How Will Humans Manage In A CO2 World That Hasn't Existed For 3 Million Years? Ans. They Won't

Exxon's own graph showing CO2 concentration increase with temperature as a function of time, from this Exxon paper


"The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously. Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040."   - NY Times, May 27


The news this past week that the CO2 concentration has now reached 415 parts per million, which hasn't been the case for 3 million years, ought to alarm everyone with a pulse and brain wave.  We are basically talking about atmospheric conditions that characterized our planet before the species Homo Sapiens emerged.  A time when sea level was 50 feet higher as well.

Indeed, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has accelerated from 400 ppm in 2013 to 415 ppm now. That is an approximately 6 year interval for a per year change in concentration of :

(415 ppm - 400 ppm)  / 6 yr  =   15 ppm / 6 yr  =  2.5 ppm/  yr.

This is 25 % higher than the previous average rate of increase, i.e. 2.0 ppm/ yr. Given we know that every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m²,  we also know that the associated radiative heating is now significantly higher.  This accounts for a major part of the increase of atmospheric temperature with CO2 concentration.

While it is true that  there is a yearly rise and fall   in CO2 concentration and May is usually the peak month for atmospheric CO2, we have also seen each yearly peak is inexorably higher than the last one.  This behavior has been noted for decades and hearkens back to the well -known Keeling curve, e.g.


In the wake of the findings, especially the graphs shown above, it is not at all beyond the realm of plausibility that the violent weather experienced in the past month: over 150 tornadoes in the plains, massive flooding, and triggering temperature extremes between eastern and western U.S., (we just had 6 inches of snow where we live in Colorado Springs three days ago, is tied to the higher CO2 concentration.

In the case of the above phenomena, start with repeated intrusions of destabilized polar air,  leading to frigid temperatures in the west - accompanied by massive snowstorms the past 3 weeks.  The frigid systems then moved to the east and met much warmer Gulf air, triggering violent circulation, thunderstorms, tornadoes and flooding of the Mississippi not seen in years.

And this is not novel at all.   The summer of 2018, for example, was truly apocalyptic, Across the Northern hemisphere railroad rails warped and pavement cracked. Nuclear plants cut power output when their water sources became too hot. Reideer sought relief inside Norwegian tunnels as as temperatures above the Arctic Circle approached 90 F.   Meanwhile, historic rain in Japan caused deadly floods and record breaking wildfires burned in California and Sweden.


On the Gulf coast of Florida, as my youngest brother Mike approached his end with terminal, stage IV liver cancer in May last year, he'd email me about the reeking dead marine life. Near the Gulf living in Port Charlotte, he was on the front lines  of a red tide invasion that generated more than 400 tons of manatee and fish carcasses.  The killer, as he informed me from the Port Charlotte papers?  A marine algae called Karenia brevis, which releases a potent class of neurotoxins called brevotoxins.  In high enough concentration it debilitates and kills manatees and other native marine species.

This climate -related havoc then spilled into the new year with polar vortex intrusions and super freezes, e.g.

Brane Space: Once Again: The Current "Super Freeze" Doesn't Mean ...

brane-space.blogspot.com/2019/01/once-again-current-super-freeze-doesnt.html

 No one could have foreseen at the time that the  intrusions would- by degree - become a repeated phenomena through the spring- as they have been. 

All this now as we've beheld (see middle graph)  daily atmospheric CO2  concentration cross above 415 ppm to 415.26 as measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii.  To provide perspective,  this is the first time for this dubious milestone since humans walked the earth — perhaps since  our ape-like ancestor Australopithecus.  

Even more confounding, Exxon climate researchers  predicted the current CO 2 threat as far back as 1982.   When Exxon Corporation was studying climate change seriously, its scientists produced papers predicting atmospheric CO2 and global warming under a number of scenarios, including a "high case" scenario  (well elucidated by Bill McKibben of  350.org ) in which fossil fuel burning would increase and previously unavailable carbon resources, from shale for example, would become extractable.

Look at the last chart at the top of this post, which is a chart from one of those Exxon papers (pdf). It extrapolates and projects  from a 1980 baseline, ultimately arriving at almost 620 ppm by 2080.  That level of CO2 concentration has been the threshold for the runaway greenhouse effect, as often expressed by the late Carl Sagan, and former Geophysical Inst. climate specialist Gunther Weller. .  The near term Exxon prediction has been startlingly accurate, at least so far. It put atmospheric CO2 (upper line) just below 420 ppm in 2019 and global warming (lower line) above 1.2°C after we add in the amount of global warming, 0.4°C, that occurred between the pre-Industrial low and 1980 [Hansen, 2018].  But even now many climate physicists indicate these values are low-balled and the actual temperature rise is far higher. See e.g.

Climate report understates threat

Excerpt:

"So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominoes, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood."

The question of whether Americans - or any nationality- can manage in a full out greenhouse world has been fairly well answered in the past week with its devastating tornadoes, flash floods and now - we are informed - a "death ridge" with triple digit temperatures ready to hatch over the southeast.  Now take all these calamities and multiply their intensity by two orders of magnitude to arrive at what life will be like in 2080 with the CO2 concentration at 620 ppm.

Such a projection is what awoke Greta Thunberg to the fact she and her young cohort may not have a future. It may even be gone before 2080.  As we read in the current TIME  (May 27, p. 38) on how she achieved climate wokeness:

"While Thunberg was studying climate change in school at he age of 11, she reacted in a surprisingly intense way: she suffered an episode of severe depression."

