Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:The US has reduced its emissions significantly over the past couple of decades.

So has the EU.

Given that the US could easily abide by the agreements, why not actually sign up to them?

Quantify "easily" in terms of actual cost.

Apparently, zero, if you have reduced emissions already.

danivon wrote:Apparently, zero, if you have reduced emissions already.

If your claim is that we're already abiding by Kyoto, why bother signing?

To send a message that the USA is serious and to encourage other countries. Of course, that ship probably has already sailed - it was about 10/11 years ago that the US refused to ratify.

If the US has lowered emissions since 1995 by as much as everyone says, then it has indeed sobfar satisfied the Kyoto target it would have been set.

sass

This is a stupid argument Ricky. China is directly competing with the US right now, causing millions of jobs to disappear over the Pacific. How do you expect there to be political will to combat carbon emissions when China is excluded

Danivon answered this fairly well. But I think you aren't considering that political will I'm referring to isn't just political will in the US.
If China decides that CO2 has to be reduced they'll do it. The Chinese government won't suffer fools trying to deny the basic science or allow industrialists to avoid their responsibilities by ginning up a false controversy.
That's why I said I think China will act before the US or other Western nations that have been recalcitrant. It will be in their best interests as a nation and not being democratic they'll move with the efficiency of a totalitarian state.

If the West had political will that over rode industrialists they could affect the relative costs of energy with taxes. The full cost of burning coal is not felt by consumers of the coal. Tax payers have had to deal with many of the effects. (The cost of reducing sulphur from coal fired plants that caused acid rain was incurred by the Coal industry in the 70's and 80's and has been a great success by the way. An act of political will that over came industry objections.)
In the US, an honest assessment of what the long term effects of the use of coal versus the short term worries about jobs (and less openly huge corporate profits of the mining companies) would create a more honest effort at CO2 reduction. But that's not likely as long as the notion that the science on warming is disputed and that dispute is given respect and even credence by media and politicians.
When China decides to act in the best long term interests of the Chinese nation, it will act.And it is apparent that domestic pollution has triggered policy changes already in China.
The US hasn't even got to the stage where it has determined that there are long term interests threatened. At least not to the point where political will to act has a chance to germinate.

SaskPower to roll out world’s first carbon capture-embedded power plant.

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/ ... =3ce1-9201

I attended a day long symposium yesterday sponsored by Brookfield Johnson Controls, one of the largest integrated facility management companies around. They have an enormous commitment to sustainability. And its eye opening to see the extent that major corporations have made the commitment, mostly for economic reasons.

Jeremy Rifkin was the key note speaker.

Rifkin describes how the five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution will create thousands of businesses and millions of jobs, and usher in a fundamental reordering of human relationships, from hierarchical to lateral power, that will impact the way we conduct business, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life. The five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution are (1) shifting to renewable energy; (2) transforming the building stock of every continent into green micro–power plants to collect renewable energies on-site; (3) deploying hydrogen and other storage technologies in every building and throughout the infrastructure to store intermittent energies; (4) using Internet technology to transform the power grid of every continent into an energy internet that acts just like the Internet (when millions of buildings are generating a small amount of renewable energy locally, on-site, they can sell surplus green electricity back to the grid and share it with their continental neighbors); and (5) transitioning the transport fleet to electric plug-in and fuel cell vehicles that can buy and sell green electricity on a smart, continental, interactive power grid.

http://www.thethirdindustrialrevolution.com/

Great examples of how things are shifting, include the use of energy storage systems like compressed air, and nitrogen fuel cells. With the intent, for large buildings, of decreasing peak use of electricity provided through the grid. And by decreasing peak use, the buildings significantly reduce their overall costs, and help the grid manage its current loads.
This kind of thing is very important to help renewables manage their "intermittency" and therefore become a larger piece of the energy pie.

One of the interesting things was that both he and others spoke about the major commitments both Europe and China have made. One story about the use of Geothermal in China. An engineer was helping the design and construction in a new train station. It was to be entirely heated and cooled with geothermal. 1500 geothermal drilling units showed up on site.
In all of Ontario there are about two dozen.

Doctor Fate wrote:Btw, here's a fun one:

Let’s start with the often repeated claim that we can project a sea level rise of at least 3 feet by the end of the century — 86 years from now. It is easy to calculate the volume of ice that would have to melt to produce that increased level and then compare it to the allegedly observed melt to determine how plausible the alarmism is.

