Climate change: The Critical Decade

Horses might agree...

 

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Its best to look at everything. We are too far away from controlling ecology, in a positive way, we could do it but we arent really putting enough effort into it.

 

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Agreed. CO2 forcing is just one of the many influences on climate; thus year to year we see a lot of variability.

Also agreed. We could certainly mitigate the effects of our increased emissions of CO2 by (for example) changing the albedo of large sections of the planet, and other actions we take (deforestation, methane emissions) could exacerbate heating problems. It's not a single variable problem.

Yep - and the ice cores we do have show strong correlation to the instrumental record.

Of course. And there have been significant cooling events without a drop in CO2. A great many things (insolation, volcanic activity, meteor impacts, ocean circulation changes) influence climate.

Agreed.

CO2 is not the only influence on the climate; indeed, compared to (for example) total insolation it is tiny. But it is constant and growing.

I liken it to increasing someone's caloric intake by 100 calories a day. That's a small amount (a cookie or two) and a small percentage of their total caloric intake. And done for a week or two, it's no big deal. And if you exercise it's no big deal. And it may not even be as bad as drinking a big Pepsi every day, and you may be doing that too. Etc etc.

But do it for ten years, and don't change anything else, and most people will get pretty fat.

 

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Yup.

And I see no indication that it won't continue to grow year on year for some time because the population of the world is going up.

The good news is there are huge positive benefits to nature and society from CO2 production, indeed CO2 is mainly produced as a byproduct of manufacturing and energy generation and as they increase, the quality of life increases. CO2 is also the basis for all food consumed on the planet and with increased warmth, rain and CO2 the entire global Net Primary Productivity has gone up significantly.

On the other hand, the impact of NOx, CH4, O3, CFCs, Soot etc on the climate are 1/3 as large as CO2 and when you add in negative Land Use Changes are about half and none of these, unlike CO2, have any redeeming value and in many cases have significant negative impact on our health.

A rational plan would focus FIRST on reducing these noxious gases. Consider, had the ozone-depleting gases not been regulated by the Montreal Protocol it is estimated that climate forcing would have been as much as 0.3 watt m^2 higher in 2010 [Velders et al., 2007], or more than half of the increase in radiative forcing due to CO2 alone since 1990.

We can get far more bang for our buck by going after the other gases and undoing some or our negative land use changes.

As long as the same people who are working hard to decrease CO2 production are the same people standing in the way of Nuclear energy (you know who you are) it is highly unlikely that we will have an effective strategy to reduce global CO2 production.

Arthur

 

Well, that's like saying as the amount of plastic trash in the ocean increases, the quality of life increases. Which is true when you look at the numbers, but trash certainly does not increase quality of life; it's just a result of a higher quality of life that allows more disposable products, and must be controlled/managed/reduced as much as possible.

CO2 - not really. Most food crops cannot take advantage of higher CO2 concentrations since they already concentrate CO2 in their leaves.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...l-boost-plant-growth-and-food-production.html

Increased warmth - no. Crops are already dying due to heat and drought. It may indeed be possible to relocate our food crops to more northern regions, but that of course will not be cheap - and such costs have to be factored into any discussions of how expensive climate change (or climate change mitigation) is.

Rain - definitely not. Warmer land temperatures, in general, mean drought. We can irrigate to compensate, but again, we have to factor those costs in to any proposed solution. (Said solutions to range from "ignore the problem" to "reduce the growth of our emissions slightly" to "pull out all the stops and greatly reduce CO2 production.")
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Drought in the West Linked to Warmer Temperatures
October 7, 2004
Historical study shows elevated aridity in periods of warming

Severe drought in western states in recent years may be linked to climate warming trends, according to new research, led by scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, to be published in the journal Science. This research was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
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Agreed. I would point out, though, that we have made significant strides in reducing:

Methane, through better capture of methane from oil wells and mining activities. (This is partly due purely to the rising cost of natural gas; it is now cost-effective to build pipelines instead of just venting it. It's also due to better understanding of greenhouse gas potentials, which is one reason it is more often flared than vented now.)

SOx, at least in the US, through the SOx cap-and-trade system.

CFC's, through an international ban on them.

Soot, again in the US, through stronger EPA regulations on power plant particulate emissions.

I think that's a reasonable approach, provided:

1) we stop working past the point of diminishing returns (i.e. reducing methane from 1750 to 1500 ppb is probably a good goal; reducing it from 1000 to 750 probably isn't.)
2) the land use changes are compatible with the overall process (i.e. covering dark surfaces with high-albedo concrete would be a bad idea due to the massive amount of CO2 required in concrete production, and high-water-usage solutions are definitely a bad idea.)

While nuclear is certainly not the only avenue to pursue here, I definitely agree that it's going to be an important part of the solution when it comes to changing our baseline electricity supply away from coal.

 

No it's not.
The use of energy is directly related to standard of living.

Untrue, or they wouldn't routinely increase the CO2 levels in commercial greenhouses to ~1,000 ppm.

And the globe has given us actual proof:

http://thecastsite.com/sourcecontent/Nemani - NPP Study.pdf

Arthur

 

No, no more so than the amount of trash generated is directly related to standard of living. In many cases OUR way of life generates a lot of trash and a lot of CO2 - but that is because we choose to live that way, not because a high standard of living requires either. (Examples showing low-carbon or low-trash lifestyles abound.)

