Post by thermalwind - Touro on Jun 30, 2021 0:11:16 GMT -6
We've been dancing around this for a while in a few threads, so let's just do it.
I'm not going to address any overtly politicized post. While discussion of what to do about it absolutely will require addressing the political realities of doing things, I want to keep Dems and Republicans out of the discussion. No green new deal either, unless it's one the thread comes up with.
While I have no moderation power, I will ignore or actively shame anyone who breaks the spirit of the thread. I'm a nice guy, but you don't want to feel my scorn.
Ok, so let's talk about the basics first. Why does CO2 (and H2O and CH4) do anything to keep heat in the atmosphere?
It has to do with the shape of the molecule, and how certain bonds will absorb certain spectrums of IR wavelengths. It will absorb it, get excited and vibrate, then release the energy back out in all directions. Some of which is back at the surface and to other molecules of CO2 or other "greenhouse" gases.
Certain bonds (C-O, C-H, O-H) absorb different wavelengths and chemists take advantage of this to do IR spectroscopy to identify organic compounds. It's why the WV imagery I personally love during hurricane season works, because it's shooting wavelengths that excite water vapor. It's also why an IR sat image sees the ground or cloud temps.
Molecular oxygen and nitrogen, the majority of the atmosphere, aren't IR active and thus aren't going to show up on any of that imagery.
The more stuff that is IR active in the atmosphere, specifically the troposphere, the more radiation isn't getting to space and is stuck in the earth atmosphere system.
No argument here. Just about every amount of science supports the reality of climate change. The one coin toss I keep seeing is whether or not it is caused by human activity or if it is part of the earth's long-range cycles. I have read some science (SOME mind you) that many of the changes we are seeing in ocean rises and earth temps were typical of what the earth was experiencing well before the dawn of the last Ice Age. My thought is that regardless, anything we can do as humans to decelerate the rate of warming would be a good thing, no?
"Let's work the problem, people; don't make things worse by guessing!"
Post by Shibumi-Mandeville I-12/Hwy59 on Jun 30, 2021 8:22:33 GMT -6
I think the phrase 'climate change' is redundant...any understanding of earth's climate should tell us that it has not and never will be stagnant.
The anthropomorphic component is the hard part. On a micro-climate scale it's easily demonstrated by city heat islands...especially on overnight temps as all that non-foliage/grass/ground retains heat much longer than what nature puts down.
First problem...measurement. What, where, and how are we measuring temperature. How do we interpret measurements pre-satellite era? How do we compare those measurements? How many locations were once well outside developments and are now within the urban setting. How were the measurement devices calibrated and maintained over those decades of longer? Understand that ALL biases in thermal energy measurement are on the warm side, not the other way. Cold doesn't exist and thus we can't measure it...we only measure the amount of heat. Nothing in nature will bias a reading below the actual temperature beyond an error in the device itself.
So how do you interpret those readings against time? It's a very poorly run experiment as it were because there are almost no controls on it. In a lab class we would get a failing grade.....
We actually have lost a lot of 'official' surface weather stations worldwide with the dissolution of the USSR.
So we shift to using satellite data to measure the overall energy of the planet's surface.....and again we have a problem with the time scale.
Removing any orbital cycles, tilt changes, galaxtic plane wobbles, etc., the vast majority of the earths heat sink is the water then land then air. The world's oceans drive our weather. What is the 'normal' temperature of the oceans? I quoted the word 'normal' because, IMO, it really has no place in a discussion of the weather or climate. Only the word 'average' should be used, and understanding the time frame over which that average is obtained is important. The problem with measuring the oceans overall heat content is that we can't and never will be able to. All we can do is use satellite for surface temps.....and yes we do use ship data, some at depths, but of course, that is just a drop in the ocean (groan) when it comes to trying to represent the overall heat content. Yearly and decadal ocean circulation and upwelling cycles we know are being observed and their effect on our short-term seasonal weather is guessed at using analogs, but though the physics of circulation and unwilling (thermoclines, surface winds, water temperature, water salinity) might be understood, the mechanism for the change over time is not.
