Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[AudubonB]

I am not going to provide cost numbers, because they were staggering - but in my situation we really hadn't any good alternatives.

Our own electrical system is a combination of solar panels - about 4,700 watts faceplate capacity - and battery bank: 1150 Ah @ 48V. (That's nine tons of absorbed glass mat 2V cells....I think the chemistry is Pb-Ca, but am embarrassed to say I don't recall at this moment).

This system allows us to run a remote lodging site - seven guest cabins plus our own home - with ease. The batteries smooth the consumption pattern, whose peaks and troughs are quite exaggerated, as tourists tend to perform electron-consuming acts in fair concert, as well as allowing us "real" electricity through the night. They also suffice to keep everything going if we have two days of solid rain and heavy cloud cover.

One of the benefits of life at 63º latitude is that in the months between vernal and autumnal equinox, the long daylight hours assist in PV panel utilization, even if the panels are oriented due south (some of ours are; others are on a tracker). Of course, it also is fortunate in this regard that most of our tourists likewise visit during those months.

There is no inherent reason, other than today's costs, our approach cannot be scaled up to service larger units, like small villages, towns, or even cities. The crunch number is the current cost of batteries. But batteries can be of different types (ie, the liquid salt mentioned in a recent post). Some utility grids - New York's Consolidated Edison for example - have in the past made use of the disparity of daily consumption patterns by empowering a hydro-battery. Somewhere up the Hudson River - near West Point, I think - Con Ed uses slack-time power to pump water uphill to a storage reservoir; it flows down through turbines to provide power during peak demand hours. That is thermodynamically inefficient, but so is battery storage of any type.

 

[JRP3]

Hydro storage obviously depends on terrain, and though all battery storage has efficiency losses, lithium, especially LiFePO4, has high charge and discharge efficiencies, especially at lower C rates. Round trip should be near 90%. Pumped hydro is between 70-80%. The nice thing about lithium over lead is lithium can sit for long periods in a state of partial charge with no damage, in fact it's better for it, where lead suffers from sulfation. The flip side of course is that lead can handle over charge better, but that can be designed around. I'd bet large format prismatic LiFePO4 cells may now be cost competitive with high end AGM lead.

 

[RichardC]

Compressed air is another storage alternative. In addition to underground storage in salt formations (which faces obvious geographic limitations) a Toronto cleantech startup is using underwater storage, where the water pressure provides a constant pressure, as the basis for a grid scale energy storage system.

Underwater Compressed Air Electrical Storage
The Hydrostor system efficiently converts electrical energy to compressed air via an advanced adiabatic compression system. This air is then sent to a series of flexible accumulators located 50-500 meters below the surface of a body of water. Once in the accumulators, the energy can be stored until required by the grid. When the energy is required, the weight of the water pushes the air back to the surface where our system directs it through an expander driving a generator thus supplying energy to the grid and completing the storage cycle.

This rapidly deployed, low cost system uses non toxic substances with minimal environmental disturbances while offering 70% round trip efficiencies without the need for additional fossil fuel heat.

See: http://www.hydrostor.ca/home/

 

[RichardC]

...

I believe there are scientists on both side of the fence, and I'm sure TMC members also. (Kaivball is just one reason this thread is ongoing and intriguing.. thanks )
As a newbie my perception is that "Man Made" Global Warming is like a religion with believers, non-believers, atheists and agnostics and where the scientists are the Gods.

I might be considered an Atheist on this subject and keep an open mind. What can I do ? I bought a TESLA. Hope that helps in some small way.

Zapped,

While there are a large group of so-called "scientific" naysayers and deniers, many of whom have known links to fossil industry interests - you can find a number of them discussed at http://www.desmogblog.com/, if you limit the field to those whose area of study and specialization is climate science the number of denier scientists dwindles to very close to zero. Of the remaining holdouts, a number, such as the noted skeptic Professor Richard Muller, have relatively recently switched sides. As described in an article in Scientific American:

The University of California, Berkeley, physicist once doubted the existence of climate change. Now he is convinced it's not only real but man-made, based on the latest results from his controversial review of temperature records.
"Call me a converted skeptic," Muller wrote in an op-ed published yesterday in The New York Times.

See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ian-argues-humans-to-blame-for-climate-change

There is however a very small category of sceptics, of which Richard Lindzen of MIT is probably the most prominent example, who disagree with the current scienctific consensus concerning extent of climate change which is likely to result from a doubling of CO2. However, in a recent paper Lindzen acknowledges that manmade emissions will give rise to global warming on the order of about 1 degree C rather than the increases of 1.5 degrees C to 5 degrees C that are projected by the current scientific consensus, and for that reason should not be counted among the ranks of the true deniers.

