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Klondike Kat

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1950 on: June 14, 2019, 02:27:16 PM »
2. Yes, ice has been declining since the end of the last ice age. The rate of decline is now many times that of the historical average.

Sorry to disagree but this is not correct - the ice has been increasing for the last 8000 years, something that only turned around some decades ago and is now going rapidly in the other direction.

The ice declined rapidly between 11.000 and 8.000 years ago, but then started to increase again. This is a very important point to make, the current changes are not "the same but bigger", but do in fact go against the recent trend, and against all the exptected changes caused by changes in  all the natural causes.
Since the climatic maximum, some 8000 years ago, glaciers have advanced and receded several times.  Exactly how many times this has occurred varies among scientists, as global glacial advance has not been in sync.  Most recently, glaciers were receded until the start of the 14th century, when European and Asian glaciers began advancing.  North American glaciers did not start their advance until about a century later.  The Himalayan glaciers were the first to stem their advance sometime in the 17th century.  The Canadian Rockies and Alaska appear to be the last, holding out until the end of the 19th century.  Individual glaciers can buck this trend, due to factors other than temperature.  Hubbard glacier in Alaska receded during the entire Little Ice Age, but has been advancing for the last century.

Not sure where you have your information from but you seem to be talking about short term fluctuations. In Iceland it is well established that over the last 8000 years, glaciers have grown from practically non-existent to covering some 10.000 km2. Absolute maximum extent was reached around 1930.

And this of course fits in with a world that is generally getting colder - by a massive 0.5C over 8000 years up to the middle of the 19th century. Since then, of course, the world has warmed by at least 1 degree.

Yes, they are short term in geologic time, lasting less than a millennium.  It has been an even shorter time since 1930 (although many glaciologists state 1850 as the maximum glacial extent during the LIA).

binntho

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1951 on: June 14, 2019, 03:06:15 PM »
2. Yes, ice has been declining since the end of the last ice age. The rate of decline is now many times that of the historical average.

Sorry to disagree but this is not correct - the ice has been increasing for the last 8000 years, something that only turned around some decades ago and is now going rapidly in the other direction.

The ice declined rapidly between 11.000 and 8.000 years ago, but then started to increase again. This is a very important point to make, the current changes are not "the same but bigger", but do in fact go against the recent trend, and against all the exptected changes caused by changes in  all the natural causes.
Since the climatic maximum, some 8000 years ago, glaciers have advanced and receded several times.  Exactly how many times this has occurred varies among scientists, as global glacial advance has not been in sync.  Most recently, glaciers were receded until the start of the 14th century, when European and Asian glaciers began advancing.  North American glaciers did not start their advance until about a century later.  The Himalayan glaciers were the first to stem their advance sometime in the 17th century.  The Canadian Rockies and Alaska appear to be the last, holding out until the end of the 19th century.  Individual glaciers can buck this trend, due to factors other than temperature.  Hubbard glacier in Alaska receded during the entire Little Ice Age, but has been advancing for the last century.

Not sure where you have your information from but you seem to be talking about short term fluctuations. In Iceland it is well established that over the last 8000 years, glaciers have grown from practically non-existent to covering some 10.000 km2. Absolute maximum extent was reached around 1930.

And this of course fits in with a world that is generally getting colder - by a massive 0.5C over 8000 years up to the middle of the 19th century. Since then, of course, the world has warmed by at least 1 degree.

Yes, they are short term in geologic time, lasting less than a millennium.  It has been an even shorter time since 1930 (although many glaciologists state 1850 as the maximum glacial extent during the LIA).

The whole discussion was about whether there had been a steady decrease in the amount of ice since the end of the last Ice age, or not. Some people seem to think that this is/has been the case, i.e. that once the last glacial ended, the world has been getting progressively warmer.

Many people, both deniers and not, seem to think that the world would be warming anyway, and that AGW is just adding increasing the speed of warming.

This is obviously not the case - the maximum was reached 8000 years ago and since then it has been getting progressively colder, with a fairly constant (although fluctuating) growth in ice, both as glaciation and as sea ice.



As for whether the last maximum glaciation was reached in 1850 or 1930 is not really important.

