New report on climate change released today

[lpetrich]

Life On Earth To Hit Brick Wall In Another 500 Million Years

Thus, as the sun’s luminosity grows and earth’s CO2 concentrations fall towards 150 parts per million (ppm), says Kasting, most of the world’s plants and trees will likely disappear. He says it’s possible that some of the biotic slack might be taken up by plants --- such as corn, sugar cane and tropical grasses --- that are able to function under such low CO2 concentrations.

“But it will be a very different planet,” said Kasting.

Kasting’s models point to the remaining plants going extinct 900 million years from now when CO2 levels falls below 10 parts per million (ppm).

The decline is from the carbonate-silicate thermostat and the slow brightening of the Sun. Here is how the carbonate-silicate thermostat works. If the Earth has too little CO2, it tends to accumulate as volcanoes spew more and more of it into the air. But as it does so, it causes more and more of a greenhouse effect, heating the Earth's surface up. More heat, more weathering, and more consumption of CO2. That keeps the Earth's average surface temperature roughly constant over geological time. It has enabled tropical forests to exist for as long as there have been trees - the last 380 million years.

But as James Kasting points out, this thermostat is running out, and it will take the Earth's plant life with it.

It must be noted that it has only limited relevance for the CO2 that we are spewing into the atmosphere, because its reaction time is typically around a million years.

But, in fact, Kasting says the inner edge of the habitable zone is “actually not that easy to find,” since it depends on clouds and relative humidity, neither of which, he says, can be easily calculated in a one-dimensional climate model. Yet, in any case, he notes this precipitous drop in earth’s atmospheric CO2 should occur at about the same projected rate.

...
Although the sun won’t envelop earth for at least another five billion years, or long after our star turns into an expanding Red Giant, Kasting says the “punchline” is that earth won’t remain habitable through to the end of the sun's hydrogen-burning (or main sequence) phase.

“Bad things start to happen much earlier than that,” said Kasting.

Kasting suggests one alternative would be to geo-engineer our way around our sun's luminosity increase by constructing space-based solar shield.

 

[bilby]

I think that scientists at NASA and NOAA know a lot more than anyone who denies climate change.

I don't think there is a single person who denies that the earth's climate changes. And yet, here you are again leading off with the same dogma. *rinse and repeat.

I don't think there's a single person who honestly doesn't recognise that "climate change" in this context refers to anthropogenic climate change that poses an imminent threat to humanity.

But there are plenty of disingenuous arguments that use a stupidly literal interpretation of the phrase as an opportunity to sneer, so as to justify ignoring the threat.

Those people who employ such "I am going to play dumb when interpreting your statement, so that I can make out that the statement itself is dumb" arguments, are even (ironically) highly dogmatic in their approach, taking every opportunity to restate the carefully designed disinformation that has been fed to them by those who believe that their short term profit from inaction will garner them sufficient wealth to ride out the worst of the impacts.

We are completely fucked, because a handful of wealthy and powerful people have a sufficiently effective propaganda campaign in place to block any change; And the vast majority of those who do accept the need for urgent action have been very effectively misinformed such that they strongly oppose the one technology that can provide a genuinely effective solution, without the cure being almost as damaging as the disease.

I am not sure who is more infuriating: Those who claim against all evidence that there's no problem; or those who claim against all evidence that the problem can be solved with wind turbines and photovoltaics. But those in either camp who pretend to be idiots so that they can argue against a strawman are certainly high up in the infuriation rankings - and of course, they are very happy about that, because they see the whole debate as a game, in which getting their opponents to lose their cool is a victory. But it's a game where winning means you're fucked. So good luck with that.

 

[lpetrich]

So at 500 million years from now, with CO2 at 150 ppm, all the C3-photosynthesis plants will go extinct. At 900 million years from now, with CO2 at 10 ppm, all the C4-photosynthesis plants will join them. C4-PS evolved from C3-PS several times, and it may repeatedly happen in the future, so the flora won't be as limited as what one might think.