See: http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf

In the scientific realm, of far greater weight than the views of individual scientists, are the positions adopted by the National Academies of Science. In this domain there is complete unanimity. No scientific body of national or international standing maintains a formal opinion dissenting from any of these main points; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which withdrew its dissenting statement in 2007.

By country, the concurring National Academies of Science are as follows:
Albania: Academy of Sciences of Albania
Armenia: Armenian National Academy of Sciences
Australia: Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, National Academies Forum
Austria: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Belarus: National Academy of Sciences of Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Canada: Royal Society of Canada
Cambodia: The Royal Academy of Cambodia
People's Republic of China: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
Croatia: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Czech Republic - Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Denmark: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Estonia: Estonian Academy of Sciences
Finland: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (Finnish
France: the Institut de France
Germany: Leopoldina
Greece: Academy of Athens
Hong Kong: Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities 香港人文學院
Hungary: Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hungarian: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia)Hungarian Academy of Sciences [1]
Ireland: Royal Irish Academy
Israel: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Italy: Accademia dei Lincei
Japan: The Japan Academy
Macedonia: Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Netherlands: The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Norway: The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Pakistan: Pakistan Academy of Letters, Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Poland: Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Learning
Portugal: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa
Republic of China (Taiwan): Academia Sinica
Romania: Romanian Academy
Russia: Russian Academy of Sciences .
Scotland: Royal Society of Edinburgh
Serbia: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Slovenia: Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Spain: The Royal Academy of Exact, Physic and Natural Sciences
Sweden: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Thailand: Royal Institute of Thailand
Turkey: Turkish Academy of Sciences
Ukraine: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
United Kingdom: the Royal Society
United States: The United States National Academies
Vatican City: Pontifical Academy of Sciences

This degree of international unanimity among the National Science Academies means that global warming is the very antithesis of a religious belief.

The following is a brief summary of the scientific basics of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory. Many of the elements are self evident and should not be controversial. Amongst climate scientists, the expected impact on the global temperature of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been known for more than 100 years and is not questioned any scientific body of national or international standing.

The key elements of global warming science may be summarized as follows:

1. The laws of physics require that the long wavelength infrared heat energy emitted by the earth into space must equal the incoming visible and ultraviolet solar energy in order to avoid heating or cooling the earth over time. Over the past 11,000 years, with the exception of relatively minor local perturbations, or changes attributable to events such as global cooling from large discharges of volcanic aerosols, incoming and outgoing energy flows have been generally in balance and the climate has been relatively stable.

2. Greenhouse gases differ from the principal constituents of the atmosphere in that greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming solar radiation but are somewhat opaque to and trap the infrared heat energy that is emitted by the earth thereby insulating the planet and causing it to warm to restore the energy balance between incoming and outgoing energy.

3. Human activity, principally the combustion of fossil carbon in the form of coal, oil and natural gas to create CO2, is adding increasing volumes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Current emissions exceed 30 billion tons per year.

4. About half of the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activity are retained in the atmosphere and are increasing the percentages of the greenhouse gases very substantially relative to the stable levels over the past millennia. CO2, has gone up by more than a third and continues to rise, and methane has increased by approximately 150 percent.

5. The greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by human activity will remain in the atmosphere for decades and centuries, and block the escape of some heat energy thereby retaining such energy in the oceans, earth and lower atmosphere.

6. The average temperature on the earth will initially rise slowly over time due to the thermal lag associated with the heat storage capacities of the oceans but the rate of change is expected to increase over time as the levels of CO2 increase and due to a variety of positive feedback effects, increased water vapour in the atmosphere being principal among them.

The effects are equally simple and have been clearly documented by NASA and other credible scientific bodies and organizations as follows:

• Global surface temperatures have risen by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit (ºF) over the last 100 years.
• Worldwide, the last decade has been the warmest on record.
• The rate of warming across the globe over the last 50 years (0.24ºF per decade) is almost double the rate of warming over the last 100 years (0.13ºF per decade).
The evidence of climate change extends well beyond increases in global surface temperatures. It also includes:
• Changing precipitation patterns.
• Melting ice in the Arctic.
• Melting glaciers around the world.
• Increasing ocean temperatures.
• Rising sea level around the world.
• Acidification of the oceans due to elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
• Responses by plants and animals, such as shifting ranges.

