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#76 2022-09-22 15:48:27

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

GW,

GW Johnson wrote:

Regarding the reality and immediacy of climate change:  consider that the storm that just flooded western and northern Alaska was in reality the remnants of a Pacific typhoon making their way through the Bering Straits into the Arctic Ocean!  Such has NEVER happened before in our recorded history.

Does recorded history "reset itself" each year?

How hurricanes and tropical storms impact Alaskans

From the article:

Story:

It's a fact that Alaskans don't experience hurricanes in the 49th state; however, that does not mean the storms have zero impact on the Last Frontier.

According to Brian Brettschneider, a specialist in hurricane climatology with UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, Alaska is impacted by recurving extra-tropical storms – otherwise known as typhoon remnants.

Brettschneider says that extra-tropical storms occasionally occur when a typhoon – a Pacific hurricane – leaves an area of "really warm, tropical waters." Furthermore, Alaska is affected when a typhoon brushes past Japan or the Philippines and heads northward towards the state.

"At least once or twice every year, the remains of a typhoon will enter the Aleutians or even the Bering Sea," says Brettschneider. "And sometimes, it can quite dramatically have lots of wind and even storm surge impacts that affect the West Coast and even the Aleutian Islands. So it’s not a typhoon anymore, but we would call it remnants of a typhoon from the Western Pacific."

One recent example of this occurred in 2014, following Typhoon Nuri.

That year, when Typhoon Nuri brushed past Japan and continued into the North Pacific, "it transformed into a very, very strong extra-tropical low pressure system that caused winds gusting to near 100 mph," says Brettschneider. As a result, he says the large storm surge impacted the west coast of Alaska, all the way up to Nome. And as the storm progressed into the Gulf of Alaska, Southcentral Alaska ended up getting a lot of rain and wind, especially near Anchorage.

He adds that these storms would mostly likely fall upon Alaska between the months of late summer to fall.

While a storm's movement is difficult to forecast, its "long history," prior to transforming into an extra-tropical storm, makes it rather convenient for Alaska climatologists, says Brettschneider.

"The National Weather Service usually has a good idea at predicting what the impacts will be and advises people appropriately - given potential storm surges and wind impacts," he says.

Aside from a hurricane's distant impact on Alaska, Brettschneider says that the state also has an impact on forming hurricanes.

"Occasionally, a disturbance that’s associated with the jet stream that’s moving past Alaska – maybe a storm in the Gulf of Alaska – will continue on to the east," he says. "And as it approaches maybe the lower part of the 48, it tends to break down the tropical ridge, which causes an existing storm to bend and travel a lot farther to the north."

Brettschneider says that a notable example of this was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. He adds that even Hurricane Irma had potential to have been affected by Alaska.

"The disturbance that is going to pull Hurricane Irma to the north was actually not too far away from Alaska, two or three days ago," he states. "So it’s a little bit of a global circulation nexus that can trace back to thousands of miles from the hurricane’s location."

As far as storm preparation goes, Brettschneider recommends that the public heeds the advice of the local emergency management officials. This goes for populations near hurricane and extra-tropical storm scenarios alike.

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#77 2022-09-23 17:41:37

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Mediterranean Sea hit by marine heatwave

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observ … e_heatwave

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-23 17:41:52)

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#78 2022-09-24 10:13:04

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Kbd512: 

You misunderstand what I tried to say.  Sure,  lots of major Pacific storms go through the Bering Straits.  What was unusual about that one was that it was still quite organized and very strong by the time it reached the Straits.  Usually,  they are disorganized and more spread out.

You are seeing another example of exactly what I am talking about with Fiona hitting Atlantic Canada,  more-or-less still a hurricane,  despite being reclassified as "extratropical".  Usually,  Atlantic cyclone storms turn eastward across the far north Atlantic,  and fall apart into disorganized storminess approaching Europe.  This one didn't.  Looks to me like it's headed for the Arctic,  and still quite organized. 

And THAT IS a change!  We are going to see more and more of these odd events,  as the climate warms. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#79 2022-09-24 14:43:45

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

GW,

The storm in the link below started and ended in the Arctic, and it was would otherwise be categorized as a full-strength Category 1 hurricane.  That storm was also "well-organized", despite forming in much cooler waters, meaning it wasn't the "remnants" of anything.  If a hurricane-strength storm can form within the confines of Arctic waters, then why is it noteworthy that a storm which formed in warmer waters managed to move into cooler Arctic waters while still being well-formed?

Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012

From the article:

The Great Arctic Cyclone, or "Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012," was a powerful extratropical cyclone that was centered on the Arctic Ocean in early August 2012. Cyclones of this magnitude are rare in the Arctic summer, although common in the winter. The Great Arctic Cyclone was the strongest summer storm in the Arctic and the 13th strongest storm observed at any time in the Arctic, since satellite observations began in 1979.

Although the Great Arctic Cyclone did not cause the record melting of sea ice which occurred in 2012, turbulence from the storm is believed to have contributed to melting of sea ice, due to mechanical ice breakup and the rise of warmer saltier water from below; however the main oceanic heat source, associated with inflowing Atlantic water, remained isolated from the turbulence.

Meteorological history

On August 2, 2012, an extratropical low formed over Siberia. During the next few days, the storm slowly drifted into the Arctic Ocean, while gradually strengthening. On August 5, the storm reached the Arctic Ocean and began to rapidly intensify, while drifting closer to the North Pole. On August 6, the extratropical cyclone reached a peak intensity of 962 mbar (28.4 inHg), while centered about halfway between Alaska and the North Pole. At this point, the Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 was the strongest summer Arctic storm on record, since the beginning of records in 1979. Afterward, the storm slowly began to weaken, while drifting towards Canada. On August 12, the cyclone made landfall in the northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and slowly moved eastward across land, while rapidly weakening. Late on August 14, the Arctic cyclone dissipated over the far northern reaches of Canada.

Records

The Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012 became the strongest Arctic storm in the summer on record, since records began in 1979. At its peak intensity of 962 mbar (28.4 inHg), the Great Arctic Cyclone was also the 13th strongest Arctic storm overall, since reliable records began.

If reliable meteorological records only began in 1979, then that means we have 1, not even 2, "climate periods" (arbitrarily defined as 30 years for no scientific reason by the people assigning definitions to climate) to go off of.  Weather events did not start or stop when we started recording them.  If nothing we recorded prior to 1979 is now considered to be "reliable", then that means we're really short on evidence that extreme weather events are a "tattletale" of climate change.

You're looking for ways to confirm your beliefs, but even the meteorologists who testified before Congress warned everyone there not to use extreme weather events or lack thereof as "the signature" of "climate change".  If it started snowing in Texas in July or it was 100 degrees in Antarctica during the winter, then yes, we would have a "smoking gun" that something significant had changed in a dramatic way.  The sort of evidence you're after simply doesn't exist.  You're better off sticking to the temperature observations.

It's a bit odd that you're ignoring the admonishment of the meteorological scientists who observe and record this type of data to refrain from using it as evidence of climate change.  Basically, you're doing the very thing you were warned not to do by people who do know and understand this type of data.  Does that sound familiar to you, given your own admonishments related to not doing certain things with rockets or spacecraft that have a better than average chance of resulting in catastrophic failure?

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#80 2022-09-24 15:43:56

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I'm sorry you disbelieve,  but anthropogenic climate change is quite real. 

What the scientists were saying in the 1950's and 1960's turned out to be wrong.  They were predicting entry "soon" into another ice age.  That was based on the "Milankovitch cycles" model for northern hemisphere insolation,  where most of the land mass has been over the last dozen or so million years.

What actually has happened is the opposite.  The loss of sea ice,  and land glacier ice,  is the most direct,  immediate symptom,  and it is quite real,  and dates back to only about 160 years or so in the records.  Meanwhile,  that same "Milankovitch cycles" model,  while not perfect,  is actually quite accurate correlating cold and warm climates for the last 3 to 4 million years,  in the geologic record.

What that really says is there is something different about the current cycle compared to previous cycles.  Never before have there been so many humans on the Earth,  never before has there been industrial mechanization burning fossil fuels,  and never before has there been planet-wide industrial agriculture.  Never before has the Earth not conformed to the "Milankovitch cycles" model anyewhere in the last 3-4 million years.  You should see a correlation there.  I certainly do.

