The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

41 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I will very gently posit that this is a strawman. I have never seen anyone with a graduate degree advocate subsistence farming for all humans. Not even once. 

I agree with, and acknowledge this: however at the loud noise level of stuff thrown out there in this arena such nonsense finds its way into the public discourse  - and this is what a lot of deniers react to: idiots who get other idiots all triggered.  I fully accept any responsibility for inadvertently lumping your arguments in with this nonsense - and acknowledge you did not suggest this (nor did I interpret this from your writing).

41 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I honestly don't think I have ever suggested that "sudden, cataclysmic collapse" is some inevitable immediate reality. If I ever have, I emphatically and wholeheartedly retract.

I'll acknowledge this as well - which is why I used the word 'dancing'.

I was reacting to this:

Quote

 

But here’s the thing.

The sky is falling.

The science is clear and unavoidable: the worst-case scenario IS happening if we don’t change things.

The uncertainty is how quickly the sky is falling. Thankfully, the sky is not falling as quickly as we had initially feared. But it’s still falling. It will continue to fall. It will not stop falling unless we take drastic action.

 

 

Perhaps I overstated my concern - please be assured it was well meant.

2 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

^ Except for this bit.

I mean it. I do not wish to participate in this discussion with you or anyone else on this forum. Every single post that you make in this thread tagging me will be reported as harrassment to the mods.

I asked nicely,

-Slashy

That is too much.

You did throw some stuff out there - and as the guy who's defended your right to do so... please don't go this route.

This board is a legit 'science interested' board - if you've the data to show that the anthropogenic climate change interpretation is being overstated, I, at least, am interested in hearing you out.

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[GoSlash27]

Just now, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I agree with, and acknowledge this: however at the loud noise level of stuff thrown out there in this arena such nonsense finds its way into the public discourse  - and this is what a lot of deniers react to: idiots who get other idiots all triggered.  I fully accept any responsibility for inadvertently lumping your arguments in with this nonsense - and acknowledge you did not suggest this (nor did I interpret this from your writing).

I'll acknowledge this as well - which is why I used the word 'dancing'.

I was reacting to this:

 

Perhaps I overstated my concern - please be assured it was well meant.

That is too much.

You did throw some stuff out there - and as the guy who's defended your right to do so... please don't go this route.

Joe,

 He stated his opinion, I stated mine in return. I'm not interested in going into the details and having a big internet flamewar over it. This forum is not the place for that. I will not participate, will not defend my own position, or attack anyone else's. Just leave me out of it.

Best,

-Slashy

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I can respect that.

If you care to share your data and interpretation with me via private messaging, I'd be interested to see what you've got.

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[GoSlash27]

I appreciate that, but no. I'm not going to use this forum as a soapbox to proselytize either. I have my reasons for my conclusions, but I'm not recruiting, especially not here.

Best,

-Slashy

Edited July 28, 2021 by GoSlash27

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Fair enough.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Can you source this please?

Source what? Read a detailed description of any industrial process, starting from ammonia synthesis or gas refinery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethanolamine

Basically, "аминовая очистка",  somewhat like "amine purification" in English.

(not "purification of amines", but "purification by amines")

Used for decades everywhere.

And that's just an old tech. Obviously, now they can provide much better purifiers.

Edited July 28, 2021 by kerbiloid

[James Kerman]

Some content has been removed, please avoid politics.

[RCgothic]

We're on track for a serious rise in average global temperatures. Whilst no-one here is suggesting the effects will be immediate, we could easily beach +3 deg C within my lifetime (twice that at the poles), and much more within our children's.

The immediate effects of 3deg will be extremely servere storms, extremely severe droughts, and extremely severe heat waves. As temperatures and humidity rises, Wet bulb temperatures exceeding 35deg (currently exceedingly rare) will be experienced in more places, effectively rendering anywhere this could occur lethally uninhabitable to humans and animals without AC.

Given that North America is already experiencing the worst drought on record, Canada is experiencing a crippling heat wave, we've had some of the most active hurricane seasons ever in recent years, and land temperature in the Arctic circle recently exceeded 48 degC, note that we're just getting started and then recalibrate your definition of "extremely".