To say that sea level will rise by 3 feet is to say that the nominal radius of the Earth would increase. But because of the “piling up” of water against the 30% of the Earth’s surface that is land, the average increase in radius (if there were no land against which the sea water would “pile up”) would be less than 3 feet, to a first approximation 3 * .7 = 2.1 feet. How much volume would the sphere of the Earth increase if its radius increased by 2.1 feet from ice melt? The volume of a sphere is 4/3*pi*radius(3). If we take the pre-melt radius as 4000 miles and the post melt radius as 4000 miles plus 2.1 feet, the volume increase is approximately 80,000 cubic miles. All of this, by assumption, is in the 70% of the Earth’s surface which is water to effect a three foot rise in the sea level.

So over a period of 86 years remaining until the end of the century, 80,000 cubic miles of water from ice melt would be required for a three foot rise in sea level, or about 930 cubic miles per year. Is this a lot? Or a little? Well, compared to the amounts of ice melt actually being observed from Antarctica and Greenland — and now being hyped by alarmists — it is huge.

Today’s report in the New York Times, “The Big Melt Accelerates,” [Ed.: This is the story that Steve commented on earlier today.] is revealing — if you do the math, which, of course, they don’t. The Times report claims that 310 billion tons of water melted into the oceans from Antarctic and Greenland glaciers and another 260 billion tons, amazingly, from the 1% of the Earth’s land-based ice that is in mountain glaciers. Is the total of 570 billion tons of water from ice melt a little or a lot?

Since they are measuring metric tons, that amounts to 1.25 x 10(15) pounds of water, which at 8.35 pounds per gallon is 1.5 x 10(14) gallons which, in turn, at 7.5 gallons per cubic foot is 2 x 10(13) cubic feet. At 5,280(3) cubic feet to a cubic mile we have 136 cubic miles of water or about 148 cubic miles of ice when adjusted for the expansion of water as it freezes. That’s about 12 miles square of glacier assuming on average the glaciation is 1 mile thick.

This compares to the required 930 cubic miles of water per year for 86 years to get to a sea level rise of 3 feet at the end of the century — a factor of almost 7 times what is said to be observed. Stated differently, at the new alarmingly increased level of ice melt it would take about 600 years for the purported 3 foot rise in sea level to obtain; the implied rise is 6 one-hundreds of an inch per year, or about 5.25 inches by the year 2100.

When I first saw this, something nagged at me and I could not figure out what it was. After all, these are clever guys using MATHEMATICS. And figures never lie.

But today I was reading an article about El Nino (and the high chance of this year being an El Nino year) when it struck me what was completely missing from their sums:

Density.

The density of water is not a constant. It varies due to different factors. But two major factors for th desity of seawater are the temperature and the salinity. The warmer that liquid water is, the less dense it gets. This means that the same mass of water takes up a greater volume if it is warmer. For seawater, the densest liquid water is below freezing (whereas for pure or fresh water it is 4 Celcius).

Similarly, the more salty that water is, the denser it gets. So lower salinity again leads to the same mass of water taking up a greater volume.

Liquid densities vary more than those of solids (and less than those of gases).

Temperature has a greater effect than salinity, but if you do have the effect of less salty (because melting ice is very pure) and warmer (due to higher surface temperatures and increasedabsorption of CO2) sea water, then this will tend to increase water volumes by more than the simple assumptions used above.

Also, density varies across the seas, again largely due to temperature and salinity, and so a simple extrapolation will not account for regional effects that could be smaller or greater than the average.

I am sure that this basic PHYSICS was omitted by the learned gentleman that have been quoted purely by accident, as surely they are aware of density and what causes it to vary, and I cannot think of any plausible reason why committed climate skeptics would deliberately omit a factor that undermines their case.

There is another factor that they missed - more water in the sea means more weight. This will push down the sea bed, but as this often rests on the same tectonic plates as the land at coastal areas, that will also (to varying degrees) lead to the land being depressed (and so the sea level rising relative to it. Yes, that also means that the Greenland and Antarctic masses would see the reverse as ice melts and moves off.

I was also wondering about this, but understand the topic less than you do. I'm surprised that this issue isn't more widely discussed in the science press ... perhaps it is? ... do you have a link that supports your view? How important a factor is density, salinity, etc. on sea level rise? Surely some people are spending their careers figuring this out.

ray

I'm surprised that this issue isn't more widely discussed in the science press ... perhaps it is?