And I see it accelerating as the CO2 concentration rises,  as measured since 1959.  Submarines in the late 1950's and early 1960's had to search for a lead in the ice in order to surface without doing fatal damage in the Arctic.  Now,  they surface anywhere and anytime they want.  The sea ice in the Arctic is much thinner than it used to be.  Pressure hulls today are just not that different from the 1950's. 

So,  why are you so resistant to the notion that more heat energy in the atmosphere and oceans leads to stronger storms that persist stronger into regions where we really haven't seen them very much before?  I am not at all surprised by that.  It is quite clearly happening. 

Why are you denying it?  It's not about politics.  It's just the data in front of us all.  Inconvenient maybe.  Science often is.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2022-09-24 15:46:58)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#81 2022-09-24 18:06:23

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

GW,

Oh boy, let's see here...  Milankovitch cycles, claims of 1950s scientists, 1950s submarines, and politics.  The only thing that those other topics have in common with Arctic cyclonic storms is that they're all nouns.  All the other statements in your Post #80 seem intended to distract from the fact that you, perhaps unknowingly, made a false statement related to your beliefs about global warming.  Much like those dogmatic religious people who were / are incessantly asking me why I refuse to partake in their religion of choice, you're asking me the same question here.  Our meteorological scientists have repeatedly stated that extreme weather events are not evidence of global warming, and to stop asserting / claiming / insinuating that they are.  That clearly doesn't stop people like you from substituting your own beliefs.

The fact that you bring up all these other topics which have nothing to do with cyclonic Arctic storms is reason enough for me to question whether or not what you're stating or asserting relates back to your personal beliefs about AGW versus recorded meteorological data.  I am not claiming anything here about AGW.  I am asking why you assert that an extreme weather event, which turns out to be fairly common, is evidence of AGW.  Do I need to accept your false assertions Arctic cyclonic storms in order for AGW to still be true?  Can I only be part of the religion if I accept every claim the rest of the adherents make, no matter how absurd?

A good scientist who is more interested in gathering data and making inferences than he is in affirmation of his beliefs would concede that he was wrong and move on.  Doubling-down on ideologically-motivated false statements is what dogmatic religious people do.  Whether you were aware of cyclonic storms entering or forming entirely within Arctic waters, or not, is irrelevant.  The fact of the matter is that if well-formed cyclonic storms can begin and end life in Arctic waters from time-to-time, then they can also enter into Arctic waters from southern routes, whether anyone is paying attention and recording it or not.  There is nothing unprecedented or even particularly unusual about a well-formed hurricane-force storm forming in or entering into Arctic waters.  According to the meteorologists, this happens once or twice per year.

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#82 2022-09-24 18:44:24

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

The Artic has been without the normal Ice covering of the water and that is why it was able to pick up the energy it needed to bring power to the storm. Without the ice more storms will make it to the artic. The ice layer does not need to be thick only enough to stop wave energy from forcing the acceleration of energy to the wind.

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#83 2022-09-24 21:11:06

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut,

While what you assert appears superficially correct, that also happens to be another false assertion.  If you guys intend to keep asserting that extreme weather events are being caused by AGW, then it pays to learn a bit more about weather so that someone with the intellectual curiosity that you lack, can't quickly and easily determine that what you're claiming is false.  I'm not suggesting that you can't still have your "religious experience" over climate change, just that getting everyone else onboard with your religion is going to be an unwinnable battle if this is how you approach it.  At what point does group-think-based fear-mongering become unhelpful to your cause?  My best advice is to do a little bit of cursory research before making claims that have weak or non-existent or counter-factual evidence.

There are vastly more powerful storms like this on Neptune that are bigger than the Earth.  Humans sure as hell aren't causing those storms because there aren't any humans living on Neptune, so there must be another explanation.