The satellite era for weather began in earnest only 40-50 year's ago (debatable as to the useful starting point). What and how are we comparing this very short-term data to?
The climate models that we use to measure earth's current climate cannot even reproduce what is currently happening, much less what will happen in the near future or beyond. They also have not shown an ability to reproduce the past climate. I'm not surprised. We have enough trouble getting a few days into the future for our sensible weather forecasts though I have no complaint. We sort of get month long or seasonal forecasts better than 50%, but we all know there isn't much demonstrable skill there. Why? The size of the earth's surface and atmosphere is just too big and non-homogeneous. We don't have the number of measurement input or computing power (though I'd say the former will always be the biggest issue) to get it much better. Because of this the models do not have enough resolution....they oversimplify the atmosphere because of this. They predict atmospheric temps that are not observed. Their prediction of the climate over the past 20-30 years have not come close to being met. So lots of issues here. Reading a conclusion on anything scientific that was not written by the actual scientists doing the work should always raise a red flag (this had become common in much of the scientific world as the funders are much more involved in the interpretation and reporting of scientific results than in the past. Anyone who works in the scientific field or has contacts in it might understand what I am speaking of). Even if the researchers are the people being quoted, understanding and following the scientific process is important. It's a series of study, experimennt, report, review, repeat, and be proved wrong (in some portion) by future studies.
Is the earth's climate warming? Yes....but we already knew that...we are in an interglacial era between the larger glaciation in this ice ages (yes we are still in an ice age as I mentioned in a previous post). So if you remove our impact and ability, or not, to change our portion of that warming, nothing we encounter should come as a surprise. The ice is melting overall...as it has been for the past 10-12,000 years and is likely to until there is no ice left (whenever that happens) before the next build up of ice. The sea level will rise several hundred feet based on the geological record of previous ice-free eras.
We build houses in an area where fire cycles are the natural mechanism for the ecosystem, then suppress the fires for years and are surprised when a bigger fire takes place (often caused my man BTW) with all the growth that wasn't kept in check by naturally occurring fires..... and we blame it on climate change. A warmer day doesn't cause a fire....it's not spontaneous combustion. You can say it makes for a drier environment, but that environment is already dry. Those fires are already a natural part of nature..... we just added more fuel by suppressing it because we chose to live there.
We'll complain of a rising sea when even if the sea level was static, the land we are on is sinking....so it's something we'd have to deal with eventually anyway ( south Louisiana).
Insert your natural disaster here....flooding on a flood plain, tropical weather on a coast..... earthquakes in an area prone to earthquakes, landslides in areas that obviously were created by erosion by landslides in the first place....etc, etc.
Let's assume humankind is a measurable player in the warming. What can we actually do to change that? Can we? How much of the worlds population would need to change their habits to do so? Assuming they would cooperate? Do we understand the climate enough to know what change will make a difference? We may complain about the environment or resources or big business, yet our everyday lives are completely filled with the products created by what we are complaining about. Complete hypocrites...but it makes us feel better about ourselves somehow. We are paying ourselves our own lip service.
Is changing the part we may play in an already warming earth enough to move things in our favor? And what is 'in our favor'? What is the ideal temperature of earth?
I fear a colder world more than a warmer one.
So perhaps the problem is our lack of foresight.....we all resist change....a change that affects our here and now. We put things off. We want stability in a world full of change. It's an emotional reaction to a very large issue that may well be beyond our control anyway. I think we'd be better served to plan for long term inevitabilities instead of thinking putting on bandaids in the here-and-now is a solution. Of course no one living today is vested in changing the way they live today for the benefit of someone living a few hundred years in the future...a future they will never see themselves. There is no true altruism.
Ok I'm empty. I love science and the scientific process....I understand that my 'gut feelings' about our climate and our part in it means nothing in light of the reality. The scientific process is the only way to reach a true understanding of the world we live in....and it is a never ending process....