Like I said, most food crops, not all crops. For example, corn, our primary food crop, garners no benefit from increased CO2 concentration. Google "C4 carbon fixation" for a description.

 

Actually standard of living is pretty well related to per capita use of energy, not CO2 per se, but for most countries the two are indeed equivalent.

 

Hence the "inconvenient" part of the inconvenient truth.

Thats what needs changing.

Irrelevant. In greenhouses the common limiting nutrients have been supplied, and things are so well arranged for maximum production that CO2 sometime becomes a limiting nutrient.

The outer world is not so arranged. CO2 is seldom a key limiting nutrient for production. Even in the case of plants that do benefit, it's mostly a competitive benefit involving other truly limiting resources (especially: water). Poison ivy, for example, benefits from higher CO2 levels by not being as hard pressed for water while competing with grasses.

 

Remember the hole in the ozone layer?


The ozone layer was allegedly thinned over Antarctica but what if it was always like that?

 

Untrue.

In total, 16 of the world's 20 most important food crops would benefit from increased carbon-dioxide levels.

B.R. Strain and J.D. Cure, Direct Effects of Increasing Carbon Dioxide on Vegetation

And then of course there is the NASA NPP study that showed that 3% per decade increase in terrestrial vegetation.

Arthur

 

And what's your plan for getting the developing world to not increase their use of more energy per capita in order to improve their standard of living?

Start with your plan for China.

Arthur

 

1) More efficient use of existing energy sources
2) Generation of additional energy using sources with lower carbon emissions
3) Increased local generation of energy
4) Better load-side control of energy usage
5) Improved power transmission systems

Combine all of those and you get more usable energy for everyone without a significant increase in CO2 emissions.

 

In artificial conditions, with all other nutrients assumed and all competition removed.

Such conditions are quite possible, in greenhouses and on high tech factory farms. So?

Troll mode is boring. Do you have a real question, based on actual posting here? Anyone's?

 

Not trolling at all.

You posted Thats what needs changing.

So I'm simply asking you how you expect this change to occur?

Arthur

 

Yes, and luckily that's exactly the way our Agricultural system works to produce the most output per acre.

 

1) the developing world has far fewer per capita existing energy sources, so I can't see how they can use them more efficiently then they are, indeed, since they are developing nations they tend to not be able to afford the higher front end costs of the most efficient generation technology.

2) Similar to 1, in that these growing economies are relying heavily on Coal because of it's relatively low cost, but that is the highest in CO2 emissions per kWh

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3) Not sure how that figures in to the equation, Nuclear, Wind or Hydro transmitted long distances is still better from a CO2 standpoint than NG generated close in.

4) Isn't that the same as #1?

5) Sure, but the gains are modest, and most developing nations are probably going to put in relatively efficient transmission lines anyway.

Still, from 2001 to 2008, the Global output of CO2 from fuel combustion has gone up by 5,700 million tons, or 24%, which is a 3% per year annual growth rate. (IEA figures)

Much of that growth is from Coal and of that growth, 94% of it came just from Africa, Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

The Developed countries have been installing renewables at a breakneck pace but have only managed to slow the growth down to ~0.7% per year. But the Developed contries only account for about half the CO2 production. The growth in CO2 is coming from the developed nations and since those countries all have low per capita energy use and they all assert their right to increase their per capita energy production I don't see any slow down in the growth of CO2 anytime soon.

Or to put it another way, even if by 2030 the developed nations were to cut their CO2 by 50% from current levels (which would be a HUGE reduction, equal to a 3.3% per year reduction, and far greater than any current plans) and the Developed world cut their growth rate of CO2 production by half (a HUGE reduction and most certainly not in their current plans), then by 2030 we would be producing ~50% MORE CO2 than we are today.

Arthur

 

You once again deliberately misrepresent the question. You pretend that your attempted framing - nukes or fossil fuel - is the reality rather than the matter under discussion. After a few dozen repetitions of that rhetorical tactic, it earns the label of trolling.

In small and fortunate areas - such as inside greenhouses - often. In the larger world of real life agriculture, that ideal is seldom achieved - the corn and soybean crops in the US this year, for example, are not limited by access to CO2. They have other difficulties, more primary and significant.

Not the US. Slow going here.

True. And your point is what?

 

Cheap LED lights. Cheap and efficient refrigeration. Increases in motor efficiency.

Yes. That's the problem. I've listed several potential solutions.

Because local generation incurs less transmission losses, and very local generation can be used as a cogeneration heat source. (We do that here, run our A/C off the waste heat from our gas turbine generator.)

No. Load side control would (for example) reduce power to electric water heaters when demand for power was greatest but demand for hot water was lowest (i.e. 5pm on a hot day.) Or it might throttle back a pool pump when there was a spike in demand.

Compare that to just plain efficiency gains, where a more efficient pool pump would run all day regardless of demand.

Very efficient transmission lines allow cases like Phoenix solar power to provide New York with power during their peak load times.

Yep. Which is better than 100% more than we are producing today. Still, we can do better.