Extratropical cyclone

This is what causes extratropical cyclones (nothing to do with sea ice or lack thereof, everything to do with jet stream pressure gradients and wind shear within the atmosphere, which would still be there without AGW):

Extratropical cyclone
Extratropical cyclones, sometimes called mid-latitude cyclones or wave cyclones, are low-pressure areas which, along with the anticyclones of high-pressure areas, drive the weather over much of the Earth. Extratropical cyclones are capable of producing anything from cloudiness and mild showers to severe gales, thunderstorms, blizzards, and tornadoes. These types of cyclones are defined as large scale (synoptic) low pressure weather systems that occur in the middle latitudes of the Earth. In contrast with tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones produce rapid changes in temperature and dew point along broad lines, called weather fronts, about the center of the cyclone
...
Cyclogenesis

Extratropical cyclones form along linear bands of temperature/dewpoint gradient with significant vertical wind shear, and are thus classified as baroclinic cyclones. Initially, cyclogenesis, or low pressure formation, occurs along frontal zones near a favorable quadrant of a maximum in the upper level jetstream known as a jet streak. The favorable quadrants are usually at the right rear and left front quadrants, where divergence ensues. The divergence causes air to rush out from the top of the air column. As mass in the column is reduced, atmospheric pressure at surface level (the weight of the air column) is reduced. The lowered pressure strengthens the cyclone (a low pressure system). The lowered pressure acts to draw in air, creating convergence in the low-level wind field. Low-level convergence and upper-level divergence imply upward motion within the column, making cyclones cloudy. As the cyclone strengthens, the cold front sweeps towards the equator and moves around the back of the cyclone. Meanwhile, its associated warm front progresses more slowly, as the cooler air ahead of the system is denser, and therefore more difficult to dislodge. Later, the cyclones occlude as the poleward portion of the cold front overtakes a section of the warm front, forcing a tongue, or trowal, of warm air aloft. Eventually, the cyclone will become barotropically cold and begin to weaken.

Atmospheric pressure can fall very rapidly when there are strong upper level forces on the system. When pressures fall more than 1 millibar (0.030 inHg) per hour, the process is called explosive cyclogenesis, and the cyclone can be described as a bomb. These bombs rapidly drop in pressure to below 980 millibars (28.94 inHg) under favorable conditions such as near a natural temperature gradient like the Gulf Stream, or at a preferred quadrant of an upper-level jet streak, where upper level divergence is best. The stronger the upper level divergence over the cyclone, the deeper the cyclone can become. Hurricane-force extratropical cyclones are most likely to form in the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans in the months of December and January. On 14 and 15 December 1986, an extratropical cyclone near Iceland deepened to below 920 millibars (27 inHg), which is a pressure equivalent to a category 5 hurricane. In the Arctic, the average pressure for cyclones is 980 millibars (28.94 inHg) during the winter, and 1,000 millibars (29.53 inHg) during the summer.

Extratropical transition

Tropical cyclones often transform into extratropical cyclones at the end of their tropical existence, usually between 30° and 40° latitude, where there is sufficient forcing from upper-level troughs or shortwaves riding the Westerlies for the process of extratropical transition to begin. During this process, a cyclone in extratropical transition (known across the eastern North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans as the post-tropical stage), will invariably form or connect with nearby fronts and/or troughs consistent with a baroclinic system. Due to this, the size of the system will usually appear to increase, while the core weakens. However, after transition is complete, the storm may re-strengthen due to baroclinic energy, depending on the environmental conditions surrounding the system. The cyclone will also distort in shape, becoming less symmetric with time.

During extratropical transition, the cyclone begins to tilt back into the colder airmass with height, and the cyclone's primary energy source converts from the release of latent heat from condensation (from thunderstorms near the center) to baroclinic processes. The low pressure system eventually loses its warm core and becomes a cold-core system.
...
Structure
...
Vertical structure
Extratropical cyclones slant back into colder air masses and strengthen with height, sometimes exceeding 30,000 feet (approximately 9 km) in depth. Above the surface of the earth, the air temperature near the center of the cyclone is increasingly colder than the surrounding environment. These characteristics are the direct opposite of those found in their counterparts, tropical cyclones; thus, they are sometimes called "cold-core lows". Various charts can be examined to check the characteristics of a cold-core system with height, such as the 700 millibars (20.67 inHg) chart, which is at about 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) altitude. Cyclone phase diagrams are used to tell whether a cyclone is tropical, subtropical, or extratropical.
...

