Continuation Global warming discussion V

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

....

Some "falsified" nonsense when you have not analyzed the actual correlation:

Originally Posted by Reality Check

ETA: If you want to support Savory's denial of climate science, you have to look at the actual correlation between increasing numbers of cattle and increasing CH4 in Lassey (20007) and maybe in IPCC (2013). It is obviously not a correlation from recent data because the paper is 13 years old! When you use data older than 2007, you are automatically wrong because you are not analyzing the actual correlation.

[Red Baron Farms]

Nice try for a face saving post RC, but you are still not following the evidence.

1)Savory doesn't deny mainsteam science regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming.
2)The cause for increased methane is MOSTLY due to Natural gas leaks, although there is a small factor caused by feedlots and plowing up grasslands which are natural methane sinks and a few other small changes like rice production all very minor in comparison.
3) In any case taking desertified land and restoring it back to life will of course increase methane emissions since all life causes methane at some point. But it also restores the ONLY biological methane net sink on the planet as well. So this activity does NOT cause AGW. In fact the opposite.
4)Your lame attempts to claim ruminants cause anthropogenic global warming is actually what is not mainstream science. That a merchants of doubt argument that some Vegans and PETA guys came along and latched onto, but there is no evidence. In fact it is primarily fossil fuels D'oh.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

1)Savory doesn't deny mainsteam science regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming.

An obvious error because you know that Savory is ignorant of and denies well known mainstream science regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming.
16 January 2020: Why Savory and his institute is a bad source of climate science (CO2 and CH4 ignorance from an agriculturist touting his debated system with only a 2013 TED talk and documents on his web site).
Climate Change – Cause and Remedy
He blames climate change on "management" of resources: "With 100% certainty it is management causing global desertification and climate change and all the many symptoms.". Not denial but ignorance of the fact that the industrial age started before we knew about the impact of fossil fuel burning and cement plants on CO2 levels which is the cause of global warming. The increase in livestock during the time also did not help by increasing methane levels.
"CH4 ignorance" is being charitable. He denied the mainstream science about the correlation between increasing cattle numbers and increasing methane by cherry-picking a report rather than looking at the mainstream science.

2) The climate science remains that there is a correlation between increasing cattle numbers and increasing methane.
Nordborg, M. (2016): Appendix 7. Anthropogenic emissions of methane gives 35-50% (not MOSTLY) from natural sources between 100 and 2009.
3) Whatever land he converts to HM will increase the number of cattle and thus methane levels. Going from basically no cattle in desert to lots is not good!
4) An obvious "Your lame attempts to claim ruminants cause anthropogenic global warming" lie when cattle emit methane and have to contribute (not cause because the cause is CO2) methane to the atmosphere and thus anthropogenic global warming.
Nordborg, M. (2016): Appendix 7. Anthropogenic emissions of methane lists the scientific evidence you are denying.

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

An obvious error because you know that Savory is ignorant of and denies well known mainstream science regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming.
16 January 2020: Why Savory and his institute is a bad source of climate science (CO2 and CH4 ignorance from an agriculturist touting his debated system with only a 2013 TED talk and documents on his web site).
Climate Change – Cause and Remedy
He blames climate change on "management" of resources: "With 100% certainty it is management causing global desertification and climate change and all the many symptoms.". Not denial but ignorance of the fact that the industrial age started before we knew about the impact of fossil fuel burning and cement plants on CO2 levels which is the cause of global warming. The increase in livestock during the time also did not help by increasing methane levels.
"CH4 ignorance" is being charitable. He denied the mainstream science about the correlation between increasing cattle numbers and increasing methane by cherry-picking a report rather than looking at the mainstream science.

2) The climate science remains that there is a correlation between increasing cattle numbers and increasing methane.
Nordborg, M. (2016): Appendix 7. Anthropogenic emissions of methane gives 35-50% (not MOSTLY) from natural sources between 100 and 2009.
3) Whatever land he converts to HM will increase the number of cattle and thus methane levels. Going from basically no cattle in desert to lots is not good!
4) An obvious "Your lame attempts to claim ruminants cause anthropogenic global warming" lie when cattle emit methane and have to contribute (not cause because the cause is CO2) methane to the atmosphere and thus anthropogenic global warming.
Nordborg, M. (2016): Appendix 7. Anthropogenic emissions of methane lists the scientific evidence you are denying.

