Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[AdmiralZhao]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Why do you suppose the world doesn't destabilize over, say, platinum? Or paladium, or uranium? What is it specifically about oil that makes it so inherently destabilizing?

Secondly, while I do agree that a tipping point for total oil production has been reached, I don't agree with the concept of world population needs.

Demand for any commodity is elastic. As price goes up, other alternatives become more attractive. Spurring the development of other alternatives. Free market economy in action.

After a certain point, the demand for oil is elastic only in the sense that the groups that cannot afford it will die off. Oil is vital to nearly every aspect of modern society, and in particular to the industrialized agriculture that America uses to feed our population. Without at least a baseline amount of oil, the truck which delivers food to the grocery store does not arrive, and I have go Hinnom-style on my next door neighbors.

We have many trillions of dollars of infrastructure which can only use oil. And because everything currently relies on oil, any effort to upgrade this infrastructure will also require large amounts of oil. The scenario that people are worried about is that the free market doesn't start responding until oil is scarce and difficult to acquire, and at that point we don't have the energy resources to both maintain our society, acquire new oil, and upgrade our infrastructure.

This is one of the reasons why oil is different from platinum, paladium, or uranium. Society does not need constant inputs of these metals to function, and we can develop alternatives to these metals without needing large new stocks of these metals.

This is also why people want to see early development of alternatives to oil. When oil starts running low, we want oil to be in the same category as platinum, paladium, and uranium, i.e. something that is not hugely vital, and that we can continue to phase out without needing large new inputs.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Dragar

I am yet to understand the fuss about electric cars, except for reasons of minimising localised air pollution.

Instead of burning petrol or LPG in a relatively simple engine to produce a lot of power and distance with quick and easy refueling, you are:
• burning coal (typically) in a power station remote from the vehicle
• generating electricity at probably 30-35% efficiency, except in the rare case of a combined cycle plant
• transmitting it through an expensive network where you will suffer further losses
• slowly charging a car battery which is expensive, likely hard to dispose of and with a relatively short life

If we were generating the electricity cleanly, if we had effective and economic carbon capture and storage at the power station, I would understand. As it is, with the exception of the benefits of regenerative braking, I have no idea why people want to use our highest grade of energy (electricity) for propulsion when a readily transportable and stored lower grade fuel of high energy density is available. Fundamentally we are just shifting where we burn our fossil fuels.

I could be wrong, but I thought the attraction of electric cars was that the 30-35% efficiency you get in a power plant was still roughly twice the efficiency you get in an ICE; presumably transmission losses and losses in storage reduce that gain but I thought you still came out ahead. And at least then you're not strictly tied to oil, per se--if the U.S. built a hundred new nuclear plants you'd be in a nice position.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I could be wrong, but I thought the attraction of electric cars was that the 30-35% efficiency you get in a power plant was still roughly twice the efficiency you get in an ICE; presumably transmission losses and losses in storage reduce that gain but I thought you still came out ahead. And at least then you're not strictly tied to oil, per se--if the U.S. built a hundred new nuclear plants you'd be in a nice position.

-Max

Except that one hundred years from now on the Skynet would be full of discussion about how the change from Oil to Nuclear was done from purely capitalistic, short-sighted point of view, and about the scarcity of radiactive fuel necessary for the plants, and further debates about whether there'll be a Nuclear Winter or not, and what to do if it does happen.

My stance: the climate chane is scary and I hope some smart guy comes up with a solution; while I'm not too optimistic about that I refuse to think what will happen if no one does nothing because that is too depressing; and I hope the local climate doesn't change too much, because I'd rather have real snow than slush, thank you very much.

[Edi]

As promised, a reply addressing the article Licker linked:

I see several problems with the stuff in that article. Not about the sun cycles as such, I'll take his word at face value regarding the cycle lengths and on the cosmic radiation and cloud cover variation following that.

