Oceans Cool the Climate More Than We Thought, Study Finds (uea.ac.uk) 101
"Polar oceans constitute emission hotspots during the summer," according to a new paper published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Science Advances. "And including those sea-to-air fluxes in an atmospheric chemistry-climate model "results in a net radiative effect that has far-reaching implications."
The research was led by a team of scientists from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry, according to an announcement from the UK's University of East Anglia: Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun's heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects, for example through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.
It broadens the climatic impact of marine sulfur because it adds a new compound, methanethiol, that had previously gone unnoticed. Researchers only detected the gas recently, because it used to be notoriously hard to measure and earlier work focussed on warmer oceans, whereas the polar oceans are the emission hotspots...
Their findings represent a major advance on one of the most groundbreaking theories proposed 40 years ago about the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth's climate. This suggested that microscopic plankton living on the surface of the seas produce sulfur in the form of a gas, dimethyl sulphide, that once in the atmosphere, oxidizes and forms small particles called aerosols. Aerosols reflect part of the solar radiation back into space and therefore reduce the heat retained by the Earth. Their cooling effect is magnified when they become involved in making clouds, with an effect opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane. The researchers argue that this new work improves our understanding of how the climate of the planet is regulated by adding a previously overlooked component and illustrates the crucial importance of sulfur aerosols. They also highlight the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the climate and that the planet will continue to warm if no action is taken.
The article includes this quote from one of the study's lead authors (Dr. Charel Wohl from the university's Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences). "Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations."
And the university's announcement argues that "With this discovery, scientists can now represent the climate more accurately in models that are used to make predictions of +1.5 degrees C or +2 degrees C warming, a huge contribution to policy making."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
The research was led by a team of scientists from Spain's Institute of Marine Sciences and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry, according to an announcement from the UK's University of East Anglia: Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun's heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects, for example through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.
It broadens the climatic impact of marine sulfur because it adds a new compound, methanethiol, that had previously gone unnoticed. Researchers only detected the gas recently, because it used to be notoriously hard to measure and earlier work focussed on warmer oceans, whereas the polar oceans are the emission hotspots...
Their findings represent a major advance on one of the most groundbreaking theories proposed 40 years ago about the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth's climate. This suggested that microscopic plankton living on the surface of the seas produce sulfur in the form of a gas, dimethyl sulphide, that once in the atmosphere, oxidizes and forms small particles called aerosols. Aerosols reflect part of the solar radiation back into space and therefore reduce the heat retained by the Earth. Their cooling effect is magnified when they become involved in making clouds, with an effect opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane. The researchers argue that this new work improves our understanding of how the climate of the planet is regulated by adding a previously overlooked component and illustrates the crucial importance of sulfur aerosols. They also highlight the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the climate and that the planet will continue to warm if no action is taken.
The article includes this quote from one of the study's lead authors (Dr. Charel Wohl from the university's Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences). "Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations."
And the university's announcement argues that "With this discovery, scientists can now represent the climate more accurately in models that are used to make predictions of +1.5 degrees C or +2 degrees C warming, a huge contribution to policy making."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
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So more Co2 means more global cooling
Looks like this guy [youtu.be] is already on it. He modified a Tesla to help the oceans cool the planet.
Re: Plankton live off Co2 (Score:2)
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There's also the other slightly important, teeny little detail - ocean acidification, which is directly, promptly and very simply controlled by the CO2 level in the atmosphere because it's nothing more than a chemical equilibrium reaction. More co2 equals lower ocean pH, until the diatoms can't grow their little calcium shells (because th
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Yes, like incentivizing employers to allow working from home, so people drive around less.
And fly less too, where applicable.
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Perhaps the ignition in a car should be tied into the GPS so you have to plan a route of sufficient length before the car will start.
Obviously this could be overridden for a short while and infrequently "for emergencies". If people have to get approval to use the car, then they will think twice about using it for trips that can not be approved or are questionable.
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37 miles on a bike to run errands?
That'll take most of the morning! Anything over 10 miles is too far for a bike and even then you'll need to be serious about cycling to put up with that.
One supermarket I frequently shop at is about 1.5 miles away from my house. Driving it takes about 5 mins if traffic is moving, 10 or more mins if not. Walking it would take me about 30 mins or so. By bike it should be about 10 mins but only 50% of the route has a cycle path.