In her own words, quoted in the next paragraph:

"I felt everything was meaningless and there was no point going to school if there was no future."

Which catapulted her to become a climate activist, now addressing - and shaming - the rich and powerful everywhere she appears,  from the World Economic Forum in Davos, to the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland.  

Will Thunberg's activist push,  getting others of her generation on board halt or slow the hurtle toward climate catastrophe? Probably not, but at least she is making a last stand for her generation and shaming those energy-guzzlers who have squandered the planet for them.

NY Times Deserves To Lose Subscribers By Hiring Bret Stephens

 Climate denier and former WSJ columnist-nitwit Bret Stephens - now hired at NY Times to spew his bunkum. Critical thinkers  have reacted by canceling their  Times' subscriptions.

According to Business Insider, The New York Times - which had gained tens of thousands of new subscribers in the wake of the Trump ascension - is now losing them by the thousands  after hiring climate denier Bret Stephens as a new columnist. What The Times was thinking, if  its editorial board was thinking at all, is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. Striving for balance? No, you don't hire a dope like Stephens for that, and besides too many savvy liberals are onto the false objectivity spin.

So, it boils down to a simple bone -headed move. The Times, for whatever reason, has sought to "enhance" its stable of columnists but in doing so outraged its readership. And they should be outraged when scientific inquiry is undercut in favor of propaganda from a dedicated climate know nothing and denialist.  Recall how way back on January 23, 2015, Stephens was skewered on Bill Maher's 'Real Time'  for his nonsensical takes when he compared today's consensus on global warming to a spurious one for global cooling in the 70s.  Stephens blurted:

 "What I'm saying is if you look at a Newsweek from 1975 you will see it"

 Whereupon Maher moaned, 'Oh no, not the cooling thing!'

To which Stephens responded: "Yes, the cooling thing!"

For those who may not know, global cooling was once all the rage--  briefly! Some popular  'zines picked it up in the mid to late 70s but it was soon left in the scientific dustbin. This was after it was discovered a decade or so later, that it had been incepted by particulates and aerosols in the atmosphere.  After the Clean Air Act and similar bills were passed overseas (e.g. in the UK), those particulates disappeared and the cooling was no longer evident. (Aerosols remained and gave way to the global dimming phenomenon which also concealed the worst of global warming - but when aerosols were also controlled - after similar legislation, global dimming also receded and warming assumed dominance.)

So what Stephens ought to have read was the  more recent Newsweek piece on the global warming disinformation industry (Aug. 13, 2007, ‘The Truth About Denial’, p. 21) noting the corporate media has been especially guilty in its misplaced notions of objectivity and fairness since they:

“qualified every mention of human influence on climate change with ‘some scientists believe’ when the reality is that the vast preponderance of scientific opinion accepts that human-induced greenhouse emissions are contributing to warming”.

Maher then noted 2014 as the hottest year ever and hence asked whether the talking point that warming has halted since 1998 "shouldn't die" - since 1998 was an El Nino year so was an aberration. To which Stephens replied:

"No because it was the hottest year ever by a hundredth of a degree so what the people are pointing out is we've had the same high temperatures for the past fifteen years."

Which is bollocks. First, because the temperature actually rose as a global mean by 1.24F not  "one hundredth of a degree".  Also the deniers never claimed the past 15 years were all high temperature years, they claimed warming had ceased from 1998, which is not the same thing.  The fact that 16 of the past 17 years have all been progressively  hotter puts the kibosh on this flatulence. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/george-will-no-warming-for-last-16.html

When Maher cited work detailing 10,855 peer-reviewed climate papers of which only two rejected the notion of man-made climate change-  2 out of 10,855 - and asked: 'Doesn't that persuade you?' and adding "Don't you think scientists know more about science then we do?', Stephens blurted:

"What doesn't persuade me is that scientists ought to know more about public policy  than we do and ought to dictate what public policy is."

He then cited the example of Bjorn Lomborg "bringing together some of the greatest scientists alive" and  Lomborg had asked them: "What are your priorities?" Stephens testily claimed this lot agreed that the "least amount of resources should be devoted to climate change."

Maher laughed and joked that: "Maybe these were different scientists from the 10,855 I mentioned". He also admitted he was not familiar with "the study"  - but let's provide some contextual  background, in particular first noting it was not a "study" but a contrarian climate convocation and also these were not scientists but economists.

As I observed in a blog post response at the time:

The Copenhagen Consensus – organized by longtime skeptic Bjorn Lomborg, and composed entirely of economists- would naturally have rated global warming lowest in its priorities for challenges facing the world.  But these are not climate scientists, after all! They’d be vastly more concerned with economic blowback.

Hence, they'd invoke agnotology or deliberately casting doubt on the science in order to try to establish the primacy of economics in our lives - never mind lives in the runaway greenhouse wouldn't be livable and no economics of any value would survive.

In the end, the fact that Stephens confused scientists with economists in the "Copenhagen Consensus"  disclosed he's not even remotely qualified to be involved in any climate change-global warming discussion. Hell, he wasn't even aware that global dimming was responsible for the aberration of cooling in the 70s and the fact that "theory" has long since bit the dust

In his debut Times' column, Stephens confirmed he hasn't advanced significantly over his prior climate goofs and gaffes. Therein he mocked the notion of "certainty" in the anthropogenic greenhouse warming model  when no such aspect applies. Thus,  Stephens confuses and conflates a strong scientific consensus with "certainty".

