Climate change: do the math(s)

[clv101]

I'm just looking at the words above, he doesn't mention intelligence/morality etc. only rich and poor, as defined by how much money they have. The 'delusion' that he describes is that we all believe these bits of money/numbers mean something.

My point is that they demonstrably do mean something.

[emordnilap]

It's this bit I'm thinking of: "A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper."

Anyway, no matter - his 20 premises are OK by me. They probably don't go far enough for sushil_yadev.

PS, morality and and intelligence are mentioned earlier in the piece.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Somebody more local to you than me can test your adherence to this lunacy by stealing your roof tonight.

I suspect you may argue about the rights of ownership with increased fervour as the temperature drops.

[Billhook]

Hi all - Good to see PS is thriving - and rather more peaceably than in the past.

There are in my view some factors missing from the discussion above of a rational response to climate destabilization, and I'd be glad of others' responses to them.

First - as I guess most here will recall, in 2010 Hansen & Sato reported their finding that ending fossil fuel emissions will end fossil sulphate emissions which will end our maintenance of the 'Sulphate Parasol' that has been veiling the planet and reflecting solar influx. The predictable outcome of its loss is a rise of realized warming by 110% (+/-30%).

Second - in addition, there are of course the planet's responses to AGW and consequent climate destabilization in the form of the seven interactive mega-feedbacks, being: water-vapour + albedo loss + permafrost melt + microbial peat-bog decay + forest combustion + soils' dessication + methyl clathrates collapse. The first six have variously been accelerating for between 20 and over 100 years, and the seventh has likely begun to do so. Most of these seven have the potential individually to dwarf anthropogenic CO2e outputs. There are also minor feedbacks which appear ubiquitous - the more scientists look, the more they find. The core consideration is that all are interactive: warming caused by one directly or indirectly accelerates all.

These two factors transform the desired outcomes of both a 'Jensen-collapse' of society and also the 'best case' Emissions Control strategy for mitigation.

Taking Jensen first and positing a 20 yr decline to total collapse in 2032, we should expect at least enough GHG emissions during decline to add 0.3C of warming, which sums with 0.7C of 'pipeline' warming timelagged about 30 years by the ocean's thermal inertia, which adds to the 0.8C of present realized warming to give a first total of 1.8C.

Raising this by 110% (+/-30%) due to the loss of the Sulphate Parasol gives a second total of 3.78C of warming +/-0.54C, that is realized after the 30 year timelag by about 2062.

In the interim 50 years before 2062, the seven interactive feedbacks would have continuous warming to between 4 and 5.5 times the present level of AGW, and could be expected to accelerate very substantially. Such is the gross failure of the IPCC that no quantification of their current combined warming influence is available, but the most advanced is reported to be albedo loss which in 2010 was reported to be imposing a forcing equivalent to about 30% of current anthro CO2 output.

This feedback alone is thus nearing the point of fully offsetting the average 43% of annual anthro CO2 sequestered by the natural carbon sinks. When the feedbacks' combined output passes that point, they would be effectively self-reinforcing and would able to continue accelerating regardless of any control of anthro GHG outputs.

By 2062 it is thus reasonable to predict at least 0.5C from the combined feedbacks' contribution, and perhaps more. This would give a warming of around 4.28C as the consequence of society's rapid total collapse. After 2062 warming would then continue at a pace dictated by the feedbacks. Nothing much of the planet's present biodiversity would survive this outcome, so I'd suggest that Jensen's preaching is highly counter-productive to his intentions.

The 'best case' of mitigation by Emissions Control faces similar issues. Taking an early effective global commitment to achieving near-zero GHG outputs by 2050 as the best case, the phase-out emissions are greater than under Jensen-Collapse and would at best add around 0.6C. Added to 0.7C of pipeline warming plus 0.8C of realized warming this gives a first total of 2.1C. Multiplied by the 110% rise from the Sulphate Parasol loss gives 4.41C of warming (+/-0.6C), which would be realized after the timelag in about 2080.

The feedbacks would then have 68 years before 2080 with continuous warming to about 5 or 6 times the present level, and should thus be expected to raise the total realized to at least 5.0C of warming and probably higher. Given that, under present warming, climate destabilization impacts on global agricultural capacity are already threatening serial crop failures, it seems clear that even the 'best case' of mitigation by Emissions Control is not remotely commensurate with our predicament.

