Impact of solar panels on global climate

[Stargate525]

[quote name='ZetaX']No, it is not logarithmic (that simply makes no sense). A very naive one might give you sqrt(amount), but even that is probably off by a lot. And another reason why this is still a lot, even if we assume that sqrt: such things are relative to absolute 0. Thus even an increase by only 10% is an icnrease by about 30°.[/QUOTE]
I said I didn't know the term (but I was thinking logarithmic). However, there HAS to be an upper bound, and if you're telling me that an increase from 6% to 7% of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the same amount of heating that the increase from 0-1 or 99-100 will, I will laugh in your face. It's not linear. It CANT be linear. It makes no sense with everything I know about heat and energy (if you're welcome to cite sources proving it is, feel free).

Either it's logarithmic (powerful initial impact with tapering effect), exponential (greater impact the more we add), or S curve (low effect on either end, with a powerful effect in the middle). Which is it, where on the curve are we, and is it beneficial to REMAIN on that portion of the curve?

[Korizan]

Heat from solar panels (not surprising but lets keep things in perspective)
Now I am waiting on the report about how man made lakes create heat sinks that change the local temperatures and weather patterns.
So much for clean energy from damns :sticktongue:
Everything we do including our very existence creates a change.
Everything comes at a price the question is are you willing to pay for the long healthy life or would you rather go back to living for only 30 years max in a cave.

[ZetaX]

I will now just ignore that self-declared "pro with statistics" that obviously is not interested in any discussion except trolling (and no, I am not talkin about Stargate25, before again someone jumps to conclusions without checking who called himself that; hint: his name starts with "W").

[quote name='Stargate525']I said I didn't know the term (but I was thinking logarithmic). However, there HAS to be an upper bound, and if you're telling me that an increase from 6% to 7% of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the same amount of heating that the increase from 0-1 or 99-100 will, I will laugh in your face. It's not linear. It CANT be linear. It makes no sense with everything I know about heat and energy (if you're welcome to cite sources proving it is, feel free).[/QUOTE]

Do not attribute things to me I did not say: none of these were claimed by me. The guess sqrt I gave does obviously not satisfy linearity and indeed grows slower the larger it already is. I very definitely nowhere claimed it to be linear, so asking me for evidence for this is completely missing the point. I am not asking you for evidence of exponentially increasing temperature with CO_2 levels (I think we can agree that this claim is absurd), so please do the same towards me.

[quote name='Stargate525']Either it's logarithmic (powerful initial impact with tapering effect), exponential (greater impact the more we add), or S curve (low effect on either end, with a powerful effect in the middle). Which is it, where on the curve are we, and is it beneficial to REMAIN on that portion of the curve?[/QUOTE]

The words you use are wrong. Logarithmic would mean an extremely slow increase, much slower than most things you will ever encounter in real life. Similiarly, exponential is much faster than anything realistic. I already gave you a better example: sqrt.
The general words are "concave" and convex".
But the S one might be an option. A standard curve of that shape is the logistical one, and the general shape is called sigmoid.

[GeneralVeers]

[quote name='Korizan']Now I am waiting on the report about how man made lakes create heat sinks that change the local temperatures[/QUOTE]
They do. Proximity to water has a significant cooling effect on the surrounding terrain.

[quote name='Korizan']and weather patterns.[/QUOTE]
Possible but not known.

[quote name='Korizan'] Everything comes at a price the question is are you willing to pay for the long healthy life or would you rather go back to living for only 30 years max in a cave.[/QUOTE]
Bingo. Consider if you will: browsing the Internet on a computer generates 20 milligrams of CO2 per second. Every environmentalist nut who's in this thread (or any other!) is contributing to the problem rather than helping to solve it. I don't see them ditching this web site and destroying their computers with sledge hammers......

(if only)

[peadar1987]

It's very frustrating debating with WedgeAntilles. He is a big fan of the Gish Gallop, throwing out loads of poorly-backed up claims with little to no evidence behind them, when they are disproved, he quickly moves on, until he can find a point where someone has tripped over their words slightly, or has become so confused the sheer volume of soundbites he puts out that they misinterpret something he has said. Then he latches onto this like a dog with a bone, claiming outright victory, even though it is irrelevant to the debate, and even more irrelevant to the science.

He is very good at this, peppering his posts with enough half-truths and verifiable facts to give a superficial impression of credibility, but that does not mean he is right.

