Climate Change

[GenesisNemesis]

Paper that claimed the Sun caused global warming gets retracted

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/...ted/?amp=1

 A paper published last June was catnip for those who are desperate to explain climate change with anything but human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It was also apparently wrong enough to be retracted this week by the journal that published it, even though its authors objected.

The paper’s headline conclusion was that it described a newly discovered cycle in the motion of the Sun, one that put us 300 years into what would be a thousand-year warming period for the Earth. Nevermind that we’ve been directly measuring the incoming radiation from the Sun and there has been no increase to explain the observed global warming—or that there is no evidence of a 2,000 year temperature cycle in the paleoclimate record.

Those obvious issues didn't stop some people from taking this study as proof that past warming was natural, and only mild and unavoidable warming lies in our future.

[SYZ]

Apparently,  Valentina Zharkova has never heard of the Milankovitch cycles; that the
Earth's orbit changes in three cycles of different lengths.  The Earth's orbit slightly
changes its eccentricity over the course of 100,000 years from nearly 0 to 0.07 and
then back again, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

When the Earth's orbit has a higher eccentricity, the planet's surface receives 20 - 30%
more solar radiation when its at perihelion—the shortest distance between the Earth and
sun each orbit—than when it is at aphelion—the largest distance between the Earth and
sun each orbit.

When the Earth's orbit has a low eccentricity, there is very little difference in the amount
of solar radiation that is received between perihelion and aphelion.

[Alan V]

When the Earth's orbit has a low eccentricity, there is very little difference in the amount
of solar radiation that is received between perihelion and aphelion.

The Earth's orbit has a low eccentricity right now.

From post #84:

The earth’s axis, the precession of the equinoxes, wobbles on a 23,000 year cycle. The earth’s tilt shifts on a 41,000 year cycle. And the earth’s eccentricity, how elliptical its orbit is, oscillates on a 100,000 year cycle. The 100,000 year cycle has the greatest impact on global average temperatures. Presently, the first two cycles are out-of-phase by about 10,000 years and the orbital eccentricity is small, so the length of our interglacial period would normally be extended beyond the typical. The last time the earth was in this configuration 400,000 years ago, the interglacial was 50,000 years long.

[Phaedrus]

[SYZ]

A photo released on March 2, 2020, by NASA shows maps displaying nitrogen dioxide (NO2) values across China from
January 1-20 (before the quarantine) and February 10-25 (during the quarantine) illustrating a significant decrease in
NO2 over China related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
—Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory

For the moment, residents of many of China's cities are breathing clearer air. Nationwide, the level of NO2 was down
42%, and the level of PM2.5 — tiny particulate pollution that can penetrate lungs and other organs—was down 27%,
according to government monitoring stations.

[Minimalist]

Evidence that climate change is caused by people!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A little tiny species of people?

[trdsf]

Evidence that climate change is caused by people!

Which evidence we already had -- we stopped pumping CFCs into the air and hey presto, the hole in the ozone started to close up.  Demonstrating both that human activity impacts the environment -- and that changes in human behavior can slow, halt, and even reverse the damage.

[SYZ]

Researchers have discovered the NSW's coastal rivers, lakes and lagoons were warming twice as fast
as the ocean. The average temperatures in those marine ecosystems were up 2.16ºC (36ºF) making
breeding harder for some aquatic life.

NSW rivers, lakes and lagoons warming twice as fast as ocean, finds 12-year study.

The world-first study also posed a big problem for the state's multi-million-dollar fishing and aquaculture
industry, which underpinned the economies of many coastal towns.

[Alan V]

Scientific American

A preliminary estimate from NOAA finds that levels of atmospheric methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, have hit an all-time high.

Methane is roughly 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and while it stays in the atmosphere for only around a decade, as opposed to centuries, like CO2, its continued rise poses a major challenge to international climate goals.

[Chas]

It's the same all over.

[GenesisNemesis]

Climate-driven megadrought is emerging in western US, study says

https://phys.org/news/2020-04-climate-driven-megadrought-emerging-western.html

With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history. A new study says the time has arrived: a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role. The study, based on modern weather observations, 1,200 years of tree-ring data and dozens of climate models, appears this week in the leading journal Science.

"Earlier studies were largely model projections of the future," said lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "We're no longer looking at projections, but at where we are now. We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts."

Well shit.

[Minimalist]

Intriguing development.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52328786

Climate change: 'Bath sponge' breakthrough could boost cleaner cars

A new material developed, by scientists could give a significant boost to a new generation of hydrogen-powered cars.

Like a bath sponge, the product is able to hold and release large quantities of the gas at lower pressure and cost.

I'm sure Trumpolini and his oil industry pals will denounce it as a hoax.

[Cavebear]

There are times when events cause us to not contaminate the air. 9-11 was one of those times. For days, I saw the stars better than in years.

Today is also one of those times. No one is flying. The air is automatically cleaner in just a few weeks. We need to consider that in the future.

[GenesisNemesis]

Satellite images reveal huge amounts of methane leaking from U.S. oil fields

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/methane...te-change/

 Oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin, the largest oil-producing area in the United States, are spewing more than twice the amount of methane emissions into the atmosphere than previously thought — enough wasted energy to power 7 million households in Texas for a year. That's the result of a new study by researchers at Harvard University and the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The Permian Basin stretches across a 250-mile by 250-mile area of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, and accounts for over a third of the crude oil and 10% of the natural gas in the U.S.