We started this whole argument because you decided to burn down a strawman, and now you are all the way back in circles to burning down strawmen again.

It's tiresome.

ANYONE can misrepresent ANYONE and then pretend they are wrong.

And natural emissions whether CO2 or CH4 don't mean anything unless compared to the sinks. Something you and Nordborg still haven't done.

Its a fail argument.

So between the strawmen and the fail arguments which you still refuse to acknowledge and the going round and round in circles, I am simply tired of discussing it with you.

I said it several times already, come back when you have something meaningful to say. Denialist after all these years are simply boring. Maybe go spread your denialist BS somewhere else?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

...strawman and denialist nonsense...

In the real world we started this argument because you cited the Savory Institute as having a as a "pretty good too and gaining traction" plan. The many problems with that remain.
You linked to Savory Institute: Our Mission which is an agricultural institute's advertisement. There is only 1 mention of climate in the first sentence. Luckily I knew about Alan Savory's invalid claim to reverse global warming by bringing CO2 levels down to pre-industrial levels so I supplied the actual "plan". Plan in quotes because this is not a published scientific, peer-reviewed plan. Savory has a 2013 TED talk and documents on the institute web.
16 January 2020: Why Savory and his institute is a bad source of climate science (CO2 and CH4 ignorance from an agriculturist touting his debated system with only a 2013 TED talk and documents on his web site).
This are real world facts:

• Alan Savory is not a climate scientist.
• Alan Savory has stated ignorance about CO2 (but see below) and CH4.
  Nordborg, M. (2016): Appendix 7. Anthropogenic emissions of methane: Scientific literature that a good proportion (up to 50%) of methane comes from livestock. There is a published correlation between the increasing number of cattle and increasing CH4 in Lassey (2007) and presumably acknowledged in IPCC 2013 (it explains a plateau in Ch4 levels as an offset by decay - what is being offset?).
• Alan Savory's HM does not have a clear body of evidence (thus "debated") showing that it is a better sequester of carbon than other systems.
  See the scientific literature cited in Holistic management – a critical review of Allan Savory's grazing method by Nordborg, M. (2016).
• Alan Savory has never published any climate science in journals especially his claim.

When I first read his "Climate Change – Cause and Remedy" opinion piece I thought that "With 100% certainty it is management causing global desertification and climate change and all the many symptoms." was ignorance that it is CO2 that is causing climate change. It is different ignorance. He thinks that we "manage" the release of CO2 to the atmosphere and it is mismanagement that of that release that causes climate change. Obviously wrong because the Industrial Revolution began over a century before we knew about our CO2 emissions causing global warming.

This bad source of climate science then has a scientifically invalid claim:22 January 2020: Published scientific literature showing that Savory's reversal of global warming by his HM system is wrong

[Reality Check]

We have not really discussed the issue of HM not having clear evidence of increasing carbon sequestration in soils enough to support his claim. Savory's claim came to public attention in a 2013 TED talk so he must have had scientific evidence for a high enough sequestration rate in 2013.

The published literature on grazing management methods is that they can only mitigate a proportion of global warming. Savory's claim is reversal of global warming. He needs scientific evidence that HM can sequester carbon at a rate many times of the other methods. Nordberg (2016)

Quote:

Improved grazing management on grasslands can store on average approximately 0.35 tonnes of C per ha and year – a rate seven times lower than the rate used by the Savory Institute to support the claim that holistic grazing can reverse climate change.
...
3. Scientific studies of holistic grazing........................................... ....................................... 11
3.1 Review of the research portfolios of the Savory Institute......................................... .......................11
3.2 Studies not included in the research portfolios of the Savory Institute......................................... ....16

Nordberg describes eleven peer-reviewed studies of holistic grazing from the SI. Only 4 were focused on soil: Ferguson et al. (2013), Manley et al. (1995), Sanjari et al. (2008) and Teague et al. (2011) which found that "Multi-paddock (= holistic grazing)" gave a 144% increase over "Heavy continuous" and 111% for "Light continuous". Much too low to support Savory's claim. Nordberg looked at review studies that were omitted from Savory’s research portfolio that do not show HM is general superior to other methods. Her conclusion: "Based on the material reviewed here, there is only indicative evidence for the general superiority of holistic grazing over other grazing systems or no grazing."

