Wow, somehow I was unaware that we had raised atmospheric CO2 by 50% -- that's impressive in sense.
I fully understand that climate models are mind boggingly complex, and that it's incredibly difficult to predict how all the different intertwined factors will play out in real time. But at a very fundamental level, we've drastically increased one of the primary greenhouse gas concentrations at a rate unseen in Earth's history (not to mention many of the other major greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide). Literally no sane person disputes that fact. How could we think that making this major change to Earth's climate system wouldn't have huge effects?
Ignoring the debate over how much the CO2 impacts the temperature, which other comments address, there are likely a few things at play. First, "BigBusiness" has a vested interest in playing down any risk, so they sink considerable money into campaigning against climate change (political, media, etc). Second, people are conditioned to absorb quick soundbite factoids, not complex models, so "nuh-uh, fake science" hits home better than {complex model}. Plus, change is scary - either doomsday temperature increases OR give up cars and airplanes and cheap hamburgers? Yikes!
This is all that matters at the end of the day. Most people are not self-aware enough, and/or willing enough to experience their own emotions, to handle ugly truths. It's more emotionally comfortable to find reasons to deny them.
The argument generally is that warming temperatures cause rising CO2. This in turn is a fact not disputed by climate scientists, only that it is not sufficient to explain the current rise in CO2.
[1] A pro-AGW debunking of the common argument https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
But it's a pretty simple equation. We know the approximate mass of the atmosphere, and the number of molecules per weight. We know how many molecules are in a unit mass of CO2.
Thus we should be able to calculate out "how many gigatons of CO2 are necessary to increase atmospheric CO2 by 1ppm", and then given measurements of actual CO2 increases, how much CO2 is necessary to increase atmospheric levels by the amounts seen.
If the amount of CO2 required to yield the observed increase is greater than annual human emissions, then that's a strong signal that CO2 increase is NOT anthropogenic and something else is going on. If it's less, then that is a strong signal that humans are the primary culprit.
Anyway, I did out all the math and it takes about 8.8 gigatons to increase atmospheric levels by 1ppm, and we're netting an increase of about 17gt into the atmosphere per year, for an increase of ~2ppm annually. So it's pretty clear that this is anthropogenic.
If anyone wants to check my math I wrote it all up here [0]. Numbers are a couple years old at this point but the conclusion still stands.
All are patently bullshit, of course.
It seems like the opposite to me, it’s a no-brainer that predicting what will happen to an immensely complex system, and making all these assumptions about what will occur 50-100 years from now is going to be hotly debated.
A poor analogy is that you can’t predict where an atom is located and its speed due to quantum, yet when you average over a bunch of atoms you some pretty useful bounds on the shape of the problem.
Also, we already have plenty of data to evaluate the models - climate models are underpredicting the consequences (ie things are hotter and more volatile than climate models predicted). This indicates the models are conservative about the predictions in the wrong direction (you want to be predicting 20% worse than reality than 20% better because of it impacts planning). The reason they’re likely wrong is that we don’t have a full accounting of the ways in which human activity causes warming.
What we can do is predict the arc of motion of the centre of gravity .. that's climate.
It's a no-brainer that anybody who confuses the two and hasn't put in the work to raise their understanding to intermediate axis instability is below the bar for admission to grown up climate modelling discussions.
What's impressive is that some people are so invested in not understanding climate that they reject the notion that larger trends can be bloody obvious before anyone can predict day-to-day variances. (Again, a basic principle that our stone tools ancestors figured out.)
Obviously, meteorology doesn't work over a 50-100 years time frame -- "What's the temperature on January 20th 2064 and 9PM" is an impossible question to answer. But climatologists are not attempting to answer the same question as meteorologists. They're studying a much easier variable to predict, which is averages of phenomena, where all the short-term complicated meteorological noise cancels itself out due to the law of large numbers.
a casino can't predict the next 14 blackjack cards, but somehow it can predict the profit over the next 365 days (millions of blackjack cards)
just sayin.
