Twenty years of two and a half degrees of warming

Subduction Zone · Apr 3, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
CO2 is good for life plants and animals thrive in the warming up that we are experiencing. Global cooling is not good for plants and animals most of the extinctions have been due to global cooling.

Actually that is species dependent. An over simplified answer is almost always wrong.

Jok · Apr 3, 2020

Gene2memE said:
This isn't true at all.

Current solar output is near previous recorded lows.

Solar output has been trending downwards for the last 4 of the (11 year) cycles.

According to NASA:

The amount of solar energy received by the Earth has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century.

So, its wrong to say solar output is increasing, and its also wrong to attribute any warming to any increase in output.

That's not true either.

2016 was the warmest year on record, at about 1.02 degrees above the 1950 to 1980 average. 2019 was the second warmest year on record. Prior to that, 1998 was the second warmest year on record.

Of the 20 warmest years recorded, 18 of them have occurred in the last 20 years. The two others were 1998 and 1997.

Yep, climate changes. The difference between these previous change and the current ones are:
The cause;
The rate;
The potential for positive feedback loops;

Yes, and no.

Increased solar activity was involved in all of these. However, so were Milankovitch cycles and Milankovitch forcing, periods of low volcanic activity and changes in major ocean currents thanks to the end run of the last glacial period, among others.

It's not as if this has all been studied, not like it keeps cropping up in the IPCC reports for the last three decades or so:

This latest round of warming, to quote IPCC 5, is "extremely likely (95-100% probability) that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950".

Warming will definitely last decades, and if we halt emissions growth now, certainly centuries.

Is Covid-19 Fate/God trying to save humanity from destroying itself, showing the world how Earth can heal itself if we back off?

Jok · Apr 4, 2020

Subduction Zone said:
Not necessarily. Our infrastructure is largely based on fossil fuels. With aid and guidance developing countries need not fall into that trap. We have to change and that will be expensive. They can start green and stay green.

Is it true that the efforts for worldwide mass production of solar panels and batteries to meet the world’s power needs would cause even greater stress on the planet than we currently do? I’ve heard that, not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard that the major problem is that battery technology isn’t good enough. That it would require so much fossil fuel use & mining to make that level of materials for green energy that it would defeat the purpose. I suppose it’s not just that batteries aren’t good enough, but also that solar panels aren’t efficient enough either.

Maybe we just need a slow & steady progression to get there? I’m always happy to hear about someone going solar, although I think financially the person took a hit to do so!

greatcloudlives · Apr 4, 2020

CO2 is a trace gas with a trace IR radiation rate.

Shemjaza · Apr 4, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
CO2 is good for life plants and animals thrive in the warming up that we are experiencing. Global cooling is not good for plants and animals most of the extinctions have been due to global cooling.

Changing environments causes extinctions... rapid changes more so.

Water is also good for life... but flood an area and there will be deaths and devastation.

Subduction Zone · Apr 4, 2020

Jok said:
Is it true that the efforts for worldwide mass production of solar panels and batteries to meet the world’s power needs would cause even greater stress on the planet than we currently do? I’ve heard that, not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard that the major problem is that battery technology isn’t good enough. That it would require so much fossil fuel use & mining to make that level of materials for green energy that it would defeat the purpose. I suppose it’s not just that batteries aren’t good enough, but also that solar panels aren’t efficient enough either.

Maybe we just need a slow & steady progression to get there? I’m always happy to hear about someone going solar, although I think financially the person took a hit to do so!

i don't know. I would not think so. Ultimately we should choose the least destructive source of energy. Right now fossil fuels appear to be the biggest threat to our planet.

greatcloudlives · Apr 4, 2020

Please find me one extintion due to global warming.

Shemjaza · Apr 4, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
Please find me one extintion due to global warming.

Do you mean in the modern world, or in the fossil record?

Subduction Zone · Apr 4, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
Please find me one extintion due to global warming.

7 Species Hit Hard by Climate Change—Including One That's Already Extinct

Subduction Zone · Apr 4, 2020

Shemjaza said:
Do you mean in the modern world, or in the fossil record?

I found one in the modern world along with six threatened. Opening up the past would give us endless options.

Shemjaza · Apr 4, 2020

Subduction Zone said:
I found one in the modern world along with six threatened. Opening up the past would give us endless options.

If nothing else the Permian was colder then the Mesozoic... there may have been some extinctions in between.

Strathos · Apr 4, 2020

Subduction Zone said:
I found one in the modern world along with six threatened. Opening up the past would give us endless options.