Shibooms, that was about as in-depth and substantive analysis of the global warming issue in such a short space that I have ever seen. It is clear you have a very firm grasp of the science of it all, something that I was never able to do in spite of my intellect, and I admire that. Your thoughts on measurement were something I have always pondered but on which I have never really seen a decent discussion. I agree with your observation that we build houses in places where fire cycles take place, then get shocked when fires actually happen there. It's the same with building houses on beaches on oceanfront property and then feel devastated when it actually gets slammed with a hurricane. There is a saying which as a cognitive behaviorist I have often quoted: "We have a tendency to write our own scripts." And often it is true.
Thank you for the in-depth analysis.
"Let's work the problem, people; don't make things worse by guessing!"
Post by Shibumi-Mandeville I-12/Hwy59 on Jun 30, 2021 16:29:22 GMT -6
Damn..just wrote a post and lost it all when I hit back navigate on my phone.
Anyway I wasn't really shedding information on the cause of climate change or our role in it, I was just thinking of the problem of data and data collection and cautioning on what weight we put on conclusions drawn from it.....not a rejection or an acceptance......but a caution.
I don't think any of us are climate scientists so we are all speaking from ignorance on the topic.
....... There is a saying which as a cognitive behaviorist I have often quoted: "We have a tendency to write our own scripts." And often it is true.
Thank you for the in-depth analysis.
This sounds like confirmation bias.....you'd be a fun person to have a drink with.....I am very interested in the subject of cognitive science....
Grisairgasm seemed to think so!
For instance, about three weeks ago a teenage girl was attacked by a Smoky Mountain black bear in backcountry campsite #29 while with her family well into the backcountry and while sleeping in a hammock in the same clothes in which she helped slather (and then eat) barbecue sauce while they cooked their dinner. The girl survived thank God and unfortunately the bear was located and had to be destroyed. I feel bad for the girl (I also feel bad for the bear.......he was doing what his hungry instincts told him to do), but neither she nor the family didn't think things through, especially the sleeping-in-the-hammock part. One more example: I had a student named Pookie who broke his leg while skateboarding down the roof of his house, sprained his ankle while rollerblading down the levee in Buras, and sustained a concussion while diving into some unknown waters off of a fishing boat. He told me, "Mr. Macika, I have some bad luck!" I told him, "Pookie, you don't have bad luck; bad things happen to you because you're a dumbass." Those are two examples of "having a tendency to write our own scripts."
Coincidentally, the character Red from "That 70s Show!" repeated verbatim what I told Pookie in an episode of the show years back. Coincidence I'm sure.
"Let's work the problem, people; don't make things worse by guessing!"
Damn..just wrote a post and lost it all when I hit back navigate on my phone.
Anyway I wasn't really shedding information on the cause of climate change or our role in it, I was just thinking of the problem of data and data collection and cautioning on what weight we put on conclusions drawn from it.....not a rejection or an acceptance......but a caution.
I don't think any of us are climate scientists so we are all speaking from ignorance on the topic.
Fascinating though it is.....
I'm working on a long response on my computer to your original.
Spoilers: I think we end up in a similar spot concerning the sources of uncertainty, but I'm clearly a bit more convinced by the data we got currently.
There's an interesting discussion to be had on what to do, especially with you having an engineering background.
Post by thermalwind - Touro on Jun 30, 2021 18:23:35 GMT -6
Good lord Shibumi, some novel you wrote for me. lol
I think the phrase 'climate change' is redundant...any understanding of earth's climate should tell us that it has not and never will be stagnant.
Bruh, it's shorthand.
The anthropomorphic component is the hard part. On a micro-climate scale it's easily demonstrated by city heat islands...especially on overnight temps as all that non-foliage/grass/ground retains heat much longer than what nature puts down.
An example more to the heart of the hypothesis would be a humid night vs a dry night. It isn't just the water raising the specific heat of the air (a little, it's still such a small fraction in terms of mass) but blocking the effects of radiational cooling that keeps it warmer. Obviously the humid night has a dew point limit on temperature as well, but it illustrates the power of an IR active compound to, you know, block some of the radiation that's leaving. CO2 does the same, though not to the same degree since H20 has a few different ways to vibrate.
The thing is, water vapor isn't significantly accumulating in the atmosphere vs the past concentrations (on the time scale that matters to us humans) like CO2 is.