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#84 2022-09-25 11:27:15

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

kbd512 wrote:

Extratropical cyclones, sometimes called mid-latitude cyclones or wave cyclones, are low-pressure areas which, along with the anticyclones of high-pressure areas, drive the weather over much of the Earth

Key words are Wave (ocean water) and cyclone (air)... a rotation of air or water gets this action to happen. The AG of rotation causes the pressure to change in the center which then causes the water to ride up the gravity wall that is created from the vortex that is created. That is the energy that drives the growth of the size and speeds that one can achieve. Take away the rotation and it's not sustainable hence the ice covering of the ocean.

As you note AG has a rotation that is positive and one that is negative such that the vortex will behave in opposite manners for energy absorptions. For the cyclone the water is coming back down from ridding the temperature as a much colder rain to possibly snow in the width of the wall of uprising moisture, while the hurricane is coming back down as large quantities of rain on the outside of the vortex.

The energy from the sun while its varying with season the co2 has been on the increase for quite some time. The levels of ice are also become less and that is causing the rise of the oceans. That means just as much is being absorbed in the oceans as is the air and with that higher level is an increase of retained heat. Hurricanes and cyclones are a means by mother nature to try and get rid of that heat to the upper levels of the atmosphere.

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#85 2022-09-25 14:31:59

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut,

Terminology

The term "cyclone" applies to numerous types of low pressure areas, one of which is the extratropical cyclone. The descriptor extratropical signifies that this type of cyclone generally occurs outside the tropics and in the middle latitudes of Earth between 30° and 60° latitude. They are termed mid-latitude cyclones if they form within those latitudes, or post-tropical cyclones if a tropical cyclone has intruded into the mid latitudes. Weather forecasters and the general public often describe them simply as "depressions" or "lows". Terms like frontal cyclone, frontal depression, frontal low, extratropical low, non-tropical low and hybrid low are often used as well.

Extratropical cyclones are classified mainly as baroclinic, because they form along zones of temperature and dewpoint gradient known as frontal zones. They can become barotropic late in their life cycle, when the distribution of heat around the cyclone becomes fairly uniform with its radius.

Baroclinity

In fluid dynamics, the baroclinity (often called baroclinicity) of a stratified fluid is a measure of how misaligned the gradient of pressure is from the gradient of density in a fluid. In meteorology a baroclinic flow is one in which the density depends on both temperature and pressure (the fully general case). A simpler case, barotropic flow, allows for density dependence only on pressure, so that the curl of the pressure-gradient force vanishes.
...
In Earth's atmosphere, barotropic flow is a better approximation in the tropics, where density surfaces and pressure surfaces are both nearly level, whereas in higher latitudes the flow is more baroclinic. These midlatitude belts of high atmospheric baroclinity are characterized by the frequent formation of synoptic-scale cyclones, although these are not really dependent on the baroclinity term per se: for instance, they are commonly studied on pressure coordinate iso-surfaces where that term has no contribution to vorticity production.

Baroclinic instability
Baroclinic instability is a fluid dynamical instability of fundamental importance in the atmosphere and in the oceans. In the atmosphere it is the dominant mechanism shaping the cyclones and anticyclones that dominate weather in mid-latitudes. In the ocean it generates a field of mesoscale eddies (100 km or smaller) that play various roles in oceanic dynamics and the transport of tracers.

Whether a fluid counts as rapidly rotating is determined in this context by the Rossby number, which is a measure of how close the flow is to solid body rotation. More precisely, a flow in solid body rotation has vorticity that is proportional to its angular velocity. The Rossby number is a measure of the departure of the vorticity from that of solid body rotation. The Rossby number must be small for the concept of baroclinic instability to be relevant. When the Rossby number is large, other kinds of instabilities, often referred to as inertial, become more relevant.

The simplest example of a stably stratified flow is an incompressible flow with density decreasing with height.

In a compressible gas such as the atmosphere, the relevant measure is the vertical gradient of the entropy, which must increase with height for the flow to be stably stratified.

The strength of the stratification is measured by asking how large the vertical shear of the horizontal winds has to be in order to destabilize the flow and produce the classic Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. This measure is called the Richardson number. When the Richardson number is large, the stratification is strong enough to prevent this shear instability.

Before the classic work of Jule Charney and Eric Eady on baroclinic instability in the late 1940s, most theories trying to explain the structure of mid-latitude eddies took as their starting points the high Rossby number or small Richardson number instabilities familiar to fluid dynamicists at that time. The most important feature of baroclinic instability is that it exists even in the situation of rapid rotation (small Rossby number) and strong stable stratification (large Richardson's number) typically observed in the atmosphere.

