Perpetual Innovation

Category: global warming

  • Climate change: Sea ice, global cooling, and other nonsense

    Climate change: Sea ice, global cooling, and other nonsense:

    I was rather pleased in my travels last week to get a glimpse of the news that the Arctic ice caps had been expanding again. They had been shrinking, and getting smaller at an increasing rate, so statistically, we were certainly due for a recovery. I saw a 60% recovery, however, so I was a little skeptical.

    So I just now get a chance to check into it, only to find that the Global Cooling Loon David Rose was at it again, spreading (lies?) misinformation around the nation (UK). You often wonder if he is let out of the asylum, or simply makes this stuff up inside.

    You wonder who, if anyone anywhere, would possibly be served by printing such blatant miss-information.

    Here’s a great article about the whole thing by Plait. (@BadAstronomer)

    A 60% recovery of the ice caps? Look at the graphic. Last year was so horrible that ships were easily able to navigate the north pole. This could have, and should have, gotten everyone’s attention everywhere.

    So this year wasn’t that bad. Yeah!:-)

    It was bad, however. Ouch!:-( … With more than 1 standard deviation below “normal” for the last 30 years. On a grade-point scale, I would rank this as moving from a low F to an F+. (Plait offered up a D- grade, but was probably grading on the curve.)

    So DailyMail gets some traffic, from printing this garbage. The people who take the headline and run, continue to get steered down a dead-end hole of misinformation.

    Nonsense.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • A frosty G20 puts global warming on ice – Comment – Voices – The Independent

    A frosty G20 puts global warming on ice – Comment – Voices – The Independent:

    Great article. Like many such meetings, the major part of the the G20 meeting gets diverted to North Korea or Egypt or Syria. Too bad, there’s a lot the the G20 can do, besides putter with the politics that’s taken over the news today.

    Surprisingly, there was movement on making progress on the very best places to push hard related to our impact on the environment, greenhouse gases (GHGs) and global warming.

    Most people who don’t focus on sustainability don’t realize what a wicked impact hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs) have on the (atmosphere) environment. Most HFCs are released into the atmosphere from Freon, the gas that has an ugly impact on the Ozone layer in the atmosphere. But the other problem with florine-based gasses is that they last in the atmosphere for centuries, not decades. Look at the global warming potential of various gases here: GWP at INTCCC and wikipedia GHGs.

    So continuing to use Freon is a gift for the future that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving.

    The approach to CFCs is one of the great success stories of our time. Starting with the Montreal Protocol in 1987 the international community has banded together to address and reduce CFCs. Most countries, that is. Progress has been especially strong because of the progress in alternative refrigerants that are still cheap and efficient. Not so much so, the progress in other greenhouse gases.

    As you can see, the GHGs of carbon dioxide and the noxious oxides are increasing in the atmosphere unabated. Methane seems to be slowing down a little. Remember that these increased levels are above and beyond the levels that the atmosphere has become accustom to. Longer duration graphs are equally as telling.

    But as you can see, CFC emissions have plateaued, but not necessarily reduced. The problem is that several countries, apparently, have not bothered to make the leap to replacement FREON  refrigerants, namely India and Brazil. One of the best, easiest, cheapest and greatest-impact methods to address GHG issues is to pressure those rogue countries to join the rest of the world on HFC reduction.

    Turns out the G20 meeting, lead by China and USA, are looking to “encourage” these rogue countries to pick up the pace on HFCs.

    Making progress on the most important things first, is a great approach to sustainability. HFCs is a great place to push. Even the G20, and the UN that don’t agree on much, have taking this approach.

    EE is probably the greatest place to focus, however. Energy efficiency (EE) and similar types of inefficiencies are the great untapped places to save money, energy and the environment. Everybody wins, except, maybe the power companies. But that’s the focus of other books and blog posts.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Holding back the oceans… The Cost of Energy… Compounding and getting worse.

    Holding back the ocean (via The Cost of Energy)

    The inevitability of sea level rise (emphasis added): Small numbers can imply big things. Global sea level rose by a little less than 0.2 metres during the 20th century – mainly in response to the 0.8 °C of warming humans have caused through greenhouse…

  • The Keeling Curve | How Much CO2 Can The Oceans Take Up?

    The Keeling Curve | How Much CO2 Can The Oceans Take Up?: “Recent estimates have calculated that 26 percent of all the carbon released as CO2 from fossil fuel burning, cement manufacture, and land-use changes over the decade 2002–2011 was absorbed by the oceans. (About 28 percent went to plants and roughly 46 percent to the atmosphere.) During this time, the average annual total release of was 9.3 billion tons of carbon per year, thus on average 2.5 billion tons went into the ocean annually.”

    So… of the 9.3 billion in CO2 emissions, the oceans have been absorbing about 26%. But, as in all things that reach saturation, this cannot be expected to continue.

    We do know that CO2 will go into the air, since the atmosphere gets first go at fossil fuel emissions. So the Greenhouse gasses might start to rise much, much faster.

    This certainly looks like a no-win.

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  • Sea levels set for a ‘continuing rise’ for generations…The Daily Climate … Like baking a cake.

    Sea levels set for a ‘continuing rise’ for generations — The Daily Climate:

    So here’s the story. It’s already baked into the cake.

    The current setting has sea levels rising for decades. Even if we all went to carbon neutral tomorrow.

    The basics are that greenhouse gasses will persist in the atmosphere for decades, even centuries. The most prevalent is Carbon Dioxide (CO2) which will stay in the atmosphere for 70 years, maybe 100.

    So, we can expect temperatures to rise 2, 3, maybe 4 or 5 degrees C. And, as the ocean waters warm, the water expands (thermal expansion). If the oceans are about 2 miles deep, on average, the heat expansion really makes a difference. We’re talking yards here, not feet.

    Some estimates seem to show only the top, maybe the top 10% of the oceans heating and expanding. But that’s because they are using a short planning horizon. If you wait another 50 to 100 years, you should expect far more of the oceans to warm, and expand.

    That is, the heating is already “baked into the cake”… Or in our case, baked into the atmosphere, which will eventually bake into the oceans, which will eventually…

    Well, you get the picture.

    Make no doubt, I’m looking and hoping that this scenario is not the most likely to play forward.

    We do have lower solar and volcanic activities which should serve as a cooling damper for the atmosphere.

    But we appear to be overshadowing that offset. At least from all I can see.

    As always, the best and first place to start is conservation and efficiency.

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