This entry shows very visibly how climate is changing over time.

Graphics with solid verbal explanations can convince me reasonably well. Most projections suggest that the arctic regions will warm most, followed in turn by the northern middle latitudes. That's what the pulse distribution shows. Then comes the Antarctic region which includes Antarctica itself and the ocean abutting it. But he tropical and subtropical regions are warming some. Lagging is the upper-middle latitudinal zone of the southern hemisphere, but that is almost entirely ocean, water surfaces generally gaining less in temperature due to the heat capacity of water.

The ice sheet atop of the Arctic Ocean is known to be shrinking, and climate maps show this. The July monthly isotherm of 50F in northern climatic zones that serves as the usual boundary between non-polar and tundra climates has moved away from Reykjavik; Nome, Alaska is now just barely out of the tundra climate zone.

But not even the ferocious winds (the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties) and the strong Antarctic Current surrounding Antarctica can fully shield Antarctica from global warming, as is shown by the calving of some ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula.

[Eric the Green]

(07-26-2017, 11:25 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-25-2017, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: WHAT THE WORLD WOULD LOOK LIKE IF ALL THE ICE MELTED

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazi...rctica.jpg

Even the IPCC do not believe all the ice will melt.

The point was, it WILL all melt IF we continue on our current course. The Drump/GOP course. If we make changes, maybe it won't all melt. But some melting is already baked in, so to speak.

[Eric the Green]

(07-26-2017, 02:53 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: As I've noted to you previously, the US hit peak CO2 output some time ago. Meme spouting gasbags aside, we are not going to return to "King Coal" especially not after converting many plants to natural gas or shutting them down. Some existing coal fired plants may convert to lower CO2 output per joule of net electricity generated. Overall, we shall continue our downward profile of CO2.

What will really matter will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.

And they will do what they want to do.

But even factoring that in, population dynamics will present a global peak of CO2 output, probably right in line with or slightly leading peak population. It could come as soon as 10 years from now. Then, the long global downward trajectory in CO2 output. Meanwhile, greening and the ocean cycle will fix tremendous volumes of carbon. That's what's amazing about Gaia.

Yes. But it should be clear by now from my posts above that China is moving the way the USA did, toward peak CO2 output, and much faster and more permanently than the USA moved too. And the other BRIC countries are moving too, while Traitor Trump puts the USA on the sidelines and shifts our movement into R = Reverse.

CO2 will eventually be absorbed. But warming will continue because of our additions to what is already up there (and in the oceans), and due to stay up there for decades-- even up to a century. Although peak CO2 output won't end global warming, it could come 10 years from now; but if Trump gets his way, it won't, because the USA will rev up CO2 again. I wouldn't count on King Coal being entirely dethroned if Drump gets his way, and natural gas still spews plenty of CO2. And the natural gas boom is also an oil boom in places like N Dakota, and then there's those polluting pipelines. Luckily, there's resistance and defiance of Trump from blue-states and cities, and the rest of the world.

The map of what the world will look like, if we continue on our present course, still applies, because we need to change our present course (which includes even what we've already changed). We haven't shifted enough to clean energy yet to avoid our fate. If China continues to lead the way, and other nations follow it-- the world's new leader-- then we have a chance to avoid the fate of a 216-foot sea level rise. If the world follows Drump, however, then we don't. The USA has a stark and clear choice to make. It boils down to D and R, as congressional voting records and presidential behaviors alike make MORE THAN crystal clear!

And as for militant USA nationalism, there's nothing greater the USA could do than to recover its leadership in the climate field, instead of letting anti-democratic, state-capitalist China be the trend setter and moral leader of the world.

There may be some extreme alarmists among the climate science activism crowd. I'd say the world is much better served by them, than by the skeptics. Even if the sea doesn't rise 216 feet and the ice caps don't all melt, we have no right to kill off other species, nor to endanger millions of people. We should have converted long ago. We have gone into R = Reverse far too often and far too long. We need to change yesterday.

