Climate Change

[__HRB__]

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate.

I heard that trees are made mostly of carbon, so all we really have to do is figure out how to manufacture trees cheaply and find applications for dead-tree-material. If the only commercially viable way is to use Chinese sweat-shops, then I want to remind everybody that saving the planet is a human duty and those slant-eyed infidels should be happy to get paid at all.

Getting the carbon back into the atmosphere (when global cooling is a problem) is a much tougher problem, but it should be possible to do with proper engineering and economics, e.g. using nuclear-reactors to boil a lot of dead-tree-material and taxing tree production.

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by __HRB__

[...]commercially viable way is to use Chinese sweat-shops[...]

Hey, I just came up with the mostest, terrificest idea: we could rent rooms in motels and store lots of different combinations of logs. Maybe we need to pay for adult-channel and provide some beer, but after 9 months we should definitely have more trees, and if we keep breeding the one with more offspring then global warming is a threat no more. Of course it would be even cheaper if we could genetically engineer trees to lay eggs, which could then conveniently be hatched by regular chickens (DIN 08152009). In any case, if cheap floozies (i.e. human females) happen to be reading this and want to be impregnated by the Savior of the Planet, resp. a guaranteed 25x millionaire, send me a PM.

[ewmayer]

Europe Bypassed on Climate Summit: Days before the start of the U.N. conference on climate change, the European Union has largely been sidelined by China and the United States.

BRUSSELS — No political entity has pushed harder for the Copenhagen conference on climate change to succeed than the European Union. But just days before the opening of the United Nations-sponsored meeting, the Europeans have been largely pushed to the sidelines, watching as the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, seek to set the rules of the game.

“That’s of course the unfortunate situation for Copenhagen,” said Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament who is leading the chamber’s delegation to the conference that is intended to follow up on the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol. “It’s turning into a bit of a ping-pong match between China and the United States, with each just looking at the other,” he said.

My Comment: Among the largest economies China`s emissions have risen the most since Kyoto - a whopping 150% rise from 1992-2007 - and America has also smartly increased its spewage, but you might be surprised at some of the other developed economies whose emissions have rocketed by at least as much as the U.S.`s did under the 2 terms of the Supreme Idiot, Dubya Bush:


New Zealand was a friend to Middle Earth, but it's no friend of the earth: Lord of the Rings country trades on its natural beauty, but emissions have risen 22% since it signed up to Kyoto

As the world prepares for the Copenhagen climate negotiations next month, it is worth checking out the greenwash that has followed the promises made 12 years ago when the Kyoto protocol was signed.

A surprising number of countries have succeeded in raising their emissions from 1990 levels despite signing up to reduce them. They include a bundle of countries in the European Union, which collectively agreed to let some nations increase their emissions while others (mainly Britain and Germany) cut theirs. Step forward Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece — all with emissions up by more than a quarter.

Then there are the US and Australia, which both reneged on the protocol after signing it. And Canada, which never reneged but still has emissions up by a quarter (worse than the US) and shows no sign of contrition or of being called to account by the other signatories.

But my prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as "clean and green"...

Australia's Global Warming Bill Defeated: Australia's plan to become one of the first nations with a carbon trading system to cut greenhouse gas emissions was dealt a blow Tuesday when the main opposition party chose a leader who vowed to vote it down

SYDNEY (AP) -- Australia's Senate has rejected legislation to set up an emissions trading system in the country to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

The Senate voted Tuesday to defeat a bill that is the centerpiece of the government's plans to slash Australia's emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 as part of global efforts to fight global warming.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wanted the legislation passed before he attends next week's U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen so he could portray Australia as a leader on the issue.

The government's next step is unclear. Rudd could use the failure of the bill to call early elections, but is unlikely to do so before next year, when elections are due anyway.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Question: If someone comes up with a way to cheaply and safely remove CO2 from the atmosphere - say via large-area-low-concentration ocean iron fertilization - but by then the AGW hypothesis is looking more shaky than today, could Virgin refuse payment on grounds that evidence of "atmospheric stabilization" is lacking? Just wondering...