[The Atheist]

The figures for CO2 output for the first quarter (at least) of this year will be interesting - China's output right now must be down 50%.

[Wolrab]

They'll probably beat that as they really care about western environmentalists.

[The Atheist]

I'm not sure whether this has been widely circulated in the NH, but it's big news here since we're closer to Antarctica than most - a new record high, of 17.5 deg C (63.5F) was set for Antarctica in 2015, at the height of the then El Nino, which was one of the three strongest on record.

That record was utterly smashed last week, with a recording of 18.3C (64.9F).

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weath...re-ever/676772

[Red Baron Farms]

Soil carbon debt of 12,000 years of human land use
This has been out a few years now, but I missed it till now.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Soil carbon debt of 12,000 years of human land use
This has been out a few years now, but I missed it till now.

Soil carbon lost over the last 12K years = 133 billion tonnes
CO2 emissions from burring fossil fuels in 2019 = ~37 billion tonnes.


Land use, while important, is a distant second to burning of fossil fuels in it's impact on global climate. It only takes ~4 years of fossil CO2 emissions to match the cumulative impact of changes in soil carbon.

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by lomiller

Soil carbon lost over the last 12K years = 133 billion tonnes
CO2 emissions from burring fossil fuels in 2019 = ~37 billion tonnes.


Land use, while important, is a distant second to burning of fossil fuels in it's impact on global climate. It only takes ~4 years of fossil CO2 emissions to match the cumulative impact of changes in soil carbon.

Don't conflate C with CO2. The factor is 44/12 or 3.67.

Also keep in mind only 1/2 of emissions accumulates. so it's closer to 490 billion tonnes CO2e most of which happened since the 1970's and 20 billion tonnes annual CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, again, most of which happened recently.

Also keep in mind this figure does not include the natural flux of soil carbon into the long term geological cycle through normal erosion, which we humans are also influencing as well.

Total accumulated CO2 410 ppm means 110 ppm more than the goal we need to stop any global warming. That means 110 legacy CO2 x 7.81 conversion from ppm CO2 to gigatonnes CO2 = 859.....less than one teratonne

1 teratonnes is exactly what farmers around the world are committed to sequestering.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

The issue is very complex indeed. But I just wanted to throw out that particular bit of evidence, even if it is not the complete story.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

1 teratonnes is exactly what farmers around the world are committed to sequestering.

That is a bit too general, Red Baron Farms. The TerraTon Initiative is a company's proposal to sign up more farmers to use "regenerative farming practices". 1 teratonnes is exactly what a company and a small number of farmers around the world are hoping to sequester. However look at their "The Science" page which has no cited science. It is a list of practices that do encourage more carbon in soil such as no-tilling. The question is how much sequestration.

ETA: "Our goal is to remove 1 trillion tons of it and bring the concentration back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels." But the published science is that sequestration via changing farming practices can only migrate global warming.

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

That is a bit too general, Red Baron Farms. The TerraTon Initiative is a company's proposal to sign up more farmers to use "regenerative farming practices". 1 teratonnes is exactly what a company and a small number of farmers around the world are hoping to sequester. However look at their "The Science" page which has no cited science. It is a list of practices that do encourage more carbon in soil such as no-tilling. The question is how much sequestration.

ETA: "Our goal is to remove 1 trillion tons of it and bring the concentration back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels." But the published science is that sequestration via changing farming practices can only migrate global warming.

Drunk again RC? Don't you mean Mitigate instead of Migrate? And are you still in denial of case studies? Still banking your arguments on incredibly biased Belsky-ites and Vegan pseudoscience?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Drunk again RC?...

Thanks for pointing out that spell check can be bad:

Originally Posted by Reality Check

That is a bit too general, Red Baron Farms. The TerraTon Initiative is a company's proposal to sign up more farmers to use "regenerative farming practices". 1 teratonnes is exactly what a company and a small number of farmers around the world are hoping to sequester. However look at their "The Science" page which has no cited science. It is a list of practices that do encourage more carbon in soil such as no-tilling. The question is how much sequestration.

ETA: "Our goal is to remove 1 trillion tons of it and bring the concentration back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels." But the published science is that sequestration via changing farming practices can only migrate mitigate global warming.