The last time global temperatures were that high, there was no ice cap and sea levels were 20m higher than today. Ok, we've acknowledged that temperature change won't happen overnight, and sea level rises will lag temperature rises. But 20m is enough to inundate almost every major city on earth, and the most productive farming lands are low lying. Over a billion people in South Asia alone would be displaced.

Plant and animal life can't adapt to changes this fast. There will be mass extinctions and many food chains will completely collapse with unpredictable results. Even if not, the flora and fauna of regions will change drastically.

With reduced land area, reduced farmlands, billions of people displaced, the socioeconomic pressure will be extreme. National borders will be re-written, with associated wars. Nuclear powers could collapse or become belligerent in defence or to secure resources. This comes with heightened risk of nuclear exchange.

Honestly, I genuinely don't know if it's possible to be too alarmist on this subject.

Anyone under 40 stands a strong chance of living to see a large portion of all of the above coming to pass. We are already seeing it come to pass. 

We're well past the point of evidence where we go "even if we clean up our act and it was all for nothing" - no, it genuinely is not for nothing. Every mitigation will slow and delay the coming changes, buying more time to adapt. But even so, the WHO estimates air pollution kills seven million people a year worldwide. Addressing that alone would be worth it even without the climate effects.

As is, I think we're going to have to do some *serious* geo-engineering to get out of this one. Personally think we need immediate nuclear and renewable-powered carbon capture and sequestration starting yesterday, together with a complete ban on burning any fossil product as soon as practicably possible.

Unmitigated climate change is most likely survivable as a species, barring some Venusian runaway. But there are a great many survivable things that we shouldn't want to experience.

Edited July 28, 2021 by RCgothic

[Rakaydos]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Source what? Read a detailed description of any industrial process, starting from ammonia synthesis or gas refinery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethanolamine

Basically, "аминовая очистка",  somewhat like "amine purification" in English.

(not "purification of amines", but "purification by amines")

Used for decades everywhere.

And that's just an old tech. Obviously, now they can provide much better purifiers.

so, NOT CO2 cracking. Soot recapture, yes, but not CO2.

CO2 continues to be released and, while it's not as bad of a greenouse gas as Methane, it also sticks around basically forever, adding up over time, while the heat trapped by the CO2 ALSO adds up over time.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

so, NOT CO2 cracking. Soot recapture, yes, but not CO2.

The CO2 is captured by, say, the diethanolamine, then this gets into the regeneration column and splits into CO2 and original diethanolamine.

The latter returns into the deoxidizing column, the CO2 gets collected as liquid, and then used for any need, say to produce methanol.

It's a trivial, widely used process.

Edited July 28, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Rakaydos]

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The CO2 is captured by, say, the diethanolamine, then this gets into the regeneration column and splits into CO2 and original diethanolamine.

The latter returns into the deoxidizing column, the CO2 gets collected as liquid, and then used for any need, say to produce methanol.

It's a trivial, widely used process.

Nothing in your source suggests diethanolamine is used for carbon capture. Ethanyl Oxide is not Carbon Dioxide.

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Nothing in your source suggests diethanolamine is used for carbon capture. Ethanyl Oxide is not Carbon Dioxide.

Read any book in your language about removing the carbon and sulfur oxydes from in ammonia synthesis, oil/gas refinery, or metallurgy.

[Rakaydos]

"Upon reaction with carbon dioxide, 2 equivalents of ethanolamine react through the intermediacy of carbonic acid to form a carbamate salt,^[19] which when heated reforms ethanolamine and carbon dioxide."

Ok, so what's the next step? what do they do with the Carbamate salt/CO2 source?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@Rakaydos is salt a greenhouse gas?

And about the 'source'... I don't understand what you are asking.  If we have a power plant and its exhaust is a source of CO2 emissions, if we then scrub the exhaust of CO2... What about the source? 

[Rakaydos]

27 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

@Rakaydos is salt a greenhouse gas?

And about the 'source'... I don't understand what you are asking.  If we have a power plant and its exhaust is a source of CO2 emissions, if we then scrub the exhaust of CO2... What about the source? 