In light of this finding, I'd suggest that both Carbon Recovery (to cleanse the atmosphere by around 2100) and Albedo Restoration (to cool the planet and halt both climate destabilization and the feedbacks' ruinous acceleration) are now urgent requisite additions to the primary goal of Emissions Control.

While there are strong reasons to propose that an equitable and efficient climate treaty that includes all three objectives will be far more easily negotiated than the present Emissions Control only version, my present concern is testing the above analysis. I've posted it in quite a few sites without any refutation thus far, so if anyone can find significant flaws in it I'd be very glad to hear them.

Regards,

Lewis

[Little John]

Hi all - Good to see PS is thriving - and rather more peaceably than in the past.

There are in my view some factors missing from the discussion above of a rational response to climate destabilization, and I'd be glad of others' responses to them.

First - as I guess most here will recall, in 2010 Hansen & Sato reported their finding that ending fossil fuel emissions will end fossil sulphate emissions which will end our maintenance of the 'Sulphate Parasol' that has been veiling the planet and reflecting solar influx. The predictable outcome of its loss is a rise of realized warming by 110% (+/-30%).

Second - in addition, there are of course the planet's responses to AGW and consequent climate destabilization in the form of the seven interactive mega-feedbacks, being: water-vapour + albedo loss + permafrost melt + microbial peat-bog decay + forest combustion + soils' dessication + methyl clathrates collapse. The first six have variously been accelerating for between 20 and over 100 years, and the seventh has likely begun to do so. Most of these seven have the potential individually to dwarf anthropogenic CO2e outputs. There are also minor feedbacks which appear ubiquitous - the more scientists look, the more they find. The core consideration is that all are interactive: warming caused by one directly or indirectly accelerates all.

These two factors transform the desired outcomes of both a 'Jensen-collapse' of society and also the 'best case' Emissions Control strategy for mitigation.

Taking Jensen first and positing a 20 yr decline to total collapse in 2032, we should expect at least enough GHG emissions during decline to add 0.3C of warming, which sums with 0.7C of 'pipeline' warming timelagged about 30 years by the ocean's thermal inertia, which adds to the 0.8C of present realized warming to give a first total of 1.8C.

Raising this by 110% (+/-30%) due to the loss of the Sulphate Parasol gives a second total of 3.78C of warming +/-0.54C, that is realized after the 30 year timelag by about 2062.

In the interim 50 years before 2062, the seven interactive feedbacks would have continuous warming to between 4 and 5.5 times the present level of AGW, and could be expected to accelerate very substantially. Such is the gross failure of the IPCC that no quantification of their current combined warming influence is available, but the most advanced is reported to be albedo loss which in 2010 was reported to be imposing a forcing equivalent to about 30% of current anthro CO2 output.

This feedback alone is thus nearing the point of fully offsetting the average 43% of annual anthro CO2 sequestered by the natural carbon sinks. When the feedbacks' combined output passes that point, they would be effectively self-reinforcing and would able to continue accelerating regardless of any control of anthro GHG outputs.

By 2062 it is thus reasonable to predict at least 0.5C from the combined feedbacks' contribution, and perhaps more. This would give a warming of around 4.28C as the consequence of society's rapid total collapse. After 2062 warming would then continue at a pace dictated by the feedbacks. Nothing much of the planet's present biodiversity would survive this outcome, so I'd suggest that Jensen's preaching is highly counter-productive to his intentions.

The 'best case' of mitigation by Emissions Control faces similar issues. Taking an early effective global commitment to achieving near-zero GHG outputs by 2050 as the best case, the phase-out emissions are greater than under Jensen-Collapse and would at best add around 0.6C. Added to 0.7C of pipeline warming plus 0.8C of realized warming this gives a first total of 2.1C. Multiplied by the 110% rise from the Sulphate Parasol loss gives 4.41C of warming (+/-0.6C), which would be realized after the timelag in about 2080.

The feedbacks would then have 68 years before 2080 with continuous warming to about 5 or 6 times the present level, and should thus be expected to raise the total realized to at least 5.0C of warming and probably higher. Given that, under present warming, climate destabilization impacts on global agricultural capacity are already threatening serial crop failures, it seems clear that even the 'best case' of mitigation by Emissions Control is not remotely commensurate with our predicament.

In light of this finding, I'd suggest that both Carbon Recovery (to cleanse the atmosphere by around 2100) and Albedo Restoration (to cool the planet and halt both climate destabilization and the feedbacks' ruinous acceleration) are now urgent requisite additions to the primary goal of Emissions Control.