I emphasized the unsupported assertion by the company for you. There is no published science that calculates that changing farming practices will return CO2 back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

There is the unpublished (TED talk, white papers, articles on his web site) speculation from Alan Savory that was shown to be wrong by published science which we have been through before.
22 January 2020: Published scientific literature showing that Savory's reversal of global warming by his HM system is wrong

A lie that I am denial of case studies. There are case studies that show that changing farming practices can sequester more carbon, thus my "such as no-tilling" above (listed by the company but I have seen this before). You have presented no case studies that show enough carbon sequestration to return CO2 back to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. No-till farming has mixed case studies but the balance is that carbon sequestration increases.

Some "incredibly biased Belsky-ites and Vegan pseudoscience" gibberish. Holistic management – a critical review of Allan Savory's grazing method by Nordborg, M. (2016) is science. As far as we know, Nordborg is a meat eater

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Thanks for pointing out that spell check can be bad:
..... snipped

I already explained where Nordborg went wrong. Section 4.3 which starts out saying, "A simple calculation, based on very optimistic assumptions, is presented." Her assumptions are listed and those assumptions are flat out wrong.

1. holistic grazing is introduced on 1 billion ha worldwide, in line with the goal of the Savory Institute;
2. plant growth measured as net primary production (NPP) above and below ground is 3.8 tonnes of C per ha and year before holistic grazing is introduced (see Appendix 4);
3. plant growth in the form of NPP is doubled as a result of holistic grazing;
4. 10% of the NPP is sequestered in the soil year 1, and
5. the soil carbon sequestration rate declines linearly from 10% of the NPP year 1, to 2% during the first 50 years, and from 2% of the NPP to 0% during the next 50 years.

Right off the top they use NPP rather than the 40% of the products of photosynthesis that do not become part of plant growth, but instead feed symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi. First error....

Next they assume plant growth is doubled as a result of holistic grazing. That is completely unfortunate because in most cases it quadruples, but that's where fairly good set stock grazing management was already in place. On desertified land there is no grazing any more, nor is the any appreciable vegetation in many cases. That's the point. It's desertified and no longer a productive grassland at all! That means you can't put a % increase on it at all, you are gaining good productivity where none was before? that's undefined increase or infinite increase depending how you do the math, neither is realistic. This is her second error.....

Next is her estimate of 10% of NPP below ground. That's a double error. Most perennial grasses have approximately 60-70% of the NPP biomass below ground, not 10%. So right from the start that's wrong. But more importantly the liquid carbon pathway is not roots anyway. It just flows through the roots as a sap like fluid similar to the running sap found when you tap a maple for syrup. Except sap feeds the plant tissues, and root exudates feed the above mentioned AMF. And of the carbon that follows this different pathway, 78% is held long term in the soil and does not return to the surface as CO2 when it finally decays. Instead it is sequestered into geological time frames. Error number three......

Next is her claim that sequestration rates gradually decline from 10% to zero after 100 years. This is complete nonsense. Soils that have never been degraded by agriculture and still have their native grasses and herbivores present may be rare, but they actually after thousands of years are sequestering carbon at even higher rates, not less. Those AFM don't die of starvation because the grasses stop feeding them. That's just silly. They don't stop producing glomalin either. The soils don't stop building. None of that sillyness assumed happens at all. She has applied the wrong carbon model to the problem. Those numbers are for the surface decaying carbon biomass in the O-horizon, a completely different thing. Forth error .....

In short, the paper tries to assume too much and tries to simplify a complex interaction in the soil. It is wrong and I have proven this to you so many times I get tired even arguing with you any more.

As for the Vegan, I was referring to someone else. Someone else who gave us this gem of pseudobabble:

Quote:

"They are at risk of completely drying out because of increasing temperatures and more at risk to the detrimental effect of mismanaged grazing (Lal, 2004).This makes it unreasonable to apply Holistic Management to such dry areas, where the intense grazing would no doubt leave soils further damaged."Seb V

Now come on RC. I know you are not stupid and I know you at least understand SOME logic and critical thinking. Can you explain to me how mismanaged land is a proof against any sort of good management, whether it be Savory's system or any other good grazing management? It's a non sequitur.

Come on now think please. Don't just start obfuscating and hiding behind tons of old posts you think were valid and I know are nonsense. Address these in the here and now.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Don't conflate C with CO2. The factor is 44/12 or 3.67.