Kerbolid claimed that "Now they tend to return into process as much carbon dioxide as they can," and that green products are a capitalist conspiracy. I'm trying to work my way through that claim.

Such carbon capture setups are an extra expense, and would be avoided if the plant operators thought they could get away with it.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 hours ago, RCgothic said:

, I thing we're going to have to do some *serious* geo-engineering to get out of this one. Personally think we need immediate nuclear and renewable-powered carbon capture and sequestration starting yesterday, together with a complete ban on burning any fossil product as soon as practicably possible

So... you have adequately stated the 'full panic mode' argument. 

Have you considered the impact of what you've written - beyond the vague hope of curtailed climate change?  Have you thought about how such policies would impact non-Western developing nations?

Were it possible for you to Thanos-snap all fossil product burning across the planet, do you recognize that the result will be:

5 hours ago, RCgothic said:

reduced farmlands, billions of people displaced, the socioeconomic pressure will be extreme. National borders will be re-written, with associated wars.

This is part of what I meant when I wrote 'climate is hard.' 

Beyond the difficulty of knowing what part of the total climate picture is natural vs man made - every possible solution we can imagine requires sacrifice in one way or another.  Un-industrializing could be even more dangerous to billions of people than continuing (medicine, food production, clean water etc etc etc all are products of our success and contribute to the pollution). 

24 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

green products are a capitalist conspiracy

He likes to indulge in snark and sarcasm (which is one reason I enjoy his posts). 

'Green' is used by corporations to dupe well intentioned consumers and raise prices. 

Case in point - Amazon, and etc like to claim that so much of their energy comes from 'renewable sources'.  Start peeling that onion.  Assume that they can capture solar off the warehouse roof... But know that is not enough.  So where does the power for a 24 hour operation come from?  The grid. 

How do you distinguish between the wind produced electricity and the coal produced electricity?  (hint: you don't) 

Keep peeling.  Eventually you will start asking questions like 'why Amazon is buying farms in Kentucky* and covering the arable land with solar panels?'

 

 

*Kentucky enjoys approximately 189 days of sun per year 

Edit - 'dupe' is perhaps too strong a word.  'Pander' is more appropriate. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

28 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

carbon capture setups are an extra expense, and would be avoided if the plant operators thought they could get away with it.

Absolutely agree - and public pressure is, along with regulation, causing a change in the behavior of corporations. We need to keep up that pressure. 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

@Rakaydos is salt a greenhouse gas?

And about the 'source'... I don't understand what you are asking.  If we have a power plant and its exhaust is a source of CO2 emissions, if we then scrub the exhaust of CO2... What about the source? 

The source is something you want to remove co2 from say natural gas or exhaust, sometimes natural gas contain too much co2 so you remove it. 
Now if you do this at the well head you can re inject the co2 into the back pressure wells you made. 
Make me wonder why they can not do this on the exhaust for zero emission, the main problem with co2 extraction is that to do with the co2 but here you have the back pressure wells.  Yes its require an larger system and uses plenty of energy itself but I guess its too much co2 to put into the back pressure wells and you prefer water here. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

That challenge is the biggest problem I've read re CO2 scrubbing is the follow on carbon sequestration issue - once you have captured it... Where does it go? I've seen proposals for everything from making rocks to pumping it into oceanic mud / crusts. 

Nothing is ever easy 

[RCgothic]

Again, I genuinely don't understand a lack of panic about the climate emergency.

The best scientific consensus is that total melting of the ice caps well occur at 1.6degC above pre-industrial levels. We're all set to blow through 3degC within reasonable average remaining lifespans. That'd result in a 70m sea rise which will displace every coastal settlement including must of the world's major cities. 

My city is about as far inland as it is possible to get in the UK. (69.6 miles Vs 70.0 max). It's only 63m above sea level.

Only immediate bans and sequestration efforts have a hope of slowing the coming catastrophes. This will only get worse the longer it isn't addressed.