Cycling into the town centre usually takes ab
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(*) The final walking is required for all of
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Citation needed. I have had to jumpstart my car's battery twice these past weeks because I hardly drive it due to working exclusively from home. I'm not in the USA, though.
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Either you're due for a new battery, or there's something wrong that's draining the battery too much while the car is just sitting there. A typical car should be able to sit for weeks without losing enough juice to need a jump start.
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I work from home and track vehicle mileage for my household. We're down to under 9000 miles a year, from the 20,000 we did when I was commuting.
Oh, and it turns out for a 18 year old prius, not driving is very hard on the traction battery.
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I dont work from home and with driving to and from work as well as other trips I'm under 10,000 miles a year.
I know that as if I go over it I'd have to adjust the insurance.
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The problem is this doesnt do much else, it just shifts the CO2 production to their house as they need more electricity during the day.
Plus they are more likely to rely on using laptops over PC's. The pollution footprint of a laptop is abyslmal, a PC has a way longer life. I work in IT and we refresh our laptops every few years, usually 3-5 simply to renew support as they are so difficult to maintain. The PC's however can last over a decade with the right maintenance and upgrades, or even moving the slow
Why not both? (Score:2)
Improving climate models and improving energy sources to produce less carbon dioxide are not mutually exclusive activities. We can do both.
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That would be nice. Sadly, the biggest emitters just do more hand-ringing, finger pointing and bomb making instead.
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> Improving climate models and improving energy sources to produce less carbon dioxide
That is NOT the prblem most people have with it. The problem is the forced poverty and pricing them out of the car/way of life and general use of electricity they are used to in a developed first world country while telling the third world they can stay in the dark ages.
People dont want to be told that they cant wash the family clothes when they need and usually wash them, like on the weekend, just because the sun aint
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> Improving climate models and improving energy sources to produce less carbon dioxide
That is NOT the prblem most people have with it. The problem is the forced poverty
This "forced poverty" is imaginary.
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The real question is why we spend all this money on determining for policy makers how much worse its going to get instead of doing something to prevent it.
Asking this question shows you are both ignorant, and also don't know how to write what you mean.
You are ignorant because you've ignored the tremendous effort we've spent on doing something to prevent it. Such as, better insulation, better car efficiency, solar panels, etc. A lot has been done.
You don't know how to write what you mean, because what you really meant was, "Why hasn't the problem been solved yet?" The problem hasn't been solved yet because it's a hard problem.
Re:Climate models are inaccurate? What a shock (Score:5, Interesting)
Such as, better insulation, better car efficiency, solar panels, etc.
We have been working on "better insulation" for 50 years. I ran neighborhood energy workshops for the city of Minneapolis in the early 1980's.These were block by block programs of home energy audits combined with basic weatherizing training and materials for residents.
We have also been working on "better car efficiency" for just as long. The first federal car efficiency standards went into effect in 1978.
A lot has been done.
And a lot hasn't been, so new annual emissions have continued to increase. At the pace we're going they will still be increasing in 2050. Because we haven't even finished gathering the low hanging fruit yet and its going to get harder as we go along.
We keep pretending we can actually limit global warming without people having to change their behavior. "You can still drive everywhere, just drive an electric car." "You can fly everywhere, just pay someone else for reducing other carbon emissions." "You can drive that 10 gallon per 100 mile truck until it wears out or better yet, trade it in, buy an electric car and let someone else drive it til it wears out. You can donate it to the Sierra Club and they will find a new home for it. They can use the money to pay staff to work on climate change and fly to the next global warming conference." "You can heat and cool that huge house, just use a heat pump and add insulation."
"We can't limit the carbon footprint of technology! What do you want to do, go back to the stone ages?" "We can't tell Bill Gates he can't fly around in a private jet from air conditioned mansion to air conditioned mansion. If he can afford it, he should be able to do it. We can't ration his fuel, or cars or emissions.
Its the new form of Climate Denier. They don't deny it is happening, they just deny the scale of what is actually required to prevent it.
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you went from several logical fallacies down to a single logical fallacy.
I think you should try studying Aristotle.
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"We" (developed countries) are actually doing very well:
- https://www.iea.org/data-and-s... [iea.org]
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/... [wikimedia.org]
Yes, more needs to be done. The discrepancy between the USA and the EU and Japan means that the USA still has quite some work to do. It also shows that living lives of luxury (as life in the EU and Japan is, on a global scale) with limited emission is quite possible. And that helping developing countries with maintaining low emissions whilst growing economically and in quality of lif
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It sure as hell will work better than demanding that people 'change their behavior' will do.
