(can of worms alert) Globe hasn't warmed in the last 16 years 76

[beej67]

Worth a read. One significance of the article to me is the 'skeptic' isn't a loon, she's the head of the EAS department at Georgia Tech.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html



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[Brad1979]

For the record, the Wikipedia article you mention does talk about albedo (that roughly 30% of solar radiation isn't absorbed by the earth). I assume this is what you meant by "shielding effect." Also, the article mentions the average temperature the earth would be with neither albedo nor the greenhouse effect - 279 K (42 F). This is a long ways from "boiling us all." It's actually a bit chilly. And instead of guessing what more technical analyses say, you could read them (here and here, for example) or I can briefly tell you what they say. They go into more detail about how they use satellites to observe different wavelength radiation coming from the sun and coming from the earth. They go into more detail about how this data is combined with data from radiation measured from the earth's surface. They look at the difference between the radiation emitted from the sun and absorbed at the earth's surface. And they look at the difference between the radiation emitted from the earth and that is emitted into space at the top of the earth's atmosphere. They break it down by each greenhouse gas and determine the effect each has on radiation absorption. And on and on in more detail than I'm sure you care about.

I will repeat what I said above, though ... this is well-accepted science that is only denied by random people on message boards who don't know any better.

 

[rb1957]

from your 1st ref ... "With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapour is the dominant contributor (~50% of the effect), followed by clouds (~25%) and then CO2 with ~20%. ... In a doubled CO2 scenario, this allocation is essentially unchanged, even though the magnitude of the total greenhouse effect is significantly larger than the initial radiative forcing, ..."

from your 2nd ref "Ample physical evidence shows that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the single most important climate-relevant greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere." ...

game on !

 

[zdas04]

I believe that the reason some people say that "CO2 is the single most important ..." is because they haven't figured out how to tax water vapor or clouds.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[Brad1979]

rb1957,

Both those papers together make it clear that while CO2 accounts for only about ~20% of greenhouse gasses, it is still the most important greenhouse gas when it comes to climate.

zdas04,

You also believe the earth would be boiling us all if it absorbed all the energy the sun radiated at it but that is patently false.

 

[zdas04]

Maybe, but the moon is on average the same distance from the sun as the earth and the temperature on the sun-side surface of the moon has been measured at 107C. Seems kind of boiling to me. And what I actually said was:

I don't know why it has to be a "greenhouse effect" and not a "shielding effect" (i.e. without the atmosphere a greater portion of the sun's energy would reach the earth and boil us all) which would say that more mass in the atmosphere would be cooling instead of heating. The data supports that foolishness as easily as it supports the greenhouse stuff.

What part of "The data supports that foolishness as easily as it supports the greenhouse stuff" leads you to claim that I believe that hypothesis?

"Patently false" is kind of a strong statement about a hypotheses that can actually be demonstrated on a nearby planetary body. I guess "true" can only be applied to unprovable hypotheses. Reducing complex physical phenomena to sound bytes is a good way to look like a fool.

I don't actually have a dog in this race. There is an AGW hypotheses on the table that has reached the status of a religion in the world. An hypotheses is a very good thing. But it needs to stand up to independent scrutiny. This particular hypotheses has the characteristic of being very very easy for people to relate to. It has the further characteristic of encouraging hysteria. A one-two punch that is devastating to the practice of science. Neither characteristic necessarily makes it "wrong". But neither characteristic necessarily makes it "right" either. The big problem is that it is so easy to demonize anyone who doesn't accept it as whole cloth and genuflect before the altar. This results in manipulated data, "tweaked" computer models, modifications of honest work (after submittal, without the author's knowledge) by powerful people with an agenda, and actual career harm to people who want to do honest work. The religion of AGW has reached a status where it must be resisted by everyone who has not been inducted into the religion if the economies of the world are to survive (yes, that is pretty dramatic, it is also based on solid data, I can't tell you with confidence how the climate works, but I can tell you how Cap & Trade works by looking at the graft and theft in the existing programs).

A couple of years ago I was contracted to do a "carbon emissions inventory" for a major producer for an EPA trial project (that eventually became the U.S. inventory for Oil & Gas). There were 12 companies in the study and my data was 1/8 of the total. There are a number of unknowable values. One number was truly impossible to quantify with installed equipment (because the duration of the event was much shorter than the latency of the measurement device). I made a note that this number could not be quantitatively determined and estimated 500,000 tonnes/year based on average frequency and average duration. I got a call from the lady at the EPA who said the the number "looks like I made it up". I said "I did make it up, see note 34". She said "I understand that, but it shouldn't look like you made it up". I replied "should I have made it 497,531.2 tonnes instead, it is just a made up number around a half million tonnes". She said that that would be much better and asked me to resubmit. That is the quality of the carbon inventory that countries are building tax schemes upon. Pardon me if I am terrified.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[GregLocock]