The study, published this week in the journal Science Advances, also found that the rate of leakage of methane gas makes up 3.7% of all the gas extracted in the basin, which is about 60% higher than the national average leakage rate. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and since the Permian Basin is so large, this excess waste is a significant contribution to our already warming climate.

 

[Chas]

Satellite images reveal huge amounts of methane leaking from U.S. oil fields

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/methane...te-change/

 Oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin, the largest oil-producing area in the United States, are spewing more than twice the amount of methane emissions into the atmosphere than previously thought — enough wasted energy to power 7 million households in Texas for a year. That's the result of a new study by researchers at Harvard University and the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The Permian Basin stretches across a 250-mile by 250-mile area of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, and accounts for over a third of the crude oil and 10% of the natural gas in the U.S.


The study, published this week in the journal Science Advances, also found that the rate of leakage of methane gas makes up 3.7% of all the gas extracted in the basin, which is about 60% higher than the national average leakage rate. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and since the Permian Basin is so large, this excess waste is a significant contribution to our already warming climate.

 

And the Arctic is probably even more dangerous.

[GenesisNemesis]

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-billions-unlivable.html

Billions projected to suffer nearly unlivable heat in 2070

In just 50 years, 2 billion to 3.5 billion people, mostly the poor who can't afford air conditioning, will be living in a climate that historically has been too hot to handle, a new study said.

With every 1.8 degree increase in global average annual temperature from man-made climate change, about a billion or so people will end up in areas too warm day-in, day-out to be habitable without cooling technology, according to ecologist Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, co-author of the study.

How many people will end up at risk depends on how much heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions are reduced and how fast the world population grows.

[Alan V]

CO2 Earth

As reported May 14, 2020, by NOAA-ESRL with an update to its AGGI webpage, the combined influence of all greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached the equivalent of 500 ppm CO2 in 2019. With carbon dioxide and other GHGs continuing to accumulate in the atmosphere, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, humanity's climate crisis has now surpassed the symbolic milestone of 500 ppm CO2e.

[Alan V]

USA Today

The coronavirus lockdowns have had an “extreme” effect on daily carbon emissions, causing a whopping 17% drop globally during peak confinement measures by early April – levels last seen in 2006.

[Deesse23]

USA Today

The coronavirus lockdowns have had an “extreme” effect on daily carbon emissions, causing a whopping 17% drop globally during peak confinement measures by early April – levels last seen in 2006.

NO2 levels have dropped by 50% in Lombardy

[Aractus]

The temperature at Sydney Cove has not changed in 230 years.

William Dawes kept a weather journal where he kept in meticulous detail wind direction and speed, temperature, precipitation (both rain and dew), cloud cover, and barometer readings from his observatory in Dawes Point from 14 September 1788 to 6 December 1791. He made up to six daily records, but in most cases four. “A weather journal with comparable detail for this period anywhere in the world is a rare find.” (link). It's also our earliest recorded weather record in Australia. Subsequently he took his journal back to the UK with him, where it became lost, and was found in 1977 by climate researcher Robert McAfee.



Dawes's colonial observatory was located only 500m from the modern day Observatory Hill weather station. In 2009, Gergis et al analysed the data and found:

“Early temperature and pressure data were analysed for the 1788–1791 period using weather journals kept by William Dawes and William Bradley who arrived on the First Fleet some 220 years ago. Remarkably, the records displayed a distinct seasonal cycle and daily variability comparable with modern day measurements taken from Sydney Observatory Hill and considerable inter-annual variability.”

Really? How comparable? I thought you'd never ask! This comes courtesy of geologist Dr. Geoff Derrick (2019):



“CONCLUSION : Despite a 68-year gap in data from 1791 to 1859, we conclude that there has been NO significant change in Max and Min temperature trends at the Sydney Observatory station for at least a period of  226 years, from 1788 to 2018.”

Now we mustn't generalise the data. The figures above show modern BOM measurements for T-Max and T-Min over the period 1859-2018, and the overlaid red/blue dots show the temperature record from 1788-1791 as recorded accurately and diligently by Dawes. So no meaningful temperature change at Sydney Cove for at least the past 226 years. That's not to say it hasn't had warming and cooling periods in that time - just that they've cancelled each other out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Waiting for T.rump to declare that "this so-called 'climate' is really just fake news!"

[Alan V]

The Guardian

Worst-case global heating scenarios may need to be revised upwards in light of a better understanding of the role of clouds, scientists have said.

Recent modelling data suggests the climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously believed, and experts said the projections had the potential to be “incredibly alarming”, though they stressed further research would be needed to validate the new numbers.

Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to be released next year.

Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million. This has shocked many veteran observers, because assumptions about climate sensitivity have been relatively unchanged since the 1980s.

[Paleophyte]

The temperature at Sydney Cove has not changed in 230 years.

Based on 2 1/4 years of data that we can't properly callibrate with the modern records and a pesky 60 year gap one location may not have increased in temperature. As analyzed by a flat earther climate change denialist.

[Alan V]

Yale Environment 360

The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder, wider, and sooner than previously believed, according to a study that shows a billion people will either be displaced or forced to endure insufferable heat for every additional 1 degree Celsius rise in the global temperature.

In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.

The authors of the study said they were “floored” and “blown away” by the findings because they had not expected our species to be so vulnerable.