The energy source for baroclinic instability is the potential energy in the environmental flow. As the instability grows, the center of mass of the fluid is lowered. In growing waves in the atmosphere, cold air moving downwards and equatorwards displaces the warmer air moving polewards and upwards.

Baroclinic instability can be investigated in the laboratory using a rotating, fluid filled annulus. The annulus is heated at the outer wall and cooled at the inner wall, and the resulting fluid flows give rise to baroclinically unstable waves.

The term "baroclinic" refers to the mechanism by which vorticity is generated. Vorticity is the curl of the velocity field. In general, the evolution of vorticity can be broken into contributions from advection (as vortex tubes move with the flow), stretching and twisting (as vortex tubes are pulled or twisted by the flow) and baroclinic vorticity generation, which occurs whenever there is a density gradient along surfaces of constant pressure. Baroclinic flows can be contrasted with barotropic flows in which density and pressure surfaces coincide and there is no baroclinic generation of vorticity.
...

Yes, "waves" is a "key word" here, but it does not refer to the ocean at all.  I highlighted that part in bold, in hopes that you'll read something so you actually understand it.  Wave refers to temperature-derived pressure waves within the atmosphere, not the ocean.  Cold Arctic air moves towards the equator while warm tropical air moves towards the poles.  Basically, it's a circulation pattern.

One of the assertions of the AGW theorists who write the IPCC reports and related research is that we're heating up the poles much faster than we're heating up the rest of the planet.  If that is true, and I have to take them at their word since they gathered the evidence and it was peer-reviewed, then that means WEAKER, not stronger, pressure gradients are generated within the atmosphere, because the Delta-T (difference in temperature) between the cold polar air and warm equatorial air is decreasing over time.

If you have weaker temperature gradients and therefore pressure gradients, then you get weaker baroclinic weather patterns.

The Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the whole planet, study finds

Scientists previously estimated that the Arctic is heating up about twice as fast as the globe overall. The new study finds that is a significant underestimate of recent warming. In the last 43 years, the region has warmed 3.8 times faster than the planet as a whole, the authors find.

The study focuses on the period between 1979, when reliable satellite measurements of global temperatures began, and 2021.

"The Arctic is more sensitive to global warming than previously thought," says Mika Rantanen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, who is one of the authors of the study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

There have been hints in recent years that the Arctic is heating up even more quickly than computer models predicted. Heat waves in the far North have driven wildfires and jaw-dropping ice melt in the circumpolar region that includes Alaska, Arctic Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Siberia.

"This will probably be a bit of a surprise, but also kind of extra motivation perhaps," says Richard Davy, a climate scientist at Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway, who was not involved in the new study. "Things are moving faster than we could have expected from the model projections."

There are many reasons why the Arctic is heating up more quickly than other parts of the Earth. Changes in the amount of air pollution coming from Europe and natural multi-decade climate variations likely play a role. But human-caused global warming is the underlying reason that the Arctic, and the planet as a whole, are heating up.

Loss of sea ice is one of the clearest drivers of Arctic warming. The Arctic Circle is mostly ocean, which used to be frozen for most or all of the year. But permanent sea ice is steadily shrinking, and seasonal ice is melting earlier in the year and re-forming later.

That means more open water. But while ice is bright and reflects heat from the sun, water is darker and absorbs it. That heat helps melt more ice, which means more water to trap more heat – the loop feeds on itself, accelerating warming in the Arctic.

"That's why the temperature trends are the highest [in] those areas where the sea ice has declined most," explains Rantanen. There are hotspots in the Bering Sea over Northern Europe and Siberia, which are heating up about seven times faster than the global average, the study estimates.

Rapid Arctic warming affects people living far from the Arctic circle. For example, there is evidence that weather patterns are shifting across the U.S. and Europe as sea ice melts, and many marine species migrate between the tropics and the Arctic each year. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't just stay in the Arctic," says Davy.

The new research also finds that the advanced computer models that scientists use to understand how the global climate is changing now, and will change in the future, struggle to capture the relative speed of Arctic warming. That suggests that future models may need to be adjusted to better capture the realities of global warming in polar regions, although this study did not tease apart what exactly is missing from current models.