First, no serious climate scientist claims we have reduced  the science to a "certainty".  Rather AGW (anthropogenic global warming) remains in the realm of probability assessment as do all other valid theories including quantum theory and general relativity. The reason is based on the nature of scientific inquiry which advances by successive approximations.

Thus, I offer a hypothesis say X(t1)  at time t1.  This has associated with it come uncertainty + x, so we have:  X(t1)  +  x.

But as more data come in the uncertainty is reduced, say to   +  x/2 by time t2.
  So we now have:

X(t2)  +   x/2

In the next iteration as more and more climate scientists assess the data (ice cores bearing CO2, extent of glacier retreat in m/yr.  CO2 concentration in the ambient atmosphere in ppm etc., ocean pH change) we may find the uncertainty is now   + x/ 4 at time t3. Thus. the hypothesis forecast is now at:

X(t3)   +  x/4

The upshot is that the general hypothesis, call it X(t) has been successively refined over ensuing data integration and the results approximate to an ideal value or expectation, But at no time do we find the uncertainty vanish. This aspect holds as much for Newtonian gravitation as it does for Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Science, which too many (like Brett Stephens)  believe is based on "proof" or "certainty", is actually much more subtle in its evidentiary approaches as I showed above.  In addition, one must distinguish stochastic sciences (like climate science and meteorology - which are not the same, btw) from deterministic sciences like celestial mechanics. In either case we assess the quality of the science not by certainty or proof but the QA (quality assurance) i.e. of the evidence in relation to what is forecast or expected.

My point is that we leave "proof" and "certainty" to the rarefied areas of pure math. In empirical science we instead apply quality assurance (QA) criteria to the evidence available for particular hypotheses. Thus, it is more practical to consider criteria of adequacy, and whether data meet these criteria. For example, a leading global warming hypothesis is that no further ice ages can occur once the CO2 concentration reaches 400 ppm. To substantiate that, extant ice core  records disclose that no ice ages have occurred when the CO2 concentration exceeded 200 ppm. (See e.g. Gale Christianson's book, 'Greenhouse')

In this way, the relative merit of a scientific finding can be adduced based on standards similar to those employed in industrial quality control. If certain minimal criteria or standards are not met, then the finding is regarded with skepticism or rejected outright. So far none of the minimal criteria or standards for the primary hypotheses have been found unmet in the case of global warming.

Indeed, as recent CO2 concentrations have been found to be increasing at a rate of 2 ppm/ yr, Earth temperatures have never been hotter. The temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. Further,  every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m².  Taken in tandem we have the equivalent of 2.5 x 10 ⁷  TJ injected each year into the atmosphere or roughly 400,000 Hiroshima size A-bombs. In most other circumstances a nation lighting up the planet with that many A-bombs would be immediately taken down by the human community

The energy inputs arising from global warming now are of such magnitude that few comprehend them and fewer scientists are willing to discuss them in terms of what the future portends. (See the link at the bottom to get an idea from those who are willing.)

None of this is grasped by Stephens in his inaugural NY Times' codswallop, which is why it is a travesty to have this imp now peddling denial bunkum when we need greater awareness of the scientific facts. (And again, facts have relative degrees of certainty, as I showed - but this doesn't mean we ignore them until all uncertainty vanishes. That will never happen!)

SO,  I am with all those canceling their Times' subscriptions.  Allowing even one "Bret Stephens" to spew his nonsense in a venue supposedly supportive of science is one too many. Am I being "too harsh"  on The Times, and "alienating Climate allies"?  Hell no!  The Times brought this indictment on itself by opting at this late stage to send mixed messages to further confuse readers who may lack the scientific background to distinguish crap from supported research.. "Allies"  who believe Brett Stephens' voice is needed to further delay any feasible action are no allies at all. With "friends" like these we don't need enemies.

The media then have but one task in this respect: focus on the fact that we are facing a planetary emergency and don't fucking obfuscate the landscape by the cynical exploitation of distracting assholes and misinformation. If you can't do that you deserve reader desertions!

See also:


http://www.salon.com/2017/04/30/its-the-end-of-the-world-and-we-know-it-scientists-in-many-disciplines-see-apocalypse-soon/

Scott Pruitt Shows He's The "Arsonist" For Climate Change We All Believed

The lying maggot Scott Pruitt - now head of the EPA- said under oath in Senate hearings barely three months ago that he wasn't certain humans were the major agent for climate change has now come out and made his aberrant position abundantly clear.  Pruitt said on Thursday that he did not believe that the release of CO2  was pushing global temperatures upwards.  He told CNBC:
.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,

The very fact Pruitt could invoke "precision" discloses he hasn't the first clue about the nature of climate science.  Like many libertarian climate change deniers Pruitt confuses deterministic  science and outcomes with disciplines (like climate science) based on stochastic processes. .Thus, a reasonable skeptic must allow for a higher threshold of fuzziness than allowed in celestial mechanics where I can very exactly predict Jupiter's position in 50 years.

Even so, the parameters are such we are fairly confident of what the outcomes will be. For example, the inputs that predict the most dire effects of rapid warming then, are not so stringent nor do they have attached to them such absurd levels of accuracy. One we can name for instance is the concentration in parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is currently at about 400 ppm. Attendant on that is the fact that in the historical record (analysis via ice cores) there has never been an ice age when the CO2 concentration was higher than 200 ppm (See: 'Greenhouse' by Gale Christianson).