Typical practice is to report in equivalent numbers are interchangeable with sequestered carbon.

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Also keep in mind only 1/2 of emissions accumulates.

Airborne fraction also applies to releases of sequestered carbon. Carbon emitted from soil does not behave any differently.

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Also keep in mind this figure does not include the natural flux of soil carbon into the long term.

On geological timescales CO2 levels are maintained by the balance of volcanism and the formation of carbonate rock. This balance can be shifted by the ocean acidification that is caused by emitting CO2, but again there is no differentiation between soil carbon and fossil carbon. Soil carbon doesn’t matter on these timescales.
On shorter timescales soils and the ocean release carbon when the planet warms, this is a major long term positive feedback that makes glacial cycles happen. You can’t just wish more carbon into them.

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

Total accumulated CO2 410 ppm means 110 ppm more than the goal we need to stop any global warming. That means 110 legacy CO2 x 7.81 conversion from ppm CO2 to gigatonnes CO2 = 859.....less than one teratonne

1 teratonnes is exactly what farmers around the world are committed to sequestering.

The fudge factors you are using don’t belong.

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

1 teratonnes is exactly what farmers around the world are committed to sequestering.

The suggestion soil can sequester 8X as much carbon they have lost over the last 12000 years is nonsense. In the optimal case returning soils to full heath would sequester ~130 billion tonnes of carbon while human emissions of fossil carbon are in the vicinity of 1 500 billion tonnes. Terrestrial ecosystems will release carbon in a warming world, not sequester it.

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by lomiller

Typical practice is to report in equivalent numbers are interchangeable with sequestered carbon.

Airborne fraction also applies to releases of sequestered carbon. Carbon emitted from soil does not behave any differently.

On geological timescales CO2 levels are maintained by the balance of volcanism and the formation of carbonate rock. This balance can be shifted by the ocean acidification that is caused by emitting CO2, but again there is no differentiation between soil carbon and fossil carbon. Soil carbon doesn’t matter on these timescales.
On shorter timescales soils and the ocean release carbon when the planet warms, this is a major long term positive feedback that makes glacial cycles happen. You can’t just wish more carbon into them.

The fudge factors you are using don’t belong.




The suggestion soil can sequester 8X as much carbon they have lost over the last 12000 years is nonsense. In the optimal case returning soils to full heath would sequester ~130 billion tonnes of carbon while human emissions of fossil carbon are in the vicinity of 1 500 billion tonnes. Terrestrial ecosystems will release carbon in a warming world, not sequester it.

Actually 80% of "weathering" is biological and most that happens in the soil, so you got that wrong, even though the term "weathering" is mistakenly used by many climate scientists who assume it is abiotic rather than biotic.

And beyond that....

Cenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic Cooling
This explains where the part you are missing from the soil geological cycle and how it is a forcing for cooling. This is a different and much longer cycle than the biomass carbon cycle which returns directly to the atmosphere after decay.

In soil science terminology, there is both labile carbon and stable carbon in the soil....and in particular under grasslands the stable fraction that does NOT return to the atmosphere but rather enters the geological long cycle is especially high. Even when it does erode , it tends to stick to the mineral substrate and ends up in sedimentary rock ... Not in the atmosphere.

And here is some info from another source:
Mollic Epipedon

Read carefully:
"The thickness and high soil organic carbon (SOC) contents of the mollic epipedon mean that these soils have sequestered large amounts of C over long periods of time."

And in fact "Large amounts" means many tonnes per ha annually and "long periods of time" means geological time frames in the thousands or tens of thousands of years at least! Not the 50-100 years claimed by Nordborg who used numbers for forest biomass saturation rather than what is actually happening in grassland soils.

Which makes sense actually if you step back and actually follow the evidence. It would take that high a sequestration rate for those long periods of time to actually force the cooling of the planet and start the glacial cycles of our ice age. If it stopped after 50 or 100 years it would not have cooled the planet at all. It wouldn't be much different than the forests were and the planet would have never cooled. Same thing regarding the rates. If the rates were tiny, and almost everything returned immediately to the atmosphere, then no way we would have many feet of rich black topsoil in the breadbaskets of the world, because there wasn't enough time since the last glaciation scoured it clean to the bedrock.

