here comes the next ice age

[NobleHunter]

Oh, neat. Always nice to get some pretty lights.

[Wayward Son]

The paper is explaining why increases in carbon cause the bottom and top of the atmosphere to heat more than you'd expect, while the middle layer cools more than expected, and why those are linked to the carbon level.

You're misstated what the chart says, Serati.  Look at it again.

The blue line is temperatures at 150 ppm CO2.  At 40 km, the temperature is about 0 degrees C.

The red line is temperatures at 600 ppm CO2.  At 40 km, the temperature is about -30 degrees C.

At the top level, there is a decrease in the amount of heat, not an increase.

If solar radiation increases or decreases by even a small amount, or penetration of solar radiation changes in any way, there will always be an impact on the climate.  Carbon's impact is based on the underlying solar radiation.

You are correct as far as you go.  Increased insolation will increase the greenhouse effect and increase the Earth's temperature.  It will act as a multiplier for the increased insolation.

So for that alone it is a problem, in that it makes the problem of natural heating even worse.

And, as CO2 levels increase, it increasingly make the problem worse.

But remember, scientists are tracking how much insolation the Earth is receiving.  It is being taken into account.  And so far there has not been seen an increase in insolation that would account for the increased heating of the Earth.  Only when you take into account the multiplicative effect of increased greenhouse gases can you account for the increases in temperature.

And the multiplicative effect happens even if solar insolation remains constant.

So it really doesn't matter if there is an increase in solar insolation or not.  Temperatures will rise from increased greenhouse gases whether there is increased solar insolation or not.

The cooling above the stratosphere shows that.

[Wayward Son]

Aside from occasional flares, the sun cools down, resulting in a cooing planet.

Yeah, but the sun's cooling happens over hundreds of millions of years, not decades.  And it is counteracted by the increase in the sun's diameter due to the inert matter in it's center.

Eventually, Earth will die from being burned up by a huge red sun.  But you and I won't live to see it.

Unfortunately, you and I may very well live to see our climate dramatically changed by global warming.

[wmLambert]

Yeah, but the sun's cooling happens over hundreds of millions of years, not decades.  And it is counteracted by the increase in the sun's diameter due to the inert matter in it's center.

Eventually, Earth will die from being burned up by a huge red sun.  But you and I won't live to see it.

Unfortunately, you and I may very well live to see our climate dramatically changed by global warming.

Of course a sun's lifetime is very long. That was the point. We are still in the same position we were when all the scientists were predicting global cooling. The two extremes are only politically charged - not a scientific fact. Carbon in the atmosphere does not move us out of being in a short warming hiatus during an ice age. As the fear of warming is publicized, you don't hear of the benefits coming from it. Basically, the warmer it gets, the more food can be grown to feed people. The nay-Sayers pretend the warming would produce desert conditions - but that is not a real threat. We made more challenges to people near deserts when we stupidly outlawed  freon when the patents ran out that made refrigeration finally affordable. The new ban and increased price for storing food killed far more people than freon could ever have done.

Twenty years ago, the same so-called scientists said we would all die in ten years. Politicians said the oceans would rise and the coasts would be flooded. Didn't happen. China is creating islands in the middle of the ocean, but people are afraid of shrinking shorelines?

[wmLambert]

Solar Flare warning: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings

[fizz]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/19/case-closed-999-of-scientists-agree-climate-emergency-caused-by-humans

[yossarian22c]

...
 As the fear of warming is publicized, you don't hear of the benefits coming from it. Basically, the warmer it gets, the more food can be grown to feed people. The nay-Sayers pretend the warming would produce desert conditions - but that is not a real threat.
...

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/great-western-drought-explained

Yes, another severe drought is sweeping across the western United States. California is now two years into a deep drought after suffering from its worst drought in 1,200 years between 2012 and 2016.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/20/1047700783/climate-change-is-bad-for-your-health-and-plans-to-boost-economies-may-make-it-w

It may seem obvious: Heat kills. Wildfires burn. Flooding drowns.