When Iceland was settled in the middle ages, a large valley in the south of Iceland was given the name "the big forest". In the 1300s and 1400s the inland glacier slowly advanced over farmland and by the end of the middle ages, the area was no longer habitable. By the early 1900s the glacier tongue had almost reached the sea, lacking only a few tens of meters. Since then, that glacier tongue has retreated some 10 kilometers inland.

So the constant and relentless growth of glaciers was a stark reality until the beginning of the 20th century. Today the glaciers are shrinking extremely fast, and may be all but disappeared in 200 years or so.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
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gerontocrat

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1952 on: June 14, 2019, 05:00:16 PM »
This is a good thread. I write something that turns out wrong, and I find out loads of stuff I never knew before, like about the Icelandic and other glaciers relentless advance until n years ago, where n is not so big.
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1953 on: June 14, 2019, 05:27:02 PM »
Isn't this why we are here, learning new stuff? :)

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1954 on: June 14, 2019, 06:16:09 PM »
Isn't this why we are here, learning new stuff? :)
No, I am learning how to pontificate about things of which I know very little or nothing (trainee politician).
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1955 on: June 14, 2019, 06:38:02 PM »
Close enough! ;)

Tor Bejnar

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1956 on: June 14, 2019, 06:48:58 PM »
B_'s melt pond code in Sentinel-hub Playground has an interesting 'feature'.  The edge of melt ponds have a darker pink rim.  I suspect the blue-green is 'melt pond' and the darker pink is 'saturated snow'.  What do you think of my suspicion? (Note scale in lower right corner - this is blown up big!)
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1957 on: June 14, 2019, 06:57:06 PM »
Quote
I suspect the blue-green is 'melt pond' and the darker pink is 'saturated snow'.

I had the same thought, Tor.

The darker pink rim i suspect ice that's seen through thin water layers. When it's going deeper, it's getting bluer.

Glen Koehler

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1958 on: June 14, 2019, 07:23:27 PM »
RE:  LeftyLarry
1.   .... "ice comes and goes naturally and man adjusts"
2.  ..."ice been slowly declining since the end of the ice age"   
3.  ...."could a volcanic eruption, bring enough cooling to regrow the lost ice and stop the long term patterns of continued loss"
4. "If all the ice melted and the oceans rose , wouldn’t there still be a huge net gain of habitable land overall?"

    Whether trolling or not, these are questions/assumption many people have, including the U.S. Secretary of State, who recently suggested that people will just move to accomodate a change climate, that climate has always changed, etc.
    What is missing in those perspectives is a sense of scale for time and impacts, along with some basic misunderstandings.

My take on 1-4.
    1.  As others here have noted here and elswhere, it's one thing for a nomadic society of let's say 7,000 humans to move their tents inland in response to millenial rates of change.  Quite another for 7 billion humans with massive infrastructure investments and needs to react to rates of change 10x to 100x faster, thus decadal changes as large as what happend across a 1,000 years in the past. 

     2.  Others here have commented here in more detail.  I'll just add that the "natural" trend has been a gradual cooling since the Holocene peak a few thousand years ago.  Gradual because that cooling was due primarily to natural, = very slow, shift in orbital cycle.  What humans are doing to atmosphere, starting with use of coal as energy source starting ca. 1750, and esp. since 1970 with global increase in fossil fuels, is orders of magnitude more intense and faster than even the most radical climate shifts that led to mass extinctions (90+% of species) in the geologic record.

    3.  Even another Tambora eruption (which caused the "Year without a summer" in New England in 1816) won't protect us from our radical heating of the Earth.  While some climate scientists say the temperature effect is discernible longer than the usually cited 'couple of years', it is temporary nonetheless.  A cooling caused by volcanic emissions into the stratosphere, or a synthetic version through geoengineering, also does nothing to reduce ocean acidification.  Geoengineering to reduce solar energy also introduces major risk of disrupting monsoon and other weather patterns.  "Let's try this, what could go wrong?"  Lots.

