Global Temp Changes

[billvon 2,400]

>>Water - stays in atmosphere 9 days.

>And then what? We have no water vapor in the atmosphere? Is that what you
>meant to communicate?

Then more evaporates. Important point - the turnover time is very fast.

>Over 50% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is taken up by sinks every year, a
>significant fraction of which is trees and plants.

That is correct. The problem is that we are now creating more CO2 than the environment can handle - which is why concentrations are rising.

>You should look at these numbers in terms of mass fraction. Your talking about
>0.0004 (which equals 400ppm). In historical terms, we've only just been able to
>measure something that small.

And in energy terms, that increase has meant that we are capturing about 2 watts more per square meter - which is why temperatures are rising.

>No, it's not irrelevant. CO2 concentrations have been much higher over the
>Earth's history, and the Earth hasn't melted yet.

Agreed. If the CO2 concentration in your blood rose a similar percentage, you wouldn't melt, either. (You'd be dead, but you wouldn't melt.)

>Anyone who has spent time with this topic will tell you that government actions
>being advocated now will have zero impact on the trends in place.

Provably untrue. Actions that reduce CO2 emissions will reduce CO2 concentrations compared to the "do nothing" case - and that will, in turn, reduce warming.

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

Overall there are over 100,000 solar homes in NY,

That's not a whole lot of homes in a state of 20 million people.

We talked to 3 different companies, none of which inspired any confidence in me what so ever. Connecting to the power lines is a big deal, and I'm not allowed to do it myself and plug in. Likewise, you can't get a permit unless you're connected to the power lines.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

Quote

The problem is that we are now creating more CO2 than the environment can handle - which is why concentrations are rising.

Yes, and at current rates it will take about 100 years for the CO2 concentration to go from 0.0004 to 0.0008. In the meantime, the Earth's climate is going to continue doing what it has done for millions of years.

We can all agree that putting 40GT+ of CO2 and equivalents into the atmosphere is not a good idea. The question is what can we do meaningfully to reduce that, especially in a context where the US is already reducing it's emissions, but the rest of the planet is trying to move itself forward from living in mud huts.

Quote

Actions that reduce CO2 emissions will reduce CO2 concentrations compared to the "do nothing" case - and that will, in turn, reduce warming.

Actions that meaningfully reduce CO2 concentrations can reduce the small amount of warming due to CO2. We can agree to that. Nothing being advocated by western governments will meaningfully reduce CO2 concentrations.

We are all engines of karma

[billvon 2,400]

>Nothing being advocated by governments will meaningfully reduce CO2
>concentrations.

They already are.
====================
Global carbon emissions stall after US and China reduce coal use

But scientists urged caution, saying its too early to say whether it is a permanent trend or temporary blip

Karl Ritter
Monday 14 November 2016

Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide have flattened out in the past three years, a new study showed on Monday, raising hopes that the world is nearing a turning point in the fight against climate change.

However, the authors of the study cautioned it’s unclear whether the slowdown in CO2 emissions, mainly caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or a temporary blip.

“It is far too early to proclaim we have reached a peak,” said co-author Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
======================

[billvon 2,400]

Quote

That's not a whole lot of homes in a state of 20 million people.

Not yet. Installations are growing at over 50% a year.

Quote

We talked to 3 different companies, none of which inspired any confidence in me what so ever. Connecting to the power lines is a big deal, and I'm not allowed to do it myself and plug in. Likewise, you can't get a permit unless you're connected to the power lines.

Wait a minute. You are completely off-grid? Then it's even easier. No approval from the utility needed. There are fewer companies that will install such a system (most companies are used to grid tied systems) but they are certainly out there.

And while solar can take 10 years to pay off in NY, the payoff time for off-grid power (due to the much higher cost of fuel and generator maintenance) is much faster, on the order of years.

[StreetScooby 5]

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You are completely off-grid?

No, you're not allowed to be where I live.