These two quantitative indices already tell us we are in dire straits, because: 1) we have surpassed the 200 ppm threshold and by a factor 2, and 2) the concentrations are increasing. The temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. Further,  every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m².  Taken in tandem we have the equivalent of 2.5 x 10 ⁷  TJ injected each year into the atmosphere or roughly 400,000 Hiroshima size A-bombs. In most other circumstances a nation lighting up the planet with that many A-bombs would be immediately taken down by the human community. But too many of us appear to just sit while Earth burns.

Pruitt also blabbed in total confounding ignorance, typical of the Trumpites:

But we don’t know that yet ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”

In fact, numerous surveys of actual climate scientists (not paid whores) show it's as settled as it's ever going to be. Specifically, I've referenced the scientific consensus on global warming reported in Eos Transactions, Vol. 90, No. 3, p. 22, by P. T. Doran and M. Kendall-Zimmerman found that (p. 24) :

“the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely non-existent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

In their analytic survey for which 3146 climate and Earth scientists responded, a full 96.2% of specialists concurred temperatures have steadily risen and there is no evidence for cooling. Meanwhile, 97.4% concur there is a definite role of humans in global climate change.

The authors concluded (p. 24) :

“The challenge appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact (non-existent debate among real climate specialists) to policy makers and a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate exists among scientists”


This misbegotten stance puts Pruitt at odds with the scientists of the EPA, which states on its website that carbon dioxide is the “primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change”. This finding is backed by NASA, which calls CO2 “the most important long-lived ‘forcing’ of climate change”.   Most recently, the quantification of the annual forcing component has been put in terms nearly every human ought to be able to grasp, i.e. an energy impact equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima scale A-bombs released every year in the atmosphere.  And yet dopey, dumbass Scotty Pruitt can't (or won't)  process that.

Pruitt’s comments were quickly condemned by scientists, environmental activists and even his immediate predecessor as EPA chief, Gina McCarthy.

“The world of science is about empirical evidence, not beliefs,” said McCarthy, an appointee of Barack Obama. “When it comes to climate change, the evidence is robust and overwhelmingly clear that the cost of inaction is unacceptably high. I cannot imagine what additional information the administrator might want from scientists for him to understand that.”

Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said:

“Pruitt has demonstrated that he is unqualified to run the EPA or any agency. There is no doubt whatsoever that the planet is warming, and it is primarily due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and we can demonstrate clearly that the observed warming of the planet would not have occurred without that change in atmospheric composition. These are scientific facts, not opinion, and it is incumbent on politicians to take account of the scientific evidence.”

Things are bound to get even worse given now the Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.

Doug Ericksen, the communications director for Donald Trump’s transition team at the EPA, said on Wednesday the review also extends to content on the federal agency’s website, including details of scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s climate is warming and manmade carbon emissions are to blame.

So, if anyone is interested in the actual facts to do with current climate change, now is the time to do screen shots off the relevant websites because soon they will be replaced by "alternative facts" to suit the Babbits and Munchkins of the country. I.e. those who wouldn't recognize a scientific theory if they were given the attributes in advance.

Meanwhile, former EPA staffers said on Wednesday the restrictions imposed under Trump far exceed the practices of past administrations.

What Pruitt represents then,  is an arsonist in charge of the Fire Dept.  His corrupt presence ensures the human stewardship of the planet is essentially scuttled for future generations.  Because merely for the interval this troll will head EPA - even if only 4 years- the dynamics of the atmosphere can change dramatically. As one observer quoted in the Denver Post has pointed out, we could soon see summer temperatures hot enough to melt asphalt - like in India - and also have as many airline diversions we now have for ice.

Am I being mean or hyperbolic with poor little Scotty? Hell no!

Some of the other Pruitt "achievements" for those who might wonder why he was picked to take down EPA:

He also joined other knuckle dragger AGs opposing EPA plans to curtail methane emissions. In case you didn't know,  methane is an even more intense greenhouse gas than CO2, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/05/methane-release-increases-because-of.html

- On his linked in page this climate assassin has boasted of "being a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda". Transl.:  He is quite happy to see your grand kids choke to death on fracking fumes or mercury pumped from coal fired utilities, or the toxic residue left behind in a place because there aren't enough EPA personnel to do clean ups.

-  The goober is a self-declared ally of the Energy industry along with Alabama AG Luther Strange. Both of these a-holes  came to the defense of Exxon even as they were preparing documents that tried to minimize climate threats, acknowledging in their own documents the threats were real, e.g. see all 340 pages of the 'Climate Deception Dossiers'  here:

www.ucsusa.org/decadesofdeception

Pruitt's being a whore and a hack for the fossil fuel industry isn't the least bit surprising. Indeed, his outlook of "drill,  baby drill and let the world burn"  reflects the regressive zeitgeist of his home state, Oklahoma.

If you can grab a good health care policy now, better do it. When we are swamped with all the effluent from Scotty's inaction in another year or two it will be too late. And if the Repuke "make America sicker" plan isn't to your liking, now is the time to make  noise - lots of it!

Top Climate Scientist Advocates Nuclear Energy As A "Bridge" Energy Source

In his recent Esquire interview (May, p. 136, 'James Hansen Goes Nuclear') Hansen takes no prisoners in attempting to inject a note of reality into alternative energy discussions. For those who may not recall, Hansen was one of the climate researchers (including Michael Mann)  whose email directories were criminally hacked to attempt to expose their scientific "bias" and "cherry-picking of data."

