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Another Study Finds Earth's CO2 Emissions Have Flattened Over The Last Three Years (go.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Worldwide emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide have flattened out in the past three years, a new study showed Monday, raising hopes that the world is nearing a turning point in the fight against climate change. However, the authors of the study cautioned it's unclear whether the slowdown in CO2 emissions, mainly caused by declining coal use in China, is a permanent trend or a temporary blip...
The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year. That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed. "This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen."
Last week a study suggested earth's plant life is absorbing a greater percentage of global CO2 emissions -- although reductions in China could also be significant. According to the article, almost 30% of the world's carbon emissions come from China.
The study, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, says global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry is projected to grow by just 0.2 percent this year. That would mean emissions have leveled off at about 36 billion metric tons in the past three years even though the world economy has expanded, suggesting the historical bonds between economic gains and emissions growth may have been severed. "This could be the turning point we have hoped for," said David Ray, a professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved with the study. "To tackle climate change those bonds must be broken and here we have the first signs that they are at least starting to loosen."
Last week a study suggested earth's plant life is absorbing a greater percentage of global CO2 emissions -- although reductions in China could also be significant. According to the article, almost 30% of the world's carbon emissions come from China.
That the rate increase is going down isn't good enough, alas. That means it's still increasing. We need a reversal, with less CO2 pumped out than what is absorbed, and we're nowhere near that yet.
Still, it's a good first sign, but we're still getting worse, not better.
A big factor is of course the cost of solar and wind, which are now already cheaper than coal and oil, even without subsidies.
http://www.climatecentral.org/... contains the graph
http://assets.climatecentral.o...
This shows the rise in the CO2 level in the atmosphere over the last 5 years.
For over a year now, it's been over 400ppm, and the rise in 2015-16, over the same period the year before has been the largest this past year than any time in the last five years.
... fixing a problem that may not exist.
Let's figure out why our models keep failing, then rewire our economy, k?
Indeed, the graph is not flat, its rising.
But this study is really the first shot by the oil industry against the Paris climate agreement. It's the coming Donald Trump war on science previewed.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
Last year broke the record with a growth rate over 3PPM / Year. Looking at this years monthly data, in 2016 we're on track to smash last year's record with somewhere around 3.5PPM / Year. Every year this decade has been at or above the average for previous decade. Rather than a levelling off, the data looks like continual growth.
Confused as to how any report can be claiming a "levelling off". Mauna Loa is seen as the de-facto standard for global CO2 levels as it's in the middle of the pacific and therefore isolated from localised effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Loa_Observatory
Plus ca change plus quand meme
Another Study Finds Earth's CO2 Emissions Have Flattened Over The Last Three Years
I just heard that President Elect by popular vote, Donald Trump has pledged to fix this problem so you can all breathe easier now. The president is hard at work assembling a crack task force from among the ranks of Big Oil and Big Coal to bring CO2 emissions growth back on track.
because CO2.
Mission accomplished!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They're not comparing the same thing (human emissions versus atmospheric levels).
There must be a threshold of stupidity in discussios where the only way forward is Ad Hominem.
You, Sir, are an idiot.
I've read one estimate where the global, yearly CO2 generation is 800Gt (Giga tons). Human actions account to 30Gt (~4 % ). I'm not denying that humans generating CO2 affects nothing, but if these figures are even on the right ballpark, then there is huge overreaction when it comes to CO2 emissions.
Ie. If dropping 10% of all human Co2 generation is actually 0.4% drop in total, that's hardly noticiable.
This is slashdot. Nobody cares if CO2 output flattens, because CO2 doesn't do anything in the atmosphere. Also, the devil planted fossils to make you question the bible.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
and these are the articles we see... how convenient.
Note that the (near) flat line is only for fossil-fuel derived CO2: not all human produced CO2, and certainly not all Earth produced !!
Just in time for Trump, who wants to eliminate the EPA completely, and put the money in the pockets of his Republican buddies.
even the climate is voting for Trump...
almost 30% of the world's carbon emissions come from China.
Nope.
Human activity only accounts for a bit over 3% of the CO2 in the world.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Who says the ideal CO2 level is lower than it currently is? There are many benefits to increased CO2. More rapid plant growth. Arable land reaching the higher latitudes. CO2 is a life giving gas. Trump 2016!
That's more or less the amount of CO2 - one of the key "greenhouse gases" blamed for global warming - produced by the average American in a full year, according to World Bank data.
