NASA searches for climate solutions as global temperatures reach record highs

[Admin]

Scientists with NASA discussed the urgency of climate change mitigation and the innovations that can help us reach our environmental goals.

NASA searches for climate solutions as global temperatures reach record highs : Read more

 

[Frank Sterle Jr]

I was left feeling I could never again complain about the weather being too cold after having suffered the unprecedented heatwave here in late June 2021, described by meteorologists as a ‘stalling dome’ of high heat, that resulted in 619 confirmed heat-related deaths.

But then complain I did when most of the province, including southwestern B.C., suffered an unprecedently cold bunch of days in January, which was described by meteorologists as a ‘stalling dome’ of freezing cold.

I doubt it was just coincidental; rather, such extremes are basically due to climate change via human-caused global warming via morbidly massive amounts of fossil fuel consumption ever since the Industrial Revolution.

Basic commonsense dictates that it is no longer prudent to have so much of society, including our primary modes of transportation, reliant on traditional sources of energy.

Yet, if the universal availability of green-energy alternatives will come at the profit-margin expense of traditional ‘energy’ production companies, one can expect formidable obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort.

In this world, if something notably conflicts with corporate interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully.

 

[Ken Fabian]

With emissions at highest levels ever and atmospheric concentrations still rising we have to expect the real world impacts to get stronger. A wide variety of Earth observation satellites are confirming a wide variety of real world impacts. Not one shows anything that "disproves" it.

The worse case scenarios are deemed less likely because there is global action to reduce emissions but all the low range outcomes are dependent on serious efforts that don't lag. Even though most new electricity generation being built is now renewables and commercial SMRs are edging closer to viability it is clear we are lagging, in large part because there are influential interests hard at work to defend the "right" to keep profiting from fossil fuels without climate accountability - counting the benefits but not the harms - whilst promoting alarmist economic fear of energy poverty and associating support for climate action with political extremists to entrench popular opposition to commitments to zero emissions.

 

[comforteagle]

Do you reallllly need our help to stop greenhouse emissions _right_ now? And. Would it also be really helpful if the world's scientists had access to every zero point energy 'thing' to help us do that ASAP?

 

[Frank Sterle Jr]

With emissions at highest levels ever and atmospheric concentrations still rising we have to expect the real world impacts to get stronger. A wide variety of Earth observation satellites are confirming a wide variety of real world impacts. Not one shows anything that "disproves" it.

The worse case scenarios are deemed less likely because there is global action to reduce emissions but all the low range outcomes are dependent on serious efforts that don't lag. Even though most new electricity generation being built is now renewables and commercial SMRs are edging closer to viability it is clear we are lagging, in large part because there are influential interests hard at work to defend the "right" to keep profiting from fossil fuels without climate accountability - counting the benefits but not the harms - whilst promoting alarmist economic fear of energy poverty and associating support for climate action with political extremists to entrench popular opposition to commitments to zero emissions.

Interviewed by the online National Observer (posted February 12, 2019), Noam Chomsky emphasized that in Tucson, Arizona, for example, “the sun is shining … most of the year, [but] take a look and see how many solar panels you see. Our house in the suburbs is the only one that has them [in the vicinity].

"People are complaining that they have a thousand-dollar electric bill per month over the summer for air conditioning but won’t put up a solar panel; and in fact the Tucson electric company makes it hard to do.

"For example, our solar panel has some of the panels missing because you’re not allowed to produce too much electricity … People have to come to understand that they’ve just got to [reform their habitual non-renewable energy consumption], and fast; and it doesn’t harm them, it improves their lives. ...

“But just the psychological barrier that says I … have to keep to the common beliefs [favoring fossil fuels] and that [doing otherwise] is somehow a radical thing that we have to be scared of, is a block that has to be overcome by constant educational organizational activity.”

 

[Unclear Engineer]

There is a problem with electric companies determining how much solar power you can produce. They don't want to buy it, especially at prices set by the government to encourage private home owners to install it.

What we need is a group that is looking at engineering solutions to the overall societal problem of needing to electrify just about everything, and still provide reliable electric power to those things. Then, proper policies can be set on who can and can't do what to achieve that overall objective. Right now, we are having politicians make policies that are too often actually counter-productive to getting us to where we intend to be.

Part of the problem with homeowners getting to install solar is that it is very expensive to do by just paying for it straight-out, and so it is subsidized. But that subsidy comes with rules that are politically set to favor installers and electric companies.

It seems to me that the optimum system is going to involve mostly locally generated power during the day, and grid delivered power during the nights (or blizzards or storm aftermaths). Presently, homeowners who lose grid connections also lose their access to the power generated by the solar cells on their own property. That tends to make people less interested in getting solar power. They are essentially only letting the electric company use their real estate for an offset to their electric bills. If the company can't get the electrical power from their cells, the they don't want the residents to be able to use it, either. That actually means that a home with a lot of solar cells would also install an emergency generator for when the grid goes down.

And, if we really do get most of our energy uses to be electrically powered, the grid may be overloading and go down rather frequently. That is not going to help getting people to agree to give up fuel powered equipment (cars, stoves, home heating, etc.) And, it will not help getting politicians reelected who favor converting everything to electric power.

A lot of the hesitation on acceptance and the political push back comes from people not trusting the advocates to be smart enough or even honest about what the future will be like if we all just do what they say we should do. What we need is an actual demonstration, with transparent costs and benefits - not introduction subsidies that are planned to go away as soon as the masses start following the early adopters.

 

[Helio]

Here is an excellent assessment of the temperature anomalies we are experiencing. CO2 isn't likely the culprit.

"The exceptionally warm global temperature in 2023 is part of a trend of warming since 2015 that is associated primarily with greater absorption of solar radiation in the earth-atmosphere system. This increase in absorbed solar radiation is driven by a slow decline in springtime snow extent, but primary by a reduction in reflection from the atmosphere driven by reduced cloudiness and to a lesser extent a reduction in atmospheric aerosol. Any increase in the greenhouse effect from increasing CO2 (which impacts the longwave radiation budget) is lost in the noise.

El Nino and La Nina introduce strong interannual variability into the top-of-atmosphere and surface energy balances. Against this strong background of interannual variability, there is discernible evidence of the impact of the change in ship aerosols primarily in the mid latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The impacts of Hunga Tonga in the stratosphere are primarily expected to occur in the winter hemisphere, because of cancelling of longwave and shortwave effects in the summer hemisphere."

The next few months should provide more interesting data.