    4.  Moving from recently inundated coastlines to newly exposed land formerly under ice caps would bring with it economic and humanitarian destruction of unprecedented scale in the history of human civilization since 4000 B.C.E..  But in addition, just moving the crop belts north isn't going to work.  The temperature bands will move north, but the amount of solar radiation for photosynthesis isn't changing, and the glaciated soil types in central Canada, for example, are not the same as Iowa which used to have 10 feet of top soil in places.  It's going to be tough enough to feed 10 billion people in 2050.  Doing that with degraded ag productivity, which is the consensus projection for global average temperature beyond +1.5-2C (mixed results for lower temp. change) could be impossible. 
      And don't let anybody fool you with the "CO2 fertilization" smoke screen. Increasing CO2 can indeed increase plant growth under controlled conditions where everything else is supplied at optimum (water, fertility, temperature).  Raise CO2 to 450-500ppm in the real world and you won't get any plant growth benefit because those other inputs are not optimized.  Major world food crops are near their thermal maximum now.  Increased temperatures would/will take them over the top of the curve and onto the declining production side even if water supply wasn't an issue.  Moreover, studies find that for the plants that we eat, aka "crops", while they can be grown bigger under higher CO2 with those perfect conditions I talked about above, the density for key nutrients goes down, so a person would have to consume more to get the same amount of nutritional benefit.

    Bottom line - climate disruption is going to kill people.  Lots of them.  The brown and poor people will get hit first, but nobody will escape the consequences of altering the basic life support system of planet Earth.  And by the way, we can't go to Mars.  Think about how many people on Earth it would take to support a colony of a dozen people living inside canisters on Mars.

    So if you love your grandkids (and how could you not) then do everything you can to raise awareness and alarm because this really is a crisis.  It is an unnecessary and avoidable crisis, because we already have the technical capability to produce the energy we need without suicidal continuation of fossil fuel addiction.  The real issue is one of character, long-term wisdom vs. short sighted fear, political will, and mobilization.  Start by refusing to vote for anyone who puts the lives of you, your children, and your grandchildren in mortal danger.

   Sorry for long post.  But you asked and this is the most important issue of human existence.  We have to get this right.  Failure is not an option.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 12:03:59 AM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

oren

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1959 on: June 14, 2019, 07:27:36 PM »
Well said Glen.

Dharma Rupa

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1960 on: June 14, 2019, 11:18:50 PM »
In my experience, the people who now say that we can't do anything about it are the same who 15 years ago said that the world wasn't warming and 10 years ago that is wasn't caused my humans.

30 years ago I made sure I bought a house on a hill overlooking town (Boston) saying it was my future valuable oceanfront property.  I said then, and I say now, we sealed our fate before we even knew it was an issue some 150 years ago.

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1961 on: June 15, 2019, 04:25:03 AM »
Thanks for the answers gentleman.
I still don’t know if I am a denier or not.
I believe in Anthropomorphic global warming but I still am not sure that the dire results described here by some are close to happening or will ever happen and if I’m wrong about that and the worst case scenario is the correct one, I’m still not sure we can stop it.  I  do know for certain that treaties designed to hurt the US economy while allowing the rest of the world , especially our economic competitors to continue polluting , certainly isn’t the answer.
I will keep lurking and keep asking questions.
I’m on the Board of two charities and active Politically , supporting various different politicians and causes and this often comes up.
I want to know more.

binntho

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1962 on: June 15, 2019, 07:21:50 AM »
Isn't this why we are here, learning new stuff? :)
No, I am learning how to pontificate about things of which I know very little or nothing (trainee politician).
Aren't we all!
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1963 on: June 15, 2019, 10:03:34 AM »
I still am not sure that the dire results described here by some are close to happening or will ever happen

It's simple math. We have n people dying from extreme weather. Year by year, since forever.

If the extremes are going more extreme, you'll have more people dying. Also, you have new problems on hand.

You are not supposed to do the math. Experts are doing it. And they are all pretty sure about the
consequences described above.

Quote
I’m still not sure we can stop it

Again, the things described above will happen. How severe they will affect us is a direct function of us emitting more or less CO2. Less CO2 will mitigate the severity!

Quote
I  do know for certain that treaties designed to hurt the US economy while allowing the rest of the world , especially our economic competitors to continue polluting , certainly isn’t the answer.

This sentence has nothing to do with reality what so ever and makes me very angry.

