Slashdot Mirror
World Emissions of Carbon Dioxide Outpace Worst-Case Scenario
Layzej writes "The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record in 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated. A chart accompanying the study shows the breakdown by country. The new figures mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. It is a 'monster' increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past. The question now among scientists is whether the future is the IPCC's worst case scenario or something more extreme."
They were all talking about differential equations, just some of you don't know it. Global circulation models are a collection of coupled atmosphere, ocean, etc models. Each of these models contain a core set of differential equations, which are either discretized to be integrated forward in time in physical space, or decomposed into spectral space, which has certain benefits for non-linear terms in the Navier-Stokes equation. There are a number of parameterizations to handle sub grid-scale processes so their effects taken into account at the resolved grid scale*. In essence you have a bunch of differential equations and a closure to give yourself a closed system for each component of the GCM, which you then use to force other components, and you integrate it all forward in time.
And the gp was right about observations. If you recall your ODE/PDE class, you'll be interested to know this is a boundary-value problem and you need to specify initial and boundary conditions. Initial conditions are your observations, or whatever your assumptions about the current state are. Often the GCM models are initialized in the year 1800 or 1900, giving them 100+ years of simulation time to equilibrate and match known observations before they are really forecasting the future. As for boundary conditions, the model is global, so the boundaries wrap around and you dont need to worry about them.
* An example of this is convection. When moist air rises and condensation occurs (to form cloud drops, rain, ice, etc), energy is released into the surrounding system (enthalpy of vaporization, deposition, fusion, etc). This translates into warming of the surrounding air, and helps drive convection and represents a transport of warming from the surface to the middle and upper atmosphere. The condensation process happens on a much smaller scale than a GCM can resolve, so the equations being integrated cannot represent this process. The process does however have an effect on temperature at the resolved scale. To handle this, parameterizations are employed that make certain assumptions about these processes and then make adjustments to the resolved scale. It would be better to just resolve these effects directly, but when you try to work at the molecular scale globally, realtime moves faster than the model does.
The models are off because up until 2009/2010-ish were actually experiencing a natural cooling trend, which masked our artificial warming trend and came out as a wash. Now that the cooling trend has subsided, warming is expected to spike in the coming decade.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/03/AR2009090302199.html
Or we could just jump to convenient conclusions given a tiny dataset.
There is a warming/dry trend alternating with a cooling/wet trend every 7-10 years or so. It's called El Nino/La Nina.
No one talks about it much anymore, but my personal experiences over the last 20 years support that cycle very well. Right now we're in a La Nina phase, meaning more cool & more precipitation (hey would you look at that, unprecedented snow in October in the U.S. this year).
One thing that everyone needs to keep in mind is WEATHER IS NOT CLIMATE. In fact, one of the most agreed upon results of climate change is more VIOLENT weather, not merely "hotter" weather.
When the climate balance is upset, all hell breaks loose in the weather, it doesn't just "get hotter." As a result you see things like that massive snow in Washington D.C. a year or two ago, snow in Texas a year or three ago, while simultaneously having the hottest summers on record.
It's not rocket science.
I work in science, and this is something of a misconception. Cut-throat peer review is anything but exempt from personal politics, as are those who dole out grants, etc. The livelihood of scientists is entirely dependent upon outside money that is often there in hopes that the scientists in question provide a specific answer. And yes, I am certain that global warming falls entirely within this domain. I have yet to meet a well funded scientist that is looking at the data the other way. If at this point you're thinking that it's bad science to be only looking at a problem from one side, you are correct. It's just that sometimes looking from that other side is a poor career choice.
China surpassed US both in absolute amount and in relative amount, by the way.
What do you mean by relative amount? That graph shows China 15-20% above US. China has a population ~4.3 times the size of the US. Relatively speaking, that puts the US at about 360% of China's CO2 production.
Nobody wants to cut back on emissions in any meaningful way because it will mean literal death for large numbers of people unable to be supported by non-oil-based agricultural methods
Your argument displays at least two logical fallacies. Firstly you imply that reductions in carbon emissions must necessarily involve an abandonment of fossil fuel use in agriculture. Emissions can be substantially reduced by living closer to where we work, by using more efficient transportation, and by designing our buildings more efficiently. This is an example of an all or nothing fallacy. Secondly, you implicitly misrepresent the views of more reasonable environmentalists, which is the strawman fallacy.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
He also misrepresents the entire process of modern agriculture - namely, none of the inputs are implicitly dependent on the active production of more CO2. All of them could be done more efficiently, or utilizing alternative power sources. Of course, he's also not covering the rather considerable issue that high-energy-driven intensive farming is doing a lot of long term damage to arable lands all over the world, and actively reducing their productive capacity. Changes to more sustainable farming methods would reduce the dependence of fertilizers and follow effects on marine ecosystems from run-off.
But there's no sense letting any of that get in the way of trying to co-opt global hunger as a perverse argument *against* doing anything about climate change.
I'm driving to Las Vegas from Virginia in March, and there are no electric cars that will do that in the timeframe my WRX will.
Waaaa. Waaaa. I'm entitled to luxuries that no one in the entire history of humanity had outside of the last 70 years. Waaaa.
The reality is our lifestyles are going to radically change over the next few decades. You might not like it, but, the physical realities of oil production and vehicle design being what they are, you'll just have to suck it up.
More trains over land, more ship travel over sea, less personal automotive and passenger flight. That's the reality we're heading towards. Get over yourself.