I am not sure waiting for global warming to force people to change their behavior is better.
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It sure as hell will work better than demanding that people 'change their behavior' will do.
I am not sure waiting for global warming to force people to change their behavior is better.
Degrowth arguments are never going to work. They're a waste of time.
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Degrowth arguments are never going to work. They're a waste of time.
So winning the argument is more important than ending climate emissions?
I think we need to be clear that advocating policies that will not solve the problem because you don't trust people to adopt policies that will is a sure loser.
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Degrowth arguments are never going to work. They're a waste of time.
So winning the argument is more important than ending climate emissions?
The point is that degrowth arguments are losers, and will never end greenhouse gas emissions.
There are only two practical ways to end greenhouse gas emissions:
1. Develop green technologies that are cheaper and better than emitting technologies and lift the living standards of those who adopt them as well as reducing emissions. We're actually making very good progress on this front in many areas. Just two examples: PV solar is now the cheapest way to generate electricity, full stop, and it continues g
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Politics is the art of the possible, and climate action is a political problem.
Change often requires first changing what is politically possible. In this case the alternative is to accept failure. And worrying about "backlash" is a waste of time. There is backlash from any change because there are people who benefit from the status quo. Just like the people who use the claim something is "politically unrealistic".
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For example, US conservatives buying gigantic diesel pickups and modifying them to emit even more to "own the libs".
As opposed to people who fly off to conferences to discuss solutions and commiserate about the impact of those evil diesel pickup truck drivers?
BTW, as I understand it, a diesel vehicle actually creates fewer climate emissions than a similar gas vehicle. So getting people to switch from gas to diesel will reduce emissions. And certainly someone buying a used diesel is going to create fewer greenhouse emissions than someone buying a new electric vehicle.
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. Develop green technologies that are cheaper and better than emitting technologies and lift the living standards of those who adopt them as well as reducing emissions. We're actually making very good progress on this front in many areas. Just two examples: PV solar is now the cheapest way to generate electricity, full stop, and it continues getting cheaper. I think we're only a few years from BEVs being indisputably cheaper and better vehicles for the vast majority of automotive use cases.
Develop green technologies that are cheaper and better than emitting technologies and lift the living standards of those who adopt them as well as reducing emissions
Empty words with "cheaper" being the key critieria and green being used as in "greenwash". The climate deniers are all into the idea that we can stop climate change with cheap, profitable solutions. But there is very little evidence that is true.
mine will keep us to probably +2.5C
Where is the evidence for that? In fact, there is no projected end to climate change from current policies. At best they will slow it down and then not very fast.
PV solar is now the cheapest way to generate electricity, full stop
Yet demand is growing faster than we can build them. So utilities are still building natural gas plants and China is still building new coal plants right along with its massive solar investments. And its not at all clear that solar is cheaper than lowering demand.
I think we're only a few years from BEVs being indisputably cheaper and better vehicles for the vast majority of automotive use cases.
In the meantime, EV's increase emissions by adding one more vehicle to the road. We aren't doing anything to take cars off the road or even to discourage adding more miles of emissions from new ICE cars.
The real problem is not that the public can't be persuaded to support policies that actually would work. The problem is that the core beneficiaries of emission creating processes are the wealthy and powerful. The "its not politically realistic" climate denial crowd pretends it can get blood from a turnip where the rest of us cut emissions and the lions share of emissions that benefit the wealthy are left undisturbed.
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Develop green technologies that are cheaper and better than emitting technologies and lift the living standards of those who adopt them as well as reducing emissions.
That ignores the reality that as power gets cheaper people use more of it.
Vox [vox.com] just did a story on this.
Growing our way out of climate emissions is likely an oxymoron. It is growing economies that drive the problem. There are certainly ways to reduce the impact but making things cheaper probably isn't one of them.
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Did you miss that Trump just got elected (whilst winning the popular vote)?
Isn't that clear enough proof of backlash being incredibly destructive?
Your line of thinking is what has pushed the Democrats further and further into well-meaning, but fundamentally unpopular territory. Yes, politics is defining that shining point on the horizon, but it is also very much a matter of getting people on board on a realistic and reasonable path towards that shining point. So yes, worry about significant backlash and non
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In 2023, Joe Biden said, “I’ve seen firsthand what the reports made clear: the devastating toll of climate change and its existential threat to all of us. And it is the ultimate threat to humanity: climate change.” This is not true, it’s pretty clearly not consistent with the Biden administration’s actual policies, and I don’t think Democrats should run around saying it.