Fast results! With TPP and Obamacare dead in the water, and the swamp being drained away, C02 and methane emissions from DC are going down quickly. That swamp is going to be so dry, so dry.
TRUMP 2020!!!
Do not buy yourself or anyone else a single Christmas present. Toys for tots thats it.
No thanks to:
Canada
USA
Qatar
UAE
Australia
and other polluters of the world.
Thanks to the EU for making efforts and to poor countries too poor to pollute.
We're talking about the *net CO2 increase*. Human activity is responsible for more than 100% of that.
OK... I didn't bother to read the study or even read the article but the first questions that pop into my head are:
-- who did the study?
-- who sponsored the study?
It's kinda curious that this comes out right on the heals of the current US election (or was that a debacle?).
--
Steve
Which is almost as dumb as knowing the rules of the American electoral process, which have been in place for literally centuries, and then complaining when they don't like the results.
Last week a study suggested earth's plant life is absorbing a greater percentage of global CO2 emissions -- although reductions in China could also be significant.
That sentence seems to confuse two different phenomena. This story is about emissions - how much we emit. The previous story is about the airborne fraction - how much of what we emit stays in the atmosphere vs. being absorbed by plants or the ocean.
The green line here shows the trend in atmospheric CO2: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...
It's too early to celebrate because the data really doesn't show this purported downturn yet. Here's the measured carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the last five years:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c...
And the full record:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c...
If there's a recent downturn, I can't see it.
(A different link graphing the same data: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/progr... )
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This isn't what we want to hear. This greatly conflicts with our goal of radically forcing a change to touchy-feely types of energy and telling others what they have to do. Lets ignore it, just like we've ignored the likely-hood of the next coming ice age that global warming has been protecting us from.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
There are both stretching and bending modes. There are also a lot of rotational modes, but these tend to be longer wavelength.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The models are not overpredicting warming; that's a denier talking point, but it is not based on actual data.
Right at the moment, the measured warming is very close to what the models predict; well within quoted error bars.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The models are all closed so you can't really inspect what they attribute to what.
Huh? The main global circulation models are all available. You can look them up on the internet. And even run them yourself, if you have access to a supercomputer-- dozens of universities do this.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There are some tires that need burning and I've been putting this off for years.
The models are indeed failing. Just because the earth is warming don't mean the models are right.
The data is:
1. The Earth is warming
2. The warming rate fits the models to within the quoted error bars.
3. The warming rate does not fit the null-hypothesis ("anthropogenic gasses have no effect on global climate.")
This is how science is done: the null hypothesis is rejected. If you wish to say "the models aren't right", what you need to do is find a different model which fits the data, and is not already ruled out by other known facts (like, for example, if your model is "the sun is increasing in output," you need to explain why the satellite measurements of solar output aren't showing this purported increase.)
If you were really understanding of science you'd not make such a stupid statement
I have a pretty good understanding of science. This is the way science is done: sequentially improving models, and ruling out previous models when they are falsified by data. Right now, the consensus is that greenhouse gasses are causing warming. This consensus exists because the null hypothesis is strongly ruled out. The consensus will change if newer measurements rule out the current model, or if a new model is found that fits the data better.
But right now, the model we have seems to be pretty robust.
and if you were really that aware of GW concerns you'd know that models are being dismissed left and right.
Only by people who don't seem to know anything about either the models or about the data.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Some studies say dog shit smells good.
We're talking about the *net CO2 increase*. Human activity is responsible for more than 100% of that.
For sure, everybody know that magic fairies sort out the 801 Gigatons of CO2 from natural sources and puts them in a separate bin so Gaia's green goodness can digest it, but totally reject the 30 Gigatons of nasty anthropogenic CO2!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
World population continues to grow exponentially. Therefore, to maintain the current CO_2 level indefinitely requires either reducing per capita CO_2 emissions exponentially which is unlikely to happen without drastic reductions in standard of living in the industrial world, or making sure the rest of the world can't improve their standard of living.
It's fashionable to pretend that it was all based on bloodlust but for those of us who were alive at the time, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. The decision was made with the best information at the time and in retrospect it was a mistake.
I was alive at the time, and it was a transparently stupid thing to do. It never looked like the right thing to do, and it was obvious before we even went in that it would spiral out of control. The administration sold it on lies and misinformation, and a lot of people bought it.
It's transparently stupid to declare anything as the obvious 'best' answer to Saddam era Iraq.