[David Horn]

(07-26-2017, 02:53 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 11:45 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 11:25 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-25-2017, 12:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: WHAT THE WORLD WOULD LOOK LIKE IF ALL THE ICE MELTED

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazi...rctica.jpg

Even the IPCC do not believe all the ice will melt.

The point was, it WILL all melt IF we continue on our current course. The Drump/GOP course. If we make changes, maybe it won't all melt. But some melting is already baked in, so to speak.

As I've noted to you previously, the US hit peak CO2 output some time ago. Meme spouting gasbags aside, we are not going to return to "King Coal" especially not after converting many plants to natural gas or shutting them down. Some existing coal fired plants may convert to lower CO2 output per joule of net electricity generated. Overall, we shall continue our downward profile of CO2.

What will really matter will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.

And they will do what they want to do.

But even factoring that in, population dynamics will present a global peak of CO2 output, probably right in line with or slightly leading peak population. It could come as soon as 10 years from now. Then, the long global downward trajectory in CO2 output. Meanwhile, greening and the ocean cycle will fix tremendous volumes of carbon. That's what's amazing about Gaia.

Whether we add more or not, the CO2 in the environment remains and heat accumulates.  If no more is added, and none removed, a steady state will arrive at some point in the future, but it will be hotter overall than it is now.

[Eric the Green]

(07-27-2017, 04:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-27-2017, 04:17 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 02:53 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 11:45 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 11:25 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Even the IPCC do not believe all the ice will melt.

The point was, it WILL all melt IF we continue on our current course. The Drump/GOP course. If we make changes, maybe it won't all melt. But some melting is already baked in, so to speak.

As I've noted to you previously, the US hit peak CO2 output some time ago. Meme spouting gasbags aside, we are not going to return to "King Coal" especially not after converting many plants to natural gas or shutting them down. Some existing coal fired plants may convert to lower CO2 output per joule of net electricity generated. Overall, we shall continue our downward profile of CO2.

What will really matter will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.

And they will do what they want to do.

But even factoring that in, population dynamics will present a global peak of CO2 output, probably right in line with or slightly leading peak population. It could come as soon as 10 years from now. Then, the long global downward trajectory in CO2 output. Meanwhile, greening and the ocean cycle will fix tremendous volumes of carbon. That's what's amazing about Gaia.

Whether we add more or not, the CO2 in the environment remains and heat accumulates.  If no more is added, and none removed, a steady state will arrive at some point in the future, but it will be hotter overall than it is now.

Biological and geochemical processes will remove it. In fact, the overall trend prior to the arrival of humans was gradual removal, to levels that were becoming dangerous at times at the low end of viability for green plants and plankton.

Not for decades, and not until well after we stop emitting it.

[Eric the Green]

(07-28-2017, 10:57 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 12:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-27-2017, 04:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-27-2017, 04:17 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-26-2017, 02:53 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: As I've noted to you previously, the US hit peak CO2 output some time ago. Meme spouting gasbags aside, we are not going to return to "King Coal" especially not after converting many plants to natural gas or shutting them down. Some existing coal fired plants may convert to lower CO2 output per joule of net electricity generated. Overall, we shall continue our downward profile of CO2.

What will really matter will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.

And they will do what they want to do.

But even factoring that in, population dynamics will present a global peak of CO2 output, probably right in line with or slightly leading peak population. It could come as soon as 10 years from now. Then, the long global downward trajectory in CO2 output. Meanwhile, greening and the ocean cycle will fix tremendous volumes of carbon. That's what's amazing about Gaia.

Whether we add more or not, the CO2 in the environment remains and heat accumulates.  If no more is added, and none removed, a steady state will arrive at some point in the future, but it will be hotter overall than it is now.

Biological and geochemical processes will remove it. In fact, the overall trend prior to the arrival of humans was gradual removal, to levels that were becoming dangerous at times at the low end of viability for green plants and plankton.

