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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."

35 of 760 comments (clear)

  1. Phew... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thank goodness that "global warming" is bullshit.

    1. Re:Phew... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 5, Informative

      Note that the US, who in principle did not sign the Kyoto protocol, actually reduced emissions significantly (not just reduction in growth, but actual reduction) since 2007 due to the economic recession.

      So, we don't want to reduce carbon emissions because it will hurt our economy - but hurt the economy and emissions automatically reduce. Sounds like a vicious cycle that needs a technological exit strategy to me.

    2. Re:Phew... by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, nuclear is no longer "green". The public won't accept it. Instead, solar sails beaming microwaves to the ground.

    3. Re:Phew... by Muros · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Phew... by catchblue22 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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)
    5. Re:Phew... by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Phew... by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Informative

      Note that the US, who in principle did not sign the Kyoto protocol, actually reduced emissions significantly (not just reduction in growth, but actual reduction) since 2007 due to the economic recession.

      So, we don't want to reduce carbon emissions because it will hurt our economy - but hurt the economy and emissions automatically reduce. Sounds like a vicious cycle that needs a technological exit strategy to me.

      Either you are wrong or the article's graph sourced from the US department of energy is. It shows no significant reduction, only a slight dip before a continued upward trend.

    7. Re:Phew... by Candyban · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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, and it will also mean a reduction in the standard of living for everyone else.

      That is bullshit. Insulating your house increases your living standard and reduces costs (less heating/cooling required). How does that "kill" the economy? It should even allow for cheaper oil (less demand). If you can save money and get better comfort, how is this bad?

      Look at BMW and Mercedes. You think they compromised on power or comfort with their new line of fuel efficient cars? When you don't lose as much time at the gas station and reduce toxins how is this bad?

      Household appliances use less power. This means I can now use both the washer and dryer simultaneously on the same circuit without losing the circuit breaker. When you can do more with less. How is this bad?

      CPUs and other electronics use less power for the same amount of processing capacity in each generation. Higher efficiency means longer battery life, smaller/lighter components as less cooling is required, ...
      You think we would have smartphones and iPads if components were as energy efficient as they were in the 60s? 70s? 80s? 90s? 2000s (P4 anyone?)? When you can have things which could not exist before, how is this bad?

      I am not saying this is true for all branches of the economy, but get your head out of the sand.
      Recycling (= renewable resources) is an increasing branch in our economy and we could no longer live without as we simply do not have access to cheap resources and the same will be true for energy.
      A lot of our devices and habits are VERY inefficient. Every house wastes energy for generating heat (heating, cooking) and cooling (airco, fridge) at the same time. Increasing the efficiency means cutting back on costs and emissions while standards of living increases for everyone. Did you hear about passive houses? They use residual heat from appliances to heat the house.
      How great would it be if each building was self sufficient and would have "the grid" only as a fall-back option? How cool would it be if you could drive to the store on the cooking grease of the previous meal? How much better would it be if you did not need to drive to work at all (work from home)?

      We are now using resources which took millions of years to form. You think we can keep this pace for another 500 years? 300 years? 100 years (this may be in the lifetime of my daughter which is 3 years old now)? 50 years (this may still be in my lifetime)? Who are we to use up all the resources for our enjoyment now and leave nothing for future generations? Our current habits are UNSUSTAINABLE and HAVE to change.
      Either we make changes ourselves or something cataclysmic will happen before 2150. We are at a crossroad between the responsible and the irresponsible way. Changing habits (responsible) takes effort but could preserve prosperity. The irresponsible road leads to destruction.
      You remember the days when we had acid rain?
      You remember the days when the hole in the ozone layer was growing?
      You remember the days when nuclear waste was dumped in the oceans?

      Economies and standards of living today dependent too much on cheap energy and cheap credit. Both will crumble eventually. Better prepare yourself or get wiped out and as we saw with the credit crunch (credit went away briefly), it can happen VERY fast and incur irreparable damage.
      Energy efficiency (aka reduction in emissions) is essential to our way of life (short term < 70 years) and even survival (long term > 300 years).