Saddam's attempted genocide of the Kurdish people in his Al-Anfal campaign through the use of chemical weapons, massacres of villages with conventional weapons, concentration camps for the captured, mass graves for the captured males old enough to bear arms, and systematic rape of the women. The rape wasn't about punishment or intimidation but an attempt to impregnate the victims with half-Arab children and effectively breed the Kurds out of existence. The campaign is documented extensively as any really good genocide needs to be administered well to make sure it's thorough. Unfortunately for Saddam, plane loads of said records were captured in the first gulf war.
Saddam left over a million dead in his war with Iran in which he again made absolutely extensive use of chemical and biological weapons.
Saddam again tried to conquer a neighbour, this time seizing all of Kuwait, effectively reducing the number of existing UN member nations by 1.
Saddam then waged another genocide, this time against Shia Iraqi's leaving hundreds of thousands dead.
Saddam no longer rules Iraq and is now dead. That's not nothing and to say it's transparently obvious an Iraq under his rule would be a better world today is an insult to his victims.
Fallacy of the included middle. Or is that muddle?
No war started by, as you admit, a bunch of morons, is ever a good idea.
Temperatures continue to rise...
I'm in Toronto, Canada and today in the middle of November it's 13C/55F outside right now! We have had a total of 1 day so far this fall where the temperature has approached freezing. It's very strange and it can't be a good sign for the long term.
Eccoing parent; summary is misleading at best. The rate of CO2 increase has stopped increasing. In other words, the CO2 is increasing at the highest rate it ever has, it's just that now the second derivative is 0. That means it's a linear increase, not exponential. We need the overall slope of CO2 concentration vs time to become 0 or negative in order to mitigate the damaging effects of greenhouse effect.
How about the numerous reports indicating that the CIAs reports were completely wrong.
They had a single expatriate source that had serious credibility problems bit the directive was go at all costs. So it was ignored.
Cheney would go on talk shows claiming that leaks in the media confirmed the Govs position. When the Gov had been the original leaker.
I believe one of the most prominent voices you are talking about is former Iraqi weapons inspector Scott Ritter. He very vehemently opposed the Iraq invasion and has been on of the leading voices in discussing how awful the intelligence was and obvious it was before hand that there were no WMD's in Iraq.
Regrettably for him and other revisionists his comments and those like him sang a different tune before the war. Ritter was quoted shortly before the war cautioning against it because Saddam would use his WMD's to defend Baghdad. This was a commonly made argument against the war, where if Saddam has nothing to lose, we can be sure he will deploy his chemical weapon arsenal:
As I testified to the U.S. Senate in 1998, Iraq has the indigenous capability right now to reconstitute a chemical weapons program within a matter of weeks. And my concern is if we continue to push for military action against Iraq, and once the writing becomes clear on the wall -- and believe me, if Saddam Hussein doesn't understand that President Bush is dead serious about going to war against him now, I don't know when he'll be -- when he'll recognize that. But at some point, I believe that Iraq will seek to reconstitute militarized nerve agent that will be used in defense of Baghdad. And I think the Iraqi government's efforts to acquire significant stockpiles of atropine are an indication that this is the direction that Saddam Hussein is heading.
Was it worth 5000 dead soldiers to prevent that for-sure? I dunno, whadda you think?
You seem to be forgetting the ~1 million civilian dead.
Okay, it's hard to estimate, I'll give you 500k. And helping ISIS grow in the subsequent power vacuum. And some torture.
What is the exchange rate of American lives to everyone else's lives?
How many dead from Saddam's war against Iran? How about his genocide of the Kurds? How about his war against Kuwait? How about his genocide of the Shia Iraqis? How many people did Saddam kill beyond that just for suspicions of disloyalty in his decades of rule?
If you can't already answer those questions you can't pretend to appreciate the cost of inaction on Saddam's regime. You think ISIS didn't equally find it's roots from the brutal dictatorships of guys like Saddam and Assad? Do you honestly believe that prior to Saddam's removal by American forces the region was free of sectarian hatred, violence and massacres? Step 1 through 20 of dictator class is divide and conquer, and Assad and Saddam made an extreme practice of deliberately fomenting and encouraging sectarian hatreds to make it all the easier to divide and conquer those under them.
But yeah, the troubles in Iraq and Syria today are all the result of American intervention and nothing else...
So now that the libs are losing control of the highest offices it turns out that the AGW apocalypse might not happen after all... Gee, what a coincidence!
Say, you don't suppose that the whole thing was nothing but a bullshit excuse for more power grabs and a push toward outright communism and totalitarian regimes in the West do you? The very idea of it! Why, if I ever heard anyone say such racist, misogynistic, homophobic, bigoted things in my presence I might just report them to the thought police! After all, the science on the matter is settled!
