The Analysis of Sea Levels.

[SunlitZelkova]

22 hours ago, DDE said:

The problem here is that the illogicity seems to scale with cognitive capacity. Animal behavior is pretty damned logical in its unsophistication.

The word “intelligence” might be better taken off the board then in that discussion.

After all, you can say humans are more intelligent than bears because humans can create medicines to prolong their lives, but on the other hand you can say bears are more intelligent than humans because they do not kill each other and create problems over nonexistent things (within the context of each species’ own awareness of the world and behavior).

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

bears are more intelligent than humans because they do not kill each other

Wut??? They eat each other like the humans never do. Even the lawyers and the scientists.

The human is more intelligenter than a bear because a bear can just eat a human, while human can not only eat a bear, but also skin it, wear its fur, make Ancient Eastern medicines from bear, use it as a carpet, as a statue, and even make bear-looking toys and candies.

Edited November 7, 2021 by kerbiloid

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Wut??? They eat each other like the humans never do. Even the lawyers and the scientists.

When humans are hungry enough, they eat each other. It's been well-documented many times.

(Well, some refuse to and die. And then end up being eaten.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571

Edited November 7, 2021 by mikegarrison

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

When humans are hungry enough, they eat each other. It's been well-documented many times.

For bears, it's a normal life.

[Vanamonde]

Unless bears are causing sea levels to rise, could we please return to the topic? 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

41 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Unless bears are causing sea levels to rise, could we please return to the topic? 

Perhaps we need to study the effect of Polar Bears on the reduction of sea ice?

https://polarbearscience.com/2020/07/08/10-fallacies-about-arctic-sea-ice-polar-bear-survival-refute-misleading-facts/

In this footage you can see distinctly that Polar Bears have a heavy reliance on steel - which uses coal coke in massive amounts. 

 

(Grin - sorry, had to be done!) 

     - - at least partly on topic! 

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

Actually the bears are relatively relevant^*) in this thread.

Just read about the David Attenborough 2017 ecological documentary about the polar bears and walruses.

According to, the global warming significantly reduced the population of polar bears, while the walruses (in the movie) were jumping off a cliff for same warming reason.

Though, it appears that the polar bears were hunted too much.
Without the bears around, the walruses bred and occupied additional room, never required for them before.

When the hunting was stopped, the bear population had grown 4..5 times.
The excessive polar bears were hunting the walruses on the higher land previously being beared but not walrused.
The walruses were trying to escape and diving from the cliff onto the beach.

So, not every bad ecolgical thing in the world is caused by the global warming.

_{*) Couldn't refrain from writing "relatively relevant".}

Edited November 8, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Rakaydos]

So has anyone in this thread been following the climate summit?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

So has anyone in this thread been following the climate summit?

You mean "A two week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah"*? 

 

*G. Thunberg

 

[Rakaydos]

9 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

You mean "A two week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah"*? 

 

*G. Thunberg

 

I take it that's a no.

[DDE]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

According to, the global warming significantly reduced the population of polar bears, while the walruses (in the movie) were jumping off a cliff for same warming reason.

Ahem

https://www.netzerowatch.com/camera/

The more extreme accusation is that we're dealing with something akin to the infamous lemmings scene

https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide

Edited November 8, 2021 by DDE

[MKI]

3 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

I take it that's a no.

The small amount I looked into, was some specifics like "100% deforestation being stopped by 2030" in specific countries. Sounds good on paper, except I guess they said it would be stopped by 2020 last time?

I personally didn't look much into it because I still think things are moving too slowly in the right direction. 

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

I take it that's a no.

Snark?

Frankly I'm more of a read the reports and try to decipher the underlying science guy than a 'listen to the talking heads talk' guy.  The Summit is a chance for nations to agree on policy goals, and there is tons of lobbying, advocacy, whining and hedging.  Activists are complaining the regulations/ agreements won't be stringent enough, that fossil fuel beneficiaries have too much access, the Global South don't have enough, and that interested parties have to wait in lines that are too long and not accommodating of disabled persons...

What do you think I'm missing from following any more closely than that?

I'm a firm believer that we need to cut our polluting processes... but I don't think there is any chance Climate Activists will walk away from the Summit feeling like it was a success.  The loudest voices want immediate action, regardless of economic harm, or no action regardless of long term harm.  Getting those two groups to agree to compromise is not easy.  The best anyone can hope for is an agreement where no one is happy.

You can analogize to the American Constitution; which was a brilliant, if flawed document encoding compromises that both guaranteed the formation of a nation and that we'd have a civil war at some point.

Edited November 8, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This should be of interest:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/11/07/invisible-methodology-measuring-emissions-gap/

"The plan to save the world from the worst of climate change is built on data. But the data the world is relying on is inaccurate" 

World needs to come up with a standard, or a set of standards universal to all players. 

Check out the associated articles 

Edited November 8, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[DDE]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

World needs to come up with a standard, or a set of standards universal to all players. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Addendum: the articles above not only explain that carbon and other emissions are underreported - but also the efficacy of Earth's natural mitigating processes (carbon sinks, etc) are similarly underreported. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm a firm believer that we need to cut our polluting processes... but I don't think there is any chance Climate Activists will walk away from the Summit feeling like it was a success.  The loudest voices want immediate action, regardless of economic harm, or no action regardless of long term harm.  Getting those two groups to agree to compromise is not easy.  The best anyone can hope for is an agreement where no one is happy.

I think one of the major challenges of dealing with CO2 emissions in the timely manner that is required is how many administrations of varying lengths depending on the country these plans need to go through to be accomplished. Especially as emissions related stuff, due to its nature, is often a "nice have" of political decisions, as opposed to something every politician will go into wanting to keep going (like a weapons program with contractors across the country).