Classic example just there. Yes, CO2 increases result in diminishing returns. But guess what? A smaller effect [I]is still an effect[/I]. Bogging the debate down on exactly what base a logarithmic scale plotting it would use is a simple diversion tactic.

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[quote name='Korizan']Heat from solar panels (not surprising but lets keep things in perspective)
Now I am waiting on the report about how man made lakes create heat sinks that change the local temperatures and weather patterns.
So much for clean energy from damns :sticktongue:
Everything we do including our very existence creates a change.
Everything comes at a price the question is are you willing to pay for the long healthy life or would you rather go back to living for only 30 years max in a cave.[/QUOTE]

Switching to low-carbon energy is estimated by the Stern Report to cost about 1% of global GDP every year, compared with current levels. It's not a question of living in caves, it's a tiny, tiny lifestyle change that apparently people are still unwilling to make. Edited November 17, 2015 by peadar1987

[ZetaX]

[quote name='peadar1987']It's very frustrating debating with WedgeAntilles. He is a big fan of the Gish Gallop, throwing out loads of poorly-backed up claims with little to no evidence behind them, when they are disproved, he quickly moves on, until he can find a point where someone has tripped over their words slightly, or has become so confused the sheer volume of soundbites he puts out that they misinterpret something he has said. Then he latches onto this like a dog with a bone, claiming outright victory, even though it is irrelevant to the debate, and even more irrelevant to the science.

He is very good at this, peppering his posts with enough half-truths and verifiable facts to give a superficial impression of credibility, but that does not mean he is right.

Classic example just there. Yes, CO2 increases result in diminishing returns. But guess what? A smaller effect [I]is still an effect[/I].[/QUOTE]

Thank you. This is exactly what I think, too. His newest strategy seems to be to absurdely missuse claims of fallacies, e.g. that something that is an insult at best is an ad hominem, and then that attributing such a claim of ad hominem to him is a straw man. So he is not just a dog latching onto the slightest things, he even just bites for the sake of it.

[Elthy]

[QUOTE]Consider if you will: browsing the Internet on a computer generates 20 milligrams of CO2 per second. Every environmentalist nut who's in this thread (or any other!) is contributing to the problem rather than helping to solve it. I don't see them ditching this web site and destroying their computers with sledge hammers......[/QUOTE]

The one contributing to the problem is you, without those climate change deniers we wouldnt have to fight them and could simply start acting. As long as people like you still have influence thing like switching of a PC is completly pointless, since those people will build another coal powerplant to power their aircondition.

[Stargate525]

[quote name='Elthy']The one contributing to the problem is you, without those climate change deniers we wouldnt have to fight them and could simply start acting. As long as people like you still have influence thing like switching of a PC is completly pointless, since those people will build another coal powerplant to power their aircondition.[/QUOTE]
God, that's a horrifying train of thought you've started on.

Some facts for you: Coal use in the US peaked in 2007, and has been going down steadily since. Since 2002, we've actually LOST 115 coal plants. China builds that many more in two years. Japan has just put in an order for 43 coal plants (because Fukishima, we can't have nice things).

So remind me, HOW is it this politically-powerless American's fault that you 'can't act' (despite the 115 shuttered plants that would disagree on the word can't)? And pray tell, Mr 'if it wasn't for those pesky -blanks-,' how are you going to stop China or India or Japan or the Middle East or Africa from building more plants than even COMPLETELY SHUTTING DOWN our grid wouldn't offset?

[GDJ]

Okay, I read all 23 pages of this thread, and here's my 2¢:

-Solar panels creating hotspots? Uh, yeah within a few metres of a panel, yes. On a global scale, cover Brazil and Australia with panels (I mean 100% of Brazil and Australia) and then we'll talk. This is folly. Even if you / me cover 30% of the arctic landmass of Canada north of 60 with solar panels the effect would be negligible. I'd rather have cleaner air.

-Offsetting coal with Solar/wind generation will do more good than harm. I know that windmills can cause havoc with certain flying species of birds and bats but can anybody else come up with a better cleaner solution?

-Fusion? Pipe dream for the next 30 years at the current rate of progress.

-Fission? Short term, very clean. Long term......get used to babies with 3 arms. Unless you bury the waste at least 20 km or deeper, it's just too dirty.

-Sticking with coal? Sure, no radiation, but be prepared for air quality worse than large cities and work houses of the early to mid 1800's. Not to mention more acid rain, dead animals due to soot and other nastiness getting into the food chain. Rather stick with Fission and Natural Gas at that thought.