In case folks missed it, these climate scientists were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing or appearance of such. According to an EOS Transactions article on the outcome ('Report on Climate Change Emails Exonerates Scientists', Vol. 91, No. 29, July 20, 2010):

"The report (Commissioned by the University of East Anglia) specifically refutes a number of concerns raised about tampering with scientific data and notes that allegations about CRU (Climate Research Unit) scientists misusing the IPCC's process 'cannot be upheld'"

The main fault lodged against the scientists was the failure to share information with critics. (Somewhat understandable when the would-be sharers beheld how so much data already shared-  as appeared in a 2003 paper by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas -  was misrepresented. This was to either hide trends they didn't like or diminish their import, i.e. relative to "natural cycles". . (In their paper, the pair cleverly omitted the 30-year interval data that would have disclosed anthropogenic warming dominates over solar influence.)

Anyway, James Hansen - like me, has put the kibosh on the notion that the December Paris Climate Summit produced anything of significance other than feel good PR. I pointed this out in my blog post of December 13, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-climate-summit-reaches-accord-but.html

Wherein I observed:

"what these Paris summit leaders have proposed is literally 'a day late and a dollar short'. Like the Warren Commission whitewash, it is a politically expedient charade designed to mollify global citizens and offer a PR "solution" . While the WC lulled Americans into a false political security, i.e. that no real conspiracy took out their president, this Paris summit has lulled the world's people into false security that the pitiful steps and "suggestions" in Paris will avoid a burning planet. This is because the REAL steps needed to even have a chance of limiting the increase to less than 4 C by 2100 (still less than the runaway threshold) are too much to bear. They would exact economic pain the likes of which can barely be comprehended - say a $5 carbon tax on every tank full."

As for Prof. Hansen, we learn (p. 137):

"At the international climate talks in Paris he played the role of the skunk at the garden party. Because he called the conference a lie and a sham, the most famous and distinguished climate scientist in the world couldn't even get a pass to the 'blue zone' where the bigwigs gathered."

And what reasons did Hansen have to expose this conference as s sham? As the article notes:

"Look at the data. The developing nations of the world are never going to stop using oil and coal as long as they're the cheapest forms of power. Also, the hope of the environmentalists that wind and solar will solve everything is just happy talk."

This first part ought to need no explanation. One only needs to check out recent news clips of the polluted skies over Beijing or other Chinese cities. It is abundantly clear to anyone with eyes they are using degraded forms of energy, often coal, or the fracked shale crap (kerogen) the U.S. is offloading on them.

As Hansen observes (ibid): Rising concentrations of CO2 are at the center of the greenhouse issue. The temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. Every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m².

Go to climate research centers such as at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska- Fairbanks and you will find atmospheric science researchers examining ice core samples dating from nearly 600,000 yrs. ago showing rising CO2 concentrations coinciding with much warmer periods.

In addition, one has permafrost - bearing methane, as in interior Alaska. When the permafrost melts, the methane can be released. For example, the submerged East Siberian Arctic Shelf contains much of the same stored carbon as the dry tundra to the south but also at least 17 teragrams of methane. (One teragram is equal to one million tons). See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/05/methane-release-increases-because-of.html


In regard to the second aspect of environmentalist "happy talk" over alternative energy sources, Hansen is blunt (ibid.):

"If we are to avert catastrophic climate change we have to build nuclear power plants on a massive scale and crank them out fast enough to stop all fossil fuel emissions by 2050."

What is the basis for this? According to The Physicist's Desk Reference (Table C, p. 187, Energy Generation by Type) the projections for the most energy-intense uses  (aggressive consumption category, I) for all forms of solar, geothermal and wind add up to only 6 exajoules (EJ) by 2020. This compares to 24 EJ for oil (including kerogen), 16 for coal, 9 for natural gas and 6 for nuclear. Thus, ALL the usual "green" alternatives" are projected to barely add up to what nuclear will deliver on its own.  Hence, to phase out fossil fuels we need to not only restrict and curb their use but also enter nuclear into the "bridge" source mix - preferably enough to eventually trump natural gas as well. (Which releases methane, another greenhouse gas, into the environment).

Meanwhile, exacerbating the problem of finding and implementing adequate (aggressive consumption) fuel -energy sources is the continually increasing population. Global energy consumption rose from barely 21 EJ in 1900, to 318 EJ in 1988, to close to 400 EJ today. Solar, geothermal + wind by the end of this year, will therefore have contributed only:

(6/ 400) x 100% = 1.5% of the total global demand

But this is exactly the rate of increase in global population per year! In other words, the added total alternative energy benefit is exactly lost because we added an extra percentage of humans to consume the benefit!  This is why the economists proposing increased global population to enhance GDP are shooting themselves in the foot.

The stage is set to add 50% MORE humans by 2050, topping off at 9 billion, which will necessitate - if we still plan to retain solar in the mix - converting an area the size of Europe to solar panel arrays. In addition, to feed all those hungry mouths, we will need to add an agricultural area the size of the whole continent of South America - especially given how the eating habits of Chinese and Indians have now altered to become more "American" .

What about nuclear fusion power as our savior? Alas, there is little probability of that happening anytime soon, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/04/fusion-power-within-ten-years-basically.html

With fusion too long delayed to address pressing energy needs the only alternative is nuclear fission power plants. In Hansen's words (p. 141):

"Only nuclear can produce the quantity of clean energy the world needs. It is the rational solution."

Hansen has been joined on his pro-nuclear quest by three other distinguished climate scientists: Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Kerry Emmanuel of MIT and Tom Wigley of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. As Prof. Emmanuel puts it (ibid.):

"We're scientists, we can do the math. If we are truly sincere about solving this problem, then unless a miracle occurs, we are going to have to ramp up nuclear energy fast That's the reality."