While there are strong reasons to propose that an equitable and efficient climate treaty that includes all three objectives will be far more easily negotiated than the present Emissions Control only version, my present concern is testing the above analysis. I've posted it in quite a few sites without any refutation thus far, so if anyone can find significant flaws in it I'd be very glad to hear them.

Regards,

Lewis

I'm not sufficiently acquainted with the science in question to be certain of the validity of your claims on the numbers but, if valid, then that all sounds frankly terrifying.

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm not sufficiently acquainted with the science in question to be certain of the validity of your claims on the numbers but, if valid, then that all sounds frankly terrifying.

Again, it's not really the numbers, but the basic structure of the thing. In this case it's the number of positive feedback mechanisms (and we keep finding more), and the fact that most of them exacerbate each other. When you take this into account, you have to conclude that the changes we have already set in motion are enough to push the climate over the tipping point which leads to a double digit rise in average global temperatures. It follows that we really do now need to be advocating a "techno-fix", even though this means meddling with a complex system we do not fully understand.

We either have to physically block the amount of energy reaching the earth's surface, or we have to "scrub" CO2 out of the atmosphere, or both. If we do not attempt to do this then most of the planet is going to end up uninhabitable by humans.

[Little John]

I'm not sufficiently acquainted with the science in question to be certain of the validity of your claims on the numbers but, if valid, then that all sounds frankly terrifying.

Again, it's not really the numbers, but the basic structure of the thing. In this case it's the number of positive feedback mechanisms (and we keep finding more), and the fact that most of them exacerbate each other. When you take this into account, you have to conclude that the changes we have already set in motion are enough to push the climate over the tipping point which leads to a double digit rise in average global temperatures. It follows that we really do now need to be advocating a "techno-fix", even though this means meddling with a complex system we do not fully understand.

We either have to physically block the amount of energy reaching the earth's surface, or we have to "scrub" CO2 out of the atmosphere, or both. If we do not attempt to do this then most of the planet is going to end up uninhabitable by humans.

I think covertly introducing a disease that will kill off the majority of humans to dramatically and instantaneously reduce industrial output is more plausible than scrubbing the atmosphere, to be honest UE. Even then, though, I take the point that the feedback loops we have already instigated might be sufficient to keep on going even if we stopped all industrial outputs anyway. in any event, if we are going to need to rely on carbon scrubbing of the entire atmosphere as a techno-fix, we are buggered.

Let's face it, we buggered now no matter what.

[kenneal - lagger]

Thanks, Lewis, for your shocking contribution and welcome back?

I had read about the permafrost starting to melt and about methane bubbles being noticed in Arctic waters which were attributed again to permafrost melt. I haven't seen anything about deep ocean bottom water temperatures or those required to destabilise methane clathrate deposits so I can't comment on that feedback loop. But with the others starting to increasingly effect climate is must only be a short period before that happens. So, yes, mitigation measures are required.

One mitigation measure that wouldn't be quite so much of an unknown and is known to be of help to the human population is recarbonising the soil. This could be done by the widespread production of biochar from farm wastes, straw, manures, brash, etc. and its incorporation in the soil to aid fertility in place of fossil fuel based nitrogenous fertilisers. A useful bi-product of biochar production can be biodiesel: this being about the only truely sustainable source of a biofuel.

Farm wastes will need to be returned to the soil as fossil fuel based nitrogenous fertilisers become too expensive, but in their raw form are quickly oxidised, in a few years, into carbon dioxide. In the form of biochar the carbon can last in the soil for thousands of years and add fertility to the soil for that time by trapping NOx and other chemicals from the rain water that washes through the soil and would otherwise be lost. It acts as a massive carbon filter for any chemicals which are in the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi can make these chemicals available to plants as they require them.

It has been estimated that this widespread production of biochar could take out of the atmosphere at least our present production of carbon dioxide every year and possibly more. With an additional reduction in CO2 output we could quickly have a net reduction in atmospheric CO2 plus the bonus of greater soil fertility worldwide and a small amount of sustainable biofuel.

Sounds too good to be true doesn't it!

[kenneal - lagger]

Even the BBC is getting in on the act

And here's another related article.

I used to be one of these but I'm not sure now after Billhook's post.

[Billhook]

Steve - thanks for your response.