Not for decades, and not until well after we stop emitting it.

Correct. My guess is during the 22nd century the downward trend will resume. Then, a whole new set of issues will be faced, and those issues will truly be a humans against or challenged by nature scenario.

Issues which we are probably also now facing.

[Eric the Green]

(07-28-2017, 04:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 11:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 10:57 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 12:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-27-2017, 04:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Biological and geochemical processes will remove it. In fact, the overall trend prior to the arrival of humans was gradual removal, to levels that were becoming dangerous at times at the low end of viability for green plants and plankton.

Not for decades, and not until well after we stop emitting it.

Correct. My guess is during the 22nd century the downward trend will resume. Then, a whole new set of issues will be faced, and those issues will truly be a humans against or challenged by nature scenario.

Issues which we are probably also now facing.

No they are different issues. Imagine for example, let me pick a number, CO2 at 200 ppm.

The issue has to be a real one before we worry about facing it. CO2 is not going down to 200 ppm at any time within the visible time horizon. If we go back to the emissions that we made before the industrial age, that will be very healthy and there will be no worries about it once the residue of CO2 from the warming is gone.

If there's a natural global cooling trend going on, it will be very gradual, as Nature's cycles usually are. And anyway, by then, even if cooling is as danger, maybe we can resume burning some CO2 to maintain the balance!

[Eric the Green]

(07-31-2017, 11:24 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-29-2017, 09:11 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 04:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 11:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2017, 10:57 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Correct. My guess is during the 22nd century the downward trend will resume. Then, a whole new set of issues will be faced, and those issues will truly be a humans against or challenged by nature scenario.

Issues which we are probably also now facing.

No they are different issues. Imagine for example, let me pick a number, CO2 at 200 ppm.

The issue has to be a real one before we worry about facing it. CO2 is not going down to 200 ppm at any time within the visible time horizon. If we go back to the emissions that we made before the industrial age, that will be very healthy and there will be no worries about it once the residue of CO2 from the warming is gone.

If there's a natural global cooling trend going on, it will be very gradual, as Nature's cycles usually are. And anyway, by then, even if cooling is a danger, maybe we can resume burning some CO2 to maintain the balance!

No amount of attempting to put CO2 back into the atmosphere (at least nothing economically viable) can defeat the long term trend. This is why life needs to eventually find places to migrate to, besides Earth. Earth will eventually die, biologically speaking. Of course what I refer to here is millions if not billions of years in the future.

Yes, if you're speaking millions of years. The climate danger in that case is more severe global warming, as the Sun gets larger, from what I have read, after a billion years. In all that time, we should be able to develop technologically and spiritually so that we are no longer dependent on our birth matrix; probably long before then. All that has little to do with what might happen on Earth in hundreds of years. There are other possible causes of catastrophe we will probably face before the billion-year deadline. Not only natural heating and cooling cycles, which approach gradually but might reach a sudden tipping point, but things like the Yellowstone caldera exploding and causing a virtual global winter. Would we ever have the technology to avert that danger? We probably already have the means to avert an asteroid collision.

[Eric the Green]

Al Gore is BAAAACK!

Bill Maher: "State's rights! Environmentalism today, environmentalism tomorrah, environmentalism fo-eva!"

[radind]

We really can run the world on renewable energy – here’s how

Quote:https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...heres-how/

… "This week, a new 27-author study in the inaugural issue of the sustainable energy journal Joule sets out roadmaps for 139 countries, representing more than 99 per cent of all emissions. These roadmaps quantify the costs and benefits of transitioning all forms of energy for all purposes to electricity – supplied by 80 per cent wind, water and solar power (WWS) by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050.”…

[Eric the Green]

(08-23-2017, 02:28 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2017, 12:37 PM)radind Wrote: We really can run the world on renewable energy – here’s how

