Climate Change

[Neil]

6 minutes ago, gizmoman said:

Quite possibly, I'm sure it can be done properly but that isn't happening in the link NI posted, they are cutting down "old-growth",

"Ecologist Michelle Connolly, from the British Columbia campaign group Conservation North, says making pellets from old forests can never be sustainable.

"Old-growth forests in British Columbia are almost gone because of 70 years of logging to feed sawmills and pulp mills, and Drax is helping push our remaining ones off the cliff, along with our native biodiversity," she says."

If we are to have green alternatives to existing energy sources we need to make sure they are properly green, not just scams designed to make people feel better.

Don't think this was a scam just a case of adapting existing knowledge to the climate problem. There's very few new ideas mostly it's adaptions of existing knowledge.

[5co77ie]

2 hours ago, kerplunk said:

Isn't that more about coal and trees, rather than oil and animals? Most of the coal was formed in the 'Carboniferous' I think

Yes I was simplifying but you’re right hence the name of the era. apologies to those who i misled into thinking that oil did come from the bodies of dinosaurs, but my point was back then things (including dinosaurs) didn’t rot / bacteria and shrooms are too new - “But when those trees died, the bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that today would have chewed the dead wood into smaller and smaller bits were missing, or as Ward and Kirschvink put it, they “were not yet present.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth

Edited February 28 by 5co77ie

[Neil]

Was the warmest and wettest February on record. Gonna be a swelshy Glastonbury this year.

[Nobody Interesting]

2024 off to a flier, beating all previous sea temperature records and El Nino peaked in Dec 2023............... so no real connection.

Edited March 11 by Nobody Interesting

[steviewevie]

40 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

2024 off to a flier, beating all previous sea temperature records and El Nino peaked in Dec 2023............... so no real connection.

yep, scorchio.

Not sure you can say El Nino isn't still a factor though.

 

[Nobody Interesting]

11 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yep, scorchio.

Not sure you can say El Nino isn't still a factor though.

 

Because that's what scientists say and it peaked 3 months ago and so any effect would be falling now - but temperatures are rising.
Also look at the 2015 El Nino which was stronger and yet had far less impact in global and sea temperatures.

[kerplunk]

The ONI index is a rolling 3 month index of sea surface temps  in a fairly small area in the pacific. The NDJ value was 2.0 and the DJF value was 1.8

It's not a good idea to over interpret every twitch in the global means vs ONI index. The data is lumpy and there are lags involved and also, as you can see from the graph, there is a seasonality to global mean SST - it usually peaks around now. That's what made that record breaking peak last august (which has now been surpassed) so remarkable - it was the 'wrong' time of year for record breaking sea temps. The reason global mean SST peaks around now is pretty straightforward - most of the ocean is in the southern hemisphere and it's the end of summer down there

I would agree though that El Nino alone can't explain the record breaking global obs eg the record warm north atlantic which isn't a characteristic of El Nino and was  notably warm already before EL Nino developed last year.

Edited March 11 by kerplunk

[steviewevie]

[Nobody Interesting]

Good old head in the sand Sunak already trying to gain Reform voters back by ignoring the obvious

"

The UK needs to build new, gas-fired power stations to ensure the country's energy security, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday.

The new stations would replace existing plants, many of which are aging and will soon be retired.

But the government says the plans do not include measures for climate change-limiting carbon capture.

That could threaten a legally binding commitment to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, critics say."

[steviewevie]

we're not ready

 

[Nobody Interesting]

48 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

we're not ready

 

That's what happens when government cares more about votes than the future

[steviewevie]

Policy Exchange - Decarbonising the Grid

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

Policy Exchange - Decarbonising the Grid

[Nobody Interesting]

3 hours ago, steviewevie said:

So whoever wrote this thinks doing stuff in the next 6 years will cost more than leaving it for the next 11 years.............

Cos inflation never puts up costs does it!

I have seen figures that show the difference will be a double cost in delaying.

All depends who writes the stuff and what their aim is in showing the numbers.

One thing is obvious, or ought to be, doing nothing will cost trillions as what we have will crumble and as this winter has shown will cost in lost work hours, rebuilding costs etc

Still, none of it will be done til 2045 at the earliest

[steviewevie]

I wish it would hurry up...bit sick of this prolonged winter.

[Nobody Interesting]

22 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I wish it would hurry up...bit sick of this prolonged winter.

You mean the warmest wettest winter on record? Just like predictions in the 1990's said we would see?

The winter where May flowering plants are already in bloom now in March?

