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Earth Science

The Entire World's Carbon Emissions Will Finally Be Trackable In Real Time (vox.com) 46

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vox: There's an old truism in the business world: what gets measured gets managed. One of the challenges in managing the greenhouse gas emissions warming the atmosphere is that they aren't measured very well. The ultimate solution to this problem-- the killer app, as it were -- would be real-time tracking of all global greenhouse gases, verified by objective third parties, and available for free to the public. Now, a new alliance of climate research groups called the Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) Coalition has launched an effort to make the vision a reality, and they're aiming to have it ready for COP26, the climate meetings in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021 (postponed from November 2020). If they pull it off, it could completely change the tenor and direction of international climate talks. It could also make it easier for the hundreds of companies, cities, counties, and states that have made ambitious climate commitments to reliably track their process.

In addition to [Al Gore, who had been looking for more reliable ways to track emissions] and WattTime, [which intends to create a public database that will track carbon emissions from all the world's large power plants using AI], the coalition now contains:

-Carbon Tracker uses machine learning and satellite data to predict the utilization of every power plant in the world;
-Earthrise Alliance aggregates and organizes publicly available environmental data into a format meaningful to journalists and researchers;
-CarbonPlan uses satellite data to track changes in aboveground biomass (especially forests) and the associated carbon emissions, down to a spatial resolution of 300 meters;
-Hudson Carbon uses satellite data to track changes in agricultural cover, cropping, and tilling, down to the level of the individual field, and compares that data against ground-level sensors;
-OceanMind uses onboard sensors to track the global movement of ships in real time and combines that with engine specs to extrapolate carbon emissions;
-Rocky Mountain Institute combines multiple sources of data to quantify methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure;
-Hypervine uses spectroscopic imagery to track vehicle usage and blasting at quarries;
-Blue Sky Analytics uses near-infrared and shortwave infrared imagery from satellites to track fires.

The coalition will also be gathering data from a variety of other sources, from power grid data to fuel sales, sensor networks, and drones. Gore acknowledges that "this is a work in progress," but says the coalition is aiming big: "everything that can be known about where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from will be known, in near-real time."

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The Entire World's Carbon Emissions Will Finally Be Trackable In Real Time

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  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday July 17, 2020 @10:35PM (#60302829) Journal

    If they pull it off,

    They won't pull it off with the data sources mentioned in the summary.

    it could completely change the tenor and direction of international climate talks.

    The tenor and direction of international talks has always been, "We should do something, but it's too expensive."

  • by CaptainLugnuts ( 2594663 ) on Friday July 17, 2020 @10:59PM (#60302863)

    Until they put a sensor on my ass they'll be missing a serious amount of methane.

    • They could track the amount of short acellular (=bad)carbs that result in a misdigesting biome, consumed in combination with the amount of long banching cellular (=good) carbs, and use a basic formula derived from the digestion reaction cascades of the involved micro-organisms.

  • Fransen cautions that the satellite data available today is not a “silver bullet for all the holes in our GHG data.” She points to “limitations in terms of the resolution and frequency of emissions-monitoring satellites that are currently operating,” though that will improve as governments continue to invest in the technology.

    The fact is, that unless we measure everything in the same way, then we will not have an real precision. As it is, China's #s are given by the Chinese government based on whatever values they want. We do not need ACCURACY, as much as we need PRECISION. With the current approach, we have neither.

    • I agree that it's worthless, but for a different reason. We already know the major sources and activities of GG emissions, but for the most part we're doing SFA about it. We're still going through personal electronics such as smartphones as though they're Kleenex, and recovering only a small fraction of the non-renewable materials in them; the rest gets buried, so we can burn still more carbon to dig up more minerals and manufacture more shiny to go into landfill. We've barely made a dent in transportation-

    • We do not need ACCURACY, as much as we need PRECISION.

      Oh?

      So it's not important that we know how much greenhouse gasses we emit, as long as we have a very precise figure? Which would make 101,654,734 Kg emitted a more useful value than 100,000,000,000 Kg emitted, if we actually have 123,4567,890,123 Kg emitted?