So I think you really need to rethink in your mind the dynamic here. We have multiple lines of evidence confirming a level of complexity in the soil that you are ignoring. It is indeed important too.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

I already explained where Nordborg went wrong. Section 4.3 which starts out saying, "A simple calculation, based on very optimistic assumptions, is presented....

An error about holistic grazing. A rumor of cases of plant growth quadrupling, but that ignores the other cases where it increase less (maybe 10%, 50%, etc.). The average increase is the proper number to use. You need to read the entire paper some day: How reasonable are the assumptions in the above calculation? (page 30)

Quote:

A doubling of plant productivity: the world’s grasslands and savannas are situated in areas where the vegetation growth is limited by precipitation and temperature (del Grosso et al.2008); factors a specific grazing method cannot change. None of the studies included in the research portfolio of the Savory Institute (see Chapter 3.1) support a doubling of plant productivity. Therefore, this assumption is considered very optimistic.

My emphasis added. Nordberg cannot use papers that even the Savory Institute does not know about ! Nordberg looked at papers "not included in the research portfolios of the Savory Institute"

Quote:

Here, two review studies that were omitted from Savory’s research portfolio are summarised as well as a critical evaluation of Savory’s claims and a more recent study on holistic grazing and carbon sequestration in South Africa. It should be noted that systematic review studies are complicated by terminology (McCosker, 2000; Teague et al., 2013; Briske et al., 2011). ...
Based on these results, Briske et al. (2008) concluded that rotational grazing is not superior to continuous grazing with respect to the studied parameters. [NPP is not listed] ...
Based on these results, Holechek et al. (2000) rejected the hypothesis that short-duration grazing is superior to continuous grazing. ...
Finally, Carter et al. (2014) concludes that cattle cause significant emissions of greenhouse gases, and that holistic grazing, as it involves animals, cannot reverse climate change. However, no mass balance calculation or other quantitative support for this argumentation is given. ...
Chaplot et al. (2016) acknowledge that the increase in soil carbon stocks in either fertilized grassland or as a result of grazing is likely the application of nutrients to the soils which increase biomass production and hence cause larger input of carbon to soils. ...

A "Next is her estimate of 10% of NPP below ground." error. The assumption which you quoted is "10% of the NPP is sequestered in the soil year 1". Take the existing NNP whatever value it is. Add 10% for the first year. The next assumption is applying the fact that soils do not sequester the same amount of carbon every year. Thus apply a linear decrease to 2% over 50 year and to 0% over the next 50 year.

16 January 2020: Why Savory and his institute is a bad source of climate science (CO2 and CH4 ignorance from an agriculturist touting his debated system with only a 2013 TED talk and documents on his web site).
22 January 2020: Published scientific literature showing that Savory's reversal of global warming by his HM system is wrong which includes Holistic management – a critical review of Allan Savory's grazing method by Nordborg, M. (2016)

[The Atheist]

It looks to me as though all countries have decided to not just get on board with the Paris Accord, they've positively embraced it.

Emissions are down in China by 20% so far this year, air travel is down by 90%, cruise ships are sitting in harbours, and demand for hydrocarbons has fallen so much that oil has halved in price. Roads are clear of traffic and people are staying at home.

I have no doubt the total emissions this year will be the least this century.

If only we knew why there was such a miraculous reduction in harm to the planet...

[Belz...]

Don't get your hopes up. Things will be back to normal soon enough.

[The Atheist]

1 - that might be a bloody long time coming.

2 - it might encourage a little more critical thinking.

As I posted in the Covid-19 thread, these zoonotic crossovers are happening a lot more frequently, and humans could well be to blame by reducing habitats. If only a small percentage of people get that we'll have made an improvement.

[Ulf Nereng]

I think the best chance for us all is a change of government in the USA, preferably with the Dems in control of both houses and the presidency. Only then can there be some serious efforts to improve international cooperation on problems that affects us all.

[The Atheist]

More on pollution reduction during Covid-19.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-air-pollution

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

More on pollution reduction during Covid-19.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-air-pollution

Ironically the short term effect may be a warming spike because the aerosols that cause global dimming are short lived compared to the the most important greenhouse gasses.

[Pixel42]

It seems there's at least a 50% chance that 2020 will break the global surface temperature record, despite the absence of El Nino conditions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-records-began

[Mr Clingford]

Good news everyone. Britain has gone 20 days without burning coal for electricity.