The clarity and simplicity of the basic science, and the seriousness of the inevitable impacts of global warming led to the formation of the UNFCCC, IPCC, the adoption of Kyoto and numerous other national and international responses - none which would have occurred if there was any significant doubt as to the science.

Professor Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria has prepared a brief and very accessible summary of the scientific method and the science of global warming in his recent book: "Generation Us" which I would recommend to you, and anyone else wishing to learn more about the science.

If you are truly skeptical about AGW, please identify which element or elements of the six part summary that you believe is unproven. It would also be helpful if you could identify a recognized, peer-reviewed, climate scientist who takes issue with the scientific consensus and refer us to a publication explaining the basis for his or her position.

 

[Ocelot]

Nice post Richard.

 

[Doug_G]

If you are truly skeptical about AGW, please identify which element or elements of the six part summary that you believe is unproven.

A true "skeptic" would doubt both sides, and take a hard look at the evidence for both. The "skeptical" people here (Kaivball especially) clearly are not true skeptics. Instead they have adopted a "religious" view towards the subject. They believe (that AGW is false) regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

I was originally skeptical about AGW, in that I had an open mind and was willing to challenge the views of either side. But it became very clear that the preponderance of evidence for AGW is overwhelmingly in favour. And the "evidence" against it is mostly superficial, poor quality science, facts taken out of context, etc. In fact, from my point of view the contrary evidence as presented did just as much to swing me the other way!

 

[Robert.Boston]

And I come back to a point that I think cannot be overlooked: who has the burden of proof? We are in the midst of a vast experiment that proceeds from the hypothesis that uncontrolled emissions of GHG is safe. In other contexts, e.g. medical research, the proponents of an experiment have to prove the safety. For some reason, when it comes to GHG emissions, the proponents of continuing the experiment are shifting the burden of proof onto others.

 

[RichardC]

Doug and Robert,

Agreed. In my view this is not a subject about which one can properly remain agnostic. As the work of the IPCC, the various National Academies of Science, and innumerable other leading scientists and scientific bodies have documented, the likely implications of AGW are so significant and the time frame for action so limited, that each member of the public has a moral obligation to their children, grandchildren and future generations to follow one of the following courses of action with respect to the issue:

1) Acknowledge that they have no training or knowledge to comment on the issue (and have no interest in acquiring same) and will therefore resolutely express no opinion; or

2) Acknowledge that they have no training or knowledge to comment on the issue, would like to learn about it so that they can express an educated view, but don't have the time or other resources to do so, in which case they should follow the course that society adopts with virtually every other scientific question of note, namely to determine the overwhelming consensus of leading expert scientists around the world and all of the national science academies (as documented above, which in this case will result in them taking the position that manmade climate change is a serious and pressing problem which requires serious and immediate action); or

3) Acknowledge that they have no training or knowledge to comment on the issue, would like to learn about it so that they can express an educated view, and make a concerted effort to collect, analyze and assimilate the readily available scientific information, skeptically question everything that they read and come to a good understanding of the scientific method and the science underlying climate science, the work that has been done to challenge and test the various theories and how science is gradually refining the integrity, consistency and quality of its learnings and models; or

4) Acknowledge that they are so financially and/or ideologically conflicted such that they have no true interest in understanding or assessing the science. (By an ideological conflict, I refer to an individual who is so dogmatically committed to a simple-minded, free market ideal, that he or she is not prepared to accept the possibility that global warming is real (notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of it and clear scientific consensus) on the basis that the mere recognition of market externalities could possibly be cited to justify rational public policy intervention to internalize the costs of our carbon emissions.) Such deniers, as they are clearly such, should declare their conflict so that others can understand that the position they espouse is informed by financial interest or ideology, and does not reflect a fair assessment of the science.

In my experience, any true skeptic will start out, as both of you and I did, in category 3, and become advocates for future generations as we learn more about and better appreciate the strength of the science and the seriousness of the threat. I have never seen a case in which a true skeptic failed to be persuaded once they invested the time and effort to engage with the science and the literature.

In that regard, I hope that Zapped will advance the state of the knowledge by engaging with the science.

Happy new year, and looking forward to a supercharged (in the Tesla sense of the word) 2014.

 

[JRP3]

And I come back to a point that I think cannot be overlooked: who has the burden of proof? We are in the midst of a vast experiment that proceeds from the hypothesis that uncontrolled emissions of GHG is safe. In other contexts, e.g. medical research, the proponents of an experiment have to prove the safety. For some reason, when it comes to GHG emissions, the proponents of continuing the experiment are shifting the burden of proof onto others.