But the sprawling health effects of a rapidly warming world can also be subtle. Heat sparks violence and disrupts sleep. Wildfire smoke can trigger respiratory events thousands of miles away. Flooding can increase rates of suicide and mental health problems. Warmer winters expand the range of disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks.

A new report from the medical journal The Lancet finds that human-caused climate change is worsening human health in just about every measurable way

Just keep telling your self how great that warmer weather is. Bigger storms, bigger droughts, more heat waves, more wild fires, more deaths.

[TheDeamon]

Western Wildfires, especially in California are a complicated matter.

Prior to "the white man" coming to the area, natives in the wooded areas often practiced controlled burns to help prevent the risks presented by the seasonal wildfires otherwise. Land management, go figure.

To further complicate things, the white man started diverting surface water for agriculture in massive quantities, and even depleted many fresh-water aquifers(after having depleted a massive inland lake in the central valley during the 19th Century) which meant ground-water often went from being just a few feet below ground level(easily accessed by a tree or other drought resistant plant) to dozens, if not hundreds, of feet below ground level due to changes in the moisture gradient. Most plants cannot reach that water, which means even the "drought resistant vegetation" of California can no longer cope because humans removed the water table that historically supported said plants. Which means there is a Water management issue strongly in play in California happening on top of the Land management issues.

Then we have Land Use to consider on top of the previous issues, although Land Use and Land Management are very closely related. Human activity, be it recreational, power transmission, transportation, or arson, also have been playing major roles in the wildfires California has been experiencing, especially as it relates to "off-season" wildfires now giving California an effective year-round "fire season" these days.

Then in addition to that the Western US has a record of frequent, and even decades-long drought cycles stretching back thousands of years. Ask the Anasazi about climate variability in the American South-West.

[TheDrake]

You may not realize it, but there are countries other than the US, and they are all getting an uptick in fires. Australia to the Amazon rainforest.

[wmLambert]

No.There are less serious storms and bad weather; less fires and other problems. When cold weather rolls in, there are fewer crops to harvest and people die. The USA is not the only nation experiencing weather problems. Africa has seen a developing Sahara over recent history, yet our response was to outlaw freon. People died.

Check your science. The Pacific is surrounded by volcanic activities which are causing far more problems than AGW.

[rightleft22]

good news? Breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

Interesting anyway. Also some progress on energy storage systems.

[yossarian22c]

good news? Breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

Interesting anyway. Also some progress on energy storage systems.

It was a positive test result for the next prototype that is being built in 2025. I'm hopeful but reminded of my physics professor in college (20 years ago), who said nuclear fusion had been 20 years out his entire career and he was 70 at the time. Viable fusion for commercial energy still seems 20 years out.

Its really, really, hard to get enough pressure/heat/energy into a small space to cause fusion without causing an explosion and then to be able to get more energy back out that you can convert to electricity.

Its good to know they are still making progress, but we shouldn't bank on fusion to be the panacea that cures all our problems. It has humongous potential and we should keep spending the big bucks on research and engineering to see if we can make it happen. The down side is its just really hard to get more energy out and converted to electricity than you put into getting and maintaining a reaction.

[yossarian22c]

https://xkcd.com/678/

Hover text on the joke for researcher translation: "A technology that is 20 years away will be 20 years away indefinitely."

That being said I do think if we keep investing in fusion it will be a reality in my children's lifetime. Part of the reason 20 years out stays 20 years out is that its hard to drive investment on something on that long of a timespan. But fusion technology has continually improved over the last 60 years. The article linked to said the fusion reaction was sustained for 5 seconds. That's a big improvement over the reactions that were measured on time scales well under a second that I was reading about 20 years ago.

[TheDeamon]

https://xkcd.com/678/

Hover text on the joke for researcher translation: "A technology that is 20 years away will be 20 years away indefinitely."