Per capita, the US is one of the top polluters in the world. Period! You get your shit fixed before telling others how unfair they allegedly are.

And you casually sprinkling in this supremacy BS makes me really doubt your username.

gerontocrat

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1964 on: June 15, 2019, 12:26:24 PM »
I  do know for certain that treaties designed to hurt the US economy while allowing the rest of the world , especially our economic competitors to continue polluting , certainly isn’t the answer.

This sentence has nothing to do with reality what so ever and makes me very angry.

Per capita, the US is one of the top polluters in the world. Period! You get your shit fixed before telling others how unfair they allegedly are.

And you casually sprinkling in this supremacy BS makes me really doubt your username.
makes me really doubt your username No longer any doubts for me.

LeftyLarry is quoting straight out of the Trumponomics / Heartland Institute / American Enterprise Institute et al playbook.

End
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1965 on: June 15, 2019, 02:57:09 PM »
I agree that the 'Lefty' spoils it all a bit.  ;D
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1966 on: June 15, 2019, 03:25:29 PM »
  I  do know for certain that treaties designed to hurt the US economy while allowing the rest of the world , especially our economic competitors to continue polluting , certainly isn’t the answer.

Gerontocrat addressed this abominable assertion, and I have to concur.  The Paris agreement is absolutely not "designed" to hurt the US economy.  It is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the globe.  It's almost certainly insufficient, but a step in the right direction.

While Trump has reneged on this commitment, many jurisdictions have reaffirmed their commitment to it.  Here we see that reducing emissions is not harmful to economic wellbeing.  California is embracing the Paris commitment, and is simultaneously an economic powerhouse.

I suspect that avoiding 2 degrees C of warming by 2100 is no longer attainable.  But doing nothing versus doing our collective best may mean the difference between 4 and 6 degrees of warming.  Which, in turn, may be the difference between some continuance of human civilization and a mass extinction which takes homo sapiens with it.

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1967 on: June 15, 2019, 03:46:30 PM »
I agree that the 'Lefty' spoils it all a bit.  ;D

I wondered if it was a case of deliberate plausible deniability: If questioned, he could say he was left handed rather than it referring to political beliefs.  ;)

Archimid

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1968 on: June 15, 2019, 04:23:42 PM »
But doing nothing versus doing our collective best may mean the difference between 4 and 6 degrees of warming.  Which, in turn, may be the difference between some continuance of human civilization and a mass extinction which takes homo sapiens with it.

4 degrees by 2100 is almost equally bad as 6. Holding warming to 4C by 2100 is not a solution to the problem.

I wish there was a good source on what is "safe warming". Such paper should examine what is a safe speed of warming and what is a safe total warming.

Only then ECS becomes useful and correct targets can be set. 4C is an entirely different world.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1969 on: June 15, 2019, 04:38:00 PM »
Radar experts.

This i don't understand. The open sea area in Lincoln at Nares shows up as black&white. Why is it that open sea ice area showing a brightness difference?

Could it be caused by waves?

Shared Humanity

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1970 on: June 15, 2019, 08:47:31 PM »
In my experience, the people who now say that we can't do anything about it are the same who 15 years ago said that the world wasn't warming and 10 years ago that is wasn't caused my humans.

If you are going to be wrong, you might as well be consistently wrong.

Shared Humanity

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1971 on: June 15, 2019, 08:52:53 PM »
Isn't this why we are here, learning new stuff? :)
No, I am learning how to pontificate about things of which I know very little or nothing (trainee politician).

You're not doing a very good job. You should stick to something you're good at like delivering hard facts and observations that we can digest and discuss.

Shared Humanity

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1972 on: June 15, 2019, 08:55:41 PM »
You have to give LL credit. He is at least self aware enough to post his comments on this thread.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1973 on: June 15, 2019, 09:01:00 PM »
 ;D

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1974 on: June 16, 2019, 03:25:01 AM »
I will keep lurking and keep asking questions.
I’m on the Board of two charities and active Politically , supporting various different politicians and causes and this often comes up.
I want to know more.

Granpaw Larry, when you done messin with them folks on the ice forems will you help me find my MAGA hat? 

Trumps Holdn a rally tonight and I want him to know we are active politically.