How fast? From the EJ projections earlier, we need nuclear ramped up to at least provide a total of 11-15 EJ by 2030, and at that time the collective alternative sources should be at around 8 EJ. With natural gas likely down to 6 EJ from increasing operations costs that would total an optimum "bridge" amount of  34 EJ. But even this will be insufficient unless population growth is brought under control, and conservation dramatically increased. Else, we will surely exhaust all useful energy stores by 2050 or earlier - with Peak Oil still looming despite babble from the deniers. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/01/death-knell-for-peak-oil-not-so-fast.html

What about the safety of nuclear energy? Hansen and his three pro-nuclear power colleagues point to dramatic  new processing and safety measures already in the planning pipeline including "pyro-processing" or burning nuclear waste in safe containment enclaves.

The biggest hurdle, however,  will likely be constructing the thousand or so nuclear reactors - including with new safety features such as "pyro-processing"  that will be needed before 2030. After Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, especially,  too many nations will not want to go that route.

Which means we will surely see much worse climate catastrophes, as well as an eventual austere energy landscape.

It's Official: 2015 Was Hottest Year On Record

Most may already have been aware but now they know 2015 was the hottest year on record, at least since reliable records began in 1880.  If the forecasts, as well as those of the UK Hadley Center prove accurate, then 2016 will exceed even the record 2015.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced their findings at a joint news conference Wednesday.  It is to be noted that the NOAA and NASA each track temperatures globally using slightly different analytical methods.  This in itself makes their joint statement and agreement even more significant.

By the reckoning of NOAA and NASA  our planet is inexorably warming in response to rising concentrations of CO2. Previous EOS Transactions papers have put the rise at a rate of 2 ppm/ year and we are already at nearly 390 ppm. Autos and coal factories contribute to this higher concentration but also deforestation. See e.g.

http://www.wri.org/blog/2013/11/new-high-resolution-forest-maps-reveal-world-loses-50-soccer-fields-trees-minute

How bad, how wretched, can it get? How about a heat index of 170F by the year 2100?


And this may well be conservative if specific thresholds are crossed (e.g. the 6C increase mark) by that year.

As a recent TIME report noted (Dec. 28, p. 18):

"A 3.5 C temperature rise would occur even if all (200) nations meet initial pledges to reduce carbon emissions.  This would still submerge coastal cities and drive over half of species to extinction."

It would also make life so horrific for humans, many will wish for extinction. Think of 6-8 month heat waves lasting even through supposed 'cold' months and temperatures hitting 95F- 100 F regularly - even in December. Think of it happening not just in the U.S. but globally.  And think of power grids mostly being down because they are unable to meet the vastly enhanced power demands, say for air conditioning.

All the indicators for 2015 show we are well on our way. For that year the average temperature was the highest in 136 years over the 1880-2015 interval, surpassing the previous record set in 2014 by 0..29F and marking the fourth time a global temperature record has been set.  Meanwhile, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62F (0.90 C) above the 20th century average. This is mind boggling given that the total increase up to mid-20th century had been estimated at 0.8C.

NASA scientists also emphasized that 15 of the past 16 warmest years on record occurred since 2001. So much for the "global warming pause" the deniers have been using like a bogus cudgel since 1998.

Climate scientists at the UK Hadley Center For Climate Prediction and Research (which independently tracks global temperatures) also confirm the NOAA, NASA conclusions. Indeed, they note that global temperatures in 2015 reached 1C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Admittedly, as I pointed out earlier, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/12/warmest-xmas-ever-in-east-dont.html

El Niño has contributed to this record with the increased warming of the Pacific Ocean.

However, the El Niño effect doesn't explain everything.  Climate expert Dr. Michael Mann explained to the New York Times, that even if the global climate weren't warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years.

He added that because the planet is warming, the odds of setting back-to-back record years are really closer to one in 10.  Most terrifying, is that there's good evidence that this is nothing compared to what's to come.  For reference, This graph shows how global temperatures have historically, for more than 400,000 years, tracked with carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere.

The graph at the top shows how the temperatures have soared since the start of official record keeping (source: The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 18, p. A7)

See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/20/its-official-2015-smashed-2014s-global-temperature-record-it-wasnt-even-close/

Even the Planetary Society has Climate Change Flat Earthers

Incredibly,  on reading the most recent issue of the Planetary Society's Planetary Report (Sept-Oct., p. 18, 'Members' Dialogue') I was astounded to come across two letters that took the organization to task for its "biased treatment of the global warming issue".  This was after their reading the July-August, 2008 special issue. Of course, even then the issue was relatively settled but now even more so - thanks to high resolution satellite imagery of the poles, as well as more detailed ice core analyses. Thus, the complaint that "a growing number of papers don't support global warming" is plain bullocks. In fact, just the converse is true.

One knuckle-dragger, a Warren Miller, wrote:

"Without going into great detail,  interglacial periods are directly correlated to a number of natural phenomena, including Sun cycles, Earth axis variation, orbital procession variation, and yes, CO2 levels. These processes combine to cause an end to ice ages usually once every 100,000 years. Most of the causal culprits are never mentioned by the global warming camp."