Quote:https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...heres-how/

… "This week, a new 27-author study in the inaugural issue of the sustainable energy journal Joule sets out roadmaps for 139 countries, representing more than 99 per cent of all emissions. These roadmaps quantify the costs and benefits of transitioning all forms of energy for all purposes to electricity – supplied by 80 per cent wind, water and solar power (WWS) by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050.”…

Yes of course, you can stand up UPSes all over the place, ones that can hold up high voltage AC lines. Everything has a cost. There are many toxic processes needed to produce a portion of the components that go into those types of UPSes. There are other methods some propose, methods that turn the diurnally asymmetrical PV and wind outputs into some other form of energy, such as potential energy (e.g. pumping water uphill behind a hydroelectric producing dam). In power lingo that is horrendously lossy. Some others propose a huge international power grid. Great, you be the first one to step up to fund all the undersea interconnects. Yes, it could be done. But where's the ROI?

acronyms....... hmmmmmmmm UPSes, ROI?????

Very good, radind. I'll look it over. (well I guess I can't look at the New Scientist link unless I want their emails in my box)

All these concerns Mr. X mentions are being addressed. It's just a matter of keeping up with the latest info. The main international power grid is being proposed from Africa to Europe; I don't know where that stands at the moment.

I found one article about a huge plant in Morocco that could help supply Europe. But I also see there are plans for a gas pipeline from Nigeria. Obviously that's not part of a sustainability plan.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129...wer-europe

[David Horn]

(08-24-2017, 01:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-23-2017, 02:28 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2017, 12:37 PM)radind Wrote: We really can run the world on renewable energy – here’s how

Quote:https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...heres-how/

… "This week, a new 27-author study in the inaugural issue of the sustainable energy journal Joule sets out roadmaps for 139 countries, representing more than 99 per cent of all emissions. These roadmaps quantify the costs and benefits of transitioning all forms of energy for all purposes to electricity – supplied by 80 per cent wind, water and solar power (WWS) by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050.”…

Yes of course, you can stand up UPSes all over the place, ones that can hold up high voltage AC lines. Everything has a cost. There are many toxic processes needed to produce a portion of the components that go into those types of UPSes. There are other methods some propose, methods that turn the diurnally asymmetrical PV and wind outputs into some other form of energy, such as potential energy (e.g. pumping water uphill behind a hydroelectric producing dam). In power lingo that is horrendously lossy. Some others propose a huge international power grid. Great, you be the first one to step up to fund all the undersea interconnects. Yes, it could be done. But where's the ROI?

acronyms....... hmmmmmmmm UPSes, ROI?????

Very good, radind. I'll look it over. (well I guess I can't look at the New Scientist link unless I want their emails in my box)

All these concerns Mr. X mentions are being addressed. It's just a matter of keeping up with the latest info. The main international power grid is being proposed from Africa to Europe; I don't know where that stands at the moment.

I found one article about a huge plant in Morocco that could help supply Europe. But I also see there are plans for a gas pipeline from Nigeria. Obviously that's not part of a sustainability plan.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129...wer-europe

FWIW: UPS = Uninterruptable Power Supply, a common element in any critical on-demand service requiring power.  ROI = Return On Investment, and is self explanatory.

As far as wind and solar providing 100% of all power demand, I have to a agree with Alphabet.  All the options that will actually work today are hugely costly.  We need baseline power to cover the times when intermittent power fails, as the Germans have finally determined by trying to do without.

