…without.
http://www.yellowstone.ws/ywomovie.mov
Just the way it is. Mother Earth, glorious.
Peace
Thanks for all the information,worrying as it is, Mark and for being so honest about the gravity of the situation. As you say, we may surprise ourselves at how good we may become at muddlying along. Just because the big picture isn't good, doesnt mean the local situation can't be meaningful and even rewarding.Declan
I appreciate the thoughtful replies to my post #74. So our guts agree that the future is unpredicatable but what we can see looks very bad. And that the thing to do is to prepare in the hope that our plans will at least give us a slight edge as things break down. More chaos everywhere as the changes compile. As Mark points out, more wars are no doubt ahead as competition for scarce resources intensifies. We're already seeing it happening. I'm sure the US is positioning itself to be on the "winning" side with our huge military presence on bases throughout the world. At least while there is affordable oil to be had. The sheer cost of moving 80% of the world population away from the coasts is difficult to imagine. Move where? How long would it take? The mind boggles.
I have no doubt life will go on with or without us, just not the life we know and have adapted to. The tragedy is that we are bringing this on ourselves. A silver lining is the communty to be found here.
Thanks, my friends.
Joyce
Thanks, Mark, for those quotes from the military about climate change being the top threat. If you add the other environmental stresses, it would not surprise me if environmental problems (other than resource shortages) hit most people before financial problems, directly or indirectly. I'm amazed at human abilities to extend and pretend, on the financial and economic front. But when it come to the environment, there are real limits that can't be overcome through ingenuity.
Back to climate change, with the concentration of greenhouse gases now well past the notional target of 450 ppm CO2 equivalent we are now guaranteed to get dangerous climate change. It kind of makes apparent attempts to get agreements of carbon emission reductions seem rather pointless; we're past that now and we now need adaptation strategies and drastic mitigation.
Tony
Radio Australia Saturday AM (Podcast yet to be delivered) said that Australia's carbon output is no longer increasing and the effect of the Carbon Tax is to force business to look at the cost of energy.
This has forced them to increase their profit margins.
So much for the all-knowing "Invisible Hand" of the market.
But do not dispair all you lovers of carbon. Rudd, in his desperate grab for power, is about to discard the Carbon Tax. So I guess business managers can go back to sleep. When things go bad they can always blame External Factors. "China dunnit" or "It's the Unions" or . . . whatever.
Some decisions that are a no-brainer that company Invisible Idiots can make to increase their profit margin. (And decrease their carbon output). Off the top of my head over a cup of Green coffee.
Trucking companies can make use of underutilised rail lines. The rigs are diesel-electric and have rail-car wheels fitted. A string of rigs is assembled, their electricity coupled and when traffic controller says "Go" the front driver takes the string down the line.
Voila- A Diesel-Electric loco. The rest of the drivers get paid for doing nothing. Steel on steel is much more energy efficient than rubber on road; Electricity means that acceleration and deceleration are from stored energy; a string means that wind resistence is decreased; rested drivers means less accidents.
When the string arrives at it's destination, the drivers wake up and have to take their rigs to the next destination, customer or rail line.
But wait! What happens if somebody wants to leave the string before they get to point B? I will leave that problem for your homework.
Manufacturing Businesses and Big Malls. Over here in Perth the Utility Invisible Idiots fought tooth and nail to stop people going off-grid. But people went off-grid anyway. In their thousands. There are photocells on roofs all over town. Excess power is sold for credit to the Utilities.
The result? In the miday heat the photocells were putting out maximum energy. Just when it was needed meaning that the Utilities did not have to design their generation capacity for the peaks. The Utilities now cannot operate without the back-up of the photo-cells.
Let us look under the bonnet of an Invisible Idiot's mind. In this case he is the manager of a large roof.
"Hmm. My solar cells on my house save me money. If I put solar cells on the big roof the same phenomenon will happen."
"But what happens if something goes wrong?" "I lose my job!" "Hmm. It is only shareholder money. And besides I can always blame China if we don't make a profit."
"But what about our company Green washing?. I had better put a few tokens on the roof to appease the silly customer."
But with a Carbon Tax the conversation in his head is totaly different. He is forced to make a profit. If not, he can always fall back on blaming the Unions for demanding disposable income.
The coffe is finished.
Arthur,Your assignment
But wait! What happens if somebody wants to leave the string before they get to point B? I will leave that problem for your homework.Couple your vehicles in order such that the first to get off is at the end of the string and so on. Decouple vehicles as needed while passing individual stops leaving the front of the string traveking at max velocity. The string shortens as it travels but never needs to slow until the last vehicle arrives at your point B. Mark
Replace up there with Earth.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RkGUowLRF5s&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRkGUowLRF5s
This Podcast was a long time coming...A long, loooooooooong time coming. I nearly died waiting. But better late than never, eh?