Senator Rand Paul on Twitter: "No @AOC the world will not end in 12 years but we must, absolutely must do something, over the next 500 million years. Some say we should develop a space shield to protect us from the sun’s increased luminosity. I’m not against that but..." / Twitter

Senator Rand Paul on Twitter: "it will only be a temporary respite maybe a few million years. I do think we should also begin genetically altering O2 producing organisms to send to Saturn’s Titan and possibly the closest planets outside of our solar system. What say you AOC? https://t.co/7RSi3XL7Ki" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Hey Senator! Would you like me to also take your comments out of context and pose them as your earnest position, as you have chosen to do with me?
I assume the answer is yes, especially given that the GOP climate agenda is about as fictional as Spaceballs anyway. https://t.co/42FKq4VMjW" / Twitter

She was referring to this:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "For some reason GOP seems to think this is a gaffe, but it’s actually a generational difference.
Young people understand that climate change is an existential threat: 3,000 Americans died in Hurricane María.
The UN says we’ve got 12 years left to fix it: [url]https://t.co/KzawP5oI1M https://t.co/xTjtM39cCL" / Twitter[/url]
noting
Tom Elliott on Twitter: ".@AOC on millennials and social media: "We’re, like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change" https://t.co/HjhbVyfFN4" / Twitter

 

[George S]

In my nearly 77 trips around old Sol I have seen mass hysteria repeatedly. From the time we were told to hide under the desk in case of nuclear attack to the ozone hole growing catastrophically, to projected global cooling to global warming. So I am skeptical of extraordinary claims. I can use my personal experience with computer modeling to actually look under the hood. There are a huge number of simplifications in each model. Many complexities hidden in a summary number. This is what models do. They simplify. They must. They are future projections with error bars. You've seen the error "bars" shrink in hurricane models. The complexity of weather hours in the future rivals climate complexity.
Computer models are not science. They take place in an artificial world. Science is about reality.
Has the climate warmed since the 1970s (when global cooling was the projection)? Yes.
Has the climate continued in a continuous upward direction? No, there was the "pause" even while anthro-CO2 increased.
Since we are attempting to model climate, not weather, I would hope the data points are a 30-year moving average of weather data at each year. It will be a no-decision until we get accurate predictions for 30 years.
No climate model that I know of accounts for the big volcano which, in the past has occurred about once or twice a century (see Year Without a Summer). We just had a pretty big one in the Philippines. Volcanoes belch ash clouds that spread around the Earth. No climate model I know of projects any CME (Coronal Mass Ejection, see Carrington Event) as a statistical probability due every other century or so.
Do error bars propagate or cancel? If they propagate century predictions are nonsense when generated by rerunning a 1-year model 100 times with each taking the prior as its input.
AGW could be a thing. But how is it catastrophic? Unless the melting of Greenland takes place in hours, I think we can cope with a slowly rising global sea level. Even if there is no natural feedback mechanism we, humanity, are natural enough to change our environment slowly as things change slowly.
Having seen it all before -- mass media hysteria -- I begin as doubting. I have not seen a high enough consequent probability to override the Baysian prior probability of the Madness of Crowds. And, being my wheelhouse, I just happen to not trust computer models having programmed a bunch myself. One example is the heating/cooling of rooms for meetings in the Sears tower. Models done to project costs to implement.
For me it is just not "settled science."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Angelo I suggest you watch this video about Arrhenius. I posted it a while ago.

In the same vein, I've posted this more than once before.
https://electroverse.net/the-list-s...with-the-current-consensus-on-climate-change/

And we have pointed out how few of them are actually in relevant fields.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Life On Earth To Hit Brick Wall In Another 500 Million Years

The Earth will be uninhabitable to unprotected humans long before then.

 

[angelo]

Angelo I suggest you watch this video about Arrhenius. I posted it a while ago.

In the same vein, I've posted this more than once before.
https://electroverse.net/the-list-s...with-the-current-consensus-on-climate-change/

So you've got 40+ scientists that are deniers vs. the thousand who aren't.

View attachment 25670

40+? There are some very distinguished scientists in this list. Plus, read the comment at the end of the list!

You are here

 

[bilby]

So you've got 40+ scientists that are deniers vs. the thousand who aren't.

View attachment 25670

40+? There are some very distinguished scientists in this list. Plus, read the comment at the end of the list!

You are here

According to your post, the vast majority of these scientists are not climatologists (and a good proportion are retired, and so cannot be expected to be experts on the current state of the art even in their own area of expertise). A geographer, biologist, physicist, physical chemist, or botanist has no better claim to an understanding of climate than any random academic.

And even if they were all climatologists, they would still represent a tiny minority of climatologists. You could probably find a hundred scientists worldwide who would agree that the world is flat. Shit, you could easily find tens of thousands who believe that Jesus Christ performed miracles. A scientific consensus is not a few dozen scientists who agree with (or disagree with) a particular claim.