You're an engineer, I need you to at least work me around how trapping more energy from leaving the earth system wouldn't lead to some degree of heating. What does the accumulating energy get transformed into if not heat?
What, where, and how are we measuring temperature. How do we interpret measurements pre-satellite era? How do we compare those measurements? How many locations were once well outside developments and are now within the urban setting. How were the measurement devices calibrated and maintained over those decades of longer? Understand that ALL biases in thermal energy measurement are on the warm side, not the other way. Cold doesn't exist and thus we can't measure it...we only measure the amount of heat. Nothing in nature will bias a reading below the actual temperature beyond an error in the device itself.
Fair points, but the climate scientists also are aware of this and try their best to correct for it. We're both aware that this cooks in uncertainty. Probably worth me looking farther into those data correcting methods though. Let me get back to you on that at some point.
the vast majority of the earths heat sink is the water then land then air. The world's oceans drive our weather. What is the 'normal' temperature of the oceans? I quoted the word 'normal' because, IMO, it really has no place in a discussion of the weather or climate. Only the word 'average' should be used, and understanding the time frame over which that average is obtained is important. The problem with measuring the oceans overall heat content is that we can't and never will be able to. All we can do is use satellite for surface temps.....and yes we do use ship data, some at depths, but of course, that is just a drop in the ocean (groan) when it comes to trying to represent the overall heat content. Yearly and decadal ocean circulation and upwelling cycles we know are being observed and their effect on our short-term seasonal weather is guessed at using analogs, but though the physics of circulation and unwilling (thermoclines, surface winds, water temperature, water salinity) might be understood, the mechanism for the change over time is not.
Think about it though, we can at least approximate some of the change in heat content simply by considering the extent of sea ice vs the record. Since it's a SVLE with the air, more heat in the water should yield more of the water in the liquid and vapor phases. Rough obviously but with the sea surface temps and ship data it is suggestive of warming from something. Of course here too I grant you uncertainties on the oceanic heat content, but going to need a competing hypothesis as to why.
The climate models that we use to measure earth's current climate cannot even reproduce what is currently happening
They're models, of course they have limitations. It's known that the cloud physics is one of the big questions in climate modeling since it will effect how much incoming radiation reaches the surface. Just as one example. They've also been showing long term drought continuing in the western US, which has been happening. Be careful about throwing them out just because they have flaws. The GFS ain't perfect, but it sure can be useful. Another consideration on the assumptions is the time scales make some of those assumptions perfectly valid for the situation, but yes every assumption cooks in some uncertainty.
Realize too, I'm always trying to follow where the science is leading here. It's evolving and all you can do is see where the new research leads.
My problem with just pointing to uncertainties is this: Just waiving your hands at it isn't going to do much good if the reasonable certainty in the coming consequences ends up materializing. Guess we're just at two different places with the evidence available.
What can we actually do to change that? Can we? How much of the worlds population would need to change their habits to do so? Assuming they would cooperate? Do we understand the climate enough to know what change will make a difference? We may complain about the environment or resources or big business, yet our everyday lives are completely filled with the products created by what we are complaining about. Complete hypocrites...but it makes us feel better about ourselves somehow. We are paying ourselves our own lip service.
Much of the effort would be planning and mitigation, because addressing the carbon surplus will take a longer time to be feasible. Are we really going to tell the developing world "hey sorry, we used those cheap HCs to build our stuff but it screwed up the planet and you can't use it. You just to deal with the consequences."
Actually, ok, we're absolutely going to do that at some point but they're going to laugh and keep burning em anyway.
So it'll take technology advancements to slowly make a dent. Better and lighter materials, use of computers to custom design catalysts to reduce the activation energy in chemical manufacturing processes, solid state/improved battery tech, just to name a few things. Even better is there is a lot of financial incentive for efficient, but there's going to need to be some subsidization of base research to help get the costs more economical in terms of initial investment. The hard part for a lot of people is a decent hunk of the puzzle is going to be making a car lighter or a big rig more aerodynamic instead of exclusively cutting emissions.