I forget the figure, but it was dramatic, between 25%-50% of the /btu value of natgas is lost liquifying it. I don't know about compressing gas to several thousand PSI but that wastes a substantial energy input…is there anyway to use that energy?, to harvest the spring-bound energy in the compressed gas to replace the "compression stroke" which robs energy output in the conventional internal combustion engine? or use hi effeciency turbine? seems if one used off-peak excess electricity and stored it as compressed air energy in a tank, and accompanied the air tank with a tank of compressed gas, the compression stroke could be eliminated totally, and replaced by an energy boosing pre ignition pressure build adding/inputting energy into the cylinder engine. the loss of energy in the compression stroke is huge, and subtracts from total output, it also needs a more complicated of valve train and camshafts robbing further effeciency, as well as decressing cylce from 4 cycles with one power stroke, to two cycles
Is there an engineer in the house?
Mark C, Thanks for an authoritative, beautifully clear, well explained podcast I can e-mail to friends and family that just don't get it yet.
I have questions about my local geographic area (central WV 1000ft elevation) and how comparitively stable my local climate will be. What changes am I to expect and prepare for…wetter? more dry? etc
Generally I agree the changes seem to be greater variance in both directions, but I wonder if there is a trend predictable, or whether I should consider moving to a better, more stable environment. For sure I'm not in the sea-rise zone, nor am I on a stream runoff area prone to flooding in high precipitation, but I worry more about drought/wind/forest fires or 40 below winters which would cause me to move. Big Wind storms are ok and increased rain/snow is fine, but is this place more likely to be a super high variation(unstable)zone? -thats my question…is there a place to research that?.
If life has evolved to pass genes long term, then given its track record there are most likely built-in brakes. For example, if cloud formation increases past a tipping point and holds (water holds heat well) what does that imply for crop yield? If much less demand for food (population die off etc) then less burning of fossil fuels. Also, as regards the 1% of sun energy for plant life does that include the sun energy that goes into supporting the environment to grow?
This graph originally comes from a presentation by Lord Christopher Monckton. I don't know where you got this graph from, but you should always list your source for information like this so others can check it out.Lord Monckton is one of the superstars among global warming skeptics. You can find many of his presentations on You Tube. He is an excellant speaker, and if you don't know much aboudt AGW, he is very convincing. If you do have a backgroud in climatology, you'll find there is much in Lord Monckton's lectures that is questionable. However, you should not take my word for it. For critics, listen to John Abraham, Univ. of St Thomas (very detailed and well documented) or potholder54 (more entertaining). And you should also check out Lord Monckton's reply to his critics. Then make up your own mind.
Billhopen,You are asking the $64 trillion question (inflation!), what is happening and will happen where I live? What is happening is defined but what will happen is a tenuous subject. Global models do not necessarily get local or even regional climate correct. There are people trying to sort out which models perform best at different locations but even with that they need to be used to driver regional climate models with statistical or dynamical downscaling for real clarity. These things are being done but the coverage is spotty and depends on individual research projects at this point.
I certainly am no expert in your local climate but I can provide some input. You can check with your state climatologist (link) for what has been changing more certainly with a likely emphasis on agricultural impacts.
One of the things I am doing is looking at the last 120 years of weather observations around the US to see what has changed. It's a work in progress but since I just got the materials from one of my post docs I'll tell you what we see for West Virginia. These are seasonal and monthly data so daily extremes may vary within these values substantially. Also, realize that I am eyeballing a lot of national maps that don't have state boundaries on them so this is crude reporting!
For West Virginia:
Wetter annually, but averaging less than 100mm additional. Wetter Junes, Drier Augusts, Wetter Autumns, especially in October
In terms of max daily temperatures. Warmer in March average about 1C. Increasing variability of August temperatures. Septembers cooler but Novembers warmer by 1 C. Warmer winters in all months, especially February >1C. Decembers particularly variable.
In terms of minimum daily temperatures, mildly warmer Springs, regionwide warmer Summer nights, moreso June and July. Warmer Winters, strongest in February. September and February more variable within the months.
There is nothing particularly concerning about the climate variations in your location apparent. Wind changes are a big unknown at this point. I do not know of any vetted work on this question. It is very important for a number of reasons but it is likely to be the number one variable in the future severity of wildfires. Mayhap Aaron can speak to the weather aspects better.
I believe that your location is mixed broadleaved hardwoods so fire is not so much of an issue as in the west and coniferous forests. Fires that do occur should stay as surface fires in the leaf litter unless conditions truly become exceptional. In the last 20 years there have been no large wildfires (>500 acres) in your region as far as I know and I have been looking for all of them across the US!
I hope this is helpful.
Mark
She is an expert. She has a vision of the coming state of the oceans that will have you rolling in the isles.
ABC Radio.
My understanding is that there is a constant war between jellyfish and pelagic fish. Medusa eat small fish and big fish eat Jellyfish.
Jellyfish have a calorific value of 2J per Kg. That is a tad above the energy of a glass of water.
Here Tierney talks about a Jellyfish predator. We had better start a breeding program and protect their young.
At least someone can get excited about the rise of slime, Arthur!She mentions Jeremy Jackson. Here he is with a doom laden description of the situation in the oceans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMN3dTvrwY
Tony
Folks:
The oldies here may remember me…not going to get in the endless conversations and diatribe about Climate Change (CC) or AGW. I've outlined many times years ago as to why.