And yes, developed nations will need to aid less developed nations.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

37 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

The best scientific consensus is that total melting of the ice caps well occur at 1.6degC

No - that's a alarm and low end potential, not a hard fact, and frankly unlikely to occur. 

 

37 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

We're all set to blow through 3degC within reasonable average remaining lifespans

Sources? 

 

37 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

My city is about as far inland as it is possible to get in the UK. (69.6 miles Vs 70.0 max). It's only 63m above sea level

You are absolutely safe.  Have you looked at the 'rising sea level maps' I linked above? 

 

37 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Only immediate bans and sequestration efforts have a hope of slowing the coming catastrophes

... I really suggest reading deeper into the science and proposed remedies.  

Here's a good place to start https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

Re: ocean rise - 

*Global sea level has risen by about 8 inches since reliable record keeping began in 1880. It is projected to rise another 1 to 8 feet by 2100. This is the result of added water from melting land ice and the expansion of seawater as it warms"

On temperatures - 

"The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990 levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones in others" 

As you read through - you should get the sense that this is a serious challenge facing Earth's population - but not a cause for panic. 

 

Allow me to add this - take a gander at the event known as The Little Ice Age - a regional climactic shift that ended in the late 1800s.  We don't know what caused it.  There are several possible explanations, and it is likely that all added to the whole, but it's simply not understood. 

The 'sea rise since 1880' scare needs to be looked at in context - arguably more freshwater than normal was sequestered by continental ice during the period.  

The people who are concerned about our wanton pollution are not wrong - but in some cases the alarms are maybe being overstated. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[MKI]

 

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I perceive an analogy to smoking. 

I like the analogy to what happened to the smoking industry.

I think the biggest distinction is between how we use smoking and say anything that affects the climate. Smoking is an individual pleasure that has gotten more and more expensive, making it at least a very expensive hobby that can effect others. On the flip side, climate change effects range from directly affecting it like driving gas guzzling cars, to something like the beef industry where a bunch of cow farts literally affect the planet. (insane right? XD) In both cases you can't really just "stop" doing it and "go cold turkey", as there isn't anywhere nearly enough energy infrastructure, and people like eating steak. Plus all the worse effects wont be dealt with by you, if you could smoke but magically never have any ill effects except 200 years from now. I'm sure more people wouldn't care and still smoke. 

 

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

'Green' is used by corporations to dupe well intentioned consumers and raise prices. 

Case in point - Amazon, and etc like to claim that so much of their energy comes from 'renewable sources'.  Start peeling that onion.  Assume that they can capture solar off the warehouse roof... But know that is not enough.  So where does the power for a 24 hour operation come from?  The grid. 

How do you distinguish between the wind produced electricity and the coal produced electricity?  (hint: you don't) 

Keep peeling.  Eventually you will start asking questions like 'why Amazon is buying farms in Kentucky* and covering the arable land with solar panels?'

Amazon, like other big box stores of cloud providers, which use a lot of juice to keep things running usually builds their data centers in locations that can support their energy needs with their own goals. Technically (and for once) Amazon is actually somewhat behind the game in terms of powering their infrastructure with renewables. Google says they have been running on 100% renewables for a few years now. Google provides more information on how they are doing it, and how they plan to even go further with it. Its also worth mentioning, these cloud providers are global, so they gather their energy needs all over the world. Amazon also has an entire sub-domain dedicated to their efforts here:

https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/

Here's Azure's (Microsoft's cloud) 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/sustainability/#overview

And Google's

https://sustainability.google/

Most of these numbers do hide the truth that there are situations where renewable infrastructure isn't available, so the companies usually "pay-back" using Renewable Energy Certs. 

 

external review of above efforts:

https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-google-microsoft-green-clouds-and-hyperscale-data-centers/

 

Note: I believe Amazon is building solar farms in Kentucky rather than buying existing farms to build solar panels over. Land is cheap, there is no reason to buy existing farmland when you can just buy existing empty land and develop it for your needs yourself. Buying up farmland to build solar panels sounds more evil though ;D

 

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Re: ocean rise - 

I think you and @RCgothic are comparing apples to oranges. Your using NASA data estimating what things will be like by 2100, which estimates 1 to 8 feet by then. Which in itself is bad, but not as bad as what gothic is referring to. RCGothic is referring to "worse-case endgame" where there are no more ice caps. Its also acknowledged this doesn't happened overnight, nor gives estimated timescales of when/how this happens. 