Quote

And while solar can take 10 years to pay off in NY,

It's 25 years.

We are all engines of karma

[billvon 2,400]

>No, you're not allowed to be where I live.

You said:

>Connecting to the power lines is a big deal

Are you connected to the grid or not?

If you are, then it is quite easy to "connect to the power lines." Hundreds of thousands of people have already done it, and it's something that a contractor can do in a week. (You may not want to do it, which is fine; your choice.)

>It's 25 years.

It is now under 10 years, due the falling cost of solar-PV.

[DanG 1]

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We can all agree that putting 40GT+ of CO2 and equivalents into the atmosphere is not a good idea.

Why isn't it a good idea?

- Dan G

[SkyDekker 1,122]

StreetScooby

Quote

Overall there are over 100,000 solar homes in NY,

That's not a whole lot of homes in a state of 20 million people.

We talked to 3 different companies, none of which inspired any confidence in me what so ever. Connecting to the power lines is a big deal, and I'm not allowed to do it myself and plug in. Likewise, you can't get a permit unless you're connected to the power lines.

I thought you said it wasn't allowed unless the system was leased?

Maybe you should do some more research...

[kallend 1,623]

Meanwhile, in the polar regions:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/11/21/things-are-getting-weird-in-the-polar-regions/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_3_na&utm_term=.d9fd2d8f348f

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,400]

>Meanwhile, in the polar regions:

The polar regions are Chinese hoaxes, too.

[brenthutch 383]

If Trumps pick of Myron Ebell as head of transition for EPA is any indication, we won't have to listen to this silliness for much longer.

Senator Inhofe for EPA and Governor Perry to head up DOE!

[billvon 2,400]

>If Trumps pick of Myron Ebell as head of transition for EPA is any indication, we
>won't have to listen to this silliness for much longer.

Cool! Maybe you can get a fundamentalist appointed to the head of the NIH, then you won't have to listen to this "evolution" silliness, either.

[normiss 622]

Less coal = less mercury in fish? Sushi!

[rushmc 18]

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,400]

===============
There's something strange happening to Arctic sea ice

Phil Plait, Slate
November 27 2016

I’ve written quite a bit over the past few years about the death spiral of sea ice at the North Pole. Every year the amount of ice goes up and down with the seasons, growing in winter and declining in summer. But, on top of that there has been a trend downward, such that year by year we see less ice all the time.

Because of that we tend to see records set nearly every year. For example, this year in March the Arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent, but it was the lowest maximum extent ever seen since satellite records began in 1979.

Starting in September every year the ice begins to reform, growing to a maximum. It reached that point on Sept. 10 this year, when it had the second lowest extent on record. After that day, though, it started to grow again.

Except … it didn’t . It started to, but then in early October the growth just stopped. A couple of weeks later it started to rise again, but stalled a second time in late October. In the weeks since then the amount of ice has actually fallen a bit. We are now at record low ice for this time of year, and have been for weeks.

Mind you, it’s winter up there. The Sun shines at most a few hours a day at the southern edge of the Arctic Circle right now. Yet temperatures in the Arctic are soaring; in mid-November it was an average of a staggering 22° Celsius, or 40° Fahrenheit, above normal.

Holy cripes. What the hell is going on?

The obvious answer is: global warming. Like I said, as time goes on, average temperatures go up, and amount of ice decreases.

But there’s a less obvious but more important answer, too. And that is: global warming.

That’s not a typo. The proximate cause of the temperature spike has been a weak jet stream. That blows around the pole, and generally keeps the cold air up there and the warm from the south away. But the jet steam has been weak lately, and warm air has been able to push up into the Arctic and keep temperatures up.

So why is the jet stream weak? Yup. It’s global warming. One thing that powers the jet stream is the difference in temperature between mid-latitudes and the more northern ones. As the planet warms, that difference has fallen (the Arctic warms faster than lower latitudes do), and that has weakened the jet stream.