[Eric the Green]

(08-25-2017, 11:52 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-24-2017, 01:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-23-2017, 02:28 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2017, 12:37 PM)radind Wrote: We really can run the world on renewable energy – here’s how

Quote:https://www.newscientist.com/article/214...heres-how/

… "This week, a new 27-author study in the inaugural issue of the sustainable energy journal Joule sets out roadmaps for 139 countries, representing more than 99 per cent of all emissions. These roadmaps quantify the costs and benefits of transitioning all forms of energy for all purposes to electricity – supplied by 80 per cent wind, water and solar power (WWS) by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050.”…

Yes of course, you can stand up UPSes all over the place, ones that can hold up high voltage AC lines. Everything has a cost. There are many toxic processes needed to produce a portion of the components that go into those types of UPSes. There are other methods some propose, methods that turn the diurnally asymmetrical PV and wind outputs into some other form of energy, such as potential energy (e.g. pumping water uphill behind a hydroelectric producing dam). In power lingo that is horrendously lossy. Some others propose a huge international power grid. Great, you be the first one to step up to fund all the undersea interconnects. Yes, it could be done. But where's the ROI?

acronyms....... hmmmmmmmm UPSes, ROI?????

Very good, radind. I'll look it over. (well I guess I can't look at the New Scientist link unless I want their emails in my box)

All these concerns Mr. X mentions are being addressed. It's just a matter of keeping up with the latest info. The main international power grid is being proposed from Africa to Europe; I don't know where that stands at the moment.

I found one article about a huge plant in Morocco that could help supply Europe. But I also see there are plans for a gas pipeline from Nigeria. Obviously that's not part of a sustainability plan.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129...wer-europe

FWIW: UPS = Uninterruptable Power Supply, a common element in any critical on-demand service requiring power.  ROI = Return On Investment, and is self explanatory.

As far as wind and solar providing 100% of all power demand, I have to a agree with Alphabet.  All the options that will actually work today are hugely costly.  We need baseline power to cover the times when intermittent power fails, as the Germans have finally determined by trying to do without.

The German transition is still in progress, so nothing has been "finally determined." But they seem to have ditched nuclear power, which may be an option eventually, for a while at least, if and when it is safe and any waste is recycled. But they are going more cold turkey without the nuclear option.

OK, I remember ROI.

Solar and wind are less costly than oil and coal now, or soon will be. It is base-line power because some solar and wind plants are producing power while others are not, and batteries are being developed. All that is well-recognized, and corporate as well as blue-state and city governments recognize this, and are on board for the transition. Only the Trumpsters are not. They stand alone against 139 nations and many states and companies. The article radind quoted is probably correct.

Ultimately, we may have to choose for a while between having power whenever we want it, and having a liveable, sustainable environment. We have become greedy and complacent in our materialist expectations. We need to cut back on our modern greed and become more efficient in our use of energy.

[Bob Butler 54]

I guess I ought to review climate again.  Something came up in another area.  By the time I felt like writing a response, I'd forgotten where.  Few really bother to do the research.  They find one trend that matches their political view and go all out for that one effect.  To understand climate as a whole, you have to learn all the trends as observe how they fit in the temperature record.

The solar cycles are often mentioned, but are also the most often measured.  How strong is the sun?  How does it vary?  There is a dozen year pattern where it returns to the expected coolest level of near zero sunspots.  The warmest max sunspot level does change.  The last peak was fairly low, contributing less to the warming than usual.  We set warm records regardless.  The solar cycles are predictable enough to be easy to see in the temperature curves with the naked eye.  There is a gentle essential permanent ripple.  This ripple is dwarfed by the larger, longer term trends.

I’ll throw El Nino, Lan Nina and volcanoes out together.  The first two can cause a bump in temperature for a year or two.  Volcanoes usually run cool and run longer, generally about three years.  All three of these are much harder to predict and anticipate than many other factors, but they rough up the curve, make it harder to see what is happening.

They do stack.  In 1998 a very hot El Nino stacked with the peak of a solar cycle and lack of cooling volcanoes.  The result was a record hot year.  At the hot moment, the alarmists blew their trumpets, often without bothering to say why it was a particularly hot year.  After a few years, it was the denialist’s turn.  Global warming had ended.  It was getting cooler.  Well, yes, the El Nino had ended and the solar cycle had turned.  Again, those with political world views didn’t bother to say why it was for a time getting cooler, why it was very predictable, why it was so much hot (and then cold) air.