Drax unit 5 was the last coal station to run and was switched off at 11:35pm on April 9, 2020.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/...t-without-coal

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Mr Clingford

Good news everyone. Britain has gone 20 days without burning coal for electricity.

Drax unit 5 was the last coal station to run and was switched off at 11:35pm on April 9, 2020.

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/...t-without-coal

The unfortunate side of that is that aerosols have a stronger but shorter lived effect than CO2. The initial response to shutting down coal plants is actually warming. It needs to stay shut down for 10-20 years before the longer lasting impact of CO2 overcomes the short lived but strong global dimming effect of the aerosols that coal plant was releasing.

[Mr Clingford]

We're now over 27 days. This is awesome.

[Mr Clingford]

Over 40 days now. Without coal. Outstanding.

[Roger Ramjets]

I just read this today in Chemistry World.

CFCs responsible for half of Arctic sea-ice loss

Quote:

On a molecule-by-molecule basis, halogenated organic compounds trap much more heat in the atmosphere than most other known compounds. For example dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12) has a global warming potential almost 11,000 times that of carbon dioxide...

Atmospheric concentrations of ODS peaked towards the end of the last century, following the implementation of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which called for an end to their production. Polvani’s team say... the continuing decline of ODS will help to mitigate levels of Arctic warming and sea-ice melt over the coming decades.

They told us that CFCs were making a 'hole' in the ozone, but they didn't tell us this. Turns out there was an even better reason for banning them!

[lomiller]

The impact CFC’s have is already well documented, see the chart below from IPCC AR5.

CFC’s are a greenhouse gas, but so is the ozone they destroy. The net impact is a distant third behind CO2 and methane, and AFIK the claims of strong local effects in the artic are probably BS. There is some evidence that Ozone recovery in Antarctica is preventing temperature rise there, but Antarctica is climatologically isolated from the rest of the planet to a significant degree.

[Ulf Nereng]

This isn't going to help at all:

https://www.ecowatch.com/green-snow-...4#rebelltitem4

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by Ulf Nereng

This isn't going to help at all:

https://www.ecowatch.com/green-snow-...4#rebelltitem4

Not at all. We've known for a long time that Antarctica would start greening, but watching it happening is a bit disturbing.

[Mr Clingford]

Originally Posted by Mr Clingford

Over 40 days now. Without coal. Outstanding.

And now over 50 days.

[Pixel42]

Climate worst-case scenarios may not go far enough, cloud data shows

Quote:

Worst-case global heating scenarios may need to be revised upwards in light of a better understanding of the role of clouds, scientists have said.

Recent modelling data suggests the climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously believed, and experts said the projections had the potential to be “incredibly alarming”, though they stressed further research would be needed to validate the new numbers.

Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to be released next year.

Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million.

Very worrying, though this comment gives cause for hope:

Quote:

Scientists caution that this is a work in progress and that doubts remain because such a high figure does not fit with historical records.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

Climate worst-case scenarios may not go far enough, cloud data shows



Very worrying, though this comment gives cause for hope:

I mentioned this back in Nov when it was RealClimate had an article on it.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-unclassified/

It's not impossible for climate sensitivity to be greater than in the past end error estimates have always been more weighted to higher instead of lower. Given how long CS estimates have been in the 2-4.5 deg range It still seems unlikely, though.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by lomiller

I mentioned this back in Nov when it was RealClimate had an article on it.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-unclassified/

It's not impossible for climate sensitivity to be greater than in the past end error estimates have always been more weighted to higher instead of lower. Given how long CS estimates have been in the 2-4.5 deg range It still seems unlikely, though.

Realclimate has a new post on the subject as well

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ified-part-ii/

Gavin Schmidt (NASA's chief climate modeller ) discusses the issue and outlines the current research on the issue. Generally says it's premature to conclude higher sensitivity.

[The Atheist]

Bit warm in Russia right now, contributing to the planet's warmest-ever May.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...record-warmth/

[Pixel42]

NOAA say equal warmest May and second warmest year to date.

What makes it surprising is that this is an ENSO neutral year. Years which set, or come close to setting, new record highs are usually El Nino years, for obvious reasons.

I'm wondering if the lack of the usual global dimming due to the lockdown might be a factor?