    8. Re:Phew... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:Phew... by Skreems · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You've succeeded in a country rich in infrastructure and a well educated populace, both supported by public tax dollars. You can afford the fossil fuels necessary for such a trip in part because they are subsidized by further tax dollars, both in the form of direct subsidies and in military spending to guarantee us access to said resources. And you plan to take this drive on a public highway system which was built as part of one of the largest socialist economic stimulus projects in the history of the world. Congratulations. You're an asshole libertarian in the middle of a collective, and you've accomplished nothing on your own except being a giant self-deluded tool.

      --
      Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
      The Urban Hippie
  2. Re:Where's the beef? by mevets · · Score: 4, Funny

    Last summer some dolt tried to convince me it was 40C outside. I pointed to my drink, which was sitting on the table at a lovely 4C, as evidence it couldn't be that warm, or my drink would be warm too. He got all huffy and mumbled about ice-cubes moderating the temperature, but it was obvious he was just making that shit up.

    I finished my drink 5 minutes later, and it was cool and refreshing to the last drop.

  3. Re:Where's the beef? by Phleg · · Score: 5, Informative

    CO2 outpaces worst-case scenarios yet the heat doesn't show up.

    I can't tell if you're trolling, or if you're actually that fucking ignorant.

    Perhaps the computer models were wrong*. [* actually, computer models give you whatever result you want if you tweak them the right way, so they technically, they gave the 'right' results]

    Likewise, climate models are designed to simulate the physicsof the global ecosystem, and not just perform statistical regressions.

    Perhaps next time you might consider having the slightest fucking clue of what you're talking about before joining a discussion with adults?

    --
    No comment.
  4. Re:Where's the beef? by RichMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    > CO2 outpaces worst-case scenarios yet the heat doesn't show up.

    Heat lags CO2. Just like the middle of winter is not Dec 21 and the middle of summer is not June 21.
    The earth is warming up a little more each year. Please learn a little before making wrong headed statements.

    Adding heat to the oceans takes a long time. Think boiling water. Adding 1 or 2 degrees to the entire oceans takes an awful lot of energy accumulation. The heat we have added so far has just started to turn over the ocean currents.

  5. Re:Models are always right! by Afforess · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
  6. Re:Where's the beef? by jbolden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually that's not necessarily true. I don't know whether you remember your introductory differential equations class where you did basic modeling, but essentially a model starts with a few observations being converted into hypothesis. Not all facits of a model are explicitly known prior to generating the result data.

  7. Re:Where's the beef? by mbkennel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The people creating those models can be biased in their beliefs and in analysis of the data the models are based on."

    It's biased by things like the heat capacity of the ocean, for example.

    "The models don't indicate that there is supposed to be lag, the models were /programmed/ to /assume/ that there will be lag, that's how computer models work."

    The models are not arbitrary statistical models, they are models of known physics and observed facts of the world.

  8. Re:Where's the beef? by sermo-rationis · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the article, which was written in July 2010:

    Currently 1998 is the hottest year on record. Two combined land and sea surface temperature records from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC) both calculate that the first six months of 2010 were the hottest on record. According to GISS, four of the six months also individually showed record highs.

    At the time the article was written, the first six months of 2010 were hotter than the corresponding months in 1998. Unfortunately that trend continued, and this year NOAA announced that 2010 had tied with 2005 for the hottest year on record. (2005 was hotter than 1998; the guardian got that fact wrong).

    Source: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html

  9. Re:Where's the beef? by Phleg · · Score: 4, Funny

    maybe you should get a fucking clue, the article you link explicitly states that 1998 was the hottest year on record.

    It looks like you're in a discussion related to the climate. Would you like help?

    --
    No comment.
  10. Just like you never stop spreading FUD by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Still won't shut up skeptics.

    Yes, you'd love to silence all debate, wouldn't you?