Bottom line: The only cure for all of this is going back to a pre-industrial revolution lifestyle for the entire planet. That's not going to happen. So suck it up princess's and eco-warriors! You can't have it both ways now. If you want to get off oil and other combustibles, you are going to have to put up with land covered with panels, windmills, and buildings with enough Lithium batteries and Capacitors to power a nation. Edited November 17, 2015 by GDJ

[Sanic]

[quote name='Stargate525']God, that's a horrifying train of thought you've started on.

Some facts for you: Coal use in the US peaked in 2007, and has been going down steadily since. Since 2002, we've actually LOST 115 coal plants. China builds that many more in two years. Japan has just put in an order for 43 coal plants (because Fukishima, we can't have nice things).

So remind me, HOW is it this politically-powerless American's fault that you 'can't act' (despite the 115 shuttered plants that would disagree on the word can't)? And pray tell, Mr 'if it wasn't for those pesky -blanks-,' how are you going to stop China or India or Japan or the Middle East or Africa from building more plants than even COMPLETELY SHUTTING DOWN our grid wouldn't offset?[/QUOTE]

Don't start a flamewar here, this thread will be closed if one does start.
That being said, I agree.

[ZetaX]

[quote name='GDJ']-Sticking with coal? Sure, no radiation[/QUOTE]

You would be surprised how much radioactivity a coal plant actually releases.

[shynung]

That, and properly-disposed-of nuclear waste don't make malformed infants. Too much Fallout 4, I presume?

[Elthy]

Properly disposed nuclear waste is not impossible, its just to expensive, compared to renewables and stuff...

[QUOTE]Some facts for you: Coal use in the US peaked in 2007, and has been going down steadily since. Since 2002, we've actually LOST 115 coal plants. China builds that many more in two years. Japan has just put in an order for 43 coal plants (because Fukishima, we can't have nice things).

So remind me, HOW is it this politically-powerless American's fault that you 'can't act' (despite the 115 shuttered plants that would disagree on the word can't)? And pray tell, Mr 'if it wasn't for those pesky -blanks-,' how are you going to stop China or India or Japan or the Middle East or Africa from building more plants than even COMPLETELY SHUTTING DOWN our grid wouldn't offset? [/QUOTE]

Its a hard process, but it involves responsible people, not someone screaming "nothing is proved" while he drowns in the rising sea or dies in a riot caused by people fleeing from the hunger. The most powerfull force know to man is the free market, and renewable, clean energy is getting cheaper every day. I just hope they are cheaper than e.g. coal before its to late.

[GDJ]

[quote name='shynung']Too much Fallout 4, I presume?[/QUOTE]

Not getting your reference to Fallout 4. A video game I presume?

[peadar1987]

[quote name='shynung']That, and properly-disposed-of nuclear waste don't make malformed infants. Too much Fallout 4, I presume?[/QUOTE]

It's not even that dangerous. [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/77494-How-should-we-get-rid-of-Nuclear-Waste?p=1114295&viewfull=1#post1114295"]After 10,000 years it will be perfectly safe unless you ingest it[/URL] (so basically the same as, say, heavy metals from battery manufacture).

We have plenty of rock formations that are impermeable to water and geologically stable over [I]millions[/I] of years. More than long enough to keep it safely sequestered until it is no longer a threat to human health.

[Stargate525]

[quote name='Elthy']Its a hard process, but it involves responsible people, not someone screaming "nothing is proved" while he drowns in the rising sea or dies in a riot caused by people fleeing from the hunger. The most powerfull force know to man is the free market, and renewable, clean energy is getting cheaper every day. I just hope they are cheaper than e.g. coal before its to late.[/QUOTE]
Neither of which have happened yet, Africa's actually getting GREENER, and it's rained in the Atacama for the first time in reliable recorded history. And you are aware of the MASSIVE subsidies that are making renewables at all viable, right?

[fredinno]

[quote name='Stargate525']Neither of which have happened yet, Africa's actually getting GREENER, and it's rained in the Atacama for the first time in reliable recorded history. And you are aware of the MASSIVE subsidies that are making renewables at all viable, right?[/QUOTE]
Not in all nations.

[KSK]

[quote name='Stargate525']Neither of which have happened yet, Africa's actually getting GREENER, and it's rained in the Atacama for the first time in reliable recorded history. And you are aware of the MASSIVE subsidies that are making renewables at all viable, right?[/QUOTE]

If I make MY points in CAPITALS too, will people listen to ME?