But the following things:

• The CO2 curves he says are of doubtful significance follow the sunspot cycles even if not at the same magnitude and curve shape, especially during the 1940s. At that point CO2 concentration increase from the 1800s is up roughly 10% and then starts to gain on the other curves. No mention of the IR trapping properties of CO2 anywhere, not addressed, though an increased sunspot cycle makes sense for the rest of it.
• Related to the above, there is no consideration whether there was an El Nino phenomenon in effect during the temperature spike in the early 1900s. IIRC, there has been research into the El Nino that indicated this would have been the case. It contributed significantly to the Dust Bowl phenomenon in the US and the droughts that followed the Great Depression. No mention at all.
• He then returns to the solar cycles and cosmic radiation argument and continues as if this was the only probable cause and the solar cycle graphics he has only show the 11 year cycles, which is a geologic eyeblink. Nothing to support the stuff about the longer cycles.
• The same research to El Nino I mention above (what I remember from a BBC TV documentary, so no links, sadly ) also talks about there being fairly strong evidence of El Nino effects causing certain events in the past that affected old human civilizations, for example the droughts that destroyed Ur in Babylonia and devastated some Meso- and South American civilizations. All of these events involved significant temperature increases due to strong El Nino effects (much stronger than the early 1990s).
• The section about water vapor being the most important greenhouse gas again neglects the fact that while some amount of greenhouse gases are necessary to maintain a habitable temperature and that water vapor is by volume the greatest one, it is nowhere near as effective at trapping infrared wavelengths as CO2 is. Much like methane is 20 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (but much shorter lived before it degrades to CO2), CO2 is more effective weight for weight. If the difference is similar, even modest CO2 increases would show increased temperatures.
• The part about temperature graphs following CO2 graphs and spiking: As temperature increases, sources of CO2 that have been unavailable become available. There is a staggering amount of methane trapped in the permafrost in Siberia and the Canadian north. As temperature rises, the permafrost melts. The methane is no longer frozen in place and is released into the atmosphere, where it shortly degrades to CO2. A cyclical repetition would see temperature rises melt existing permafrost, then glaciation causing permafrost again. This is a very plausible explanation for those portions of his graphs. I do not know what mechanisms later cause the CO2 concentration to decline, but that is not relevant here.
• The article bounces back and forth between time periods of tens of thousands and millions and even hundreds of millions of years and uses the same arguments throughout. In some sense this seems deliberately dishonest, though it could be an honest oversight. Hundreds of millions of years ago the continents were not where they are now. This means the sea currents were different as well and their different interactions could have resulted in a significantly warmer or colder period of time due to various climate mechanisms not related to CO2, so even higher concentrations could allow for ice ages. I touched on that way back in my first post, but not in as much detail, though I mentioned the effect of an equatorial warm current counteracting the cold Antarctic currents.

Those are the concerns and questions that I noticed on the first read-through and I'm certain I could get some more if I really went over it with a fine tooth comb. And that's outside my own professional field (computers) at that.

I am not saying that he is necessarily entirely wrong, but just based on that article, there are gaps in the solar radiation theory you can drive a tank division through. He makes the same mistake he accuses the CO2 crowd of making: He ignores a lot of other factors that have direct impact and then attributes the lot to his own theory. Or then that's a really dumbed down version of what he does.

[licker]

Thank you for your reply edi, unfortunately I don't have time to discuss or clarify some of your misconceptions about the work (leaving for France in 4 hours...) but I will question one thing:

If the difference is similar, even modest CO2 increases would show increased temperatures.

Clearly though, this is not the case, historically or currently.

Further you need to source your claim about CO2 having a greater greenhouse effect than water (unless this isn't your claim). It is generally accepted that water vapor has a greenhouse effect of 2-5x that of CO2. I'm talking about the entire picture, which takes into account both efficiency and total concentration.

So yes, CO2 for its concentration has a large effect, but its concentration is tiny compared to water, though likely more volatile, however, still not at anything near historic levels.

[Edi]

As I said, for the same amount of water vapor vs CO2, CO2 is more efficient as a greenhouse gas. In the big picture water vapor is greater in overall effect. If you remove all other factors and increase CO2 amount, total heat goes up (assuming normal radiative transfer to space on the night side). This does not address all of the other possible, probable and confirmed mechanisms involved. It doesn't need to, because if those other mechanisms are responsible, they must be identified sufficiently that they can be countered.

Your article says there is no effect on temperature from CO2, therefore CO2 is irrelevant to global warming. I just pointed out a whole host of reasons why that reasoning is flawed at best. We know the properties of CO2, but we don't necessarily know all of the other mechanisms involved as well as we would like and they may very well have an effect beside CO2 that causes alterations. So CO2 is more fuel for the fire, just not the only fuel. But when you're fighting a blaze, as it were, you don't add more fuel to it.

The biggest problem overall is overpopulation, because it causes all sorts of other things that exacerbate other effects.

[licker]

In a vacuum adding more CO2 traps more heat. However, we all realize that there are a whole host of interdepandancies and feedback mechanisms that we do not fully understand (and some we likely are not even aware of yet).