Well, they're never mentioned because they're not really relevant. While Miller is gracious enough to note the effects of CO2- CO2 levels, he doesn't go the next step and report that there never has been a glacial period or ice age when the CO2 level is at 200ppm or higher (see, e.g. Gale Christianson's book, Greenhouse).   In effect, the 'Sun cycles' (solar sunspot cycles) would not have played any role in halting an ice age for when CO2 levels were < 200ppm.  The same applies to 'Earth axis variation', 'orbital procession variation' (i.e. change in eccentricity of orbit) which are to do with the controversial Milankovitch hypothesis, which I've already exposed as half-baked schlock in a previous post, e.g. 'The Travails of the Milankovitch Hypothesis', Dec. 5, 2007)

Miller also drags in the red herring of "global cooling" being a prevalent belief in the 1970s, failing to note that the reason was to do with an effect only appreciated years later called global dimming  - by which aerosols and other pollutants in the atmosphere artificially kept down the ambient temperatures by 40 percent or more. Once 'clean air' laws were passed, as in the USA and Britain, the pollutants contributing to the cooling were reduced to the point global warming predominated.

Miller then adds:

"If you wish to continue publishing global warming articles, please do so in an unbiased fashion, befitting the long history of the Planetary Society. Better yet, stick with the topics that have led to your loyal readership."

Ah yes! Don't veer too far off the path of the 'Middle Mind' - into areas some factions of our country can't handle and never will - because it means economic growth must be retracted. And oh, by the way, steer clear of anthropogenic based warming or you will piss guys like Miller off. To which I'd tell Bill Nye, lead CEO of the Society, let that ilk go and even allow the door to smack them in the butt on the way out. We don't need or want them. In fact, their very presence gives a bad name to the Society.

Not to be outdone, we spot the reply of another genius, Phil Pickering, who moans:

"It is going to continue to warm up no matter what is done. Learn to live with it. Just do not continue to scare our young people with unproven scientific facts that make mankind there evil culprit."

Right! So, in other words, our young people are too infantile to handle the truth - that we are steering this planet toward an incendiary disaster - and we need to coddle them and feed them fairy stories that we're not the ones responsible. So just go on burning all that fossil fuel - whether in auto engines, or in coal fired plants and be happy!


What both these characters need to see is the MSNBC documentary, 'The Last Days of Planet Earth': where physicist Michiko Kaku observes:  "For the first time in history, humans have the potential to alter the destiny of a whole planet."

On the same documentary astrophysicist Neil Degresse Tyson put it another way:

"Imagine the irony of our species having the intellect to stop an asteroid impact, but lacking the intellect to moderate the worst effects of global warming. It boggles the mind!"

Indeed, because it's inexcusable! Further, I go so far as one British climatologist who opined in the same documentary that so-called "climate mavericks" and their skeptic pals who are holding back bold changes, are no different from Holocaust deniers. (Who in a number of countries, such as Austria and Germany can be jailed for making public pronouncements).

Is this an incursion of liberty or "free speech"? Well another question: If a fire breaks out in a crowded theater and several 'maverick' voices yell 'There is no fire, stay put!' and all the people perish, what is their accountability (hint: they sneak out after yelling the injunction to stay put)? Should they not face lengthy prison terms? The same situation applies to the global warming deniers whose defective PR has postponed necessary, timely action, which will make the difference between a moderately-warmed, tolerable planet and an intolerable one in the maw of the runaway greenhouse effect.

In this light, I recall after the failure of the climate conference in Durban to accomplish anything significant or durable,  The Economist (December 17, 2011 p. 138) sounded off:

"Its terms - even assuming they are acted upon - are unlikely to prevent a global temperature rise of of more than 2 C, which was the stated aim of the whole UN climate 'process'. Indeed, they might easily allow a 4C rise"

The latter would be catastrophic and on top of the existing (hitherto) 1.2 C increase, bring us to the precipice of the runaway greenhouse. Carl Sagan noted in an interview (with Ted Turner) ca. 1989 (still have it on tape) that the limits for catastrophic climate change- we're talking species exterminating magnitude with a runaway greenhouse - are not as high as many think. In fact, he cited the tolerance increment of six degrees Celsius.

This position was reinforced in Sagan's essay: 'Ambush - the Warming of the World', p. 98, in his last popular book, Billions and Billions, Random House, 1997.

Is this all "scare mongering"? That is what the flat Earth, Denier cultists want you to believe, so they can wreck the world on the basis of pure economics with no thought of the morrow or how our children and grand children will forever curse us for putting our comforts and stock profits over their welfare.

In a blog four years ago, I warned about the impending signs of ice sheet breakup and melting in Greenland in connection with the phenomenon known as "Jokulhlaup" (cf. ‘Jokulhlaup Observed in Greenland ice sheet’, appearing in Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 89, No. 35, 26 Aug. 2008, p. 221). The cited paper specifically noted an increased frequency in occurrence of “jokalhlaups”or sudden glacial bursts of melting runoff from glaciers. It was this phenomena that also played a role in the “unusual cracks" that set off the separation of a “chunk of ice the size of Manhattan” (19 sq. miles)from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic.

Since then, many more drastic break-ups of glaciers have been observed and documented and now readers can access this material directly at the following link:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899

Anyone watching this documented evidence who isn't terrified, has lost most of his or her brain neurons.

We also know that this process provides one of the nonlinear drivers toward catastrophic climate change. Melting of ice caps and glaciers (already occurring) results in diminished albedo (fraction of solar radiation reflected back into space), a darker Earth surface - with more infrared radiation (e.g. HEAT) being absorbed - reinforcing and enhancing global warming. As more ice melts from the polar regions, the positive feedback from lowering albedo proceeds faster. The overall (mean) ocean temperatures continue to rise - ultimately becoming too hot for any marine life- and reaching equilibrium temperature somewhere in the next 500 years. All ocean currents, circulation systems will, of course, eventually cease. With atmospheric circulation soon following (as on Venus) , all solar energy going into heating the oceans until their specific heat capacity is reached. We then will have vaporization.