Exactly, that's always been my position. Since we don't know what we are doing we need to act on the side of caution. Especially since reduction in CO2 emissions also brings a large number of benefits even if man made CO2 production is not a problem.

 

[Zapped]

Thanks RichardC and others.
Lots of reading/reference material

I'm starting to feel like a convert.. almost.
As News Years resolutions would have it, I promise myself to undertake further study and will apply the "precautionary principle" to start.

Regardless, there are no doubt immediate direct environmental and health benefits to what, I assume, the climate scientist are recommending.
All the best. Until next year.:wink:

 

[JRP3]

Regardless, there are no doubt immediate direct environmental and health benefits to what, I assume, the climate scientist are recommending.
All the best. Until next year.:wink:

And there you go, you're already a convert :biggrin:

 

[Raffy.Roma]

@Zapped

After having seen your New Year resolution I would like to suggest you a new Course that is going to start in one month on Coursera.

Coursera.org

Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided

It is now becoming clear that without necessary climate action, the world may become 4°C warmer by the end of this century. As this threatens to roll back decades of development progress, this is a ‘make or break’ point. This course presents the most recent scientific evidence as well as some of the opportunities for urgent action.


Here in Italy 2014 has already come. So I would like to wish Happy New Year to everybody.

 

[Kaivball]

No it isn't. It's based on basic physics. It's also based on measurements of the real world. The computer models are mainly an attempt to determine its impact.

Hypothesis + Data = Scientific Theory

Wild Speculation = AGW Denial = Religion

Doug

Self delusion is dangerous too...

RealClearEnergy - Global Warming Predictions vs. Reality

There is no AGW.

It might be a religious experience for some but it's not science and not based on fact.

 

[Kaivball]

Exactly, that's always been my position. Since we don't know what we are doing we need to act on the side of caution. Especially since reduction in CO2 emissions also brings a large number of benefits even if man made CO2 production is not a problem.

What are the benefits of lower CO2 exactly since the doom sayers have already been proven wrong based on what was supposed to happen when CO2 increases to today's level.

We are in the middle of a cooling period, an even the least catastrophic predictions from 5-7 years ago have not come true.

Yet, AGW disciples remain undeterred. Even when they keep being wrong year after year they march forward with the false belief that human activity is causing global warming.

 

[dhrivnak]

Kaivball, so if the earth is cooling why are the sea levels rising? CU Sea Level Research Group | University of Colorado and are the any benefits of the oceans becoming more acidic?

 

[Kaivball]

Seven global warming alarmist setbacks in 2013 | The Daily Caller

 

[Kaivball]

How high must the global sea level have been in 1912, when Mawson walked on the ice-free shoreline of Commonwealth Bay?!

Think about that...

We are still trying to rescue those guys.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

@Kaivball

I already answered to you about the matter of the apparent stop of Global Warming due to Ocean Warming always preceding further increase of Temperature Anomaly in previous posts (see also post #822). But I noticed that you didn't answer to the question put to you by David about the matter of Ocean Acidification. To this concern I invite you to read posts #817 and #819 of this thread.

 

[Doug_G]

Self delusion is dangerous too...

RealClearEnergy - Global Warming Predictions vs. Reality

There is no AGW.

It might be a religious experience for some but it's not science and not based on fact.

Give me a break. That graph was compiled by a NEWSPAPER. You call that science??? It's biased, because it only shows a small subset of the temperature data. Let's look at something from actual scientists:

From: RealClimate: The global temperature jigsaw

As you can readily see, we have rapidly increasing temperatures with random fluctuations superimposed on it. You can't just cherry-pick the last 5% of the graph to make up a point.

Make a scientifically credible argument and you might convince someone. Simply vomiting out psuedoscientific spin won't do the job.

Furthermore, this bogus article is based on the premise the the computer models are what all the science is based on. It's not.

 

[JRP3]

What are the benefits of lower CO2 exactly since the doom sayers have already been proven wrong based on what was supposed to happen when CO2 increases to today's level.

First, just because it hasn't gotten as bad as some predicted doesn't mean the CO2 increases are not having a negative effect. As I've said, repeatedly, and for some reason you keep ignoring, the extended, yet probably temporary, lull in sunspot activity may be temporarily masking the more severe effects of GW. Feel free to ignore this point once again.
To my other point, do you really see no benefits from not burning oil, coal, and natural gas, even if CO2 is not an issue? Are you completely unaware of the other effects of fossil fuel pollution and environmental damage?