Yet again you present a post which contradicts itself, and which absolutely does not say what you claim it does. At what point do you realise that the only person you are fooling is yourself?

 

[ZiprHead]

So you've got 40+ scientists that are deniers vs. the thousand who aren't.

View attachment 25670

40+? There are some very distinguished scientists in this list. Plus, read the comment at the end of the list!

You are here

You really didn't read your own link and if you did you didn't understand it.

Not all of those on your list are deniers. Some just disagree with the models. Some agree there's climate change but disagree it's primarily man made. Some just think the effects are just not worth worrying about (Try to sell that to Australians). Some are fucking dead, seems a little unethical to include them when they could have changed their minds if they were still alive.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 

[TSwizzle]

For me it is just not "settled science."

I'd go further, the "climate emergency/crisis/apocalypse" isn't science. It's a Rapture like religion.


Anyway, Teh Gruaniad is well on board with it;

Nuclear weapons worsen the climate crisis: Generations of climate scientists have documented that a nuclear war could cause drastic climatic disturbances and global famine. Last year scientists found that the use of a few hundred weapons (less than 10% of today’s global nuclear arsenals) could nearly stop all rain over India and central China, and reduce global precipitation globally by 15%-30%. It would take over a decade to return to rainfall levels before the nuclear war. Nuclear weapons destroy the climate even when they are not used. Nuclear weapons facilities – not unlike the oil and gas companies exacerbating the climate crisis – have contaminated land and water around the world with waste that will last far beyond even our grandchildren’s lifetimes. Climate change could actually make nuclear war more likely. Increased resource scarcity increases the chance of conflict, according to a growing body of research.

Teh Gruaniad

My goodness, nuclear weapons DESTROY the climate, even when they are not used !!

Can't argue with that "science".

 

[bilby]

For me it is just not "settled science."

I'd go further, the "climate emergency/crisis/apocalypse" isn't science. It's a Rapture like religion.


Anyway, Teh Gruaniad is well on board with it;

Nuclear weapons worsen the climate crisis: Generations of climate scientists have documented that a nuclear war could cause drastic climatic disturbances and global famine. Last year scientists found that the use of a few hundred weapons (less than 10% of today’s global nuclear arsenals) could nearly stop all rain over India and central China, and reduce global precipitation globally by 15%-30%. It would take over a decade to return to rainfall levels before the nuclear war. Nuclear weapons destroy the climate even when they are not used. Nuclear weapons facilities – not unlike the oil and gas companies exacerbating the climate crisis – have contaminated land and water around the world with waste that will last far beyond even our grandchildren’s lifetimes. Climate change could actually make nuclear war more likely. Increased resource scarcity increases the chance of conflict, according to a growing body of research.

Teh Gruaniad

My goodness, nuclear weapons DESTROY the climate, even when they are not used !!

Can't argue with that "science".

The existence of someone who makes a dumb argument doesn't imply that all all related claims are dumb, or even that their conclusions are wrong - only that the argument presented doesn't justify the conclusions.

If you think the Earth is approximately spherical because God rolled it in his hands like a ball of clay, then your conclusion is correct but unjustified. If I agree that the Earth is approximately spherical, that doesn't give you justification for claiming that I side with those who subscribe to the God hypothesis. And if you were any good at reasoning, you would know this and avoid that line of argument.

(Oh, and FAR more than 100 nuclear weapons were detonated above ground in the 1950s, yet it still rains in India).

The argument: "An article that is clearly stupid concludes that climate change is a problem; Therefore climate change is stupid, and not a problem" is a fallacious argument. You should stop using it.

The fact is that dumb arguments tell you nothing at all about the value of their conclusions; So instead of reading (and sneering at) dumb articles, if you want to know about the subject, you need to study the science. You won't find it in the newspapers. Not even in those that agree with your prejudices, and certainly not by simply inverting the conclusions of those that disagree with them.

 

[ronburgundy]

Angelo I suggest you watch this video about Arrhenius. I posted it a while ago.

In the same vein, I've posted this more than once before.
https://electroverse.net/the-list-s...with-the-current-consensus-on-climate-change/

So you've got 40+ scientists that are deniers vs. the thousand who aren't.

View attachment 25670

Your being too generous. There are about 8 million scientists in the world and they've found 40 willing to publicly state that they disagree with the prevailing consensus of human-caused climate change. That's one-half of one-thousandth of a percent. There are likely more than that number who believe in a flat Earth and definitely way more than that who deny the basic facts of evolution. Hell, there are probably more than 40 scientists in the world who not only think the moon landing was fake but that the moon is made of cheese. Mental illness doesn't care about your degree.