Yes, the opening description of desired result is problematic:

removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate.

But I'm looking at the Terms and Conditions now for rigorous (I hope) wording.

Hmmm... much better on the entry form and in the T&C.

Originally Posted by Virgin Earth Challenge Terms and Conditions

Purpose and overview

1.1 The purpose of the Virgin Earth Challenge (the “VEC”) is to
encourage development of a commercially viable new technology,
process or method to remove anthropogenic greenhouse gases
(“GHG(s)”) from the atmosphere, so as to improve the stability of
the Earth’s climate.

Whilst we at Virgin fully recognise the benefits of mitigating GHG
emissions, this award is targeted specifically at the narrow field
of sequestration. Entries focussing on other areas outside of
sequestration (including, but not limited to, renewable energy
and energy efficiency) will not be considered by the VEC Judges.

FAQ: Definition of Sequestration: For the purpose of this Agreement,
when referring to sequestration, we mean a technology or
process that removes GHGs from the atmosphere and stabilises
them so that they do not re-enter the atmosphere for a significant
period of time (see Clause 1.2).

1.2 The Prize will be awarded to such Entrants who submit a commercially
viable design which, in the opinion of the Judges (as defined in Clause
3.4):

a) achieves or appears capable of achieving the net removal of significant
volumes of anthropogenic, atmospheric GHGs each year for at least 10
years;

b) meets the Assessment Criteria (as set out in Clause 3.1);

c) has long term benefits (measured over centuries); and

d) makes an outstanding contribution to the stability of the Earth’s
climate.

The remaining 12 pages also look fairly lawyerly well-defined. There probably are loopholes, but I'd bet that "in the opinion of the Judges (as defined in Clause 3.4)" covers all of them.

3. Assessment Criteria

3.1 The entries will first be assessed by a technical panel of experts in the
field of GHG sequestration (the “Technical Panel”). The Technical Panel
will ensure that each entry will at least fulfil all of the following
assessment criteria, in order to progress to the next stage of judging:

a) Ability of the design to achieve a net removal of a quantifiable amount of
GHGs from the atmosphere;
b) All atmospheric GHGs (not only carbon dioxide) should be considered, in
relation to their global warming potential;
c) The proposed system should be scalable to a significant size in order to
meet the informal removal target of 1 billion tonnes of carbon-equivalent
per year for 10 years (the “Removal Target”);
d) Ability of the design to achieve the Removal Target. Removal will be
considered on a net life cycle basis (i.e., direct and indirect GHG
emissions caused by the manufacture, operation and decommissioning of
the system should be taken into account);
e) The system should provide long term GHG removal from the atmosphere.
Systems which include potential for GHG release at any point in the cycle
will be approached with caution;
f) The design must show technical viability, effectiveness and efficiency;
g) Any harmful effects and/or other incidental consequences of the solution
should be stated. The proposed system at scale should not create other
significant direct or indirect environmental or social damage that would
be likely to negate the climate benefit (e.g. extensive ecosystem
degradation or significant security threats);
h) The system for removal of GHGs must be commercially viable. To this
end a clear case should be made for expected return on investment over
three and ten years (or longer), taking into account credible scenarios for
the future cost of energy, raw materials and management, and future
revenue from carbon markets and/or other sources;
i) The proposed mechanism for measurement of carbon removed should be
sufficiently credible (1) to accurately monitor the system’s performance
over time; and (2) to enable revenue generation on the regulatory and/or
voluntary carbon market (if applicable to the commercial viability);
j) If applicable, any other contributions to the reduction in environmental
GHGs should be stated;
k) The proposed operation for each entry must be demonstrable at least in
the laboratory environment prior to final judging.
l) There should be clarity as to ownership of intellectual property in the
design submission. This is likely to be assessed at later stages of the
selection process, but any concerns should be identified.