    Real science welcomes skeptics, thanks for letting us know you'd rather side with a cult that brooks no disbelief, just waiting for the noodly tentacles of the Great Warming Spaghetti Monster to wrap us all in a suffocating layer of warmth.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Just like you never stop spreading FUD by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Real science welcomes skeptics

      Real science welcomes scientists. Intelligence, honesty, integrity, inquisitiveness, rigour, domain knowledge, logic are among the desirable aspects of scientists in addition to and more significant than scepticism. The so called global warming "sceptics" typically don't have any of those attributes.

      Define yourself by your "scepticism", and you're not a scientist, you're a fuckwit.

    2. Re:Just like you never stop spreading FUD by bussdriver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do not fall into the popular myth that all opinions (or skepticism) are equal. All opinions are not equal (nor are they facts as more American college students seem to think...)

      Real scientists have work to do and don't need to be wasting our time with every asshat armchair skeptic who believes whatever propaganda and conspiracy theory they happen to be listening (passively) to.

      Belief that the world's experts in a particular field of study; a "science" if you will, is not the same as believing in God or a Spaghetti Monster.

  11. What some people don't get by Dasher42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is that scientists, on average, are not crazed alarmists. They work in a field full of cut-throat peer review where the one who truly, verifiably disproves the most long-standing stuff gets the recognition and the spoils. Their language is conservative, a wide range of speculation must be admitted for consideration but they're going to err on the side of caution.

    There's nothing in nature short of a major mass extinction event to match what we're creating. I can't fathom why anyone's having kids. The kids we have already are truly screwed.

    1. Re:What some people don't get by Pyzaros · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is that scientists, on average, are not crazed alarmists. They work in a field full of cut-throat peer review where the one who truly, verifiably disproves the most long-standing stuff gets the recognition and the spoils. Their language is conservative, a wide range of speculation must be admitted for consideration but they're going to err on the side of caution.

      There's nothing in nature short of a major mass extinction event to match what we're creating. I can't fathom why anyone's having kids. The kids we have already are truly screwed.

      I'm guessing you're no scientist.

    2. Re:What some people don't get by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:What some people don't get by shadowofwind · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't fathom why anyone's having kids.

      Because we value life and intelligence, and if some of us don't have kids, there will be no more human life?

      The thought that intelligent, responsible people should know better than to reproduce implies that only unintelligent, irresponsible people should create the next generation. That's not exactly a recipe for success.

      There have always crisis in history, wars, famines, plagues, collapses of empires, but people continue on.

      A population collapse would add to the problems. The fact that some parts of the world are having more than enough kids doesn't offset the problem in more developed parts of the world. The US, as an example, would have a declining population without immigration. A wealthy, educated population can incorporate poor, uneducated immigrants, but can't well replace itself that way entirely.

      Yes, its kind of crazy that it took hundreds of millions of years for oil to accumulate in the earth, and people are set on burning it in a couple of hundred. A foolishness that people will suffer for, and unfortunately the people who suffer the most won't be the ones who contributed the most to the problem. But how rational is the thought that we should all just throw up our hands and commit suicide?

      Yes humanity is screwed up, and there's no excuse for it, to the extent that we're intelligent to know better. But if you think that humanity invented selfishness and misery, perhaps you should get out and study nature more.

  12. Re:Where's the beef? by cwebster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Models are always right! by ThePackager · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fear the data, denier: * every year since 1992 has been warmer than 1992; * the ten hottest years on record occurred in the last 15; * every year since 1976 has been warmer than 1976; * the 20 hottest years on record occurred in the last 25; * every year since 1956 has been warmer than 1956; and * every year since 1917 has been warmer than 1917. The two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses are the NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis and the CRU direct surface temperature analysis. Both trends are definitely and significantly up.

    --
    Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
  14. Re:Models are always right! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  15. Re:Where's the beef? by cwebster · · Score: 5, Informative

    > The models don't indicate that there is supposed to be lag, the models were /programmed/ to /assume/ that there will be lag

    What the models are programmed with are basic PDE's describing what we know about fluid motion, thermodynamics, mass continuity, etc. In this case there will also be code modeling the known interactions of the CO2 molecule with solar and terrestrial radiation. What the programmers are assuming (not programmers really, but the guys running the model) is how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere. The model equations will handle how a number concentration of CO2 ends up being a warming (radiative transfer would be a good class to have had for this), and the rest of your equation set will move that warming around the system.