"We assume i think that the greenhouse gas warming model would be something like this.
T=T_nominal + T_greenhouse*K*CO2_concentration + V
"
I think you mean T=T_nominal + K*CO2_concentration + V


but a better fit is T=T_nominal + K2*log(CO2_concentration) + V

The reason being that so far as greenhouse is concerned the atmosphere already has more than enough CO2 to do its wavelength blocking/absorbing job, and the extra CO2 only affects things higher in the atmosphere, where it has less effect. That's why they talk about the temperature rise per doubling of CO2 concentration.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[beej67]

Tom,

If you're crafting an argument specifically about carbon balance, I don't know that a shift from coal to natural gas really makes any difference. It's still carbon.

As I say above, I suspect that carbon release is a much smaller part of global warming than people are letting on, but even if you presume it's primarily responsible, a fully electric car is not carbon free, nor is the train. And the efficiency losses in the power plant, the transmission system, and the car (or empty train) all need to be accounted for if you're going to do an honest comparison. That's all I was saying. I like electric cars because I dislike smog, and I also dislike having my country's economy tied at the hip to a global commodity produced in the Middle East.

I'm still waiting for a link to a computer model showing that the United States unilaterally adopting Goldman Sachs Carbon Trading would end global warming. If anybody finds one, please post it.


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[patprimmer]

Coal has a somewhat higher carbon to hydrogen ratio than does natural gas.

Both carbon and hydrogen release energy when burned in oxygen so energy to carbon ratio is better for natural gas.

Regards
Pat
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[moltenmetal]

David: again with the @#*)() water vapour again! You're willfully blind to the fact that you can't create a sustained increase the water concentration in the atmosphere merely by putting more water vapour into it! Its concentration is controlled by fast physical equilibria.

You CAN create a sustained increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration. It's proven by measurements- we've done it. The earth will re-absorb it on the geological timescale if we stop pumping the carbon it previously sequestered BACK into the atmosphere, but on the geological timescale, humans are only a blip.

 

[Brad1979]

David,

The data actually supports both - some radiation from the sun is reflected back into space (what you call "shielding") and some radiation from the earth is absorbed by atmospheric gases (greenhouse effect).

Pat,

I believe that what Tom was saying above had to do with the CO2 to energy released ratio. If you look at this chart which lists kilograms of CO2 released per MJ of energy for different resources, coal is approximately 40% higher than natural gas.

 

[TomDOT]

Hello, beej!

As Pat mentioned - while both natural gas and coal power plants put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, burning natural gas puts less of it in the atmosphere per unit of electricity produced.

Burning natural gas also puts out a lot less SO2, mercury, NOx, particulates, et cetera when compared to coal.

On the flip side, the concrete guys are really perturbed at the concept of having less fly ash available (Specifically Class F fly ash.) It's become a critical component in really durable concrete, at least around here.

 

[cranky108]

Why does AGW seem more like creeping socialism? And the fact that China, a communest country, dosen't intend to do anything about it, just lends more belivability to it being a socialist vehical.

Not at all does this make me believe we should ignore the issue increassing energy wasting. But it does make me believe we need industry based solutions, not goverment based solutions.

So I ask, where are the solutions? Goverment has no new ideas, just new taxes, or givaways to favored people. Where are the inovative people who are willing to take risks on new ideas? The problem here is in our faces, it is goverment stiffeling by lawsuites.

To the comment above, NOx production is a result of flame tempeature, not fuel used. So to say coal produces more NOx, is only true because of the burner design. Sad commentary is that many utilities are not willing to upgrade there burners, because of the EPA rules on other things found in the coal that is burned, like Sulfer and mercury.

 

[zdas04]

Moltenmetal,
I do know a bit about the way that water in its various states react with gases. It is a subject that I regularly teach. In the lexicon of AGW, water vapor is the primary component of greenhouse gases. Why the $%^$^$ shouldn't we talk about it? I say that we don't talk about it because we can't regulate/tax it. Any gas in contact with a coherent liquid surface will be at 100% relative humidity at that interface. The mass of water vapor that constitutes that RH point is based on local temperature and pressure. If the globe is warming, then the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases dramatically. The tonnes of water vapor increase per day for a 0.5C temperature increase is at least one order of magnitude higher than the tonnes of human-sourced CO2 added per day (and could be several orders of magnitude higher, researchers disagree).

That "fast physical equilibra" you mention is simply not ever at equilibrium in the atmosphere. I've designed a half dozen evaporation ponds (that all have worked to design oddly enough) that rely totally on the fact that the bulk of the atmosphere is never at equilibrium (i.e. 100% RH well away from a coherent gas/liquid interface). Even in a rainstorm the raindrops loose mass to evaporation in the air.