That being said I do think if we keep investing in fusion it will be a reality in my children's lifetime. Part of the reason 20 years out stays 20 years out is that its hard to drive investment on something on that long of a timespan. But fusion technology has continually improved over the last 60 years. The article linked to said the fusion reaction was sustained for 5 seconds. That's a big improvement over the reactions that were measured on time scales well under a second that I was reading about 20 years ago.

And from what I recall reading a few years ago, (not bothering to check for more recent), they're starting to reach the "break even point" on (heat) energy produced matching energy used to create the reaction in the first place. So they're moving much closer to the point of trying to figure out how to recover that heat energy and use it to make power.

[Mynnion]

They are still striving to hit the break even point.  The major hurdles at this point are creating a stable plasma environment.  I believe they have now reached 5 seconds.  They are also using machine learning and AI to evaluate the process and it is significantly speeding things up.  They are hopeful to have a commercially viable system by 2030 but it is really hard to tell.  Near limitless clean and cheap energy will certainly be a game changer.

I find it interesting that a significant group of people have not figured out that electricity will be replacing fossil fuels and do all they can to oppose the new tech.  The nations that do the best job of developing and promoting electrical tech will be the future economic world leaders.

[NobleHunter]

From the article I read, the 5 second limit was because the test reactor couldn't sustain it any longer but there's no inherent reason why it can't be sustained for longer. So ITER should be able to keep it going for substantially longer.

I just wish we could get power out of it more directly than using it to boil water and spin a turbine.

[Mynnion]

That is my understanding also.  There are also some other promising models being developed in the US that will use boron rather than tritium.  There is currently a huge amount of investment going on towards these technologies which I see as a promising sign.

[NobleHunter]

I notice that Lockheed's sexy non-torus design hasn't been in the news lately. It's too bad because a gas turbine sized fusion reactor would be very useful.

[TheDeamon]

They are still striving to hit the break even point.  The major hurdles at this point are creating a stable plasma environment.  I believe they have now reached 5 seconds.  They are also using machine learning and AI to evaluate the process and it is significantly speeding things up.  They are hopeful to have a commercially viable system by 2030 but it is really hard to tell.  Near limitless clean and cheap energy will certainly be a game changer.

I find it interesting that a significant group of people have not figured out that electricity will be replacing fossil fuels and do all they can to oppose the new tech.  The nations that do the best job of developing and promoting electrical tech will be the future economic world leaders.

Wait for it, they will. It happened with nuclear fission. Certain "activist" groups who pay lipservice to caring about the environment did everything they could to torpedo fission in the 60's and 70's because widespread adoption of cheap, inexpensive and reasonably safe nuclear power would make it harder for them to make resource scarcity arguments.

Once Fusion starts to look viable, they'll likely start getting into the "theoretical byproducts" (which may be radioactive) and the sheer scale and type of rare earth materials needed to build a plant and try to attack it that way. It shouldn't get anywhere nearly as much traction as it did with fission, but time will tell.

[Mynnion]

Once Fusion starts to look viable, they'll likely start getting into the "theoretical byproducts" (which may be radioactive) and the sheer scale and type of rare earth materials needed to build a plant and try to attack it that way. It shouldn't get anywhere nearly as much traction as it did with fission, but time will tell.

That is why the use of boron instead of tritium looks so good.  Tritium has potential radioactive elements whereas boron doesn't.  Cheap energy will be  game changer but you are right that there will always be those who scream about anything new.  But to be fair there are also those who fuss about anything not new.

[yossarian22c]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62466990

Much of Europe is baking in record heat, which has exposed riverbeds and triggered restrictions on water use in many areas.

More evidence of climate change. Record heat and drought throughout Europe.

[DJQuag]

You guys seen the stories about how in central Europe they used to put stones deep down in rivers with markings saying, "If you can see this, prepare to starve to death."

It's a bit like those tsunami stones in Japan, where they mark the lowest place people didn't die from the waves.

Obviously agriculture has come forward since the stones were put down but it's still a really bad look.