Biden's policies are not consistent with his stated beliefs. And the reason for that is domestic politics. What we hear is the voice of modern climate denial - its bad, but not that bad and I can live with it.
You don't have to firmly believe the result of climate change will lead to human extinction to consider it an existential threat. The species can survive hundreds of millions of people dying from st
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Isn't that clear enough proof of backlash being incredibly destructive?
No. Its proof there are a lot of unhappy people out there including a lot who didn't vote. I doubt there were many people who stayed home because of Biden's climate policies. I think attributing Trumps victory to climate policy backlash is doubtful.
But even if it was, that doesn't mean we should abandon the effort to stop climate change in order to help Democrats win in two or four years.
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I think attributing Trumps victory to climate policy backlash is doubtful.
I didn't say "climate backlash", I said "backlash". The point is that you need to get people on board instead of driving them away, even if that means going for what is essentially a suboptimal solution.
You can be incredibly right about something, but if you can't convince anybody to listen to you or even drive them to do the opposite, you are not achieving anything.
But even if it was, that doesn't mean we should abandon the effort to stop climate change in order to help Democrats win in two or four years.
It's not about the Democrats winning. What do you think is going to happen to climate policy in the US the next four years? That is the cost of
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What do you think is going to happen to climate policy in the US the next four years?
I am less concerned about "climate policy" than I am about reducing emissions sufficiently to actually stop climate change.
The point is that you need to get people on board
Which isn't what is happening. People are being told they don't really need to get on board. They can go on without any real changes in their lives and the world will solve the problem by setting better goals at its next climate conference. The only things people are getting on board for is when they make someone money. Its essentially green washing raised to global scale. Its only a ma
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I am less concerned about "climate policy" than I am about reducing emissions sufficiently to actually stop climate change.
You dodged the question. That is a clear sign that you are deluding yourself. Answer the question.
What do you think is going to happen to climate policy [/political action to reduce emissions] in the US the next four years?
Which isn't what is happening.
The incredible growth of solar and battery storage begs to differ with you. The right incentives (solar did need subsidies initially) can create broadly supported society-advancing far reaching change without chiding people.
Something to be very aware of is that consumers are only a small
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The incredible growth of solar and battery storage begs to differ with you.
No, it doesn't. As can be seen by what is happening in China. Their emissions continue to increase despite a massive investment in solar. And if you look around the world, the amount of power needed in the future for a growing middle class is going to look a lot like China.
Battery storage adds emissions, it does nothing to reduce them. It is just a necessary cost of shifting to intermittent power sources. And currently it is used to shift power from when it is cheap to when it is expensive. That may or may
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> We" (developed countries) are actually doing very well
As long as making the population poorer and unable to heat their homes in winter is what you mean, then yes.
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Better insulation is highly dependant on differences across the world as well.
For example. Here in the UK we need better insulation for the old victorian heat leaking homes, but the biggest issue is that insulation aint free.
Some of it is, others are subsidised to be lower cost. BUt I have family memmbers who have practically nothing to spend on even a low cost installment. Not only must they manage to arrange the installation, which they cant easily do, but they need to find the time and money to get i
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more insulation has the downside of preventing you from cooling the house during the time wehn you want less heat.
Insulation will keep heat out as much as it keeps heat in. In many places the primary benefit is lower AC costs. But even without AC, a well insulated house will generally be cooler than a poorly insulated one.
You list a bunch of barriers to getting better insulation. Those are mostly pretty easy to overcome if you are willing to spend the money to do it. But we are subsidizing electric cars instead.
There are programs to do home insulation and have been for decades. They are underfunded and almost always d
Re:Climate models are inaccurate? What a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
we need real action to reduce emissions.
Like transferring funds to developing countries to compensate them for the damage that carbon emitters cause. Oh, wait. The biggest carbon emitters are also claiming status as developing countries. So, what does that mean? They are going to move money from one of their pockets to another and carry on burning coal as usual?
It's just a giant wealth transfer scheme.
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It feels good to be on the winning side.
Re:Climate models are inaccurate? What a shock (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question is why we spend all this money on determining for policy makers how much worse its going to get instead of doing something to prevent it. The reality is that we don't need more refined models we need real action to reduce emissions.