Time limit:

4. Challenge Duration

4.1 The VEC was launched on 9 February 2007 and will run for an initial
period of 3 years. Entrants will be processed and informed of their
progress throughout this period. There will be a major review of the
Entrants that have passed the first round of the VEC in February 2010.
The deadline for submissions to be reviewed in this period is 8 January
2010.

4.2 Entries will be reviewed on a periodic basis. Entrants will be alerted as
soon as reasonably practicable as to whether their entry has progressed
to the next stage of the VEC.

4.3 If the Technical Panel consider that the Assessment Criteria have been
met, and that one or more Entrants should be awarded some or all of the
Prize, Awards may be made and the winners will be announced by Virgin
prior to or after the Entry Closing Date, in accordance with this
Agreement.

4.4 The Entry Closing Date may be extended by Virgin (as is determined by
Virgin in its sole and absolute discretion). On any such extension, the
Judges shall repeat the judging process in accordance with clause 3
above.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

There are heat transfers going both ways. The ocean is full of currents that stir up water at various levels.

Are you aware that salinity differences in various parts of the ocean also cause downwellings and upwellings? That the higher the salinity, the denser the water, independent of temperature? So it's possible to have warm high-salinity water that's denser than cooler lower-salinity water? And that means that sometimes warm water will sink into cool water, but other times cool water will sink into warm water?

Are you aware that water at about 39 degrees Fahrenheit is denser than water that's either colder or warmer (with equal salinity)? So you could have bottom water at 39 degrees that subsequently rises when it cools, or warms, thus stirring up the subsurface ocean?

Your simplistic theory is not realistic.

Have you heard of El Nino and La Nina? There are different cycles of temperature going on in various areas of the oceans.

But that completely ignores the effect of temperature on water density. As water above 39 degrees warms, it expands, becoming less dense, so it will tend to rise compared to nearby cooler water -- bringing heat up, not down.

So the analogy is not nearly as flawed as you think.

Even when there's a warm upwelling? Or have you somehow outlawed such a thing's happening?

As I said in post #544, I had messed up a bit on my wording earlier. I don't dispute that the subsurface does have some warming effect on the surface.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Oh? Care to show us details of that calculation?

"it would seem likely" ...based on what reasoning?

As I said, I'm no expert in climatology, and I don't know the exact factors determining just how much the amount of heat added to the subsurface ocean according to the skepticalscience.com article would have affected the cycling of heat up and down from the surface. However, if you look at the first graph in that article, you see that the ocean heat content doesn't seem to have had much effect on the overall trend of the surface temperatures. The subsurface heat content showed a rather steep trend upward, wheraes the surface showed a consistent but low-slope upward trend. The conclusion that occurs to me is that the heat accumulating in the subsurface is just a "drop in the bucket" compared to the enormous heat capacity of the subsurface, and thus it has little effect on the rate at which the subsurface transfers heat to and from the surface.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

The amounts of CO₂ being emitted by mankind hardly seems big enough to affect Earth's climate on anywhere as grand a scale as is being claimed.

From http://skepticalscience.com/Are-huma...l-climate.html

Are humans too insignificant to affect global climate? After all, our planet is a big place. Isn't it arrogant to claim puny little humans could make a dent in such a huge climate? However, whether human activity might affect climate is not a question of arrogance. It's merely a question of numbers. In particular, there are two numbers to consider.

Atmospheric CO2 is rising by 15 Gigatonnes per year

. . .

What we observe is that in pre-industrial times over the last 10,000 years, CO2 was relatively stable at around 275 to 285 ppm. Over the last 250 years, atmospheric CO2 levels have increased by about 100ppm. Currently, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing by 15 gigatonnes every year.

{chart}

. . .


Humans are emitting 26 Gigatonnes of CO2 per year

{as of 2003. See update at bottom -- it's 29 Gt by 2006.}

Global CO2 emissions are derived from international energy statistics, tabulating coal, brown coal, peat, and crude oil production by nation and year. This means we can calculate how much CO2 we're emitting not only in recent years, using United Nations data, but also estimate fossil fuel CO2 emissions back to 1751 using historical energy statistics. What we've found is fossil fuel and cement emissions have continued to increase, climbing to the current rate of 26 Gigatonnes of CO2 per year.

{chart}

In other words, humans are emitting nearly twice as much CO2 than what ends up staying there. Nature is reducing our impact on climate by absorbing a large chunk of our CO2 emissions. The amount of human CO2 left in the air, called the "airborne fraction", has hovered around 55% since 1958.

Detecting the human signature in atmospheric CO2

Further confirmation that rising CO2 levels are due to human activity come by analysing the types of CO2 found in the air. The carbon atom has several different isotopes (eg - different number of neutrons). Carbon 12 has 6 neutrons, carbon 13 has 7 neutrons. Plants have a lower C13/C12 ratio than in the atmosphere. If rising atmospheric CO2 comes fossil fuels, the C13/C12 should be falling. Indeed this is what is occuring (Ghosh 2003) and the trend correlates with the trend in global emissions.

{chart}

So we see that humans have indeed changed the composition of our climate in dramatic ways. If anyone could be accused of arrogance, you might say it's more arrogant to think we can pollute without consequences.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Lou Grinzo from The Cost of Energy who reminds me that the 26 Gigatonnes of CO2 that we're throwing into the atmosphere is based on 2003 data (taken from the IPCC AR4). The latest data from the EIA {note: 2006} has human CO2 emissions at 29 Gigatonnes per year.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Clearly any emittance of CO₂ will have some greenhouse effect. The question is how much of an effect it will have.

From http://skepticalscience.com/How-do-w...g-warming.html

Is there empirical data proving that increased CO2 contributes to the energy imbalance that causes global warming?

The greenhouse gas qualities of CO2 have been known for over a century. In 1861, John Tyndal published laboratory results identifying CO2 as a greenhouse gas that absorbed heat rays (longwave radiation). Since then, the absorptive qualities of CO2 have been more precisely measured and quantified by laboratory results and radiative physics theory (Herzberg 1953, Burch 1962, Burch 1970, etc).

Satellite measurements of the change in outgoing longwave radiation

So according to lab results and radiative physics, we expect that increasing atmospheric CO2 should absorb more longwave radiation as it escapes back out to space. Has this effect been observed? The paper Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997 (Harries 2001) attempts to find out. In 1970, NASA launched the IRIS satellite that measured infrared spectra between 400 cm-1 to 1600 cm-1. In 1996, the Japanese Space Agency launched the IMG satellite which recorded similar observations. Harries 2001 compared both sets of data to discern any changes in outgoing radiation over the 26 year period. The resultant change in outgoing radiation was as follows:

{chart}

What they found was a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy. The change in outgoing radiation over CO2 bands was consistent with theoretical expectations. Thus the paper found "direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect".

This result has been confirmed by subsequent papers using the latest satellite data. Griggs 2004 compares the 1970 and 1997 spectra with additional satellite data from the NASA AIRS satellite launched in 2003. Chen 2007 extends this analysis to 2006 using data from the AURA satellite launched in 2004. Both papers found the observed differences in CO2 bands matched the expected changes based on rising CO2 levels. Thus we have empirical evidence that increased CO2 is preventing longwave radiation from escaping out to space.


Measurements of downward longwave radiation

What happens to longwave radiation that gets absorbed by greenhouse gases? The energy heats the atmosphere which in turn re-radiates longwave radiation. This re-radiated energy goes in all directions. Some of it makes its way back to the surface of the earth. Hence we expect to find increasing downward longwave radiation as CO2 levels increase.

Philipona 2004 finds that this is indeed the case - that downward longwave radiation is increasing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Evans 2006 takes this analysis further. By analysing high resolution spectral data, the increase in downward radiation can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. The results lead the authors to conclude that "this experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming."

So we have multiple lines of empirical evidence for CO2 warming. Lab tests show CO2 absorbing longwave radiation. Satellite measurements confirm that less longwave radiation is escaping to space. Surface measurements detect increased longwave radiation returning back to Earth at wavelengths matching increased CO2 warming. And of course the result of this energy imbalance is the accumulation of heat over the last 40 years.

From comment #2 on that page:

With the evidence here and John's last post, you can bring it all together to make a pretty airtight logical proof for global warming. We know these things to be factually true:
1. Global temperatures have risen.
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
3. CO2's concentration in the atmosphere has risen significantly.
4. That extra CO2 comes from burning of fossil fuels.

To logically prove that humans are NOT causing the observed increase in temperatures, you therefore need to prove BOTH of two things:

First, you need to show how it could be possible to pump more of a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere WITHOUT temperatures increasing.

Second, if CO2 is not causing the observed warming, you need to show what IS.

The link to the full post is below. I challenge any skeptic to prove both these points above.

http://akwag.blogspot.com/2009/09/ob...at-you_22.html

[mdettweiler]

Cheesehead, both of those articles, and the comment you mentioned as well, only show that CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, that an increase in CO₂ levels will have a warming effect on the planet, and that humans have been adding CO₂ to the atmosphere. But this is a foregone conclusion; the question is whether this is enough to have an impact of any sizeable effect on our planet's climate. As we've been discussing quite vehemently throughout the last couple pages of this thread, the amount of effect realized on the surface of the planet is quite debatable, and so is the question of just how much of that is due to humans, and how much is natural. Long story short, we really don't know with any kind of scientific surety that anthropogenic global warming is occurring at a significant level.

We've been going back and forth on this for quite a while, and neither of us are any closer to convincing the other of our position than we were when we began. For every argument each of us has presented, the other has produced an answer. This would seem to be a quite striking example of just how inconclusive the current debate is. As such, this brings me back to my original point that started our whole discussion: that the conclusion that AGW is a real threat to mankind is far from foregone enough to warrant imposing restrictions in people's lifestyles and freedoms in the name of curtailing that threat.

[wblipp]

The posted information is an interesting start, but it stops curiously short of responding to the issue that:

The amounts of CO2 being emitted by mankind hardly seems big enough to affect Earth's climate on anywhere as grand a scale as is being claimed.

So far posts shows that fossil fuel burning causes measurable increases in heat reaching the earth's surface. But we haven't seen anything yet to quantify the expected effect of the measurable heat increase. Perhaps it is in the original papers, but so far the posts don't tell us if the amount of increase is immaterial - perhaps even comparable to the random fluctuations - or material resulting in expected "grand scale climate changes." Perhaps that's coming in the next post?

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

This would seem to be a quite striking example of just how inconclusive the current debate is. As such, this brings me back to my original point that started our whole discussion: that the conclusion that AGW is a real threat to mankind is far from foregone enough to warrant imposing restrictions in people's lifestyles and freedoms in the name of curtailing that threat.

This assumes that there restriction of freedom could be warranted at all. Although only a small portion of people value freedom higher than life, this small portion of people has had a disproportionately higher impact on evolution of mankind. In this specific case they also have at least one less conflicting goal: should a large majority of Earth's inhabitants become Tyrants by Proxy then an attempted tyrannicide would not only be rewarded with freedom but also reduced AGW.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by __HRB__

Although only a small portion of people value freedom higher than life, this small portion of people has had a disproportionately higher impact on evolution of mankind.

That is an interesting hypothesis which is scientific in that it can be disproved by observation and/or experiment.

Please supply your supporting observations and/or experimental results so that we may evaluate your hypothesis.


Paul