Even the "out there" goals proposed by China and Russia could face risk (different things have gotten cancelled when leadership changes no matter how important it was to the state under the previous leader- take for example the Soviet Union's ocean-going fleet program of battlecruisers and aircraft carriers. It was fairly important to national security in the early 50s with lots of time and money invested, but was cancelled just a few months after Stalin's death).

[FleshJeb]

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Addendum: the articles above not only explain that carbon and other emissions are underreported - but also the efficacy of Earth's natural mitigating processes (carbon sinks, etc) are similarly underreported. 

First off, that was a really informative link, thank you. (If anyone is hitting the paywall, use Incognito mode)

To summarize for folks, The Post estimates that countries as a whole are underreporting their emissions by 16%-23%. (Individually may be better or worse.) From an engineering perspective, that's NOT a terrible result.  It could be better, but getting it under 10% would be pretty decent, and 5% would be phenomenal. Major polluters, including China, appear to be reporting fairly well.

I drew the opposite conclusion on the reporting of natural mitigating processes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/26/greenhouse-accounting-problem/

"the largest [portion of the gap] involves countries claiming major reductions to their annual emissions due to forests sucking carbon dioxide out of the air."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/greenhouse-gas-emissions-pledges-data/methodology/

"...if countries report lower net emissions due to factors that are not the result of their direct actions or policies, then this also puts them in the position of potentially claiming they can emit more, or emit for longer, thanks to the work of nature"

From the first link again:

"In the case of the United States, for instance, almost the entire country is categorized as “managed,” with the main exception being many remote regions of Alaska."

The major point of contention being whether countries should ONLY get credit for things that are directly under their control via policy, such as more sustainable farming practices, or choosing not to cut down trees where they may have an economic justification for doing so. One may think that claiming credit for ALL the natural processes within a country is fair, because hey, it's just a geographic advantage. I'll offer the counterargument: Should we punish countries that have a lot of active volcanoes? No, because that's flarping ridiculous.

The big picture point of all this number-crunching is to make sure all countries are making fair and equitable contributions to the effort to combat climate change, and not getting some competitive economic advantage by cheating. That's a good aim, and of course we're going to quibble over the details. It's an extremely complex issue with a lot of variables and value judgements. Are we going to hold out for the last fraction of a percentage point of "fairness" or is there a "good enough" point where we just commit and go for it?

I was going to editorialize heavily in answer to that question, but I'll just say that in my experience, decision-paralysis while seeking "perfection" never turns out well. Most of the time we just have to make an informed decision, live with the consequences, and adapt the best we can to the results. My dad calls this the "pull your thumb out" theory of living (I'll leave the "of what" to the imagination).

[mikegarrison]

Volcanoes are red herring, because human activity has nothing to do with them. Forestation, on the other hand, whether "natural" or not, is clearly within the control of people. Or at least, deforestation is in the control of people. It would be hard to forest the Sahara if we wanted to.

I would lean toward simply crediting all forests and similar carbon sinks.

Edited November 9, 2021 by mikegarrison

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

deforestation is in the control of people.

While these people have enough room for watered plowland.

[DDE]

14 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I think one of the major challenges of dealing with CO2 emissions in the timely manner that is required is how many administrations of varying lengths depending on the country these plans need to go through to be accomplished.

Reminds me of Zubrin's argument about the need for a quick-and-dirty, low-infrastructure mission to Mars - gotta do it while the same person is in the White House.

Edited November 9, 2021 by DDE

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

12 hours ago, FleshJeb said:

I drew the opposite conclusion on the reporting of natural mitigating processes

The main article did talk about some countries poor accounting resulting in this - but look again at the 'how we did it' article, specifically where they reference Phillipe Ciais' work.  He's got a few interesting articles about carbon sinks, and how we need more granularity.  Divergence in Taiga / Boreal forests vs Tropical CO2 uptake, and insufficient appreciation for how the Northern Hemispheric landmasses efficacy as sinks.

Quote

using measurements of the interhemispheric gradient of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 1958 to 2016, we show that the northern land sink remained stable between the 1960s and the late 1980s, then increased by 0.5 ± 0.4 petagrams of carbon per year during the 1990s and by 0.6 ± 0.5 petagrams of carbon per year during the 2000s. The increase of the northern land sink in the 1990s accounts for 65% of the increase in the global land carbon flux during that period. The subsequent increase in the 2000s is larger than the increase in the global land carbon flux, suggesting a coincident decrease of carbon uptake in the Southern Hemisphere. Comparison of our findings with the simulations of an ensemble of terrestrial carbon models^5,8 over the same period suggests that the decadal change in the northern land sink between the 1960s and the 1990s can be explained by a combination of increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate variability and changes in land cover. However, the increase during the 2000s is underestimated by all models, which suggests the need for improved consideration of changes in drivers such as nitrogen deposition, diffuse light and land-use change. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of Northern Hemispheric land as a carbon sink.

This part - 'suggesting a decrease of carbon uptake in the Southern Hemisphere' is interesting.  Also of note: things like the wildfires in Australia fed algal blooms in the Southern Pacific, which when the algae die, sinks the carbon released by the fires to the bottom of the ocean: Australian wildfires release CO2 and cause vast algal blooms | Space

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/11/nuclear-power-hot-moment/620665/

Grudging acceptance 

[kerbiloid]

Technically, a steam turbine of a nuclear powerplant is a kind of windmill working from sea breeze at 1 000^x speed...

Edited November 10, 2021 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/scientists-extend-and-straighten-iconic-climate-hockey-stick/%3famp=1