[TheDrake]

They are still striving to hit the break even point.  The major hurdles at this point are creating a stable plasma environment.  I believe they have now reached 5 seconds.  They are also using machine learning and AI to evaluate the process and it is significantly speeding things up.  They are hopeful to have a commercially viable system by 2030 but it is really hard to tell.  Near limitless clean and cheap energy will certainly be a game changer.

I find it interesting that a significant group of people have not figured out that electricity will be replacing fossil fuels and do all they can to oppose the new tech.  The nations that do the best job of developing and promoting electrical tech will be the future economic world leaders.

Wait for it, they will. It happened with nuclear fission. Certain "activist" groups who pay lipservice to caring about the environment did everything they could to torpedo fission in the 60's and 70's because widespread adoption of cheap, inexpensive and reasonably safe nuclear power would make it harder for them to make resource scarcity arguments.

Once Fusion starts to look viable, they'll likely start getting into the "theoretical byproducts" (which may be radioactive) and the sheer scale and type of rare earth materials needed to build a plant and try to attack it that way. It shouldn't get anywhere nearly as much traction as it did with fission, but time will tell.

How do you define "reasonably safe"? Does it include Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima? Is it an acceptable risk to write off entire cities? Creating 100,000 refugees who can never go home? Never mind contaminated air and ground water. Never mind permanent waste dumps. Never mind transportation of waste by rail.

I think you'll find that nuclear power was opposed much harder and more effectively by oil and gas companies lobbying to prevent nuclear subsidies which continues to this day. In Ohio, they passed a bill to create a billion dollars for nuclear plant upgrade and retrofit to keep them in service. That was repealed in a 32-0 vote and it wasn't because they respected environmentalists. It was people unwilling to pay for cleaner energy.

[wmLambert]

good news? Breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

Interesting anyway. Also some progress on energy storage systems.

It was a positive test result for the next prototype that is being built in 2025. I'm hopeful but reminded of my physics professor in college (20 years ago), who said nuclear fusion had been 20 years out his entire career and he was 70 at the time. Viable fusion for commercial energy still seems 20 years out.

Its really, really, hard to get enough pressure/heat/energy into a small space to cause fusion without causing an explosion and then to be able to get more energy back out that you can convert to electricity.

Its good to know they are still making progress, but we shouldn't bank on fusion to be the panacea that cures all our problems. It has humongous potential and we should keep spending the big bucks on research and engineering to see if we can make it happen. The down side is its just really hard to get more energy out and converted to electricity than you put into getting and maintaining a reaction.

That's interesting. My professors also mentioned how we were wasting perfectly good spent nuclear waste from our Fission-reactors, while France had far more nuclear power being used than we do - but since they recycled their waste, there was no storage problems.

[TheDrake]

good news? Breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633

Interesting anyway. Also some progress on energy storage systems.

It was a positive test result for the next prototype that is being built in 2025. I'm hopeful but reminded of my physics professor in college (20 years ago), who said nuclear fusion had been 20 years out his entire career and he was 70 at the time. Viable fusion for commercial energy still seems 20 years out.

Its really, really, hard to get enough pressure/heat/energy into a small space to cause fusion without causing an explosion and then to be able to get more energy back out that you can convert to electricity.

Its good to know they are still making progress, but we shouldn't bank on fusion to be the panacea that cures all our problems. It has humongous potential and we should keep spending the big bucks on research and engineering to see if we can make it happen. The down side is its just really hard to get more energy out and converted to electricity than you put into getting and maintaining a reaction.

That's interesting. My professors also mentioned how we were wasting perfectly good spent nuclear waste from our Fission-reactors, while France had far more nuclear power being used than we do - but since they recycled their waste, there was no storage problems.

Thank you, wm, that's an interesting bit of information. They do significantly reduce their waste, though they haven't really figured out the storage of spent fuel that can't be recycled. I suspect we don't do it because:

Upon its removal from French reactors, used fuel is packed in containers and safely shipped via train and road to a facility in La Hague. There, the energy producing uranium and plutonium are removed and separated from the other waste and made into new fuel that can be used again. The entire process adds about 6 percent in costs for the French.