It should also be noted that the type of C in CO2 matters:
> In addition, only fossil fuels are consistent with the isotopic fingerprint of the carbon in today’s atmosphere. Different kinds of carbon-containing material have different relative amounts of “light” carbon-12, “heavy” carbon-13, and radioactive carbon-14. Plant matter is enriched in carbon-12, because its lighter weight is more readily used by plants during photosynthesis. Volcanic emissions are enriched in carbon-13. The ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere and the ocean are roughly the same. Since carbon-14 is radioactive, it decays predictably over time. Young organic matter has more carbon-14 than older organic matter, and fossil fuels have no measurable carbon-14 at all.
> As carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have risen over the past century or more, the ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12 has fallen, which means that the source of the extra carbon dioxide must be enriched in "light" carbon-12. Meanwhile, the relative amount of carbon-14—radioactive carbon—has declined. The record of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is complicated by nuclear bomb testing after 1950, which doubled the amount of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere. After the nuclear test ban treaty in 1963, the excess atmospheric carbon-14 began to decline as it dispersed into the oceans and the land biosphere.
* https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-do-we-k...
> In this “Grand Challenges” paper, we review how the carbon isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 has changed since the Industrial Revolution due to human activities and their influence on the natural carbon cycle, and we provide new estimates of possible future changes for a range of scenarios. Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and land use change reduce the ratio of 13C/12C in atmospheric CO2 (δ13CO2). This is because 12C is preferentially assimilated during photosynthesis and δ13C in plant-derived carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and fossil fuels is lower than atmospheric δ13CO2. Emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion also reduce the ratio of 14C/C in atmospheric CO2 (Δ14CO2) because 14C is absent in million-year-old fossil fuels, which have been stored for much longer than the radioactive decay time of 14C.
* https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201...
They're not "skeptics". They're not even deniers. They're just liars.
There is no universe in which you can dig vast amounts of carbon, burn it, and not have things warm up. There are lots of hard questions but the fundamental fact that the globe has to warm is an unavoidable conclusion.
If you’ve ever owned a Fish Tank or taken High School Chemistry, you’d realize that even in the most simple environments things don’t always add up in a way that seems intuitive.
Few people ever really change their mind about anything; they just get older and die and their opinions get removed from the discourse.
I'm mostly referring, of course, to the baby boomers, which is a bit ironic because they're the ones who actually remember that the Jersey River used to freeze every winter (mentioned elsewhere in this discussion).
My own father has a degree in geology and had a career in the mining industry… his own take drifted from "this is ridiculous" to "okay it's happening but there have been plenty of similar shifts in the geological record over history." I had to actually show him graphs that illustrated that yes, the earth has shifted temperature by 2º plenty of times in history… over periods of hundreds or thousands of years, not a single century. Now his take has drifted to "there's probably nothing that can be done about it."
Anyone pushing for societal change and progress needs to get themselves out of the mindset of "changing minds," it's like swing voters, they're barely real.
Most of them in the western industrialized countries could never imagine or want another way of living because this was the promise and evidence of progress and success since they were born.
Unfortunately I wish I shared your optimism that things will change after the boomers pass. I am from and have family in Alberta, oil country, and there's... just no chance. Some of the most vicious deniers (or worse, the "don't carers") are young.
I feel like things are swinging back the other way, and quickly.
When things start to fall apart people can have two reactions to it... stick and work together to solve the problem, or scatter and hoard and everyman-for-himself and proclaim "I got mine, now get lost..."
There are no alternative facts.
I think you need to learn more about Earth's history. Not to dispute the fact that it has increased, but it's totally false to say this is unseen in Earth's history.
Dynamical systems are often sensitive to the value of a parameter, its rate of change and/or its rate of rate of change.
Eg. You can warm milk to a certain temperature (the parameter) on a stove on gentle heat and it will be fine. If you warm it to the same temperature on high heat (i.e. increased rate of parameter), it will burn. That's because the convection process in this system has limited maximum speed.
If you look at when previously the Earth's atmosphere had high CO2, it took hundreds of thousands to many millions of years get there. We did it in a 100 years, so at least a thousand times faster.
I'm not denying that the rate is significant in this specific conversation, but maybe that wasn't the best example?