Of course we should also work on reducing emissions, but there's also a reason we like liquid fuels so much and manufacturing likes to burn methane. So any planning has to deal with the reality that they aren't going away in the near term unless we unlock fusion. The hard part is figuring out where isn't really going to be able to sustain populations, what locations will be able to sustain more, improving the resilience of our infrastructure to extremes in temps and increased flooding. You know, how to mitigate the consequences because the "solutions" are a longer game imo.
Post by Shibumi-Mandeville I-12/Hwy59 on Jun 30, 2021 18:52:06 GMT -6
Nice responses Therm......complicated issue with no clear answers for sure. I don't discount the information being put out there from the science world....but honestly it's difficult to actually get a hold of and read through the actual data.....I'd love to have a long convo with a climate scientist outside of any other influence to better understand what they do and how it's done.
Overall I may give the impression that I am discounting what we are hearing from the scientific community about warming and it's causes and our part in it....but I am really not. I simply don't make a hard stand on anything I don't understand or haven't researched. In order to do so for this topic is most probably outside my ability.
Ok the change side......let's say we have a handful of slam-dunk actions we can take as a species to make things more livable for the future.....I absolutely don't see it happening in any short term (decades) fashion....will it be enough soon enough to mitigate? We can't even get folks to get a vaccine......it will take either a monetary incentive or a no-choice situation to change behavior. I am hoping for more environmentally friendly energy sources to replace one's that aren't clean. Price point....availability....I don't see us easily freeing ourselves soon from fossil fuels. I am happy that electric transportation is making some headway....but in the short term that doesn't make much difference. The amount of resources and carbon produced just to manufacture that new electric car probably doesn't overcome the amount put out by the car you already own if you were to simple not buy a new one again......but that isn't how we handle cars here (how we consume in general)...
Post by thermalwind - Touro on Jun 30, 2021 19:11:54 GMT -6
honestly it's difficult to actually get a hold of and read through the actual data
It's ridiculous how hard it is for the general public to access research.
.let's say we have a handful of slam-dunk actions we can take as a species to make things more livable for the future.....I absolutely don't see it happening in any short term (decades) fashion....will it be enough soon enough to mitigate? We can't even get folks to get a vaccine......it will take either a monetary incentive or a no-choice situation to change behavior.
I never claimed to be optimistic on this front.
The vaccine thing is really crazy to me. Does anyone know how unstable mRNA is and just how many enzymes chew it up? It's why storage was such a problem, keeping it wrapped up in a sack of lipids long enough to get it in the cell to be transcribed. The ability to so quickly produce an effective vaccine should be heralded as a modern miracle and the potential other avenues for the technology are worth some optimism I suppose.
Eventually I suspect reality will force the action, at least in America. Politics is such in this country that you can't do anything until it's a full blown crisis. Fun story, it's like that almost everywhere and where it's not (CCP I'm looking at you) they aren't exactly big on the freedoms. Hopefully we'll just get lucky, master fusion, and just scrub the atmosphere.
You have to look out for red flags like when people say or imply things that don't exist, like "its settled science." Science is never settled. Science never knows how much it doesn't know. Its never settled. If it was, we'd have no elements, atomic particles or the idea of quantum physics. So when people say global warming is "settled science," I cringe.
Post by Shibumi-Mandeville I-12/Hwy59 on Jun 30, 2021 20:57:52 GMT -6
Sadly there is serious blowback from the science community on private interests controlling information.
I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos on the Homo naledi finds in the Risinng Star cave system in South Africa......the researchers in conjunction with National Geographic live streamed the work....and it caused an uproar in part of the anthropology hierarchy for making everything public access. All the findings are available online along with files you can use to 3D print the skeletal parts. In contrast perhaps the most famous hominid fossil Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) cannot be viewed by anyone outside of the original team and it's backing institution. No one else can do research on the findings. This is in direct opposition to how world wide science used to work and how we make the quickest advancements.....by getting as many brains with different ideas together to solve problems. The funders want to control the information (they paid for it after all) but that doesn't serve humanity as much as their own interests. It's a dilemma.
I gleaned this from some of the videos of the Rising Star system made by the lead archaeologists. Kudos to National Geographic.
PS I wouldn't catch dead doing any serious spelunking. The hole they had to pass to reach the finding is incredibly narrow and long.