[kerplunk]

Yes it's been a warm and wet winter and this is the expected trend

Not a record breaker though on either count

[Nobody Interesting]

This is from a forum on the BBC news site. I have seen others in other forums using the same 'facts', in fact some go as far as saying it does not matter if the Northern hemisphere removes all the trees as they make no difference!

These people walk among us and have the right to vote. What could possibly go wrong?

[steviewevie]

we're doomed etc

 

[gizmoman]

11 hours ago, Nobody Interesting said:

This is from a forum on the BBC news site. I have seen others in other forums using the same 'facts', in fact some go as far as saying it does not matter if the Northern hemisphere removes all the trees as they make no difference!

These people walk among us and have the right to vote. What could possibly go wrong?

Not sure where you have a problem with this, FH seems to be saying you can't replace the rainforest trees being cut down by planting trees in the north, he gives a rational explanation why, if the "northern" trees are not as efficient at absorbing CO2 then things will continue to get worse. Do you have a science based argument why he is wrong?

[Nobody Interesting]

12 hours ago, gizmoman said:

Not sure where you have a problem with this, FH seems to be saying you can't replace the rainforest trees being cut down by planting trees in the north, he gives a rational explanation why, if the "northern" trees are not as efficient at absorbing CO2 then things will continue to get worse. Do you have a science based argument why he is wrong?

 

I did also write "in fact some go as far as saying it does not matter if the Northern hemisphere removes all the trees as they make no difference"

and science based evidence is everywhere - trees take in CO2 and give off O2 regardless of where they are nor how long they are in leaf for, That is primary school level science.

He says clearly that those in the north do nothing for climate change - which is again so very wrong.

On this thread there are loads more comments from 'FH', here is another one. Do you agree with him on this?

Edited April 8 by Nobody Interesting

[kerplunk]

Clearly if you grow more trees increasing the biomass reservoir on land that will have removed some CO2 from the atmosphere.

 

How much of a dent in the 36 billion tons/yr of CO2 we're releasing from fossil fuels is possible that way is another matter though.

 

sidepoint - FH might be referring to the factoid that land covered in forest has a lower albedo than unforested land so that would offset some of the 'climate change' benefits from afforestation

 

Roughly half of our emissions are absorbed by the environment and that fraction seems to have remained constant so far.

 

The worry is that sinks will start to slow down (or sources speed up) making reduction efforts harder. A lot of research is going into understanding the intricacies of the carbon cycle at the moment.

Edited April 8 by kerplunk

[kerplunk]

ps why not link to sources of quotes so we can all enjoy the view instead of dripping screenshots out

[kerplunk]

All the biomass on earth in one graphic

 

https://nautil.us/all-the-biomass-on-earth-238368/

 

 

[gizmoman]

2 hours ago, Nobody Interesting said:

 

I did also write "in fact some go as far as saying it does not matter if the Northern hemisphere removes all the trees as they make no difference"

and science based evidence is everywhere - trees take in CO2 and give off O2 regardless of where they are nor how long they are in leaf for, That is primary school level science.

He says clearly that those in the north do nothing for climate change - which is again so very wrong.

On this thread there are loads more comments from 'FH', here is another one. Do you agree with him on this?

"I did also write "in fact some go as far as saying it does not matter if the Northern hemisphere removes all the trees as they make no difference""

 

 Yes you did but didn't actually link the quotes or who made them so it's hard to know exactly what the conversation was and the relevance, seems crazy on the face of it but quotes taken out of context are hard to judge.

 

 

"He says clearly that those in the north do nothing for climate change - which is again so very wrong."

 

He doesn't say it will do nothing, he says planting them won't "slow climate change" not the same thing, he presumably means if we keep on cutting down rainforest it won't have the effect hoped for, he may well believe we need to stop deforestation and begin replanting in the tropics, can't judge his position on a few selected quotes.

 

"On this thread there are loads more comments from 'FH', here is another one. Do you agree with him on this?"

 

A quick look at the globe would suggest the UK on it's own will have little effect due to the fact we are such a small area, so no, I don't agree it's zero but it may well be negligible in the overall picture. Again difficult to judge his position on selected quotes, you seem to have selected a few quotes to try to ridicule him, maybe he is a climate denier or maybe he is a realist who is sceptical of quick fixes that make us feel better but won't have the desired outcome, I've no idea, not seem enough of the conversation to judge.

 

Still not seen any science that compares the relative CO2 absorbing capabilities of tropical and temperate trees/areas  either so can't really tell how valid his argument is. But this is what we need, logical scientific analysis and debate, not trying to ridicule other views.