For the more recent folks here at this site…been involved with this subject to varying degrees (CC/AGW) since the 1980s.
As I've stated before here…Weather and Climate (including CO2) is much, much more dynamic (i.e. changing).
Example: Let's use data…not opinion. The image below are some real time observations from the Earth System Research Laboratory (ERSL) Tall Tower in Eastern Iowa (about 40 miles away from where I live and work).
CO2…because it is heavier than air (see periodic table) collects near the ground…often the concentrations go well over 500 PPM as is shown below. The 520 PPM value is still roughly 100 feet above the ground…local techniques are the value of CO2 near the ground is likely another 10-20+ percent higher depending on the morning and strength of the inversion near sunrise. Values over 1000 PPM are not that uncommon. This site often goes well above 600 PPM. The highest values occur in warm season…not cold…biosphere and CO2 are not independent and still not fully understood as the reason at this particular site. Leave it at that.
Understand there are processes and physics that are not being discussed. Don't focus on just on the 400 PPM value. My point…beware of using simple averages or parameters of physics on this issue.
Final point…as I've stated before…"The truth has no side…and always bring us together".
All the Best to all…
Nichoman
Atmospheric Scientist
"Oh Creator, please provide the STRENGTH and WISDOM to see things as they are…not the way I wish or believe them to be"
--Leonardo Da Vinci
Mark,
At the AoL conference, I asked about parallels with the Permian extinction. You said that had to do with the oceans. That was not a venue for more detailed discussion, and so I did not follow up. Could you talk about that a bit for us?
I had thought we had quite a bit to learn about our predicament from the Permian extinction. This fairly recent NYT article talks about that a bit, too (yeah, not the most scientific source).
Thanks,
Hoyte King
For all those who have "economist" friends who think your concern for dwindling natural resourses or the environment in general is adorable please share this link below with them. It might bounce off their heads due to our human confirmation bias, but it's worth a try. westcoastjan mentioned David Suzuki so I couldn't help myself.
http://youtu.be/Se55CCdfaOA
Hoyte,Thank you the question.
For those who do not know, the Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) extinction event, otherwise know as the Great Dying was the biggest reset that life on this planet has experienced with as much as 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates winking out of existence. It was also the only extinction event to ever make a serious dent in insect diversity. The K-T dinosaur killing asteroid gets all of the press for extinction events but it wasn't in the same league as the end of the Permian. Diversity took 10-15 million years to reestablish once conditions became more clement for life.
So what happened? It is still an open question because it occurred more than 252 million years ago but we do know that CO2 levels in the atmosphere went up by about 2,000ppm (we have raised things by 120ppm in the last 150 years) so it is tempting to correlate that event with what we are currently doing to the planet. Ocean surface waters seem to have become warm and stratified deserts (little mixing with deep nutrient rich waters), while the deep oceans became stagnant and anoxic. Add in the fact that the world was in a cooler phase (like now) and transitioned back into a very warm phase and you have the stuff of nightmares.
Despite this, there are a number of caveats needed before drawing strong parallels between then and now.
- Although we call it an extinction 'event', this was a very long event. Depending how you define it, the P-Tr extinction event took between 200,000 and 2+ million years to play out, with three to five extinction peaks during that period. To put that in context, our species, Homo sapiens sapiens has only existed for about 200,000 years.
- The world was a very different place then with all of the Earth's continents globbed together into the super continent Pangaea (see image).
- People always seem to like very clear black and white simple cause and effect concepts but life if often more nuanced than this. The proposed causes of the P-Tr even have varied with several causes suggested. The more likely explanation is that there were several causes that interacted synergistically such that each cause made the next more severe in its impact. Themassive volcanic eruptions of the Siberian Traps that originally covered an area 3.5 times the size of western Europe occurred at this time and would have emitted lots of carbon dioxide. This may also have set off a slow chain of events from burning coal seams unfortunately located within the Siberian traps to massive eruptions from the sea floor methane clathrates as the oceans warmed causing further greenhouse gas warming. For good measure, one or more massive asteroid strikes also bedeviled life. It was a challenging time for life and lots of species didn't make but this opened up space for a lot of evolutionary radiation of new species from among the survivors.
The take home message is that every stress placed upon life makes in more vulnerable to other unforeseen events, much like stress makes all of us more susceptible to disease and accidents. What we are currently doing is not on par with the P-Tr event, at least not yet. The ongoing rate of extinctions due to human activities is right up there with other mass extinctions but we need to keep it up for another 240-540 years (source) to break into the top five of all extinction events (not something we should definitely not be trying to achieve!). Regardless, we are placing life in a much more vulnerable position for extinction from an asteroid impact or any other climate surprise that comes along. We are steadily mining the resiliency of global ecosystems at our peril. Driving species to functional if not total extinction and the demolition of whole ecosystems is the quivalent of removing structural supports from within your own home. You can get away with it for a while but eventually the house comes down on your head. If people are interested in the Permian-Triassic extinction event, there are a couple of good overviews of the ideas/science (Wikipedia, NSF).
Mark