That 6% in cost will make people swoon over it. As long as it remains cheaper to dig more uranium out of the ground, I would guess we'll never recycle it in the US. Nuke plant operators don't want to reduce their profit margins. In France, 85% of the nuclear utility company (singular) is owned by the French government. We don't want any of that efficient socialism around these parts!

[wmLambert]

BTW; last time I checked, all of their unrecycled nuclear waste of all kind could be stored in a single location the size of a high-school gym.

[TheDrake]

BTW; last time I checked, all of their unrecycled nuclear waste of all kind could be stored in a single location the size of a high-school gym.

It's a little bigger than that. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674

[TheDeamon]

That 6% in cost will make people swoon over it. As long as it remains cheaper to dig more uranium out of the ground, I would guess we'll never recycle it in the US. Nuke plant operators don't want to reduce their profit margins. In France, 85% of the nuclear utility company (singular) is owned by the French government. We don't want any of that efficient socialism around these parts!

Nope, it's more basic than that. The recycling process involves either "Uranium Enrichment" which can in turn be easily repurposed to make Nuclear Weapons Grade Uranium, so the US killed those. Or you throw it into a breeder reactor which would be even more efficient at reducing the amount of waste generated by the reactor core... Except breeder reactors create plutonium, which also "can be used for nuclear weapons" so the US killed that too in order to "set a good example" for the rest of the world in terms of limiting nuclear proliferation as the world's leading super power.

France isn't a super power, so they don't have to deal with that political narrative.

[Crunch]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62466990

Much of Europe is baking in record heat, which has exposed riverbeds and triggered restrictions on water use in many areas.

More evidence of climate change. Record heat and drought throughout Europe.

Yeah, it's called summer.  Happens every year. 

[Crunch]

Meanwhile, two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia recorded the highest amount of coral cover in nearly four decades. Climate change was wiping out the reef but reality just doesn't seem to be willing to comply with the fevered dreams of environmentalists. For those interested in science rather than alarmism, "the Australian Institute of Marine Science documented that approximately 22 percent of the reef experienced recent bleaching (not 93 percent, as reported in alarmist media stories), 75 percent of the bleached portion of the Reef is expected to make a full recovery.  Poor water quality resulting from nearby coastal development is the main culprit for bleached reef areas that do not recover."

Hey, remember when climate change was 100% certain to make Katrina-like storms occur regularly? Gonna be apocalyptic!  Instead, the United States recently went through its longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane strike and recently experienced its fewest total hurricanes in any eight-year period.

CLimate change enthusiasts are so frequently wrong, it's amazing they don't look in the mirror once in a while and ask questions.

[Tom]

I fondly remember working 60 hours a week as a consultant in 1998 and 1999, rewriting legacy code and redesigning logic trees so that the millennial changeover would not affect multiple critical systems for our clients.

I less fondly remember a bunch of idiots saying, a year later, "We told you everyone was overreacting and there wasn't really a problem" after planes failed to fall out of the sky and banks managed to calculate interest properly.

[TheDrake]

CLimate change enthusiasts are so frequently wrong, it's amazing they don't look in the mirror once in a while and ask questions.

Not as frequently wrong as climate change deniers.

I wonder what's really going on here?

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) said Friday that aerial surveys of around 750 reefs show widespread bleaching across the reef, with the most severe bleaching observed in northern and central areas.

“More than half of the living coral cover that we can see from the air is severely bleached completely white and can have signs of fluorescence in the colors of pink, yellow and blue,” said AIMS coral biologist Neal Cantin.

Well gee, that doesn't sound much like your bleaching data? That's from CNN, I tried to go directly to the AIMS site to see what they had to say, but can't get the site to load.

[rightleft22]

I fondly remember working 60 hours a week as a consultant in 1998 and 1999, rewriting legacy code and redesigning logic trees so that the millennial changeover would not affect multiple critical systems for our clients.

I less fondly remember a bunch of idiots saying, a year later, "We told you everyone was overreacting and there wasn't really a problem" after planes failed to fall out of the sky and banks managed to calculate interest properly.

Same did a lot of work to make sure nothing happened. Eventually half the QA team was laid off because the site was running so smoothly, why spend money on making sure the worst doesn't happen when it isn't happening.  few months latter *censored* started to happen.

Humans suck at measuring in general and paying attention to preventative measures.
I feel good no need to watch what I eat... until...   

[Fenring]

I fondly remember working 60 hours a week as a consultant in 1998 and 1999, rewriting legacy code and redesigning logic trees so that the millennial changeover would not affect multiple critical systems for our clients.

I less fondly remember a bunch of idiots saying, a year later, "We told you everyone was overreacting and there wasn't really a problem" after planes failed to fall out of the sky and banks managed to calculate interest properly.

Well. You might have viewed the 60 hour weeks less fondly if, instead of having the 60 hours, they had instead closed the business due to being 'part of the problem'. It's really an apples to oranges situation, which only appears as apples to apples if the premise is that taking steps to dramatically reduce carbon emissions would be the equivalent of hiring a few IT people as a precaution.

[TheDeamon]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62466990

Much of Europe is baking in record heat, which has exposed riverbeds and triggered restrictions on water use in many areas.

More evidence of climate change. Record heat and drought throughout Europe.

Alternate option, it's the Tonga Eruption from January and it will take about 5 years to sort out.

https://www.livescience.com/tonga-eruption-water-vapor

"We estimate that the excess water vapor is equivalent to around 10% of the amount of water vapor typically residing in the stratosphere," which is the biggest increase scientists have ever seen, researchers wrote in the new paper, published online July 1 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The water vapor may remain in the stratosphere for around half a decade, the researchers wrote.

Remember folks, water vapor is one of the most potent green house gases on Earth. We just don't typically worry about human generated water vapor as it generally remains in the lower layers of the atmosphere and returns to the surface in days/weeks, and rarely months.

[Wayward Son]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

[Grant]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

None of this is going to matter after Musk puts a giant sunshade up at L1 in 2045. 

[TheDeamon]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

On the other hand we now have a "novel event" that has now occurred on the instrument record which makes it something of a "holy grail" for climate modelers to test their models against.

It will be interesting to see how many models don't need much rework in the next few years based on data collected related to this event.

[TheDeamon]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

None of this is going to matter after Musk puts a giant sunshade up at L1 in 2045.

Well, on the flip side, once someone bothers to cruch the numbers (as they're available) that can convert that water vapor variance into a CO2 equivalence and tell us what CO2 level we were previewing. 

[Crunch]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

95% of all "greenhouse" gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. It's been that way forever. By all means, be afraid, very afraid, as nothing can be done about that. But don't worry, the remaining 5% is going to make all the difference. Swearsie.

[TheDrake]

Oh, great.  Just what we needed.  Something to add to the warming we're getting from the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Like it wasn't bad enough beforehand.

95% of all "greenhouse" gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. It's been that way forever. By all means, be afraid, very afraid, as nothing can be done about that. But don't worry, the remaining 5% is going to make all the difference. Swearsie.

By all means, expose your ignorance.

Although water vapor probably accounts for about 60% of the Earth’s greenhouse warming effect, water vapor does not control the Earth’s temperature. Instead, the amount of water vapor is controlled by the temperature. This is because the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere limits the maximum amount of water vapor the atmosphere can contain. If a volume of air contains its maximum amount of water vapor and the temperature is decreased, some of the water vapor will condense to form liquid water. This is why clouds form as warm air containing water vapor rises and cools at higher altitudes where the water condenses to the tiny droplets that make up clouds.

So as CO2 increases (along with other non-condensibles), it allows for water vapor to also increase.