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1975 on: June 16, 2019, 04:46:09 PM »
Again, the things described above will happen. How severe they will affect us is a direct function of us emitting more or less CO2. Less CO2 will mitigate the severity!

150 years too late.  Less CO2 might reduce the duration, but we've already screwed up.

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1976 on: June 16, 2019, 05:05:50 PM »
"Could it be caused by waves?"
Sometimes when the sea's turbulent wave patterns show but whether they're actual waves in the ocean or concentrations of evaporation? That is I think there are waves but that's not the aspect that shows.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1977 on: June 16, 2019, 06:03:39 PM »
Thanks, John, i tend to think the same.

It matches well with the wind pattern shown on Windy.

RoxTheGeologist

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1978 on: June 16, 2019, 07:29:00 PM »
Thanks for the answers gentleman.
I still don’t know if I am a denier or not.
I believe in Anthropomorphic global warming but I still am not sure that the dire results described here by some are close to happening or will ever happen and if I’m wrong about that and the worst case scenario is the correct one, I’m still not sure we can stop it.  I  do know for certain that treaties designed to hurt the US economy while allowing the rest of the world , especially our economic competitors to continue polluting , certainly isn’t the answer.
I will keep lurking and keep asking questions.
I’m on the Board of two charities and active Politically , supporting various different politicians and causes and this often comes up.
I want to know more.

Perhaps geologists are the most worried about climate change. We are well aware that there is enough water trapped in the ice caps to change sea-level by 100's of meters. A small 6m increase similar to the last time the earth was this hot is no big shakes to a geologist, but would be devastating to the 53% of the earths population that live close to coasts. We are pushing the world very quickly towards that state.

The US has perhaps the least to gain from climate change. Much of the Mississippi valley will flood, coastlines will be inundated. 40% of the US population lives in coastal counties. Southern states will be come too hot, farming output will decline. Northern countries stand the most to gain from climate change; Russia will gain the most. If you want to know where Trump's climate policy is coming from I suspect you have to look to Moscow.



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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1979 on: June 16, 2019, 08:16:38 PM »
Perhaps geologists are the most worried about climate change. 

Yes, except for the significant fraction employed by the fossil fuel industry.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1980 on: June 16, 2019, 08:32:05 PM »
Every day the USA has a few more climate refugees - not immigrants,  citizens of the USA.

A street in Charleston? is zoned  for demolition and to be returned to wetland. The houseowners are being paid off and leaving.

In New Jersey the government is still trying to get houseowners to move as where they live cannot be protected from the next surge.

Some farmers and residents along the USA's great rivers have been flooded out once too often and for too long. They are abandoning the land - i.e. they are climate refugees.

This is the here and now, not some Armageddon in the future.

It will get worse before it gets better. It will only get better if people get off the fence and DO something about it.
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1981 on: June 16, 2019, 08:39:23 PM »

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1982 on: June 17, 2019, 07:03:37 AM »
By burning hydrocarbons we got a lot of chemical energy. I don't know much about chemistry but am thinking you have to put the same chemical energy back in (actually more) to rebind the CO2 (on the same scale). Is my simplistic thinking correct?
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1983 on: June 17, 2019, 07:17:26 AM »
By burning hydrocarbons we got a lot of chemical energy. I don't know much about chemistry but am thinking you have to put the same chemical energy back in (actually more) to rebind the CO2 (on the same scale). Is my simplistic thinking correct?
"Splitting" C and O from CO2 does indeed take a lot of energy. However, certain metals and metallic compounds will actually "burn" CO2, binding the O and releasing the C as soot. Magnesium is apparently one, and compounds of Lithium another.

This process creates energy and releases C, but oxidizes the metals used, so making them more or less worthless.

Pumping CO2 down boreholes into layers of basaltic rock will bind the CO2 permanently through mineral carbonization, apparently large scale experiments have been conducted in Iceland.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1984 on: June 17, 2019, 07:41:00 AM »
Thank you binntho.
Regarding the Iceland experiment, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43789527:

  "Reactions were a lot faster than anticipated partly because of the large amounts of water used to dissolve the CO2.
This however points to one of the project's Achilles heels - it is very water intensive.