But there’s more. Because the planet is warming, the sea surface temperatures are going up as well. Water that’s usually frigid in October (like the East Siberian and Barents Seas) has been warmer, so ice growth is slow.

There’s a subtle thing happening here too that’s important. It’s not just that we’re seeing slower ice growth, but the high temperatures are actually melting old, thick ice as well. So it’s not just the extent that’s dropping, it’s the volume as well. That’s important because thin ice comes and goes, melting faster in the summer, but the old thick ice should be here to stay. That’s no longer the case; we’re losing that too.
. . .

This follows the amount of sea ice at both poles, Arctic and Antarctic. It’s not really a good way to understand what’s happening because the physical conditions at the two poles are very different, and the amount of ice at each is ruled by different circumstances. Combining them just confounds all this.

Right now it’s approaching summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and we expect Antarctic ice to decline. However, even so, it’s falling faster than usual, and the extent there is lower than normal, too.

I include this graph because so many people are talking about it, and it’s important to understand that scientists don’t usually combine the two poles into one graph that way.

However there’s a second point to make as well. Whenever I write about Arctic ice, a herd of climate change deniers converge in the comments and on social media, barking about how Antarctic sea ice is unchanged or even on the rise. But—shocker—that’s crap. The two are unrelated; Antarctic sea ice tends to be relatively steady year to year, and, as you can see, despite that it is pretty low right now.

And they also ignore the fact that Arctic ice has been steadily decreasing for decades. Well, steadily until the past few weeks.

It’s possible that the boreal ice will get its act together and start growing again this season. It’s also possible it won’t. Time will tell.

But time is not on our side. It’s entirely possible we’ll see our first ice-free Arctic summer in just a few decades. Not centuries, or even a century. But maybe by 2040.

The reason this is a concern is twofold. One is that as the northern ice melts, it dumps a lot of fresh water into the oceans. This changes the salinity of the oceans, and that changes how the water flows from the Arctic to the equator and back again. This heat exchange powers a lot of our climate and weather, so having this break down is, in a word, terrifying.

Second, the Arctic is our climate canary-in-a-coal-mine. Because it’s so sensitive to warming, studying it shows us what we’re in for as our planet inexorably heats up.

I won’t spin this: This is not good news. As I wrote recently, all is not lost, and there are still things we can do to help mitigate global warming.

But with Donald Trump in office, and him loading his Cabinet with climate change deniers, I worry very much over what the next few years will entail.
=============================
http://www.businessinsider.com/arctic-sea-ice-is-declining-when-it-should-be-growing-2016-11

[brenthutch 383]

The Arctic was supposed to be ice free by 2013.

[gowlerk 1,912]

brenthutch

The Arctic was supposed to be ice free by 2013.

Don't know where you got that from, maybe you remember something? But it is meaningless anyway. CO2 levels are up, glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is declining, sea level is rising, and global average temps are rising. All these things are facts. Keep your eye on the ball. Arguing that you have a memory of past predictions that were incorrect means nothing when measured against facts.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[rushmc 18]

Where is that warming coming from Bill???

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/28/steepest-drop-in-global-temperature-on-record/

Quote

Stunning new data indicates El Nino drove record highs in global temperatures suggesting rise may not be down to man-made emissions
•Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C
•Comes amid mounting evidence run of record temperatures about to end
•The fall, revealed by Nasa satellites, has been caused by the end of El Nino



Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C since the middle of this year – their biggest and steepest fall on record. According to satellite data, the late 2016 temperatures are returning to the levels they were at after the 1998 El Nino.

The news comes amid mounting evidence that the recent run of world record high temperatures is about to end. The fall, revealed by Nasa satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere, has been caused by the end of El Nino – the warming of surface waters in a vast area of the Pacific west of Central America.

Some scientists, including Dr Gavin Schmidt, head of Nasa’s climate division, have claimed that the recent highs were mainly the result of long-term global warming.
Others have argued that the records were caused by El Nino, a complex natural phenomenon that takes place every few years, and has nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions by humans.