 

[angelo]

The number 40 keeps cropping up. That's a load of BS! But even if true. Science doesn't work that way. Science works by experiment and observation. For that reason alone, if one is honest, there cannot be a scientific " consensus."

This article explains the how and why......................................
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryb...ic-global-warming-consensus-not/#691ceecd3bb3

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 

[bilby]

The number 40 keeps cropping up. That's a load of BS! But even if true. Science doesn't work that way. Science works by experiment and observation. For that reason alone, if one is honest, there cannot be a scientific " consensus."

This article explains the how and why......................................
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryb...ic-global-warming-consensus-not/#691ceecd3bb3

Scientific Consensus isn’t a “Part” of the Scientific Method: it’s a Consequence of it

In a nutshell, a consensus in science refers to a convergence of many independent lines of high quality evidence all leading the majority of active scientists in a given field to arrive at the same conclusion and/or complimentary conclusions. It’s not something any scientist necessarily sets out to become a part of as a goal, but is rather something they discover they’re a member of because that’s where their research results led them.

 

[TSwizzle]

Teh Gruaniad has gone full on bat shit cray-cray;

I campaign for the extinction of the human race. Fifty years ago, I concluded that the best thing for the planet would be a peaceful phase-out of human existence. I’ll never see the day when there are no humans on the planet, but I can imagine what a magnificent world it would be – provided we go soon enough.

Teh Gruaniad

When humanity’s dying stragglers mark up the final tapes for the time capsule, I hope they’ll call this episode A Great Week to Bail Out an Airline. Even as David Attenborough warned of Earth’s “crisis moment”, the UK government rescued ailing airline Flybe on the basis that some people can’t get to work between Wales and Scotland or wherever any other way. Eventually, surviving businessmen will be able to row between mountain peaks, but for now corporate efficiency trumped the climate emergency. Watching the unprecedented fires provokes a strong sense that the Earth is bored with the series, and is fast-forwarding to the end. In fact, there’s a school of thought that says we should stop having the climate emergency discussion in terms of us killing the planet, and reframe it to acknowledge that it will be the planet killing us.

And so it goes on.

Teh Gruaniad

Teh Grauniad really has embraced this Rapture like cult and pumps out this shit on a daily basis.

 

[bilby]

Teh Gruaniad has gone full on bat shit cray-cray;

I campaign for the extinction of the human race. Fifty years ago, I concluded that the best thing for the planet would be a peaceful phase-out of human existence. I’ll never see the day when there are no humans on the planet, but I can imagine what a magnificent world it would be – provided we go soon enough.

Teh Gruaniad

When humanity’s dying stragglers mark up the final tapes for the time capsule, I hope they’ll call this episode A Great Week to Bail Out an Airline. Even as David Attenborough warned of Earth’s “crisis moment”, the UK government rescued ailing airline Flybe on the basis that some people can’t get to work between Wales and Scotland or wherever any other way. Eventually, surviving businessmen will be able to row between mountain peaks, but for now corporate efficiency trumped the climate emergency. Watching the unprecedented fires provokes a strong sense that the Earth is bored with the series, and is fast-forwarding to the end. In fact, there’s a school of thought that says we should stop having the climate emergency discussion in terms of us killing the planet, and reframe it to acknowledge that it will be the planet killing us.

And so it goes on.

Teh Gruaniad

Teh Grauniad really has embraced this Rapture like cult and pumps out this shit on a daily basis.

The existence of fools who take an idea too far remains irrelevant to the question of whether the basic idea is true.

The Grauniad, Al Gore, and any other entertainers with no scientific background are just a sideshow. The climatologists remain the only people to ask, and they are telling us that we are in increasingly deep shit - which remains true even if there's a bunch of clowns who are exaggerating or misinterpreting their results.

 

[Half-Life]

Were humans around during the last ice age? No??? Then how did that climate change happen?

 

[bilby]

Were humans around during the last ice age? No??? Then how did that climate change happen?

Yes, humans were around during the last ice age. The most recent glacial period was only about 10,000 years ago.

And that climate change happened when falling sea levels changed the ocean circulation patterns such that the Southern Ocean released large volumes of Carbon Dioxide.

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html

The release of large volumes of carbon dioxide would appear to be a common cause of climate change.

And as you seem to like rhetorical questions: You really don't know enough (about anything) to be a useful participant in this conversation, do you?