The link requires registration to read it.

greatcloudlives · Apr 4, 2020

www.climatedepo.com according to climatedepo polar bear population is good and growing.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Apr 4, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
www.climatedepo.com according to climatedepo polar bear population is good and growing.

Whatever the current status of polar bears, Climate Depo isn't a trustworthy or authoritative source, it's a climate change denial group, a project of CFACT, an organization of climate change denialists that rejects climate change science, funded by fossil fuel companies and people like the Koch family (Donors Trust).

Subduction Zone · Apr 4, 2020

Strathos said:
The link requires registration to read it.

Sorry, I found one that was aimed for kids earlier. I am pretty sure that they got their info from the Nat Geo article. It looked like a bad paraphrase of it. It may help, I will see if I can find it, but please do not complain of its poor quality. They copied a half decent source and made it so that children could understand it:

Animals That Have Gone Extinct due to Global Warming - Co2nsensus

Hans Blaster · Apr 4, 2020

lordjeff said:
No-you can't use computers to predict climate. You use observations. Meteorological formulas are very intricate & lengthy. You can predict weather but you can't predict 20 years into the future what a given climate is going to be alike because you don't know the position of the jet streams that far in advance nor the activity of the tectonic plates. Entering a specific humidity # is not going tell you anything 20 years from now. Earth is still a pretty big place. Additionally it can be stated whether weather data responds to an arithmetic series, a geometric one, a Taylor series, a logarithmic series, or an exponential one.

Observations are used to initialize models.

The formulae are indeed intricate, but at their core they are partial differential equations for describing fluid motions that must be solved everywhere on a spherical shell that is the atmosphere:

Primitive equations - Wikipedia

with couplings to the surface (evaporation, ground cover, radiative heating & cooling, etc.) and a coupled fluid model of ocean currents.

General circulation model - Wikipedia

Finding the position of the jet stream on Apr 4, 2040, is not the purpose of a climate model. Rather, by running multiple copies of the model with slightly different (but consistent with known data) initial conditions an ensemble of models can be use to get the average condition of the weather expected for April 204x and how it compares to say April 201x, a.k.a. climate.

None of those series apply to climate (or weather models) as they are coupled, non-linear differential equations solved for a volume. Tectonic plates move so slowly they are irrelevant to near term climate modeling (century or two).

Hans Blaster · Apr 4, 2020

sjastro said:
That's correct as climate models are "time symmetrical".
They can be run backwards so one can compare past measurements with what the model predicts.

The models contain dissipation, so they really can't be symmetric in time.

The "backwards" models are initialized with old data and run through to the present. For example, starting with the climate state of the 1950s from weather observations and known 1950s CO2 levels the model is allowed to "spin up" then after getting the 1950s climate right, the climate forcings (CO2, ground cover, etc) are allowed to progress in time through the present and the appropriate averages from the climate model are compared to observed climate averages from 1950-now. Then the model proceeds to future using any number of climate forcing scenarios.

Nearly 30 years ago the climate models predicted a detectable signal from added CO2, but the then current impact of accrued anthropomorphic CO2 was with in the error bounds of the model ensembles. Today, rerunning models with and without the last 30 years of CO2 build up show very clear deviations from reality when it is omitted and a good match when included.

pitabread · Apr 4, 2020

greatcloudlives said:
CO2 is good for life plants and animals thrive in the warming up that we are experiencing.

Too much CO2 and we all suffocate.

Subduction Zone · Apr 4, 2020

pitabread said:
Too much CO2 and we all suffocate.

In California a woman died in a water drinking context from "water poisoning".

DJs axed after woman dies in Wii water-drinking contest

Humans do not need CO2 in our air, but we do need water. The idea that some is needed so more is good is wrong when taken to extremes.

sjastro · Apr 4, 2020

Hans Blaster said:
The models contain dissipation, so they really can't be symmetric in time.

The "backwards" models are initialized with old data and run through to the present. For example, starting with the climate state of the 1950s from weather observations and known 1950s CO2 levels the model is allowed to "spin up" then after getting the 1950s climate right, the climate forcings (CO2, ground cover, etc) are allowed to progress in time through the present and the appropriate averages from the climate model are compared to observed climate averages from 1950-now. Then the model proceeds to future using any number of climate forcing scenarios.

Nearly 30 years ago the climate models predicted a detectable signal from added CO2, but the then current impact of accrued anthropomorphic CO2 was with in the error bounds of the model ensembles. Today, rerunning models with and without the last 30 years of CO2 build up show very clear deviations from reality when it is omitted and a good match when included.

Yes I understand this and placing the term "time symmetrical" in quotation marks was to convey a non rigorous definition that climate models can be both postdictive and predictive.

Twenty years of two and a half degrees of warming

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