Now ice info from the other side of the planet.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/25/old-explorer-logbooks-reveal-antarctic-sea-ice-unchanged-from-over-a-century-ago/

Quote

“We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began. Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.

“If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher.”

The new study published in The Cryosphere is the first to shed light on sea ice extent in the period prior to the 1930s, and suggests the levels in the early 1900s were in fact similar to today, at between 5.3 and 7.4 million square kilometres. Although one region, the Weddell Sea, did have a significantly larger ice cover.

and regarding the Arctic sea ice claims. A bit of context never hurts.

Quote

Polar Regions – Arctic: The current warmth in the Artic provides material for alarmists to predict drastic climate change. Many of the stories fail to mention that although the mean Arctic temperatures are as much as 15ºC, about 30ºF, above normal, with some day-time exceptions, the temperatures are still well below freezing. Further, the alarmist stories fail to mention that temperatures in Asia are drastically below normal for weeks — as much as 60ºF below normal in Siberia.

Long before appropriate instrumentation, the Arctic experienced warm periods, as seen in the Greenland ice cores and in warm periods such as the 1920s. However, the alarmist reports use the faddish term “a new normal” for which the authors have little basis. Further, some commentators postulate that diminished sea ice over the past few years is altering the jet stream and will cause long-term climate change – speculation for which they have little or no empirical basis. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy and Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice

From wattsupwiththat.com

This one just for fun

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/27/five-stages-of-climate-grief/

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

gowlerk

***The Arctic was supposed to be ice free by 2013.

Don't know where you got that from, maybe you remember something? But it is meaningless anyway. CO2 levels are up, glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is declining, sea level is rising, and global average temps are rising. All these things are facts. Keep your eye on the ball. Arguing that you have a memory of past predictions that were incorrect means nothing when measured against facts.

you may want to turn around and review some of your claims here......

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

gowlerk

***The Arctic was supposed to be ice free by 2013.

Don't know where you got that from, maybe you remember something? But it is meaningless anyway. CO2 levels are up, glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is declining, sea level is rising, and global average temps are rising. All these things are facts. Keep your eye on the ball. Arguing that you have a memory of past predictions that were incorrect means nothing when measured against facts.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=claim+sea+ice+will+be+gone+by+2013

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Here was another great prediction

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=active&q=Al+Gore+claims+planet+un-inhabitable

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[wmw999 2,121]

I googled the 2013 claim. A single scientist made it, and it was for summer ice only. Kerry did quote it with a "possibly as soon as" wrapper.

Other estimates are closer to mid-century, with others going into the next one. That's assuming the current level of industrial/human contribution to the atmosphere. It's also pretty solidly understood to be an estimate, without an historical precedent that we can match exactly.

We didn't get predictions of how long oil would last at current trends (neither "forever" nor "1999" are correct), nor the ubiquity of computers ("I think there's a need for about 5"), nor airplanes, nor cars, nor the stock market. Or lottery numbers

We suck at predicting the future exactly. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't do so, and doesn't mean we shouldn't try to plan around upcoming apparent roadblocks. In project management, it's called risk management.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[gowlerk 1,912]

John Kerry was busted for making things up. Doesn't matter at all. What matters, again:


CO2 levels are up, glaciers are disappearing, sea ice is declining, sea level is rising, and global average temps are rising.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[rushmc 18]

Again
look up your points as many of them are now in dispute.
Well, almost all of them

See below


< global average temps are rising>
global average temps are rising



https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/28/an-answer-to-is-the-rise-in-sea-levels-accelerating/

Ah, you do know that glaciers do melt, right???
I live where a great glacier once was.
And maybe they are not melting as fast as you have come to believe?? Maybe?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/21/oh-darn-study-most-meltwater-in-greenland-fjords-likely-comes-from-icebergs-not-glaciers/

Much more on the glacier subject
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=glaciers

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln