2014 officially warmest year in scientific records

[Irbis]

Confirmed so far by observatories in France, UK, Germany, Poland and Sweden, as compared with notes going back to XVII century. See "raw data" sceptics demand so often:



Or simpler, to the point graph from Met Office, UK:



I wanted to write some snarky comment about GNP-first, less-regulation-slash-taxes-for-rich drones but frankly, why bother anymore.

[madd0ct0r]

well, time to find a way to get paid to fix this.

[Purple]

well, time to find a way to get paid to fix this.

Or to deny this. That's probably profitable as well and likely far easier.

[Jub]

well, time to find a way to get paid to fix this.

Or to deny this. That's probably profitable as well and likely far easier.

Bonus points if you can get a new age spin on things and sell some magic beads along with the smug satisfaction of deluded denial.

[Purple]

well, time to find a way to get paid to fix this.

Or to deny this. That's probably profitable as well and likely far easier.

Bonus points if you can get a new age spin on things and sell some magic beads along with the smug satisfaction of deluded denial.

Not magic beads, magic SEEDS. Or rather ACORNS. Picture it.
Global warming is real! It is a threat! But fear not, for the scientist doomsayers have not won yet!
Conventional science would have us think that the earth is doomed and that we all must make the choice between certain death or giving our comfortable lives up in favor of a liberto-communist distopia of deprivation. But they all have forgotten one thing. TREES!

Yes, TREES. TREES are natural recycling machines created by GOD for the purpose of cleaning up our air of all harmful pollutants. And if every one of you plants ONE just ONE tree each the earth shall be saved. Our scientists have developed an extra special breed of pine specifically designed for SUPERIOR CLEANSING ACTION. Grown in our gardens those trees will purify the air and offset any and all environmental damage those doomsaying liberto-communist scientists want you to feel guilty for.

So send us your money and for just one simple payment of $999.99 we shall send you an ultra special acorn. Plant this acorn in your garden or park and it will grow to become a SUPER TREE. Order yours today.

*If your tree does not take do not despair. Supertrees might take decades to emerge from their seeds. Be patient.*

[madd0ct0r]

There is a form of carnon capture and sequestering based around ttrees or other biomass, so you are pretty close to the mark there purple

[Irbis]

Except that won't work. Like, at all:

http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/arti ... -myth.html

Well, unless you want to chop up and bury (to not release carbon) enough woods to cover European Union. Every year. For next 240 years. While reducing emissions.

[Simon_Jester]

There are quite a few environmental reasons to want people planting trees, but yeah, if we want to try and counteract global warming we're going to have to get weirder than this. I favor iron fertilization; diatoms are fun!

[madd0ct0r]

nah Irbis, not as simple as just planting trees.

Something like fast rotation coppicing with a legume, collect the wood, turn it into charcoal using modern pyrolisis and use the liquids and gases only for fuels. The char is pretty stable, and can be buried into the ground for sequestering.

something I'd previously calculated:

leaves and underbrush still count as biomass made by photosynthesis, so they're still working within the 2% limit.
UK incident sunlight ~ 100 Watts/meter squared. UK area = 243,610 square kilometres of which: * Arable land: 25% * Permanent crops: 0% * Permanent pastures: 46% * Forests and Woodland: 10% * Other: 19%
Let's ignore the other section (mostly mountain), and say we have 81% of the area to use. = 197324.1 square km 100 W/m2 = 876kWh /m2 /yr = 172856 TWh /yr for the entire country.
Assume a good photosynthesis efficiency of 2%, so we have 3457 TWh /yr of energy to play with. We're not eating any of it, we're not feeding any of it to livestock, this is the real upper limit of what the UK can produce. It'd be something like coppiced willow, since plowing the land would release much of the sequestered biochar back into the enviroment.
Modern pyrolysis will typically split the input energy as 35% liquid, 35% gas, 22% char and 8% waste (lost heat and ash). We'll assume we are going to bury all the char as carbon sequestration. We'll also ignore all of the energy used in collecting and transporting the biofuels and char around.
We have 70% on the pyrolysis input energy as gas and oil equivalents = 2420 Twh /yr The DECC model suggests 2010 UK primary energy demand (the stuff that goes into powerplants and cars ect) was 2580 Twh/yr.
Now, we can get that down with efficiency measures and behaviour change. We're also sequestering a lot of biochar, giving us some breathing space if we aim for just carbon neutral instead of carbon negative. BUT it'd be very tight, and we'd have to import all our food, meaning a carbon cost there too. Tropical countries may do better. It's a very interesting angle to explore.

[Irbis]

Have you ever held a brick of biochar? It's very light. Compared to dense fuels like anthracite and heavy oils it's easily 4 to 10 times the volume. Now, top soil has limited capacity, and unless we want to chop/plough all forests, wetlands, hills, etc natural lands, we're limited to putting it in farmlands.

Somehow, I am kind of sceptical of amount of biochar that can be put into arable land, especially compared to fossil fuel output we have today. Doubly so because like you said production, distribution, and burying all that biochar everywhere will release yet more CO2.

Also, I like how your very optimistic calculation with good efficiencies unassuming no losses, all lands in UK converted to biochar, and small little detail of humans eating air still can't even keep up with current energy production. Though, it has merits, if we starve everyone to death CO2 emissions will fall pretty fast to pretty small amount

[madd0ct0r]

Yup, I've gone as far as building a test char dust production burner years ago. It didn't work

I don't think biochar has a cat's chance in hell of allowing us to keep the same lifestlye as current. I do think it is the least unrealible of the CCS technologies available (although I do like Simon's algae, I just haven't sat down and run the numbers there yet. Data for oceanic biofuel production was almost non-existent last time I looked). It'll give us a little breathing space for those espcially hard to decarbonise elements, like aviation.

[Irbis]

I don't think biochar has a cat's chance in hell of allowing us to keep the same lifestlye as current. I do think it is the least unrealible of the CCS technologies available

Oh, yes, it's reliable, but even at maximum funding and effort it buys us 1-2 years at most and then it's back to drawing board.

(although I do like Simon's algae, I just haven't sat down and run the numbers there yet. Data for oceanic biofuel production was almost non-existent last time I looked).

Any form of reusing carbon has the same problem as burying trees - doesn't change the amount of active carbon pool unless we bury the output somewhere somehow. I also posted about biobuthanol producing bacteria - but these, like algae, are just burying the head in sand and pretending minuscule addition of solar power in both makes any noticeable difference while enabling and strengthening fossil fuel burning energy ecosystem. Instead of making sweeping change, like pushing to eliminate combustion engines as much as possible, as we did with say tetraethyllead.

[madd0ct0r]

Ahh, two/three types of algae conflated there.

1) is using the co2 off smokestacks to feed alage ponds which in turn are dried and used as fuel in the power plant
2) is as above, but using GM algae to produce liquid biofuels that can be skimmed off the top.
3) is seeding areas of ocean with minuscule parts of iron, prompting algae blooms. These grow, die and sink, carrying the carbon into the deep ocean and out of the active cycle.

[Irbis]

1) is using the co2 off smokestacks to feed alage ponds which in turn are dried and used as fuel in the power plant
2) is as above, but using GM algae to produce liquid biofuels that can be skimmed off the top.

I don't think either removes any carbon from the pool, just turns some fuel from mined to grown one.

3) is seeding areas of ocean with minuscule parts of iron, prompting algae blooms. These grow, die and sink, carrying the carbon into the deep ocean and out of the active cycle.

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't algae blooms and their death and subsequent decay deplete water of all free oxygen killing everything breathing? And wouldn't they also sink with not only carbon, but also a lot of essential nutrients making rebound even more difficult?

And that with optimistic assumption deep water organisms that are IIRC reliant on precisely such fall from above for food won't consume them and release CO2 back to the sea.

[madd0ct0r]

correct and correct

and correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_%28ecology%29

It's not an easy problem

[Irbis]

Eh, from what I read quick artificial blooms would be even worse than "just" dead zones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_snot

But then again, we will have that problem with warming seas anyway so there's that

[Simon_Jester]

Have you ever held a brick of biochar? It's very light. Compared to dense fuels like anthracite and heavy oils it's easily 4 to 10 times the volume. Now, top soil has limited capacity, and unless we want to chop/plough all forests, wetlands, hills, etc natural lands, we're limited to putting it in farmlands.

Somehow, I am kind of sceptical of amount of biochar that can be put into arable land, especially compared to fossil fuel output we have today. Doubly so because like you said production, distribution, and burying all that biochar everywhere will release yet more CO2.

Is there anything in the rules that says we can't dump it into the ocean, or into barren terrain like an abandoned quarry and just cover it over? Would that not sequester the carbon?

(although I do like Simon's algae, I just haven't sat down and run the numbers there yet. Data for oceanic biofuel production was almost non-existent last time I looked).

Any form of reusing carbon has the same problem as burying trees - doesn't change the amount of active carbon pool unless we bury the output somewhere somehow...

You dump the iron in silica-rich water. The resulting carbon is sequestered in the form of diatoms. The diatoms then sink, and the carbon is pretty effectively buried on the ocean floor.

I also posted about biobuthanol producing bacteria - but these, like algae, are just burying the head in sand and pretending minuscule addition of solar power in both makes any noticeable difference while enabling and strengthening fossil fuel burning energy ecosystem.

Well, if you don't care about picking solutions people might actually try, you can call for eliminating combustion all you want. As it stands, the immense difficulty of getting people to stop burning coal and gasoline means that realistically, if that's your only strategy for solving the problem, you have no strategy for solving the problem.

At which point mitigating the damage by reducing the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide sounds pretty good.

Instead of making sweeping change, like pushing to eliminate combustion engines as much as possible, as we did with say tetraethyllead.

Eliminating leaded gasoline is not at all like eliminating combustion engines altogether. TEL was a gasoline additive, that increased fuel efficiency and made an already useful tool more useful. It could be replaced easily and economically with other methods of improving fuel efficiency, by the time anyone was trying to ban it. It was a case of convincing people to substitute apples for oranges after oranges turned out to be dangerous.

There is no substitute for gasoline, natural gas, fuel oil, and coal that is as economical as any of those. It is not a case of convincing people to substitute apples for oranges; it is a case of convincing people to substitute gold for copper.

Progress is, nonetheless, being made. But if your only strategy is to demand that people adopt far more expensive and less capable alternatives, and that they completely ban the old, cheap, effective, polluting alternative... Well. Again, if that's your only strategy, you have no strategy.

1) is using the co2 off smokestacks to feed alage ponds which in turn are dried and used as fuel in the power plant
2) is as above, but using GM algae to produce liquid biofuels that can be skimmed off the top.

I don't think either removes any carbon from the pool, just turns some fuel from mined to grown one.

Which still reduces the rate at which (presently) sequestered carbon is being pushed back into the carbon cycle, reducing the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

This is an important goal in its own right.

3) is seeding areas of ocean with minuscule parts of iron, prompting algae blooms. These grow, die and sink, carrying the carbon into the deep ocean and out of the active cycle.

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't algae blooms and their death and subsequent decay deplete water of all free oxygen killing everything breathing? And wouldn't they also sink with not only carbon, but also a lot of essential nutrients making rebound even more difficult?

Depends on the algae. Some classes of algae are going to poison other sea life. Others aren't.

Also, the sea areas proposed for doing this are in many cases the same ones that are already 'dead zones' due to a lack of suitable nutrients and a dearth of marine microorganisms. You can't kill what isn't there.

And that with optimistic assumption deep water organisms that are IIRC reliant on precisely such fall from above for food won't consume them and release CO2 back to the sea.

This has been studied. Some of the carbon is rereleased; other carbon stays down there for many millenia.

How do you think all those oil deposits got there in the first place? Organic carbon sank to the sea floor, and didn't come back up. Anything we can do to catalyze that process such that it soaks up carbon from the atmosphere and sinks it is to our advantage.

[cmdrjones]

Does this have any bearing on the debate?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/e ... -data.html

[madd0ct0r]

If you're going to post that idiots shit at least use the latest article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/1142 ... -data.html

[The Romulan Republic]

Interesting, and perhaps it will be useful for refuting the ideas of those who deny climate change. However, a link in the OP would be nice.

[Zeropoint]

Diamonds. We need to start making absolute ****-tons of synthetic diamonds, and then . . . I dunno, bury them or dump them in the ocean or something. Maybe let people come and get bags of them at the drop-off point for kindergarten projects or something.

[Enigma]

Diamonds. We need to start making absolute ****-tons of synthetic diamonds, and then . . . I dunno, bury them or dump them in the ocean or something. Maybe let people come and get bags of them at the drop-off point for kindergarten projects or something.

Not kindergarten. Last thing you need is for little kids to potentially swallow diamonds.

[Irbis]

Does this have any bearing on the debate?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/e ... -data.html

Not only does that imbecile thing USA = whole world, the so called 'climategate' was disproved by no less than 12 independent commissions and people accused in it already started winning lawsuits for baseless libel...

Interesting, and perhaps it will be useful for refuting the ideas of those who deny climate change. However, a link in the OP would be nice.

Link to what exactly? The image? Right click>Copy image location?

[NoXion]

Not just a river in Egypt

I'm not completely au fait with the science of climate change, but I'm fairly sure the linked article is bullshit.

[madd0ct0r]

dear god noxion, that's not even well written propoganda.

You takes your choice of who you listens to on this, of course: NASA/NOAA/UKMetO or BEST, warmists or sceptics.

But it might be worth remembering that the former are arguing for massive government and economic action, action which people would not take voluntarily - that is action which will make people poorer, then. In other words the warmists want to take away your money and your standard of living (for your own good, they would say). And standard of living is not just consumer goods, it's health care, it's regular showers and clean clothes, it's space programmes and education for your kids and many many other things that you will have less of in the green future advocated by warmists - it's your whole life.