      • Yes, very much so. Given that the average of climate models run 2X as hot as the data [wattsupwiththat.com], shows that precision is important. Even more so with the supposed driver (CO2 - which is only 20% of potential climate change) is way behind what actually drives it (water vapor - 75% of any climate change).
        • by DogDude ( 805747 )

          Yes, very much so. Given that the average of climate models run 2X as hot as the data [wattsupwiththat.com], .

          That is false. Your source is garbage. You can find real information about climate change at http://ipcc.ch/ [ipcc.ch]

          • Right, the IPCC. From the same UN that brings us the OHCHR with its dictatorships as members and the WHO, whose flaws are just starting to be uncovered.

            Totally trust there is no agenda there LOL.

            • by DogDude ( 805747 )
              You're right, there is an agenda! The lizard people want to use humans to produce babies for them to eat. They're working with George Soros, Bill Gates, the Freemasons, and Hillary Clinton. All hail Q!
              • No worries, it is not as crazy as that.

                • by DogDude ( 805747 )
                  OK, then, for the past fifty years, all of the world's scientists have all conspired together to create a story about climate change, all just to hurt the oil gas industry, who, although the largest, most profitable industry on planet Earth, were helpless to stop the onslaught of the world's scientists. Is that the story you're going with?
          • The source is solid. It uses the IPCC models, and actual measured data. Of course, when the models use an ECS that's twice that of reality [ametsoc.org], it's not a surprise they are off by a factor of two. And the IPCC fully acknowledges (see section 14.2.2.2 [www.ipcc.ch]):

            In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

            The IPCC says they cannot predict long-term climate. Read that again - they state outright they cannot predict long-term climate states. Straight out: long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

            But you go on believing they can do what the

  • Can we track the emotions that are contributed by the tracking systems?

    • Can we track the emotions that are contributed by the tracking systems?

      No, because WAAAGH! fields do not exist outside of Warhammer 40K, except maybe in the DJT Cult but I don't think they have quite gotten the hang of it yet.

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday July 18, 2020 @05:41AM (#60303403)

    So given that brains work by biasing input based on past input... where even remembering counts as new input to be altered... and everyone having different input due to the simple relativity and Pauli exclusion principle of nature... which results in the impossibility to ever get anything but subjective input... And "objective" being used to declare one of those many views the "absolute truth" by means of social dominance, in (partially willful) ignorance of the foundation of current epistemology and science, ... It seems like we can assume this will be the view that fits the minds of those who release it the most... and hence offer an argument for the deniers, instead of offering them the means and opportunity to come to the same conclusion on their own? ...

    Or in short:
    A: You MUST accept this!
    B: NO! Because you tried to force us, we will fight you even harder now!
    A: Waaahhh!!
    B: Waaahhh!!
    Me: *rolls eyes* ... Morons ... Both of you.

  • Throughout my working career, I saw lots of measurement (businesses love their metrics) but, very little practical and/or effective devotion to the truism "what gets measured, gets managed".
    Governments are even more devout (if that is possible) disciples of: "The act of measurement is the solution. No further action required."

  • There are a few things wrong with this...

    - Satellites cannot tell electric cars apart from normal cars, nor can they say exactly how much carbon a specific combustion engine produces unless they have it's spec, and satellites cannot even reveal the year of a model.
    - Homes with gas-fuelled boilers and cookers will look no different from homes with electric boilers.
    - Some countries allow you to get the power output in real-time from the power plant just over the Internet and in full detail, other countries do

  • Without users ( you & me) collecting cellphone sensor data, results will be " side-eyed", Big Brother Data and openly unaccountable online like " Windy.com" style.

  • What we have is an estimate of the emissions, based upon historical data and a guess about current uses. And if the estimate is as accurate as others related to climate change, well - expect errors of 50-100%.
    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      And if the estimate is as accurate as others related to climate change, well - expect errors of 50-100%.

      Citation?
      • Here you go [drroyspencer.com]. The models typically show twice the warming rate that the data actually records. A few are only off by 50%, some are off by a factor of 3 or more, but the average is around a 100% error.

        I fully expect you'll attack the messenger, and ignore the data and the scientific validity of it, though...

  • Am I the only one who, on reading the headline, can't get out of their head the sound of The Police and Sting's voice?
    "Every move your make
    Every breath you take
    I'll be watching you"

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