The answer is that changes have enormous economic consequences. Not surprisingly, those who stand to lose a lot of money will fight the changes. Since climate change skepticism is far less believable than some years ago, outright denial has morphed into calls for studies, similar to politicians calling for committees, with the full understanding that these committees issue reports that result in delays and eventually doing nothing substantial.
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I think you are right. The flip side is we are doing things where people can make money. Unfortunately that often means increasing immediate emissions with claimed future benefits. But I think there is a built in conflict between things that build the GDP and things that reduce emissions.
Electric cars are a good example. A new electric car will have fewer total emissions over its lifetime. But it has a higher initial carbon footprint from manufacturing. The idea is that it will make up for that from reduce
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Agree for the corporate side, but I think the incentive not to change are a bit more perverse.
We have a global problem that can only be fixed by local solutions, due to many reasons, including the fact we are not able to get 8b people to agree on anything at the same time. This means someone, somewhere, needs to start and show the way. Ultimately, no one wants to reduce their own emissions while everyone else pays less and enjoys more freedoms. Its just not in the west's DNA to be altruistic to that leve
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Scale. The amount of money spent on research is peanuts compared to what will be required to get off fossil fuels. And the research is necessary to know WHAT needs to change and where to invest money.
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as the old saying goes: you can't improve what you can't measure!
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research is necessary to know WHAT needs to change and where to invest money.
My point was that this research doesn't actually address what needs to change in any significant way. Using the limited money and research capacity for research that doesn't address that question is problematic.
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In 2020 we ran an experiment where we locked everybody in their homes and reduced vehicle use, worldwide.
Emissions still went up.
I don't think it is possible anymore to reduce emissions. Less than 25% are human caused to begin with.
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Well akshually:
https://www.iea.org/data-and-s... [iea.org]
You can see the dips in CO2 emission during the bank crisis of 2008 and during 2020.
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By your own chart, the United States dipped- but the world didn't. And this is chart is only estimated human sources, it doesn't include volcanos, wildfires, melting tundra, or many other sources of atmospheric carbon from gases other than CO2 that are even better at trapping heat radiation.
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The world dipped. It is not in this chart, but you can see it here: https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
And speaking of other sources of CO2 emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
Here is something to think about: https://ourworldindata.org/fos... [ourworldindata.org]
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I'm fine with eliminating energy subsidies (and in fact, all subsidies, though that's a different discussion).
I'm also good with the idea of decentralizing energy production, the only people burning fossil fuels should be doing so from an oil or gas well on their own property.
The reason EVs are a good idea is that you can charge a car with ANYTHING- there's no reason why you can't charge a car off of a wheat stalk chaff bonfire.
None of your charts recognize natural C02, even your third chart you added is on
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You're seeing that dip only because you're deliberately ignoring other sources of C02. I'm not talking land use. I'm talking about being past the methane ice tipping point.
I guess we are beyond that tipping point.
Let's see your sources, then.
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Atmospheric carbon changes to temperature appear 10 years AFTER release. [blogspot.com]
We hit this tipping point way back in 2004 to 2006. This tipping point completely dwarfs *anything* we can do. If we see any average global cooling from 2020, it won't be until 2030.
In a world where any project that fails to come to completion and show ROI in a stock market quarterly reporting cycle is a failure, there is nothing to do about global climate change other than to adapt to that.
Adaptation will be hard- especially moving
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First you were talking about emissions. Now you are talking about temperature.
Those goalposts sure are motile [youtu.be].
There also seems to be the perfectionist fallacy [youtu.be] at work. Even if we can't stop the catastrophe, we can do a lot to make it less horrible. Flatten the curve, as it were. There is no point in getting human extinction over with as quickly as possible.
It's also interesting that your source repeatedly says that the temperature could rise by as much as 10 by 2021. It is now the end of 2024, and the
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The whole theory behind climate change is that atmospheric carbon percentage determines the temperature. What part of that don't you understand?
And why would you limit emissions to the actions of only one species?
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Temperature is a function of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but there is a delay between the cause and the effect, as you yourself pointed out.
You yourself claimed that during the lock-downs, emissions kept going up. They did not. Temperature did, but not emissions.
This shows that it is possible to reduce emissions, and because of the "whole theory behind climate change" this would mean putting a limit on the temperature rise as well, even if the effects won't be noticed until decades later.