"It needs over 25 tonnes of water per tonne of CO2," says Prof Gislason. "In Iceland we are blessed with lots of rain, but if you are doing this on the basaltic areas in India... their water is very precious".
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

nanning

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1985 on: June 17, 2019, 07:41:51 AM »
Regarding ClimateReanalyzer.org 2m temps,
https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2

Does anyone know wether 'Avg' is the mean or the median?
And is the '2m Temperature Anomaly' calculated using 'Avg'?
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

SteveMDFP

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1986 on: June 17, 2019, 05:25:05 PM »
By burning hydrocarbons we got a lot of chemical energy. I don't know much about chemistry but am thinking you have to put the same chemical energy back in (actually more) to rebind the CO2 (on the same scale). Is my simplistic thinking correct?

Yes.  But you don't have to separate the oxygen from carbon.  Mix with essentially any alkali and water and you get carbonates, like chalk (in the case of calcium).  Some rocks are fairly alkaline (like olivine, apparently).  I'd think it might be plausible to crush such rocks and put the gravel in faster-moving streams (just downstream of dams would be ideal).  Almost certainly cheaper per ton than trying to pull CO2 directly out of the air and having a reduction reaction in a container. 

The cheapest, of course, is to grow any kind of plant, then prevent breakdown of the organic material.  Say, forests.

be cause

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1987 on: June 17, 2019, 05:40:25 PM »
forests .. or hemp .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1988 on: June 17, 2019, 06:02:31 PM »
Hemp forests!

nanning

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1989 on: June 17, 2019, 06:57:34 PM »
I laughed out loud, thank you both, and SteveMDFP thank you very much for the useful information and subtle enormous truth.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Glen Koehler

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1990 on: June 18, 2019, 02:00:31 AM »
RE Lefty Larry "I will keep lurking and keep asking questions."
"I want to know more."

    While ASIF community is great and appreciated, and THE best place to watch the Arctic ice melt, there are better places to understand the big picture regarding scientific consensus and implications of the climate crisis.  Instead of having to figure it out ourselves with limited time, resources, and expertise, wouldn't it be great to convene a bunch of experts in every arena of climate, meteorology, impacts on agriculture, health, economy etc. to look into these very questions?

     Yes, it would.  And it has already been done, repeatedly, by many countries and of course, by the U.N. too (IPCC).  A great example, updated only 6 months ago in fall of 2018 is the U.S. National Climate Assessment at
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/.  It is written from/for a U.S. perspective of course, but I sense that is your residence and thus of most immediate concern.  The report website provides nice summaries and graphics so you can quickly get to the bottom line.  You don't have to guess at what's going on. 

     People who study this stuff every day for entire careers have given their time to tell us what's going on.  Just because politicians who are ideologically blinded by fossil fuel interest and status quoism ignore blatant facts does not mean you have to be as willfully ignorant as they are.  Indeed U.S. polling shows that despite wildly successful programs to delay response to the crisis by sowing confusion and doubt, a majority of U.S. residents are coming to understand that yes humans can, and are, interfering with the climate system we depend upon for life support on spaceship Earth. 

     Or go to https://skepticalscience.com/  to find scientifically reviewed and credible responses to flawed arguments and bogus "evidence" that have been used in attempts to contradict the scientific consensus.  Read up, think about those grandkids, and decide what is the defensible reply you can give to them, and to yourself, 10 years from now when they ask you what you were doing with your political activity when the climate crisis emerged as a clear and present danger back in 2019.   

     (BTW, the denier industry used the same methods and in some cases even the same consultants as was done in fighting the tobacco smoking - cancer connection, this is not innuendo, but fact.  One of the consultant agency's motto, actually written in a memo: "Doubt is our product." )
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

Glen Koehler

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1991 on: June 18, 2019, 03:16:17 AM »
RE Nanning #1886
     The guy who built and runs Climate Reanalyzier (CR) (Sean Birkel) is precise with his terminology.  While I can't be 100% certain since I have not asked him, I'm pretty sure if it was using median he would labeled it "median", not average.  So I can almost guarantee that "average" indeed is the average (mean) for both for 2M temperatures and for anomaly. 