If you google

how fast is the ocean rising

you'll find lots of new information on what is be learned about oceans rising.
If you were expecting some scientist somewhere to publicly dispute the math offered in power line, i doubt that anyone feels its necessary in the actual science community. The author is a lawyer, employed by the Koch brothers.

Some of the stuff, Danivon brought up point to errors in the "math". But there's lots more. For instance he hasn't addressed the increasing energy content in the oceans. (The first law of thermodynamics says that energy is never lost, only changed.) And the fact that energy increases, and temperature increases accelerates the melting process - whereas his math is straight line. Its as if he'd forgotten to calculate compound interest...

But for those of us who don't really follow all the math, I think is easiest to ask people like the Powerline author why the earth was once more greatly covered by water when there was less glaciation, and less covered by water when there was greater glaciation?

rickyp wrote:ray

I'm surprised that this issue isn't more widely discussed in the science press ... perhaps it is?

If you google

how fast is the ocean rising

you'll find lots of new information on what is be learned about oceans rising.
If you were expecting some scientist somewhere to publicly dispute the math offered in power line, i doubt that anyone feels its necessary in the actual science community. The author is a lawyer, employed by the Koch brothers.

BS.

1. The "author" is not a lawyer. He's citing a message he received, not doing his own math. He's no more the author of it than you are of at least half of your posts--you know, the ones in which you simply cut and paste someone else's writing without commenting at all?

2. Mr. Hinderaker is an attorney. His firm has represented the Kochs. However, he is not "employed by the Koch brothers." And, if he was, he doesn't write Powerline on behalf of the Kochs.

Ray Jay wrote:I was also wondering about this, but understand the topic less than you do. I'm surprised that this issue isn't more widely discussed in the science press ... perhaps it is? ... do you have a link that supports your view? How important a factor is density, salinity, etc. on sea level rise? Surely some people are spending their careers figuring this out.

I guess that it's not discussed so much because it's pretty much a given. If climate science is disputed, the physics of water density and its relation to temperature and salinity are pretty much cast iron facts.

The question is, I guess, whether we can see actual discussion of the impact of temperature (as it is the largest factor of the two) on sea levels, absent ice melting. I will see what I can find.

rickyp wrote:Some of the stuff, Danivon brought up point to errors in the "math". But there's lots more. For instance he hasn't addressed the increasing energy content in the oceans.

Two errors here (which is why I always shudder when you 'agree' with me. Firstly I have not disputed the "math". I have disputed the assumptions that it is based on. There are other nits I could pick about the earth not being a perfect sphere (it's an irregular oblate spheroid) and the radius being a little less than 4,000 miles (it's between 3,947 and 3,968 miles to the surface.

Secondly, there is a clear way in which I have included the increased energy content, and that is by expressing it as temperature.

Also, telling RJ to google it is a little lazy (although it is also a little lazy on his part not to try that first before telling us there's little discussion in the science press, assuming he's not an avid reader of it all). Perhaps a link to a well regarded site or publication on this would help. As I said, I will see what I can find. I will also try and do the mathematics.

[quote"Doctor Fate"]The "author" is not a lawyer. He's citing a message he received, not doing his own math. [/quote]And we don't even know who the correspondent is (Hinderaker says he has published it in full, but does not tell us who it is from. Later he does quote Anthony Watts with some other math (which is also only about the volume of melting ice and not about other factors in sea level rise).

However, do you understand what my point is about the math (regardless of who the author of it is) - that they have made some basic assumptions and have ignored other factors. When a climate modeller misses a factor, the skeptical crowd are quick to pile on about how it makes the model inaccurate and therefore should be ignored. I see this model as having some value, but let's plug in the missing pieces.

For example, the total volume of the oceans is about 1.3 Billion Km^3 (or 310 million cubic miles). If we take the figures above, the extra volume for a 3 foot rise of 80,000 cubic miles is 0.02%

So I will find out what the increased volume would be for seawater heated up by 1 degree celcius is, and we can see what that does. Are you game to let the "math" take us where it leads?