As f
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> we need real action to reduce emissions
Unfortunatley the "real action" needed is too scary and drastic for most people to accept, including me. We all know what that real action actually is, but we ignore that elephant in the shadows of the room and hope that we can use magic to solve the issue.
Thats if you have still got faith in those hell bent on driving the issue formward, regardless on whether that science is science at all.
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Why do scientists keep "refining" their climate models that already work so well they are beyond questioning?
The quoted error bars on the (global) climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions are currently ±50%. If you want to know why scientists are "refining" their climate models, the reason is that this is to reduce this uncertainty.
This particular work, if you read the article [science.org] carefully, is making a better model of the radiative balance of the southern ocean, between 40S and 70S, during the summer (the effect drops to nearly zero in other seasons).
The adjustment makes almost no change in the global pic
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The quoted error bars on the (global) climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions are currently ±50%.
Is there a citation for this? It seems less than what I've seen.
Climate sensitivity error bars (Score:2)
The quoted error bars on the (global) climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions are currently ±50%.
Is there a citation for this? It seems less than what I've seen.
The 3C per doubling plus or minus 50% was from the IPCC AR5 "Physical Science Basis for Climate Change" report. Looking for the reference, though, I see that there's an AR6 (2023) report with updated numbers, here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6... [www.ipcc.ch]
Chapter 7.5 lists four different approaches to estimating the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECR). These are summarized, with error bars, in figure 7.1.8 on page 1006, and in a table 7.13 on page 1007. The combined best estimate is 3C (range 2.0 to 5.0 "very lik
Re:Climate models are inaccurate? What a shock (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do scientists keep "refining" their climate models that already work so well they are beyond questioning?
The climate models are good enough to tell us where we are going... but not yet good enough to say when we are going to get there.
How far out is a specific change event? 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? It doesn't matter overall -but it will make a difference to those alive at the time.
Other than that... because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results.
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Other than that... because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results.
I think you have it backwards. "because SCIENCE! It's what scientists do -they refine their work to get better and better and better results. Other than that... "
There is nothing wrong with that. But we need to stop pretending that better science necessarily has any immediate utility toward accomplishing our climate goals in the next 25 years. Or that it is helpful to refine climate goals we are already going to miss by a very wide margin. The problems that need to be solved aren't scientific, they are p
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> The climate models are good enough to tell us where we are going
So far, they point in the right direction but should they point backwards all of a sudden... who would be man enough to admit it and who would allow that person to ruin a whole new very lucriative industry?
Would we even know it has already happened?
I think not.
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Why do we keep improving anything?
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> Why do scientists keep "refining" their climate models that already work so well they are beyond questioning?
Exactly why I have no trust in all this nonsense. Too much money in it, too much of a religion, and holy or sacred models that can’t model a thing as they never modelled it in the first place.
I mean in the UK we are still suffering the effects of the first set of legislation passed, based on a model that is so broken it was thrown out once they realised that oceans might have something to
Plankton (Score:3)
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Methanethiol (Score:2)
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I thought it was mercaptan? rotten egg smell.
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I could have researched before posting. thanks for added precision!
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Who would have thought? (Score:1)
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Global warming predictions are failing, so we're going back to the global cooling hypothesis in short order here.
Global warming predictions are not failing. The actual temperatures are very close to the predictions of models.
https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org]
https://science.feedback.org/r... [feedback.org]
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Point to credible, peer reviewed studies in quality science journals or stop peeing into the wind.
Climate supplements (Score:2)
Whenever a medical research paper posits the benefits of some chemical, some entrepreneur will eventually sell that chemical in the form of a supplement, like a pill. So, if we know that some chemical (like dimethyl sulphide) produces aerosols with "opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane", why not produce and release those hard artificially?
What could possibly go wrong?
Why is it... (Score:2)
Maybe it's a slow weekend.
we thought (Score:3)
Who is "we"?
How is this _just_ being revealed? (Score:2)
It almost makes you think the maybe, just maybe, the scientists don't really have a sufficiently complete picture of the environment to be making:
1) predictions about the future climate
2)ways to mitigate flawed predictions
There are any number of projects around the planet with the intent of mitigating changes in the climate based on what is incomplete information; dump stuff in the ocean, spray stuff in the atmosphere, spread stuff in space between the Earth and its prime source of energy. Even though the