I say the CO2 discussion is trying to tame a flea on an elephant's butt. But we can vilify the flea while admiring the elephant even though the amount of harm that the elephant can do is significantly greater than the flea's potential to do harm.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[zdas04]

Cranky,
The solution to waste lies with you and me. We have to design innovative stuff, and we have to try to educate the regulators. I just spent a year working on the second one and had some huge successes (9 stupid regulations were discarded and 6 others with significantly modified to actually reduce waste instead of giving lip service to failed ideas) through participation with the API Clean Air Issues Group and the EPA.

A device I'm patenting removes natural gas from liquid streams at a pressure high enough to allow it to enter the sales stream without additional compression--20 of these units have been installed to date and they recover an average of 25 MSCF/day (4000 tonne/year of methane not vented, and $0.5 million/year of additional sales at today's gas prices).

As Engineers it is our job to look at every task every day and ask if there is a cost effective way to waste less energy, less fuel, and/or less money. If we don't do it it won't get done.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[moltenmetal]

The motivation to waste less depends on the price of the commodity we're trying to conserve being sufficiently high to make it "worth" conserving. Fight the market and you will lose. While it may be high enough at present for some innovations to be economical, it will be even moreso if we put a tipping charge on atmospheric emissions from fuels production and use by taxing the fuels themselves. Regulations would be needed to deal with in-producton waste such as venting and flaring. Methane venting is a biggie: vented methane is far worse than vented CO2, so congratulations David on your innovation.

 

[beej67]

David: again with the @#*)() water vapour again! You're willfully blind to the fact that you can't create a sustained increase the water concentration in the atmosphere merely by putting more water vapour into it! Its concentration is controlled by fast physical equilibria.

Sure. But then it makes clouds, and clouds make weather, and weather dissipates heat through other physical processes such as Hurricane Sandy. Clouds also block the sun, which change the albedo. I am highly skeptical that these factors, particularly the affects cloud cover variation have on albedo, have been appropriately accounted for in the GW models all the atmo chemists are using to predict Doom. While I'll disagree with zdas on a lot of stuff, he's dead on that the atmosphere is absolutely not ever in equilibrium in terms of water vapor absorbed. The fact that the troposphere is unstable moves water, and moving water makes rain via pseudo-adiabatic lifting. And that process dissipates energy. Any global warming computer model that makes the assumption of water vapor being governed completely by 'fast physical equilibria' has serious flaws, because it's modeling the climate while intentionally disregarding the weather.

Regardless, we have pretty clear evidence according to some pretty smart people that the Doom models are "seriously flawed" in some way or another. And I still haven't seen a model, even a Doom model, that shows that a "Carbon Cap And Trade" policy by the US Government will stop global warming. Still patiently waiting for that link.

As Pat mentioned - while both natural gas and coal power plants put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, burning natural gas puts less of it in the atmosphere per unit of electricity produced.

Burning natural gas also puts out a lot less SO2, mercury, NOx, particulates, et cetera when compared to coal.

I don't object to natural gas, and I'm not going to argue with stoichiometry. But it still releases carbon. If you believe that carbon release warms the planet, then natural gas warms the planet. And if you do a carbon budget of electricity generated by natural gas, less plant efficiency, less grid efficiency, less train/Prius efficiency, the carbon impact isn't hugely different between a gasoline car and an electric car charged by burning natural gas a hundred miles away. If carbon is the boogy man, we not only need Chevy Volts, but we also need a complete conversion of baseline power generation to nuclear. But as I say, I don't think carbon is the boogy man everyone's making it out to be.



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[Brad1979]

beej67,

Out of curiosity, what is the "pretty clear evidence" that the models are flawed?

 

[zdas04]

I just went back and read an earlier post of mine and saw that I said

If the globe is warming, then the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases dramatically. The tonnes of water vapor increase per day for a 0.5C temperature increase is at least one order of magnitude higher than the tonnes of human-sourced CO2 added per day (and could be several orders of magnitude higher, researchers disagree).

This made me think about feedback loops. Higher temperature means more water vapor (physical fact, verifiable on any scale chosen). According to the AGW hypotheses, more greenhouse gases means accelerated warming. Which means more water vapor. Doesn't that read like a positive feedback loop? Aren't positive feedback loops inherently unstable? Doesn't that imply that the AGW hypotheses is patently wrong? Is it really that simple?

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[rb1957]

@brad, maybe the 2nd post on this thread is a clue ... "Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’."

unrelated ... i wonder if this is the first time that GT has been referred to as "prestigious" ?

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> i wonder if this is the first time that GT has been referred to as "prestigious" ?.
According to US News and World Report annual ranking of national universities (

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities),

overall GT comes in at #36. As for the graduate school, the Engineering Graduate School is ranked as #4 in the country, and the Earth Science comes in at #45.
Georgia Tech is a very good school.


Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein