Ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever:' 3 Climate records broken in 2024

[Admin]

2024 has been another challenging year for Earth's climate, marked by record temperatures, extreme weather events, and urgent warnings from scientists about the accelerating pace of global warming.

Ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever:' 3 Climate records broken in 2024 : Read more

 

[Classical Motion]

The only actionable solution for energy is deep bore holes. We need to pour money into a deep hole.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The statement
"The obstacles are not physical. They're not technological — they're entirely political at this point."
misses the point entirely.

The reason that there is political opposition is because of the effects of the "solutions" on the lives of people - too many do not agree to accept those effects. So, the technology that is being proposed is not adequate to achieve the changes it is intended to achieve.

The costs and the decisions of who will bear them and who will benefit from them are a big part of the problem.

At this point, China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but is being allowed to increase those emissions because it is classified as "developing" rather than "developed". And, the U. S. and Europe are being called upon to provide a trillion $, not "just" 300 billion $, to "help" "developing" nations (other than China). Even China sees the ridiculousness of the designations, and is voluntarily doing a bit more. because of the political backlash.

But, pouring money into governments of "developing" countries, many of which are terribly corrupt, is not really expected to create the changes needed, anyway. Unless the "developed" nations actually build the infrastructures in the "developing" countries, we cannot expect to achieve "climate success". And, even trying to do that is likely to get mired in corruption.

Meanwhile, the "politics" in the "developed" countries is unlikely to sustain a trillion $ give away while the quality of life in the "developed" countries declines, especially if there is a simultaneous improvement in the quality of life in the countries getting "assistance".

I still think the bottom line is that there are just too many people on the planet for us to all achieve the quality of life that is currently (or at least recently) being enjoyed by most of North America and Europe. With much of the world's population scrambling to achieve the same levels of comfort, there is a huge demand for more greenhouse gas emitting activities that is still going to overwhelm the minority trying to reduce them.

So, unless there is a better "technology" that can do both, and do it rapidly, we are not going to meet the "climate change" objectives.

Perhaps geothermal energy from deep bore holes is that technological breakthrough that we really need. I agree we should be pouring research $ into that. But, we seem to be pouring a lot of money into "fusion power" that does not seem to me to be a realistic hope for a quick transformation of our energy infrastructure.

 

[CreatedEvolution]

I have theories of space smoke that can be used to blanket the earth. But with added particles you probably get more temperature. Unless used to create drafts.

I have theorized that the chemistry of the sun is pushing out matter at a fast rate. This includes smoke particles.

If we could find currents of this theoretical frozen tiny beyond microscopic smoke then perhaps we could introduce it to our atmosphere using plenty of EMFs or a giant bomb could actually be put to good use.

The bomb in the current of smoke would increase all heated particles and make more enter the atmosphere. I theorize it will increase global warming but you could raise water levels from byproducts of the sun.

 

[George²]

I don't know who said that crisis management should not bring financial profit. But it is a fact and the profits are huge. Because of this, there is also a constant organization of crises, they are constantly advertised and through their "management" from the national budgets to which we all contribute, huge money is moved into the personal accounts of the organizers and accomplices in the crises, billionaires, politicians, scientists, media owners. Climate warming is natural process. Humanity is not able to influence it with good control*. To manage the climate of an entire planet, progress on the Kardashev scale is required, which we may reach in 100 years, or we may need more time.

*Good control requires very high-quality and extensive knowledge of climate processes and much more reliable and accurate climate mathematics. We cannot make a 100% accurate regional forecast even a day ahead, despite all the means of observation, including from space, despite all the accumulated experience and the provided computing power.

 

[CreatedEvolution]

As much as we don’t think a single grain of sand is much. We would have no beaches with 0. I’ve heard rumors of rain machines and I’ve also read hydrogen bombs create rain.

Nuclear radiation set aside. We know these booms make rain. So could we place a non radioactive bomb strategically to make it rain from space where much radioactive active particles already exist.

I know it’s crazy but I’d agree we might see weather technology develop in the next 100 years.

 

[HobartStinsonian]

When has anyone explained who studied the potentially hundreds, no thousands, of possible causes for Earth’s climate to change? Who has ever explained how their scientific evaluation had concluded that of those, human activity is the only culprit. NOAA once stated on their website (decades ago) that in Earth’s carbon cycle between air/ atmosphere/ ocean and rock, that human activity accounts for about 4% of carbon entering the atmosphere. But they confidently stated that was enough to send Earth’s atmosphere into a steady centuries long rise in CO2. Who concludes that and how? Why during the COVID shutdown didn’t atmospheric CO2 decline? I don’t understand the lack of skepticism. That is a foundation of science: ask questions, and defend your conclusions. If you can.