Rather than going through all the numbers and dynamics referred to above (which would take quite a while to detail) I'd say that there's nothing included that isn't published in the scientific literature, apart from:
- a Jensen-Collapse by 2032 yielding enough emissions for an extra 0.3C of warming - which I've extrapolated off the figure of 0.6C by 2050 from phase-out emissions, that is quite widely discussed - though some put it higher at 0.7C;
- a 0.5C rise by 2062 from the combined emissions of all the mega-feedbacks, which I've extrapolated from the Geophysical Letters' report of the albedo loss feedback already imposing a warming equivalent to about 30% of anthro CO2e output, and from the highly self-censored recent finding of permafrost melt outputs alone causing 0.5C by 2100, which wholly ignored the methane fraction of those outputs, and pretended that only anthro-GHGs and the water-vapour and permafrost CO2 feedbacks are driving the melt, with the other five mega-feedbacks again ignored.

Both the Hansen & Sato finding on the Parasol Loss and the GLs' finding on recent albedo loss warming are critical factors in the scenarios I posted, and they stand unrefuted thus far. They may yet be refuted, but whether that is to show lesser or greater effects won't be seen until/unless it happens. Hansen at least has a unique track record for accurate evaluations of novel scientific findings.

As a cross check on the albedo loss issue I asked Tamino, who runs the 'Open Mind' site, whether he'd spare time to quantify the effect (he's very highly skilled in the mathematics of climatology and more) which he kindly did, and posted his methodology and a result a couple of months back for N Hemisphere albedo loss: causing a warming equivalent to about 30% of anthro-CO2 output . . .

If there are any particular points you'd like more detail on I'd be happy to provide it as best I can, though I suspect that the Skeptical Science site would do a rather better job, as they have working access to any scientific paper they want.

I'd well agree that the position is pretty fraught, though as a matter of health I'd not call it terrifying, particularly since we ain't buggered yet, and can certainly avoid that fate if we pull together. A treaty including Carbon Recovery and Albedo Restoration with Emissions Control will offer far better incentives to both N & S than the present version, making it more easily negotiated, particularly as damages, and liabilities, rise.

Personally I don't see those necessary geo-e measures as meddling so much as getting the damn Spaniard out of the Works - whom we've dropped in there in the form of over 110ppmv of anthro-CO2 plus other GHGs in proportion.

While we are getting that carbon out (preferably by the very widely applicable means of native afforestation for biochar and coproduct methanol) we also need to prevent the works overheating further. The best option I've heard of for this is 'Cloud Brightening' - by means of wind-powered vessels lofting a very fine mist of natural seawater to low-altitude clouds - which is now being researched. This clearly has strong advantages over the stratospheric sulphate aerosol techniques, in that clouds rain out on average within 9 days (rather than 2 years for the sulphates) so the program could be halted very rapidly if some unseen problem emerged, and also, unlike aerosols dispersing globally, Cloud Brightening can be targetted on the key regions, such as the Arctic in summer and deep oceans in winter.

Using the minimum of intervention to avoid the works (planet) overheating due to our Spaniard (pollution) - while clearing that pollution and ending its output, seems to me both common sense and plainly inevitably necessary. What matters in my view is just how soon and how well we can propagate this perspective with the demand for a UN mandate of stringent fully-accountable scientific supervision of the technical options' objectives, research, trials and deployment.

And to get that done, I'd suggest that we need to start widely recognizing, and protesting en masse, Cheyney's ongoing US policy of a 'Brinkmanship of Inaction' with its Chinese rival for global economic dominance - for the received wisdom that a small bunch of fossil energy corporations are being allowed (not least by all other corporations) to run the whole global society over a cliff - is patently bullshit (in my humble opinion) but owing largely to enviro-activists gullibility and reactiveness it does a very professional job of veiling the actual US policy "in plain sight".

Regards,

Lewis

[Billhook]

Kenneal - thanks for the welcome. It's good to be here again and I should have been ages ago, but I set myself to trying to get fresh perspectives adopted on some of the main US sites - mostly daily hard grind. As has been noted before: "You can take a whore to culture, but you can't make it think."

Re biochar, it's also claimed that great minds think alike, but how often on the same page at the same time? Yours was posted while I wrote my last. I think you're spot on on the advantages you list, and would add some more from the native afforestation end of the feedstock spectrum, such as:

- a massive boost to global biodiversity from a potential 1.6Gha.s of native coppice afforestation on non-farm land;
- a massive new source of rural employment and smallholder plots helping to reverse the ruinous global urban drift;
- a full flow carbon sequestration (after say a 30yr lead-time) of potentially over 5.0ppmv CO2/yr (by my own calculation);
- an exceptionally relevant capacity of biochar in its soil-moisture regulation by providing both better drainage when it's needed, and better water retention when it's needed;
- a potential liquid fuel output of around 5.0Bbls of Petrol Equivalent (PEq) per 10.0Ts of carbon sequestered, being produced in any country where trees grow well (Britain is now ~1/3rd deforested high moorland . . .);
- a potential to accommodate the nations' formal commitment to recovering their cumulative carbon emissions at an agreed rate, which (alongside Albedo Restoration) would resolve the key obstruction in the climate treaty negotiations of Annexe I states' 'historic' emissions.