Even now, before the runaway has set in, we know the acidity of sea water has increased nearly 30% since the Industrial Revolution. Given that sea life, including corals, fish, and the critical phyto-plankton (which provide most of our planet's oxygen) can only exist within very narrow pH levels this may be most disturbing. It means that there is the potential for humanity to suffer devastating famines and loss of life long before the Runaway Greenhouse charges up.

The upshot of all this is that deniers and their BS can no longer be tolerated, given the havoc already afoot from the delays they have promoted. And rather than give the likes of Warren Miller and Phil Pickering a forum to spout off the Planetary Society would do better to ignore them. Their voices represent only a small and irascible minority, and let's bear in mind that in science - unlike in a democracy - truth isn't settled by votes (even if they are few and far between) but by facts and hard evidence.

Accelerated Warming is Indeed in Effect

In response to a question on my Mail Brane blog of Feb. 28, I replied that if global warming is accelerating - meaning much higher CO2 concentrations added each year-  there'd higher solar insolation (by about 2 W/m^2 per year) and the date of the first year of no seasons could arrive as early as 2025, if not sooner. Now a new report appears to validate that, and indeed the global temperatures are hotter now than they've been in 4,000 years.

This  research team just published their results in the journal Science, assembling  a record of global temperatures going back to the end of the last ice age — about 11,000 years ago — when mammoths and saber-tooth cats roamed the planet. The study confirms that what we're seeing now is unprecedented and we may well be past the time to do anything effective.

The Science researchers effectively peered into the past. They analyzed ice cores from polar regions that show what temperatures were like over hundreds of thousands of years. However, those only reveal changes only in specific regions; cores aren't so good at depicting what happened to the whole planet. Tree rings give a more global record of temperatures, but only back about 2,000 years.

According to Shaun Marcott, a geologist at Oregon State University:

 "Global temperatures are warmer than about 75 percent of anything we've seen over the last 11,000 years or so."

He adds that the other (optimistic)  way to look at is that  25 percent of the time (since the last ice age), it's been warmer than now.

Given such a relatively  lower proportion of higher temperatures since the previous Ice Age, many people might ask, 'Why worry?' After all, it's been colder for 75% of the time! But Marcott dismisses this given the record shows the alarming rate is unusual and we ought to be worried at this recent trend. As he puts it:

 "It's really the rates of change here that's amazing and atypical. Essentially, it's warming up superfast."

And in fact, my answer in the Mail Brane tried to draw emphasis to the RATE of warming. Indeed, in earlier blogs I also noted that this was critical since a threshold for the runaway Greenhouse Effect could be reached much sooner. This would mean maximum entropy globally, not a favorable prospect.   According to statistical mechanics, the entropy (σ ) is defined according to:

σ = log g

where g denotes the number of accessible states. As that number g increases, so does log g and hence the entropy. When g is maximized for a given system one will say it is in an equilibrium condition and has no further states which can be accessed. Such is the case with a planet  (e.g. Venus) uniformly at 450 C across its surface ....no climate to speak of, no 'cool nights', no variation in temperatures of any significance. The first year of no seasons for Earth would mark our strong trend toward that unsavory end.

Of course, the world will become unbearable long before that. The full horrors incepted, of which the loss of seasons is merely the most distinguishing, will include lack of sufficient water, lack of food - because of the inhospitable conditions to grow crops, and other hostile factors (catastrophic storms with hundreds of F5 tornadoes a year, monster hurricanes, rising sea levels inundating 30% of coastal lands in the U.S. alone).


Back to the Science journal paper, we can ask: What happened after the end of the ice age? What does the 11,000 year record disclose? Well, the planet got warmer, then, 5,000 years ago, it started to get cooler — but slowly. In all, it cooled 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, up until the last century or so. Then it flipped again — global average temperature shot up. This coincides almost exactly with the kicking in of CO2 atmospheric absorption from the Industrial Revolution. This is verified by a previous 2000-year record of C14:C12 deviations compiled by P.E. Damon ('The Solar Output and Its Variation', The University of Colorado Press, Boulder, 1977)

As John Eddy observes concerning this output (Eddy, The New Solar Physics. p. 17):

“The gradual fall from left to right (increasing C14/C12 ratio) is…probably not a solar effect but the result of the known, slow decrease in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic moment exposing the Earth to ever-increased cosmic ray fluxes and increased radiocarbon production.The sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve, representing a marked drop in relative radiocarbon, is generally attributed to anthropogenic causes—the mark of increased population and the Industrial Age. "

Not surprisingly, the Science authors report:

"Temperatures now have gone from that cold period to the warm period in just 100 years,"

Hence,  it's taken just 100 years for the average temperature to change by 1.3 degrees, when it took 5,000 years to do that before.

The Science  research team tracked temperature by studying chemicals in the shells of tiny, fossilized sea creatures called foraminifera. Their temperature record matches other techniques that look back 2,000 years, which supports the validity of their much longer record.

Climate scientists predict that the current warming will continue, given the amount of greenhouse gases going up into the atmosphere. According to Gavin Schmidt, a climate reseachers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies:

"The climate changes to come are going to be larger than anything that human civilization and agriculture has seen in its entire existenc. And that is quite a sobering thought."

"Sobering" is perhaps an understatement to describe what's in store for us!