 

[COLGeek]

When has anyone explained who studied the potentially hundreds, no thousands, of possible causes for Earth’s climate to change? Who has ever explained how their scientific evaluation had concluded that of those, human activity is the only culprit. NOAA once stated on their website (decades ago) that in Earth’s carbon cycle between air/ atmosphere/ ocean and rock, that human activity accounts for about 4% of carbon entering the atmosphere. But they confidently stated that was enough to send Earth’s atmosphere into a steady centuries long rise in CO2. Who concludes that and how? Why during the COVID shutdown didn’t atmospheric CO2 decline? I don’t understand the lack of skepticism. That is a foundation of science: ask questions, and defend your conclusions. If you can.

Take a look here.

The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on global air quality: A review - PMC

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. As a preventive measure, the majority of countries adopted partial or complete lockdown to fight the novel coronavirus. The ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Unclear Engineer]

COLGeek, Is that the link you intended? It addresses NO2, SO2, CO, and PM pollutants, but not CO2. It is more related to human health than climate effects.

 

[COLGeek]

COLGeek, Is that the link you intended? It addresses NO2, SO2, CO, and PM pollutants, but not CO2. It is more related to human health than climate effects.

I did mean that one. Just one of several studies/sources documenting overall impacts. While CO2 gets a lot of attention, it isn't the only thing humans dump into the atmosphere.

A simple search, for those actually interested in a balanced view, will find multiple sources regarding improved air quality during COVID (and ever farther back to 9/11 that looked at impacts of nearly no air travel for a while).

Facts/science and political opinions/rhetoric obviously don't agree. That is truly sad.

Last, no amount of fact finding will convince some. So, I don't feel it necessary to provide exhaustive responses. If someone gets interested enough in a topic AND wants to learn more, they can do so easily.

Happy New Year. This year starting rough already.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

But HobartStinsonian's post was about accounting for CO2 changing the climate with greenhouse effects, and he merely mentioned that the COVID shutdowns as possible changes in the CO2 emission rate that should be investigated along with many other sources and sinks for atmospheric carbon.

The atmospheric temperatures do not respond rapidly to changes in human CO2 emissions for 2 reasons. One is that the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is pretty long, so the net effect of a particular emission episode lasts for a long time and is cumulative. The other reason is that there is already a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than we emit in a year. At 422.17 ppm atmospheric concentration, that is about 3300 gigatons of CO2 currently in the air. ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere ) Estimated human emissions in 2023 were 37.4 Gigatons of CO2. (See https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emi...-2023-but-clean-energy-is-limiting-the-growth ). But, CO2 is also coming from other sources and being removed from the atmosphere by other processes, including absorption by the oceans and photosynthesis on land.

So, the real question in HobartStinsonian's post is related to the dynamic balance of the total set of in and out processes, both human caused and natural. He is asking if that has been modeled correctly.

My guess is probably not, but probably well enough to demonstrate that humans are having some effect. I don't think we have enough modeling capability to show what the natural CO2 shifts would be without humans. We do see shifts during previous interglacial periods, but their timing is not perfectly clear, and sometimes it looks like the CO2 causes warming and sometimes it looks like the warming caused increased CO2. Actually, I think that both are working at the same time, and there is a shifting balance in the net result that is hard to model in enough detail with current tools and data.

I think it is clear that human emissions of CO2 (and methane) does contribute to creating a net warming effect. But, I don't think it is clear that we would not be seeing any warming or any increases in atmospheric CO2 at this point if humans were not emitting any.

 

[COLGeek]

True, a post was made regarding CO2. Your points are solid as well. This is not an "either/or" issue and that is often what gets lost when discussing human impact on the climate as you noted.

 

[Ken Fabian]

When has anyone explained who studied the potentially hundreds, no thousands, of possible causes for Earth’s climate to change? Who has ever explained how their scientific evaluation had concluded that of those, human activity is the only culprit. NOAA once stated on their website (decades ago) that in Earth’s carbon cycle between air/ atmosphere/ ocean and rock, that human activity accounts for about 4% of carbon entering the atmosphere. But they confidently stated that was enough to send Earth’s atmosphere into a steady centuries long rise in CO2. Who concludes that and how? Why during the COVID shutdown didn’t atmospheric CO2 decline? I don’t understand the lack of skepticism. That is a foundation of science: ask questions, and defend your conclusions. If you can.

Every conceivable cause has been considered and measured and estimated - and there are not hundred or thousands of them. The big ones not only are well understood, they are consistent with what is happening.

You appear to see how much CO2 human activities make compared to natural yet you don't consider what really counts - the difference between ALL sources and ALL sinks. You don't appear to consider the processes - natural processes - that take CO2 out of the atmosphere, at all. Like they don't even exist! Wow.

Climate scientists have. And you are accusing climate scientists of not considering things of vital importance, of fundamental incompetence! (This is like looking at a swimming pool with a hose trickling into it and seeing how much bigger the biggest source of water going into the pool - the filter return pipe. But not noticing the water drawn out of the pool by the filter pump , the reason why the filter return doesn't make the water level change but a trickling hose (tiny in comparison) does. With this level of ignorance, basic misunderstanding and hubris (you imagine you know better than the scientists) being so commonplace - and widely encouraged - it is no surprise that facing up to the problem head on and fixing it is so difficult.

Natural sinks - oceans and vegetation - are taking more CO2 out the atmosphere than all the natural sources add plus (so far) about 1/3 of the extra from human sources (but leaving 2/3 to accumulate) - or global warming would be a lot worse than it is already.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Ken,

I think you have the big picture roughly correct.

But, most of the rates for CO2 ins and outs are estimates based on some measurements and some assumptions. We don't currently have direct measurements for the total quantities for a lot of the processes, so we use modeling and adjust things so that the net result is the same in the model as in the actual air for global average CO2 concentrations. So, there could be compensating errors in the modeling. The uncertainties in the models are mostly ignored by activists who are using results to support political agendas.

However, with new satellites, we are finally beginning to get some more comprehensive data on localized concentration variations, which can more easily be attributed to specific point and area sources and sinks.

So, the picture is being made clearer, and largely by space-based sensing.

But, forecasting the future is still not well in hand. Even though the UN has narrowed the predictions of temperature as a function of time, there is still a pretty wide range for even specific emissions scenarios. And, we do recognize that there is some non-linearity in the climatic responses, particularly in the initiation of the glaciation and thaw cycles.

With the current predictions that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation will soon shut down, and the predictions that will cause substantial cooling in the North Atlantic land areas, we are predicting changes, but not necessarily in the same direction as "warming". Knowing that the atmosphere has changed dozens of times from glaciation to thaw and back again over the last 3 million years, and not knowing that the details of how that occurs, we are still on somewhat shaky ground predicting the future out to a few thousand years from now, maybe even a few decades from now.

But, we do know that we are doing things that affect the parameters that are involved in the cycles. So, there is some rationale to minimize our impacts when we see them pushing the cycle in a direction that will cause us problems.

On the other hand, even the unperturbed cycle will cause us problems. Drastic cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, combined with decreasing sea levels, would cause us a lot of health and wealth problems, too. And that has occurred many times in the past 3 million years, apparently without any significant contributions from human activities.

Geological evidence shows us that the climate that we have enjoyed for the last few thousand years has not only been unusually stable, but that it has been in a condition that is representative of the unperturbed system for only about 10% of the time,

So, clearly, we need to be expecting this climate to change. We do not yet understand the system well enough to control it so that it will never change again. In fact, we don't yet really know if we have disrupted the cooling part of the cycle so that there will not be any more glaciation events. But, if we have, that might actually be to our benefit, overall - provided we don't send the climate into some sort of inferno.

But, with geological evidence telling us that the CO2 concentration has been as high as 1600 ppm tens of millions of years ago, and the temperatures being as high as 14 degrees C higher than now, it seems pretty clear that the Earth's climate is not headed for conditions like on Venus soon, with our current CO2 levels being around 400 ppm. (see https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.n.../Atmosphere-CO2-warmingStripes68-1536x742.jpg )

The biggest concern is that extremely rapid climate changes can stress species to extinction. And, this has happened naturally many times, apparently including to some species of human ancestors and their cousins, sometimes from cold instead of heat.

And, we are already causing mass extinctions by other means, mainly habitat loss, but also food hunting.

If we were still a sparse, roaming, hunter-gatherer species that could follow the desired climate conditions as they shift about, we would have less trouble adapting than our current situation allows, where groups are holding and fiercely defending specific areas against encroachments by other humans.

So, we are going to have to mostly adapt in place. We do have technology that no species before us has had. But, there is a question whether we can use it to our long-term advantage with the same degree of success as we have managed to use it for our short term advantage, with unexpected long term undesirable consequences.