     Furthermore, he says this in an explanatory note on multiple CR pages
"2m Temperature refers to air temperature at 2 meters above the surface. 2m Temperature Anomaly refers to the departure of the current day (or hour) forecasted temperature from a long-term mean for the same day (and hour) of the year. The anomalies here are based on a 1979-2000 reference climatology derived from the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). This 22-year baseline is used instead of the more common 1981-2010 climate normal because 1979-2000 represents conditions prior to rapid Arctic warming and sea-ice loss."

   Speaking of CR, note that it uses GFS, and that last week after the June 12 transition to the new version of GFS there was an issue with temperature values.   CR had a cautionary note to that effect last week, but now I can't find it, so perhaps the issue has been resolved.  But as of June 17 there is still a cautionary notice on Karsten Haustein's 2M temperature anomaly graph at http://www.karstenhaustein.com/climate.php
« Last Edit: June 18, 2019, 04:23:52 AM by Glen Koehler »
“What is at stake.... Everything, I would say." ~ Julienne Stroeve

nanning

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1992 on: June 18, 2019, 04:28:51 AM »
Thank you very much for the information Glen.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

karl dubhe2

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1993 on: June 19, 2019, 03:21:19 PM »
By burning hydrocarbons we got a lot of chemical energy.

The cheapest, of course, is to grow any kind of plant, then prevent breakdown of the organic material.  Say, forests.

It might not be entirely a stupid question, but I'm thinking that if plants can do it (separate C from O2), we should be able to copy that artificially.    I'm sure some people are working on imitating, or just learning, how nature does it.   

Where would one go to learn more about how they're working on that particular subject?

binntho

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1994 on: June 19, 2019, 03:40:53 PM »
Reminds me of one of the largest solar energy installations, as well as one of the oldest, in the world.

Around the year 1900 Addis Ababa was running out of firewood, but the then emperor, Menelik II, planted some Eukalyptus in the mountains around the city. Since then, all the firewood burned is from these trees - natural solar energy as well as CO2 neutral.
because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true
St. Augustine, Confessions V, 6

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1995 on: June 19, 2019, 03:44:13 PM »
Karl, here is a thought:

Since we need resources to build this machines that extract CO2 from the air while polluting the air with CO2, wouldn't it be more reasonable to first put this resources into machines that prevent emitting CO2 in the first place? Like windmills and solar panels? This would prevent the need for even more machinery to extract even more CO2.

So you see, no need to learn about this for the next 10-30 years. Because this is the time to prevent more CO2 pollution. Not the time for CO2 emitting geoengineering.

Archimid

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1996 on: June 19, 2019, 05:39:04 PM »
b_lumenkraft I fear that the time when reducing emissions was a solution is over. Fossil fuel interests won. We should have listened to the warnings 30 years ago.We must have negative emissions to bring back the temperature to 20th century levels. That means that not only we must stop emitting, we must withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere.

Trees and plankton are the global champions of CO2 absorption, so the answer may be found replicating them.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

b_lumenkraft

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1997 on: June 19, 2019, 05:48:42 PM »
When we talk reforesting i'm all with you, Archimid! This is the one thing that works.

But when people talk geoengineering, they often talk crazy, they mostly don't mean reforesting.

We can plant trees, that's no problem.

When it comes to artificially growing plankton in the sea, we are clearly in the crazy region. You need to produce massive amounts of stuff that produces CO2 while producing it. Also, no one knows if it works, if there are unintended consequences, how it affects wildlife, etc. That's a big no go.

gerontocrat

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1998 on: June 19, 2019, 05:51:25 PM »
There are guys on this forum and in many places in the world trying to make a go of commercial farming that produces food and increases the organic (which includes CO2) and microbial content of the soil.

Agro-Industry (e.g. Bayer/Monsanto) are, if anything, an even more implacable opponent than the fossil fuel industry.

They could be, if allowed, more the real saviours of humanity's sorry arse than all the Gretas and Musks of the world, in my not very 'umble opinion.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

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Re: "Smart" and "Stupid" Questions - Feel Free To Ask
« Reply #1999 on: June 19, 2019, 05:54:40 PM »
hemp is the easiest to grow weed on the planet .. and makes great blocks and insulation .. best soloution .. b.c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .