All Solar, Et Al, In 12 Years?

[Randolph Kinney]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has fallen victim to this problematic convention in their latest (5th) assessment report. The key graphic (Fig. 1 below) in the Summary for Policy Makers (“SPM”) of the report measures net anthropogenic (i.e. human-generated) carbon emissions and the resulting warming that can be expected. Both the emissions and warming and measured relative to the 1870 baseline.

The various future emissions scenarios are called “RCP”s (for “Representative Concentration Pathways”) and they reflect varying assumptions regarding our future efforts to limit carbon emissions. The “RCP 2.6” scenario (dark blue), the most aggressive of the scenarios (from the standpoint of ramping down carbon emissions), corresponds to limiting net carbon emissions to about 3000 Gigatons (3 trillion tons) of CO2. We’ve already burned through about 2,000 Gigatons, i.e. we have expended two thirds of our apparent “carbon budget.”

Achieving those limits in emissions would in turn limit maximum atmospheric CO2 concentrations to just under 450 parts per million parts atmosphere (“ppm”). Pre-industrial levels were about 280 ppm. Current levels are just above 400 ppm and increasing by about 2.1 ppm per year. At that rate, we’ll reach 450 ppm in a little over two decades. So obviously we need to reduce our carbon emissions rather rapidly if we are to avoid crossing the 450 ppm threshold.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/24/dangerous-planetary-warming/

Seems like their assumptions and simulations predict a certain climate disaster.

 

[Meandering]

Sunday, Dec 27th 2015
Russia is beefing up its military presence in the Arctic, sending troops and missiles to strengthen its position in the competition for the region’s extensive oil and gas reserves.

As well as deploying advanced anti-aircraft missiles to the region, President Vladimir Putin is overseeing the completion of six new bases designed to see off foreign competition for the natural resources.

It is estimated that billions of tonnes of oil and gas lie beneath the seabed, which is currently disputed territory.
The Arctic seabed is so vitally important to the competing nations due to an estimated 90billion barrels of oil that lie beneath it.

The region is also said to be home to around 30 per cent of the world’s as-yet undiscovered natural gas.

The U.N. is expected to review Russia’s claim to the land, which insists two underwater ledges reaching towards the North Pole belong to its continental shelf, in February.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374539/The-new-Cold-War-Russia-sends-troops-missiles-Arctic-Putin-stakes-claim-region-s-oil-gas-reserves.html#ixzz3vUfpqiRa

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[Randolph Kinney]

Russia is the world's largest exporter of oil now. As more production comes on stream because the world needs the money, the price of oil will fall as demand has not kept pace. That puts downward pressure on competing fuels. Why would China or India adopt more solar when coal and oil are so much cheaper? It is fine with them that U.S. gives up its economic advantage of cheap energy. It is understandable why they won't. Corporations that are global will shift more of their operations out of the U.S. to countries where energy is cheaper. And that hurts tax revenues that are needed to provide social programs. Sort of like the Puerto Rico, Detroit and Pittsburgh model.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT

The IPCC believes climate change is harmful; that the science of climate change is settled and understood; that climate change is largely due to human activities, particularly the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by industrial societies; and that there is an urgent need to fight climate change by reducing the emissions of carbon dioxide.

The most questionable of these beliefs is the notion that the science of climate change is settled and understood. The biggest of all climate changes have been the ice ages, which have covered half of North America and Europe with kilometer-thick sheets of ice. Ice ages happened repeatedly in the past, and we are about due for another one to start. A new ice age would be a disaster far greater than anything we have to fear from climate warming. There are many theories of ice ages, but no real understanding. So long as we do not understand ice ages, we do not understand climate change.

Another important thing that we do not understand is the possible effect of the sun on climate. The sun’s magnetic activity is strongly variable, and it appears to be correlated with the earth’s climate. When the sun is magnetically active, climate gets warmer. We do not know how much of the warming is caused by the sun. If the effect of the sun is large, any effort to control climate change by human action is futile.

The most important fact in the history of the 21st century is that China and India, with about half of the world’s population, are getting rich. To get rich in the next 50 years, they must burn prodigious quantities of coal and add big quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. China and India have a simple choice to make. Either they get rich and cause a major increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Or they stay poor.

Whatever we may choose to do will not make much difference. The discussions in Paris will not make much difference. The good news is that the main effect of carbon dioxide on the ecology of the planet has nothing to do with climate. The main effect of carbon dioxide is to make the planet greener, feeding the growth of green plants of all kinds, increasing the fertility of farms and fields and forests.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...imate-talks/vG3oBrbmcZlv2m22DTNjMP/story.html

 

[Meandering]

Huh? Could Cleaner Air Be Worsening Global Warming?
2 hours ago

The soot and other particles that make up air pollution tend to scatter light back out into space. As countries around the globe have cleaned up their act, there are fewer particles to reflect light, meaning more sunlight is reaching the Earth's surface and warming it, Martin Wild, a researcher at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, said Tuesday (Dec. 15) here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

To understand what's going on, Wild looked at the level of solar radiation at 56 spots across Europe between 1939 and 2012. There were big peaks in that period. It turned out that solar radiation spiked in the 1950s, and then decreased until the 1980s, when it started to uptick again.

Sunspots, which look almost like moles on the face of the sun, are areas of intense magnetic activity which are cooler than the surrounding regions of the sun. Because they emit less radiation at these cooler temperatures, the number and extent of sunspots can change how much light reaches the Earth. However, cycles between high and low sunspot levels are much shorter than the timescales of the global dimming and brightening trend, and these cycles weren't correlated with those larger changes, Wild and his colleagues found.
http://news.yahoo.com/huh-could-cle...0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

Oh well. So much for saving the planet by living in the dark.

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[Meandering]

Russia warming '2.5 times quicker' than global average: ministry
December 25, 2015

A government report on environmental protection said temperatures in Russia had warmed by 0.42 degrees Celsius per decade since 1976, or 2.5 times quicker than the global warming trend of 0.17 degrees. "Climate change leads to growth of dangerous meteorological phenomena," the ministry said in a comment to the report published Friday.


Fires around Lake Baikal, including the nearby Irkutsk and Buryatia regions, tore through hundreds of square miles in the pristine area, with locals and campers forced to dig ditches as state media at one point offered the theory that fires were fuelled by "self-igniting air" caused by ozone anomalies.


The report states that while Russia is warming on the whole, some areas in the Far East and southern Siberia are experiencing harsh winters. Out-of-control fires and deadly floods have hit Russia nearly every year this decade, and the emergency situations ministry in October conceded it has to come up with a new strategy."Permafrost is receding, there are earthquakes where there weren't before, there are landslides, flash floods, blow-outs of gas condensate and so on," he said.

Sounds like they have the same problems as California.

While the total emission of greenhouse gases in Russia has not grown over the past five years, car emissions are increasing. Half of Russia's auto transport still consists of inefficient vehicles with polluting engines over a decade old, the report said.

Ding, ding, ding, there's the money card. Buy new cars. Looks like average Russians fair no better than we do.


http://news.yahoo.com/russia-warmin...0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

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[Meandering]

So if you search for "self-igniting air" It seems Russia is the only country claiming this phenomena.

We used to have self spilling milk. Nobody spilled it, it spilled itself. Wasn't me.

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

What warming?

 

[Randolph Kinney]

What warming?

Yeah, what warming?

 

[Meandering]