Anyhow - I presume you're also aware of the massive subsidies handed out to the fossil fuels industry too? If not, have a look at [URL="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/07/economist-explains-19"]this[/URL] article in The Economist - which I'll hope you agree is hardly a bastion of left-leaning environmentalism.

TL: DR

"Fossil fuels are reaping support of $550 billion annually, according the International Energy Agency (IEA), an organisation that represents oil- and gas-consuming countries, more than four times those given for renewable energy."

[Stargate525]

[quote name='KSK']If I make MY points in CAPITALS too, will people listen to ME?

Anyhow - I presume you're also aware of the massive subsidies handed out to the fossil fuels industry too? If not, have a look at [URL="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/07/economist-explains-19"]this[/URL] article in The Economist - which I'll hope you agree is hardly a bastion of left-leaning environmentalism.

TL: DR

"Fossil fuels are reaping support of $550 billion annually, according the International Energy Agency (IEA), an organisation that represents oil- and gas-consuming countries, more than four times those given for renewable energy."[/QUOTE]

Interesting article, thanks!

To be fair, the fossil fuels industry is about three times as big as the renewables market, so on a per MWhr basis you'd expect the one to be bigger. But yeah, definitely a discrepancy there.

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='Stargate525']Neither of which have happened yet, Africa's actually getting GREENER, and it's rained in the Atacama for the first time in reliable recorded history. And you are aware of the MASSIVE subsidies that are making renewables at all viable, right?[/QUOTE]

Define "greener" in this context, please.

[Stargate525]

[quote name='Bill Phil']Define "greener" in this context, please.[/QUOTE]
As in literally getting greener, becoming more lush, areas once were desert are now becoming scrubland.

[url]http://www.pnas.org/content/112/39/12133.abstract[/url]

And some general food for thought: [url]http://www.thegwpf.com/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf[/url]

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='Stargate525']As in literally getting greener, becoming more lush, areas once were desert are now becoming scrubland.

[URL]http://www.pnas.org/content/112/39/12133.abstract[/URL]

And some general food for thought: [URL]http://www.thegwpf.com/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf[/URL][/QUOTE]

Okay, thanks. Greener can mean more environmentally friendly as well.

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To be honest we are disrupting the natural carbon cycle, but that's about it. Or at least that's all that we're all willing to agree on, correct?

And, just because Africa is regreening, doesn't mean the rest of the world is.

[Dieselpower]

[quote name='Stargate525']As in literally getting greener, becoming more lush, areas once were desert are now becoming scrubland.

[url]http://www.pnas.org/content/112/39/12133.abstract[/url]

And some general food for thought: [url]http://www.thegwpf.com/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf[/url][/QUOTE]
... and some areas that are scrubland are turning into desserts.
[quote]However, there are strong regional differences in the extent and direction of change, and in the apparent role of changing woody and herbaceous components in driving those temporal trends. [/quote]

In fact:
[quote]
Higher primary production is not necessarily associated with a higher biodiversity and the decline in populations of economically and culturally important trees and shrubs—despite the increase in woody cover—may explain the negative perception of vegetation condition among some local populations (51, 52).
[/quote]
'Greener' doesn't mean [I]more[/I] green.

I'm not even going to bother reading that tragic waste from your second link Stargate.
Why do you disqualify yourself so strongly by linking to these loonies?

Please stop bringing in rubbish, trying to cast doubt and confusion where there is none.
Human induced climate change is real, and we have a moral responsibility to bring down our contributions to it to zero. Edited November 17, 2015 by Dieselpower

[Stargate525]

[quote name='Dieselpower']
I'm not even going to bother reading that tragic waste from your second link Stargate.
Why do you disqualify yourself so strongly by linking to these loonies?

Please stop bringing in rubbish, trying to cast doubt and confusion where there is none.
Human induced climate change is real, and we have a moral responsibility to bring down our contributions to it to zero.[/QUOTE]
I have provided a source. You have provided no evidence beyond your word as to why said source should be invalidated and have, by your own admission, not even READ it.

...Shall I mail it to you in book form so you can burn it as well, ecclesiarch?

[Chakat Firepaw]

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']I consider it an ad hominem. Period. If you consider it an insult.....well, an insult is still sufficient grounds for me to dismiss all your arguments categorically. Followed by some kind of snarky comment about how you shouldn't be in here, or some such.[/QUOTE]

Then logical fallacies can be added to the list of things you are ignorant about.