    You should download some model code (lots of it is open source!) and look at it sometime. Convince yourself its just an iterative march to grind on some PDE's and not a collection of "if CO2, wait 2 years, then T+=4K" type things.

  16. Re:Where's the beef? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny

    Look pal, pseudo-skepticism only works if you blindly repeat Heartland Institute talking points. There is absolutely no room for actually knowing a fucking thing about AGW.

    Now get back in your Ferrari, you cock-smoking teabagging super-rich scientist with your big house and your ten 18 year old girlfriends and your seven digit bank account, and leave those poor wittle oil companies alone.

    Fucking climatological bully.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  17. NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to S by javaman235 · · Score: 4, Informative

    source:
    http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
    What's your source on say there has been no temperature increase in the last 10 years?

    --
    -The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
  18. Re:Models are always right! by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hansen's 1988 projections used a climate sensitivity of 4.2 C which wasn't an unreasonable value to use at the time. Current estimates put the value from 2 - 4.5 C with the value most likely around 3 C. Using a sensitivity of 3 C in Hansen's 1988 model would put his projections, particularly using Scenario B, more in line with what actually happened. At the bottom of this post they discuss Hansen's 1988 model in light of the data up to 2010 and here they give a more detailed discussion of Hansen's model specifically.

  19. Re:Models are always right! by BlueParrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not rocket science.

    Climate science is considerably more complex than rocket engines, ballistics, and even the fluid dynamics of re-entry. So I guess you are correct, it's not rocket science.

  20. Re:Models are always right! by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Informative

    CO2(ppm) Warming
    340 1K
    430 2K
    540 3K
    670 4K
    840 5K
    1000 6K
    2000 9K

    Note that there are massive error bars associated with the concentrations, and the scenarios are merely likely. It may take hundred of years to equilibrate to the new higher global average.
    Source

  21. Re:Hypocapnia means 'not enough CO2' by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Informative

    The practical implication of this piece is that every old person who has been prescribed oxygen by their doctor is also being poisoned.

    Since I'm a doctor I just had to chime in. Physicians are well aware of the toxicity of oxygen. Usually a young person can handle 100% pure oxygen with no problems for up to 24 hours, but after 24 hours the damage from free radicals starts, and it doesn't take much more than 24 hours before even a healthy person dies - ironically from asphyxiation - while breathing 100% oxygen.

    In the elderly it's a different story. Most elderly have a certain amount of lung damage - especially ex-smokers with COPD. While they have learned to live with this damage and their bodies have compensated (CO2 dissolves in blood to form bicarbonate, and not only the lung can dissipate CO2 but also the kidney can get rid of excess bicarbonate, making another CO2 "sink") for their poor lung function. As part of this compensation, the breathing regulatory mechanism is altered. There are two basic stimuli that tell the brain it's time to draw another breath - one receptor measures blood CO2 and another measures blood O2. The CO2 receptor is the most sensitive one and normal people are using this receptor all the time to work out when it's time to take the next breath. However in the elderly or other people with chronic lung problems, these people have gotten accustomed to high CO2 levels. The CO2 receptor no longer works - it's suppressed by the brain to prevent hyperventilation. So these people are dependent on the O2 receptor to tell them when O2 levels are getting low - then it's time to take another breath.

    What happens when you put one of these people on 100% oxygen is that the O2 receptor never fires because there is plenty of oxygen dissolved in the blood all the time, so they never get the signal to take another breath and they simply stop breathing. At this point CO2 levels build up to toxic levels faster than the O2 levels deplete because CO2 was almost at toxic levels anyway, and they go into a coma and die - suddenly and quietly. This is why a doctor always has to be careful when there are inexperienced nurses near elderly patients. A well intentioned nurse who sees an old man struggling for breath is likely to turn up the oxygen flow to "help him out", and in fact she ends up killing him. True story - and it has happened even in my hospital.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.