I'm not disagreeing that we should seek to curb CO2 emissions (though for necessarily AGW reasons), I am pointing out that the science on this matter is not in fact concluded (this presuposes that science is ever truly concluded, but that's more of a philosophical debate).

But to look at this from another point (not one I agree with necessarily), if, even with emission curbs, because no one is seriously talking about zero emission, how do we actually reverse the growth of CO2 in the system?

This is why I asked jim about tipping points, and why it's important to consider the difference between mitigation and adaptation as policies, rather than elimination as the policy.

[Tichy]

Edi's being extremely patient with you, licker.

He's not saying it, so I will. The way you're responding to him is impertinent.

You cite an article on a website affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute as if it's an unbiased source. Edi responds very carefully, with arguments directed to specific claims in that article. You then fail to respond to his substantive points and accuse him of unspecified "misconceptions." When he responds to that with a clarification, you make an end run around the substantive points *again* by falling back on hand-waving about the lack of a consensus.

Edi is clearly a more patient man than I.

I don't understand climate science -- I stopped responding to this thread because I realized I was out of my depth there -- but I do understand basically how arguments work (and standard tactics used to conceal when they're not working). If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than this.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Edi

I see several problems with the stuff in that article. *snip* I am not saying that he is necessarily entirely wrong, but just based on that article, there are gaps in the solar radiation theory you can drive a tank division through. He makes the same mistake he accuses the CO2 crowd of making: He ignores a lot of other factors that have direct impact and then attributes the lot to his own theory. Or then that's a really dumbed down version of what he does.

No quibbles here. Those graphs interpolations look overly-convenient, too.

The data do raise real questions though (is El Nino or increased sun activity responsible for the temperature spike in the 1940, or are they related? Where does the CO2 go during cooling?). I'm not saying those questions can't be answered, just that if AGW advocates want to be taken seriously they should supply answers instead of attacking strawmen. (I don't even care if the answers supplied are *wrong*, at least there will be something concrete to address.)

In any case, thanks for your thoughts. You have supplied your answers.

Edit: another set of 'real questions' is raised in Monckton's article here http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newslet...0807/index.cfm. ("GCMs make unphysical assumptions.") Feel free to critique Hafemeister and Schwartz too.

-Max

P.S. Hafemeister and Schwartz do a better job than I had remembered at addressing the sunspot issue. By which I mean at least they acknowledge it exists.

[licker]

Originally Posted by Tichy

Edi's being extremely patient with you, licker.

He's not saying it, so I will. The way you're responding to him is impertinent.

You cite an article on a website affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute as if it's an unbiased source. Edi responds very carefully, with arguments directed to specific claims in that article. You then fail to respond to his substantive points and accuse him of unspecified "misconceptions." When he responds to that with a clarification, you make an end run around the substantive points *again* by falling back on hand-waving about the lack of a consensus.

Edi is clearly a more patient man than I.

I don't understand climate science -- I stopped responding to this thread because I realized I was out of my depth there -- but I do understand basically how arguments work (and standard tactics used to conceal when they're not working). If you want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than this.

Or perhaps he's not out of his depth as you admit to being.

Impertinent?

*chuckle*

Well when I have the time I will be happy to address his misconceptions, but as I said, I don't have the time right now to do it in detail, and so I'm not going to bother as I'm going to be away for 2 weeks anyway.

As to the article itself, perhaps people should be less concerned with the sources and more concerned with the actual data therein.

Tim Patterson is no oil company shill, do your own damn homework instead of just assuming everyone on the 'other side' is somehow a corrupt purveyor of lies.

Look at the other news I've posted about glaciers gaining mass and issues with the modeling of the famous hockey stick. Attack the data, not the source, though if you don't understand anything about climate science then I suppose you cannot attack the data, so while your opinion is certainly welcome, it's also rather meaningless no?

In anycase, I doubt edi needs anyones support to make his argument, if you agree with him good for you, even better if you actually can formulate technical reasons why you agree with him. This is part of the issue I have with the way the 'science' of AGW is presented. It is not done honestly by the IPCC, and most people are unable to access the real studies let alone have a background to interpret them.

So sure, we have to rely on scientists to make difficult things somewhat understandable, but that's not what we always get (with regard to the IPCC, its politicians, not scientists writing the summary report).

Anyway, I hope everyone has happy holidays and good travels (if you are traveling as I am).