Next I’ll get to a big one, a real one.  The Milankovitch Cycles show how ice ages come and go.  If you have ever watched a child’s toy top spinning down, you should recall how the top wobbles just before it falls.  It turns out that the wobbles are predictable.  If you know the right equations, you can predict wobbles.  The spinning Earth similarly wobbles, is subject to much the same equations.  These do effect climate, as the planet gets closer and further from the sun, as the angle of poles changes, etc…

Few bother with the equations.  It is altogether tedious.  How many ice ages have we had in how long?  The important thing to note is that we are in a cooling era.  Other factors aside, we’re due for an ice age.  If you look at the temperature records, you see a steady long term cooling following the general pattern of an interglacial ending.  Many among the denialists latch on to this one. What could possibly compete with an ice age?

The answer is the second big one.  Since about the end of the US Civil War, since humans switched from logs and whale oil to coal and oil, the temperature has been going the other way.  Oh, the other factors are still real.  The small ripple of the solar cycles is still there.  You see small dips in the records with known El Ninos / La Ninas sand volcano bounces occur.  The major long term trend, though, is that man made warming greenhouse release is overwhelming the cooling effect of Milankovitch.

An often ignored one is global dimming.  This was discovered almost by accident when a scientist studying farming evaporation records noted less evaporation.  Something was preventing sunlight from reaching the surface.  I turned out to be aerosols, soot.  If you’ve seen old pictures of Pittsburgh during its steel making peak, the city air was very very sooty.  It was decided that the health drawbacks of all that soot wasn’t worth it, that putting scrubbers in the stacks was made beneficial by medical and quality of life considerations.  The west, largely, put in the scrubbers.

India, China and many other Asian countries haven’t reached that point yet.  No scrubbers.  Lots of soot.  Assuming you have done any reading, the truth of this is obvious.

Thing is, global dimming fights global warming.  More light gets bounced into space.  Scrubbers heat things up.  If China, India and the rest of Asia reach the same conclusion as the West about medical and life quality trade offs, we get a big jump in global warming.  It is not clear when they might shift, or even if.  They calculate quality of life differently than the west, and the weight of human health against economic values is different.

Then there are tipping point effects.  They need not happen.  They shouldn’t happen.  They look to happen.  Historically, whenever one of the poles melt, the other follows.  Historically, once the warmth hits a certain level, greenhouse gasses frozen (literally) out of the atmosphere are released.  You can see the results when these things happen clearly in the historical records.  It gets warmer.  Lots warmer.  Massive extinction warmer.

The next one we can ignore as it is happening too slowly.   The continents are moving.  The poles are currently both frozen.  This can only happen when a continent is at one pole, such as current day Antarctica, or surrounded by continents, as with the current day Arctic.  If ocean currents reach a pole, no freezing.  No ice.  No cooling.  You get the warm sort of Earth common to her history.  Eventually it’s going to get warmer, folks, too warm, no doubt about it.  That’s not really a problem, though, for the conceivable future.  Continents just move slowly.

The conservatives, for a while, were into the sun reaching a galactic arm.  More stars.  More radiation.  More clouds as water clumps around the radiation.  That one is slow enough to ignore as well.  Compared to stars moving galactic distances, continents moving around planets are fast.  That didn’t mean they couldn’t twist the science and put out their propaganda.  

Anyway, that’s my perspective.  The important competition is between Milankovitch and greenhouse.  It takes little skill to see either in the temperature record, or to see which is the larger effect.  There are lots of smaller stuff roughing up the curve, but the measurable solar cycles have neither the magnitude or duration to be the a player.  The question is whether we want to cut the greenhouse short, before the historical tipping points are reached.  These points haven’t been reached for a very long time, so those with strong political values can pretend they won’t happen again.  In fact, we know where they are and what will happen when they are reached.