From a cursory look, any such events look like they were part of mass extinctions. I'm curious what exact data you are looking at so I may better understand your statement.
Again, if you have any evidence or citations to the contrary, "put up or shut up".
ppm. Parts per million. 0.0421%
The oceans can absorb a practically infinite amount of CO2, so there's no way for it to build up in the atmosphere in the long run. Also, the atmosphere is already saturated with CO2 to the point where adding more will have no effect. Also, water vapor's absorption spectrum overlaps that of CO2 so there is no way for CO2 to have any additional effect. All of these facts were known more than a century ago, and consequently AGW was considered disproved.
"Skeptics" should not read past this point, because it turns out all of those things are misleading. The oceans don't mix fast enough to prevent CO2 buildup, and the action of CO2 is felt not in the lower atmosphere but at the radiative top-of-atmosphere, the point where outgoing infrared radiation is more likely to escape to space than strike another molecule. Adding CO2 makes the CO2-dense region greater in extent, thus the outgoing heat takes longer to leave Earth, thus raising the total atmosphere temperature and causing a nasty feedback mechanism with H2O. Because this changes which elevation energy gets radiated at, we can directly measure it. Checkmate skeptics.
To tie this back in to the main point, Callendar was one of the prime movers in rehabilitating the AGW theory (one of his papers amusingly refers to the theory's "checkered past"), but it took until Keeling's work in the late 1950s to conclusively demonstrate the year-over-year increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
And you're totally missing my point. GP came up with a backwarded way to prove your point so I stooped to that level and came up with the equivalent reasoning that's held on the other side since he was asking for it. Funnily, you're more adamant to address my comment than his because you're more attached to the resulting truth than the reasoning step that lead to it. Admit it, it's not a matter of science anymore, it's entirely politically motivated. I wish you good luck with your control system challenge, I'm sure it will be very nuanced.
I can't find the exact quote, but to put it in perspective: the weight of the extra C02 added in the last 100 years is more than the sum total of everything humanity has built. The actual quote might be everything from the last 2000 years, regardless, same point. If you weigh all of that CO2, it's an enormous amount.
That's still a retarded argument and way below any scientific standard. Now that climate change has become the dominant worldview we witness the bigotisation of this cause, where so called "truth" becomes the target of activism as it as it morphs into a form of belief. Not because what it points to is wrong, but because, as in any politically motivated crusade, any mean, path to reach that truth is deemed worthwhile. This noble cause has turned into a matter of adolescent rebellion that is dealt with absolutism and a way to jump into battle that totally disregards strategic considerations. What if the phenomenon is overblown by the political movement that tries to fight its consequences ? What if the proposed solutions are more painful than the problem ? To hell with these considerations ! You're either with us or against us in our fight against apocalypse itself ! It's not surprising that as the hysteria grows and gains more and more minds, and as the climate skeptics crowd thins out, the figure of the "climate change denier" grows in importance. It's important for communities to have a malevolent figure against which hateful unanimity takes shapes. It allows them to endure the test of time, and survive even when the core beliefs are shaken, should the "deniers" turn into tomorrow's saints. May the crowd turn to them as it even forgets it is changing opinion so as to atone its own sins. Isn't it what this all about ? Recognizing climate urgency as a way to pay for the sins of modern life ? What was the point in abandoning religion if it was to repeat exactly the same structure then ?
Otherwise, what makes you believe the total volume of CO2 is irrelevant?
> This noble cause has turned into a matter of adolescent rebellion that is dealt with absolutism and a way to jump into battle that totally disregards strategic considerations
Pot calling the kettle black?
Can you put forth evidence why percentage composition is more important than total volume? I believe chemistry and thermodynamics come into play, volumes matter when balancing thermal dynamic equations. Thus, it is those equations that imply a 50% increase in volume, while still an overall small fraction of some other total composition, would have a significant impact on Earths climate systems
>a way to jump into battle that totally disregards strategic considerations
What happens if it turns out climate change's origin is not human activity ? Or it's considerably less worse than anticipated ? Or even beneficial ?