Thought this was pertinent. http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledg ... e-25857988 and http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-lev ... ctions.htm

Yes, I was lazy; Ricky was snarky and lazy. In my defense I'm a U.S. citizen and have neither a pension nor health security, so I have to work ... (joking)

freeman3 wrote:Thought this was pertinent. http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledg ... e-25857988 and http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-lev ... ctions.htm

Great article ... I quote:

For thermal expansion alone, IPCC has estimated a rise by between 60 and 200 cm over the next thousand years if global warming is stabilised between 2 and 4 ºC above present temperatures. However, the bulk of long-term sea level rise may be expected to come from ice melt.

So, he's saying between 2 feet and 7 feet from thermal expansion and even more than that from land ice melt (sea ice melt has a negligible effect). That sounds scary to me ...

RJ,

I did some searching for what we can find. As you asked about the science press, here is a very basic overview from NatGeo. Ice melt is not mentioned, but the effect of increased volume due to higher temperatures is (as well as the impacts of higher temperatures on marine life, weather systems and the stability of ecological niches).

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/oce ... ture-rise/

Also, good old Wikipedia cites a study review that claims that 30% of sea level rise in the last 20 year is from thermal expansion, and 55% from continental ice melt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of ... _on_oceans

Anyway, to the mathematics. I do not where this leads yet, so it may give a result that suggests density is a minute factor, but let us try.

The density of water is measured in kg/m^3 (kilograms per cubic metre). Pure water has a density of about 1000 kg/m^3 at 4 Celcius (because the original SI units are largely based on using water). Sea water salinity is, on average 3.5%, which is 35000 parts per million (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater ).

Now, it turns out that the oceans are made up of different layers. 90% of the volume of sea water is below the ‘thermocline’, meaning that it stays at a fairly constant low temperature (between 0 and 3 Celcius). As water is a poor conductor of heat, this means that it is not likely to be affected (at least not in terms of the next century). But the temperature of the rest (10% by volume, or 130 million km^3) varies from -2 to 26 degrees, with an average of 17 Celcius (source http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/temp.html ). This water is more likely to warm up as temperatures rise as it is the water that moves around through currents, mixing and circulating, and is closer to the surface and so absorbs sunlight.

Now, I found a handy seawater density calculator here - http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2odenscalc.html

I will now list my assumptions and starting data. I will use metric units because they are a lot easier to convert without creating rounding errors. I assume no change in the mass of water (so no ice melt from land ice, no net transfer to/from the atmosphere & rivers etc). I assume no impact from atmospheric pressure. I assume no change in the salinity levels. I assume we start at the average temperature (17 celcius) and look at the effect in 1 degree intervals. Based on the initial figure, I will calculate the mass of water we are looking at, and then from that work out what the effect is on volume of an increase in temperature. So the starting volume is 130 million km^3. Salinity is 35000 ppm, temperature is 17 celcius.

The initial density calculation is 1025.543 kg/m^3. That equates to 1.025543 tonnes per m^3. Making each km^3 1.025543 billion tonnes. Giving the mass of water above the thermocline as 133,320,590 billion tonnes.

If we increase the temperature to 18 Celcius, the density becomes 1025.300. This makes our seawater take up 130.031 million km^3. An increase of 31,000 km^3

At 19 Celcius, the density is 1025.050, the volume would be 130.066 million km^3. An increase of 35,000 km^3
At 20 Celcius, the density is 1024.790, the volume would be 130.096 million km^3. An increase of 30,000 km^3
At 21 Celcius, the density is 1024.532, the volume would be 130.129 million km^3. An increase of 33,000 km^3
At 22 Celcius, the density is 1024.247, the volume would be 130.164 million km^3. An increase of 35,000 km^3

What I’m seeing is that the approximate increase in volume per degree Celsius in temperature is 30-35,000 km^3, with rounding errors probably causing the variation. The average is about 32,900 km^3

The email writer came up with a required increase of 80,000 miles^3 in volume. 1 mile^3 is 4.17km^3. So his target for a 3 foot sea level rise is 333,600 km^3. I have checked his maths and he’s about right - using a more accurate average radius of the Earth and staying in km, I get 326,441km^3 (78,283 miles^3) for a 3 foot expansion over 70% of the surface.

About 10% of that can be accounted for in a single degree Celcius of warming in the upper 10% layer of water in the oceans, based on my maths.

Not sure what you all are concerned about. The most important leader in the history of the world declared this a non-issue 5-plus years ago:

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Obama's Nomination Victory Speech In St. Paul June 3, 2008.

And, I would note he declared his own "profound humility" so you know it's true.