It might even be said;
"Biochar is very very very productive: it's the seminal necessity." (LC)

All the best,

Lewis

PS How did the sheep's wool go ? If it went well, and you happen across anyone needing some, I happen to have quite a stock . . .
-

[Little John]

Kenneal - thanks for the welcome. It's good to be here again and I should have been ages ago, but I set myself to trying to get fresh perspectives adopted on some of the main US sites - mostly daily hard grind. As has been noted before: "You can take a whore to culture, but you can't make it think."

Re biochar, it's also claimed that great minds think alike, but how often on the same page at the same time? Yours was posted while I wrote my last. I think you're spot on on the advantages you list, and would add some more from the native afforestation end of the feedstock spectrum, such as:

- a massive boost to global biodiversity from a potential 1.6Gha.s of native coppice afforestation on non-farm land;
- a massive new source of rural employment and smallholder plots helping to reverse the ruinous global urban drift;
- a full flow carbon sequestration (after say a 30yr lead-time) of potentially over 5.0ppmv CO2/yr (by my own calculation);
- an exceptionally relevant capacity of biochar in its soil-moisture regulation by providing both better drainage when it's needed, and better water retention when it's needed;
- a potential liquid fuel output of around 5.0Bbls of Petrol Equivalent (PEq) per 10.0Ts of carbon sequestered, being produced in any country where trees grow well (Britain is now ~1/3rd deforested high moorland . . .);
- a potential to accommodate the nations' formal commitment to recovering their cumulative carbon emissions at an agreed rate, which (alongside Albedo Restoration) would resolve the key obstruction in the climate treaty negotiations of Annexe I states' 'historic' emissions.

It might even be said;
"Biochar is very very very productive: it's the seminal necessity." (LC)

All the best,

Lewis

PS How did the sheep's wool go ? If it went well, and you happen across anyone needing some, I happen to have quite a stock . . .
-

I'm after sheep’s wool. I made myself a electric spinner a couple of years back and my normal supplier (a mate of mine who had sheep) got rid of them and so I am looking to get some more from somewhere.....

[biffvernon]

I've posted it in quite a few sites without any refutation thus far,

Perhaps because you are right!


Mind you, take care when using numbers given to spurious degrees of precision. You don't want people saying "Prove the warming is going to be 4.82 degrees by such-and-such a date", distracting folk from the more general, and accurate, message that humanity is in deep trouble over global warming in the lifetime of folk already alive today and it's hard to see how we are going to escape this trouble.

[biffvernon]

More stuff published: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ge-certain

The latest carbon dioxide emissions continue to track the high end of emission scenarios, making it even less likely global warming will stay below 2 °C. A shift to a 2 °C pathway requires immediate significant and sustained global mitigation, with a probable reliance on net negative emissions in the longer term.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/ ... e1783.html

[UndercoverElephant]

Thanks, Lewis, for your shocking contribution and welcome back?

I had read about the permafrost starting to melt and about methane bubbles being noticed in Arctic waters which were attributed again to permafrost melt. I haven't seen anything about deep ocean bottom water temperatures or those required to destabilise methane clathrate deposits so I can't comment on that feedback loop. But with the others starting to increasingly effect climate is must only be a short period before that happens.

The main release of ocean floor clathrates is likely to be a second "methane burp." It will occur in the later stages of the process, after the temperature has already gone up a few degrees. This is because the oceans take a long time to warm up, and the main ocean currents flow very slowly. The first methane burp has already started, and it involves the melting of permafrost in Canadian and Russian tundra. We already know this is going to continue, because it is a direct result of the increasing temperature of the north polar region. Good news for woolly mammoth biologists.

But as you infer, the precise point where any of these feedback processes start to seriously kick in is not actually all that important, because of the way they all exacerbate each other. It's all a matter of time now. Even if we stopped pumping CO2 into the atmosphere tomorrow, there is too much momentum to halt the feedback loops.