 

Immediate changes to temperature and social disruption will be the single most immediate disturbing factor. Namely increasing temperatures rising to a point where the wet bulb temperature will directly get people and animals killed. The last heat wave in Canada, which isn't exactly known to be a "hot place", already killed at least a dozen people and wildlife galore. (source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57654133)

Its all "future problems", until you die of a heat stroke in Canada. 

Sure humans can work around such environments using AC, but other animals can't and wont and have a real choice in the matter and will die off in the millions. Even with AC, power grid failures are vastly more common due to added stresses being added to the grid. All it would take is 1 bad blackout on a super hot day to get people killed at this point. 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by MKI

[mikegarrison]

In general, the electrical grid is quite fungible, so even if you say that your kilowatts are "green", that tends to just mean that somebody else is therefore using coal instead, because you took the "green" stuff.

This is where market economics can come in to play. If there is a carbon tax, for instance, then users might be willing to pay a premium (the same amount as the tax) for non-carbon energy. That premium could drive suppliers to switch to the "green" power generation. But it means the carbon tax has to be bigger in magnitude than the costs of "green" energy generation.

@JoeSchmuckatelli is dancing with the fallacy of hearing one person say 2+2=2, and another person saying 2+2=4, and arguing that we need to avoid extremes, so we should accept 2+2=3.

[Kerbart]

On 7/16/2021 at 8:19 AM, Rakaydos said:

Edit: Or I can just open the next tab: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

3.4 milimeters per year. of Sea level rise.

The 3.4 mm is what Dutch research institutes are quoting as on the high end and around 2 mm/yr on the low end. The latter part is more important because it's an indication that it's not just the lunar cycle - there would be years where the sea levels would drop, after all. Funnily enough they do mention 16 year cycles without making the connection to the moon (at least not in the reports I read).

Also, there's not a hidden (fill in preferred conspiracy group) agenda controlling them; for the Dutch government it's "merely" input on their projections on where there sea defenses need to be 100 years from now, as it's something they need to start planning for now. Of course they'll be using worst case scenarios and if "planning for the worst 100 years from now" sounds utterly bizarre then you probably live in a country that considers local damages north of $100 billion once every 50 years due to hurricanes acceptable, but not everyone adheres to that kind of penny-wise, pound-foolish kind of approach.

[sevenperforce]

47 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

This is where market economics can come in to play. If there is a carbon tax, for instance, then users might be willing to pay a premium (the same amount as the tax) for non-carbon energy. That premium could drive suppliers to switch to the "green" power generation. But it means the carbon tax has to be bigger in magnitude than the costs of "green" energy generation.

Or you can go the opposite route and offer tax credits direct to suppliers in proportion to the percentage of their energy that comes from renewable resources.

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So... you have adequately stated the 'full panic mode' argument. 

One problem comes from failure to distinguish between the "worst-case scenario" in terms of total warming impact and the "worst-case scenario" in terms of how rapidly that total warming impact point is reached.

For the former, we are already in the worst-case scenario, and that will not change unless we take drastic action. On our current path, we are going to melt all the land ice. Melting all the land ice is the worst case scenario. We need major change in order to avoid this worst-case scenario. How quickly will we reach that worst-case scenario? We don't know. Hopefully there will not be a sudden and drastic runaway feedback collapse a la Venus. Hopefully the worst-case scenario is at least 80 years away. It doesn't look good, though.

In terms of the timing itself, the worst-case scenario is of course a Venusian feedback loop. That particular scenario seems unlikely at this point.

I think that climate change skeptics/deniers (along with much of the general public) hear scientists say "we are already in the worst-case scenario" and assume the scientists are talking about the timing of it rather than the overall endpoint. Thus it suggests a higher level of alarmism on the part of the scientists than is actually there, which leads to people ignoring the realities of it all.