In the past, we've been adding more CO2, each year-on-year, than in each previous year.
Now, we have three consecutive years where we are adding the same amount, not more than each previous year.
Total atmospheric CO2 is still increasing, but the increase has stopped being a curve and is currently a straight line.
In the past, we've been adding more CO2, each year-on-year, than in each previous year. Now, we have three consecutive years where we are adding the same amount, not more than each previous year. Total atmospheric CO2 is still increasing, but the increase has stopped being a curve and is currently a straight line.
That may be true, but you sure can't see it in the data yet.
I trust the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. I don't trust the estimates of how much fossil fuel was used worldwide, particularly since the main part of the proposed decrease is in Chinese emissions, of which the reference cited says "Chinese emissions were down 0.7 percent in 2015 and are projected to fall 0.5 percent in 2016, the researchers said, though noting that Chinese energy statistics have been plagued by inconsistencies."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The headline says that the rate of CO2 emission is unchanged over the past three years. However, that only means that our rate of pollution has been constant over the past three years. This does not mean that the CO2 level is flat. In order for the CO2 level to decrease, the CO2 emission rate must fall to below the amount that the environment (etc) can absorb/process.
The article seems to confuse or mislead as well, muddying the difference between CO2 level and CO2 emission rate.
Exactly.
It's like saying my cigarette consumption has leveled off at 10 packs a day.
Since the article is so focused on the 'rate of emissions has leveled off' aspect, I wouldn't be surprised that the current level of emissions is the highest level that humans have ever produced.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Always examine what these 'reports' are not telling you.
My link points to research from 2014, your clueless or trolling answer to studies of which the newest is from 2010. And it is you who told me to "keep up". This site is becoming hopeless.
I see claims for this on both sides of the argument. Where can I find temperature data output from a model in the past in comparison to actual temperature data as recorded since that model was run?
I've been graphing it myself. What you need is the climate sensitivity out of the model-- this will be in units of degrees C per doubling. The prediction is that the delta-T equals the sensitivity times the Log_(base2) of the carbon dioxide currently divided by the carbon dioxide at the reference year. You can find carbon dioxide levels in the Mauna Loa dataset, here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c... and you can find temperatures in whichever source you like, such as Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST), or the NASA GISS data. This site has list of different sources of data, with a link to the BEST: https://climatedataguide.ucar....
The older the prediction, the longer a run of years you can compare predictions to reality, of course. The 1979 National Academy of Sciences report "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment" is a good place one; it has error bars on the prediction: 3 C, plus or minus 1.5 C (per doubling): https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12... The prediction hasn't actually changed much since then though, so that's a good one to pick in that it's representative of pretty much all the later models
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First, if the data are correct, CO2 emissions are slowing. We already have significant climate change, so emissions would have to be decreasing to be good news. This is like your doctor saying, "Your cancer is spreading more slowly than formerly." Would that make you happy?
Second, the new US president is a climate change denier, and he despises all environmental regulation. Witness the role that Myron Ebell currently fills in the new administration. I would not be surprised to see him dismantle the US's environmental protections with haste. Although manufacturing in the US has greatly declined over the last few decades, you should expect what remains to be given a free hand to pollute. While this would not have the impact that an industrial nation on the level of China would, it will still have a devastating effect.
Ordinarily, I would not care what self-destruction the US chooses to inflict on itself, but climate change affects me and the succeeding generations of my family directly. Next time you decide to burn down your house, please, try to keep in mind your fire can spread to other people's houses.
Your nom de plume is well chosen, Obfuscant, since obfuscating seems to be what you are interested in doing. I'm not sure why. Is there some point in your deliberate obfuscation?
Correct. We have reasonable measurements.
The way science is done is that you propose a hypothesis, and compare it against observations. "I think that there's maybe some other factor causing temperature rise, I don't know what it is" is not science. If you want to attribute the temperature rise to another cause, identify that cause. If you can't reject the hypothesis because you didn't ever frame a hypothesis-- it really isn't science.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I'm not sure why. Is there some point in your deliberate obfuscation?
I am attempting to clarify your incorrect representation of what "science" is. That is not obfuscating, it is the opposite. And you're now resorting to name games.
The way science is done is that you propose a hypothesis, and compare it against observations.
You cannot use random observations, you need to design your experiments carefully to rule out extraneous causes. And to rule out correlation you need to have a control for any experiment you conduct. It is not science to say "I cannot account for this variable so it must be the cause".
If you want to attribute the temperature rise to another cause, identify that cause.
Stop it. I am not trying to attribute anything to anything. You reached the end of what I wrote and kept reading things I didn't say, and now you keep demanding I identify causes.
All I am saying is that science, in this case, is missing the necessary control experiment that allows true proof, so it is not the true scientific method. You cannot disprove the null hypothesis (which is not actually what you claimed it was based on what measurements we are taking) without a control experiment.
If you can't reject the hypothesis because you didn't ever frame a hypothesis-- it really isn't science.
And you cannot reject the null hypothesis without doing the experiment, so that, too, isn't really science when you say you have such proof.
It is the best we can do without the ability to actually have a control, so the best we can say is that the answer is probably right, it is likely to be right. The "consensus" says ... isn't science, it's voting on the truth.
Do you get it now?
You're the one who chose the name obfuscant. It is appropriate. You are trying to deliberately obfuscate. I assume you like it.
Many sciences are observational. Despite that, they are still sciences.
Bye.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Well maybe denialists want some fake celebration.
This may mean that funding for climate research may dry up. Such a tragedy for the wonderful people who have foisted this religious belief on a gullible society.
There are those such as Trump and Limbaugh who think that nothing is more important that making money and keeping the wheels of industry turning, thus denying all inconvenient truths, but it's more than about Climate Change. For decades we have been buying petroleum from Middle East, despots who use our money to finance wars and terrorism based on corrupted religious idealism, and to feed their insatiable lust for self-importance. Saudi Arabia is the worst. Recently they executed 47 pprisoners in a single day, many of whom were "guilty" of things that are not even crimes elsewhere, such as homosexuality, adultery, "apostacy" (challenging the official religious line), or criticizing the ruling heads of, state. Many of those prisoners were decapitated, a most barbaric of punishments. The U.S. and other countries that have relied on OPEC oil for what they see as a "necessity" are afraid to condemn the Saudis for such human rights abuses, despite the fact Cuba suffered a US embargo for half a century for supposed human rights abuses which never approached the ugly extremes of the Saudis, but the Cubans, of course, did not have anything the US considered as crucial--- oil. There is great irony here in that the Saudis themselves do not consider oil so indispensable, since the price of solar power has continually dropped for 60 years now so that PV (photovoltaics) is now cheaper than any fossil fuels--- coal, oil, natural gas, even nuclear. For three years now, Saudi Arabia has been installing thousands of acres of PV, which is the soundest of wakeup calls: if the country with the world's cheapest fossil fuels finds PV preferable and cheaper, it is a sure sign we should all be cutting ties not only with fossil fuels, but OPEC. Tesla Motors has shown that all bases can be covered with renewable resources: clean, attractive PV roof tiles that are no longer ugly eyesores but indistinguishable from traditional roof tiles, feeding Powerwall battery storage units that can not only provide all electricity, heating, and cooling needs for the house but also charge the family's electric vehicles... taking them completely off of the grid, except to sell energy back to the utility company. The Climate Deniers no longer have any excuses. Renewable resources can handle all of our energy needs, and in, doing so, hundreds of billions of dollars that would otherwise go to OPEC remains here at home where it can be used for much more durable ends: schools, universities, hospitals and health care, roads and bridges and other infrastructure. As important as Climate Science is to our future, Climate Deniers no longer have any excuses for attacking the use of renewables, especially PV. Solar is the only sensible way to power our lives now, and we do not need the legitimate reason that fossil fuels are killing us--- renewables are more affordable, regardless.
Planting trees would help. So would sequestering paper in landfills rather than recycling it. And it's easier to not recycle than it is to recycle, so this seems an underappreciated approach. (Too bad recycling is more of a religious act in so many minds, rather than an ethical or pragmatic one.)
Sprinkling iron oxide and/or other nutrients in the ocean to encourage photosynthesis is another promising approach that has spawned "religious" objections.
Whatever happened to OTEC? The "waste" cold seawater was claimed to be chock-full of nutrients. Generate electricity while making nutrients more accessible sounds like a win-win. And it's of a (more) natural origin, which could reduce the "religious" objections. Or so an optimist might think.
Maybe that would be more nutrition than the local ecosystem could handle. In that case, don't dump it in the ocean directly. Use it to grow algae (or algae and what, indirectly, eats algae) first, then harvest the fish or crabs or lobsters or whatever, then dump the nutrient-depleted seawater in the ocean.
Sounds expensive to set up, with no certainty of payoff. I may have just answered my own question. Or so a pessimist might think.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.