Me, I don’t think it ought to be about political values.  It should be about whether the temperature curve did indeed change just after fossil fuels came into heavy use.  That is obvious in the record, unless you have strong political values.

[Eric the Green]

I think the general consensus I have heard is that we'd be entering a cooling period if it were not for anthropogenic global warming. Today's rising temperatures are unprecedented in their rapidity, as well as the highest in thousands of years. It is too hard for life and civilization to adapt to this result of industrial greed. We entered a warmer period after the ice age over 10,000 years ago, and the oceans rose. Now they are rising again. The models have been relatively accurate, and can't be expected to be as exact as the skeptics demand. They say much more rising seas are ahead. The bulk of global warming has been deposited in the oceans. Warming waters and greater water vapor in the atmosphere resulting from global warming feeds hurricanes like Katrina and Harvey, and the many other deadly, destructive storms that have racked many places in the world recently.

In the very distant past, there have been much warmer periods, and life at that time was adapted to this. There must have been heavy storms and floods. Palm trees are well adapted to these times and are very resilient because they are well adapted to tropical climates.

[Eric the Green]

It seems your graph confirms my picture regarding the post-glacial melting. There is no debate that sea levels have risen in the past few decades, and this is accelerating. Measurements conducted by many scientific agencies are less subject to debate that just about anything. I think the figure is 8 inches. Let's see:

"Core samples, tide gauge readings, and, most recently, satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). However, the annual rate of rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years."
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/enviro...evel-rise/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4700

[Cynic Hero '86]

AGW exists and is occurring but it's effects are exaggerated by boomber globalists. The boomer globalists are trying, as usual to restrict the natural and traditional rights of organizations whose existence contradicts globalist dogma; in this case oil and natural gas companies. All the oil and gas companies are demanding are their traditional rights back and that their rights be respected.

[David Horn]

(09-01-2017, 01:50 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: AGW exists and is occurring but it's effects are exaggerated by boomber globalists. The boomer globalists are trying, as usual to restrict the natural and traditional rights of organizations whose existence contradicts globalist dogma; in this case oil and natural gas companies. All the oil and gas companies are demanding are their traditional rights back and that their rights be respected.

So in your opinion, fossil fuel companies should be allowed to destroy the earth as we know it, because 'liberty'!

Thanks for your input.

[Eric the Green]

lol lol lol lol

[Eric the Green]

(09-01-2017, 01:14 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(09-01-2017, 11:01 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It seems your graph confirms my picture regarding the post-glacial melting. There is no debate that sea levels have risen in the past few decades, and this is accelerating. Measurements conducted by many scientific agencies are less subject to debate that just about anything. I think the figure is 8 inches. Let's see:

"Core samples, tide gauge readings, and, most recently, satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). However, the annual rate of rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years."
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/enviro...evel-rise/
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4700

The measurement period referenced by those papers is too short to conclude much of anything. The rate varies considerably. There is a lot of noise in the system.

In any case, even without AGW, eventually, Miami will be inundated. AGW accelerates the inevitable. But, the activist factions within the scientific community will not emphasize that. They have an agenda, similar to yours. The (false) notion that sea level rise was 0mm per year or nearly so .... until .... A ... G ... W... is a powerful mental model. While I do not deny that AGW is a component of the equation, and, it does exacerbate sea level rise, it is not solely accountable for sea level rise. How much effort do we put in? When do we invest the effort? It is not cut and dried.

If you say so. I say it's pretty cut and dried. Stop fossil fuel use as fast as politically possible (since politics is what drags the transition and ONLY politics).

I'm not sure what sea level rise was before 1900, but if it existed, it was miniscule. I'm not sure how well it could have been measured between 1900 back to 10,000 years ago, but they know more or less, since they know the sea was lower 10,000 years ago. The coast of CA extended out a lot further, and the Bay as we know it didn't even exist before then. They seem to know that much.