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']Not true. And I don't need a single link to anywhere to debunk this. I've got all the knowledge needed, in my own brain. Want to know what my source is? [B]I am the source.[/B][/QUOTE]

Translation: You are making .... up.

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']Here's why 40,000 to 200,000 square miles of solar panels would produce a lot more than "negligible" warming. The lower albedo (reflectivity, basically) of a solar panel means more solar radiation is absorbed rather than reflected. When absorbed, it's converted to heat. When a solid object absorbs heat (and gets hot) another factor gets introduced into the equation. Convection. And it's already common knowledge that that's a lot of heat. Next time there's a sunny day in whatever locale you happen to live in? Go outside around noontime and put your hand on the WHITE sidewalk. Not the asphalt, you already know how hot that gets on a sunny day. Notice that even the WHITE sidewalk gets pretty hot when exposed to sunlight (see what I'm doing here? showing you how you can verify something yourself, without looking up a single web page anywhere?)

The heat transmitting from the sidewalk into your hand is convection. When you're hand isn't there, the heat is going into the atmosphere. And it's significant.[/QUOTE]

It doesn't really matter where the heat is transferred to in the short term, the only real question is how much is captured. The ground and any structures on it will quickly come to thermodynamic equilibrium with their surroundings. Every watt absorbed that isn't used to pump electrons, (either in electricity generation or in sugar production), will increase surface temperatures.

(BTW: If you had bothered to look things up, you would have found that a white sidewalk has an albedo of about 0.5, the grey ones 0.3

Your choosing to ignore the waste heat produced by other electricity generation methods is noted, (JSYK: Thermal systems top out at about 33% efficient with it being physically impossible to do better.)

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']And it's also the reason why comparing solar panels to CO2 is bogus--the two are not comparable, because CO2 does something solar panels don't (well, there's other reasons in addition, actually). It's common knowledge that the Earth's atmosphere reflects about 30% of the Sun's radiation energy back into space before it ever hits the ground. How? Greenhouse gases. CO2 doesn't only keep heat in. It keeps it out.[/QUOTE]

Would that that were so: CO2's big absorption peak in in the far-IR, the sun's emission peak is in the mid-visible. Only a tiny portion of the energy reaching the Earth is at the right wavelength for CO2 to interfere with it reaching the surface. Meanwhile, the Earth had its emission peak nearly bang on that CO2 absorption peak.

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']Bogus. How do I know this? Equally simple: because in the last two centuries or so, Earth's concentration of CO2 has gone up a lot (approximately doubled) but the planet's temperature has barely changed. The ultimate verification of a theory is [B]testing.[/B] (GLaDOS says hi!) The testing has been done. CO2 has failed.[/QUOTE]

The amount of energy trapped by increased CO2 levels can be, and has been, directly measured.

[quote name='WedgeAntilles']Not done yet. Got more. It's been estimated that, if there was no CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere at all, it would be around 30 degrees colder than it is. Which leads to this: if CO2 levels have doubled since, say, the start of the Industrial Revolution, then before the start of the Industrial Revolution, the Earth should have been 15 degrees colder. It was not. (there was the Little Ice Age, but that didn't even come close.) And yes, I've read the standard response by alarmists: that the planet takes a long time to respond to changes in CO2 levels. That response makes the theory impossible to test. If it's untestable, it's bogus.[/QUOTE]

Leaving aside your confused dancing around the point of how concentration relates to absorption, (yes it's nonlinear, that's why climate sensitivity is often described based on "per doubling of CO2"), we can start with your failing in basic math. Just so you know, 400/280 is about 1.4, not 2.

It's a good thing we're only at 1.4 times pre-industrial levels of CO2. If we were at double, we would have about three degrees of warming locked in and that's about where we would get a oceanic CO2 release feedback loop and another event like the PETM.

This is an important thing for people who think "so what if it's a little bit warmer?" Global temperatures have narrow stable bands and can rapidly jump between those bands if those narrow limits are exceeded. For warming, the upper limit of stability is controlled by the concentration of CO2 in the oceans, they are currently nearly saturated and increasing temperatures reduces solubility.

Another important thing is how small of an increase we need before we see very nasty things. For instance, what do you think will happen if China's food production drops by 25%[0]? Or if Pakistan's water supply dries up[1]?


[0] Warming the world by 2-3 degrees only improves potential agriculture output in one major region: Siberia, an area that China has long claimed to be rightfully its.

[1] Almost all of Pakistan's water comes from India, the treaty between India and Pakistan regarding that water places the impact of reductions in flow entirely on Pakistan.