Imagine if measures are taken globally in some kind of global government to impose restrictions and its proves to be a massive fuckup for nothing in the end. It will be probably the nail in the coffin for any attempt to regulate the earth system scientifically. What's at stake is huge. Both ways.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Psalms 32:5
^ You're here. Seethe all you want, you're biggots of the kind you hate the most.
Where I’m from, the climate has changed. It is changing. You don’t need scientific instruments to notice it.
As far as I can tell, the orthodox AGW theory fits the evidence and has predicted these changes better than any alternative explanation I’ve heard so far. As far as I’m concerned, ideology doesn’t really come into it.
Not an argument for the fact it's driven by human activity. However it suggests that you paint the past climate as some harmonious system on short time ranges:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event
>the 8.2-kiloyear event was a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6,200 BC, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries.
>[...]
>Estimates of the cooling vary and depend somewhat on the interpretation of the proxy data, but decreases of around 1 to 5 °C (1.8 to 9.0 °F) have been reported.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4.2-kiloyear_event
>Starting around 2200 BC, it probably lasted the entire 22nd century BC. It has been hypothesised to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, and the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River area.[4][5] The drought may also have initiated the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with some of its population moving southeastward to follow the movement of their desired habitat,[6] as well as the migration of Indo-European-speaking people into India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period
>The African humid period (AHP; also known by other names) is a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today. The covering of much of the Sahara desert by grasses, trees and lakes was caused by changes in the Earth's axial tilt; changes in vegetation and dust in the Sahara which strengthened the African monsoon; and increased greenhouse gases.
>One study in 2003 showed that vegetation intrusions in the Sahara can occur within decades after strong rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide[952] but would not cover more than about 45% of the Sahara.[53] That climate study also indicated that vegetation expansion can only occur if grazing or other perturbations to vegetation growth do not hamper it.[953] On the other hand, increased irrigation and other measures to increase vegetation growth such as the Great Green Wall could enhance it.[950] A 2022 study indicated that while increased greenhouse gas concentrations by themselves are not sufficient to start an AHP if greenhouse gas-vegetation feedbacks are ignored, they lower the threshold for orbital changes to induce Sahara greening.
i.e. in the next generation, unless one's home is equipped with a fancy filtration system, breathing air will have issues on its own, anywhere in the world.
Indeed! It's also quite possible that some of the humans that will live forever (or until they choose not to) may already be around us.
And, rather sadly, if climate change happens as predicted it is going to make for a pretty bleak existence. It's one reason I'm fairly happy not to have had kids.
What do you think of Emil Cioran, btw? It may pique your interest.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deadly-african-he...
If you shift a normal distribution to the right even a little bit, the frequency of tail events above a fixed threshold (in this case, wet bulb temperatures exceeding the human survivability limit of 35 degrees celcius) increases more than linearly.
This is especially an issue near the equator, which will lead to climate refugees seeking colder climates, north and south.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger...
We will be at 2000 in 640 years.
Previously those rates of change were over the course of millions of years.
It is crazy how much things have changed over millions of years, perhaps crazier to see those same changes 3 orders of magnitude faster.
Humans only started farming 12,000 years ago (which I still find shockingly recent), and humans used to farm all over the middle east (thinking if Iraq specifically, it used to be largely arable).
All in all, it's getting really spicy for next couple centuries.
* except, the earth climate system can't change that fast relative to an impulse difference of Co2 levels. It us akin to putting 10 blankets on your bed. It takes time for heat to build up (the system experiences a latent effect)
In indoor urban spaces, concentrations are probably already typically 800ppm. It might explain some of our social dysfunction...
[1] https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove...
Just popped up on my news feed, "Archaeologist braves the Joe Rogan podcast to counter Graham Hancock's nonsense":
* https://boingboing.net/2024/04/19/archaeologist-braves-the-j...
Episode in question, "Joe Rogan Experience #2136 - Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DL1_EMIw6w
(Entire episode is 4h26m long: I don't have to interest/patience for that personally.)
You can watch 70 minutes of another youtuber reviewing the debate:
Just kidding. I suspect that's an interglacial when you have warming and melting but before the trees have grown back to recapture the co2. But check with an expert if you want a more authoritative answer.