"The paper's finding that climate models tend to underestimate the warming ratio [between the Arctic and the Earth as a whole] is really interesting," says Kyle Armour, a climate scientist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the new study.

Previous studies have found that computer models actually do a good job estimating how much the Arctic has heated up, but that they tend to overestimate how much hotter the whole planet is, Armour explains. That means the models' comparison between Arctic warming and overall warming ends up being incorrect.

"We have more work to do to figure out the source of this model bias," says Armour. And that work is increasingly important, because world leaders use climate models to understand what the future holds and how to avoid even more catastrophic warming.

Extratropical cyclones are driven by jet stream circulation creating the temperature / pressure gradients and instabilities that help severe storms to form and persist.  Before / during / after AGW, the jet stream still exists and does what it does.  Namely, it still moves masses of air of varying temperatures and moisture contents around the planet.  If those masses of air become more uniform in temperature as a result of AGW, rather than less uniform, then the entire notion that additional CO2 either caused or has strengthened baroclinic storms / cyclones is false.

We're on much more stable ground asserting that AGW is increasing the power of barotropic storms, yet we don't see significantly stronger or more persistent barotropic storms, either.  If anything, we see increasing desertification, lots of droughts around the world, and flooding when it does rain, on account of how much more difficult it's becoming to absorb moisture into a topsoil that more closely resembles concrete as moisture is removed by increased heat.

If AGW is weakening those temperature gradients, you don't get stronger storms, because for that to happen, you need sharper temperature / pressure gradients, which you cannot get if the average temperature at the poles is rapidly increasing to match the temperatures seen at lower latitudes.  That is probably why those meteorologists cautioned against using extreme weather events as "proof of AGW".  The evidence for that simply doesn't exist.

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#86 2022-09-25 17:15:01

Calliban
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From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

We DO NOT KNOW to what extent human greenhouse gas emissions are driving global climate change, because we cannot model it accurately.  We can calculate the radiative forcing effect of CO2 and other gases that are being added to the atmosphere, all else being equal.  That is basic physics.  But developing a model that captures all of the positive and negative feedback effects of Earth's climate and then attempting to model how it will effect the dynamics of Earth's atmosphere to generate local effects, is only a little less complicated than modelling the evolution of the universe.  So yes, people claiming that human GHG emissions are definitely responsible for an unusually strong tropical storm, are engaging in speculation.  But we cannot disprove what they are saying, any more adequately than they can prove it.  That shouldn't be reassuring.  Human induced climate change is an unknown threat to the future of human societies.  Not knowing how it might effect future climate makes this a bigger problem.  Are there tipping points that we aren't aware of?  Are there mechanisms at work that could genedate catastrophic local effects, like the sudden death of corral reefs?

One thing is for sure.  Humanity is directly responsible for rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere.  Humans are burning 11bn tonnes of fossil carbon each year, producing 40.3bn tonnes of CO2.  Atmospheric CO2 concentration is 420ppm.  Earth surface area is 510 million km2.  Atmospheric column density is about 10,000kg per m2.  The molar mass of air is about 29kg/kmol, given that air is mostly nitrogen.  The molar mass of CO2 is 44kg/kmol.  Do the maths and you find that human emissions would increase atmospheric CO2 concentration by 5.2ppm each year, if it were not dissolving in oceans and if oceanic plankton, and land based plants were not consuming it.  Actual CO2 concentration is only rising at half that rate.  Which is good news.

Another piece of good news, if you happen to like trees more than you like people.  Future human consumption of fossil fuels will definitely be much lower.  Even if human beings were capable of consuming ever increasing volumes of fossil fuels, only a small portion of the Earth's fossil carbon can be extracted at a profitable EROI.  Most of the FF that climate modellers factor in to their most pessimistic forecasts will never be produced.  Global coal production has already peaked.  It highly likely that global oil production has peaked as well.  US natural gas production is still increasing, but it is the only major economy where this is still possible.  So we are past peak fossil fuel supply, even if the demand were there.  But demand is going to collapse as well.  Most of world now has declining demographics.  The globalised system of manufacturing and consuming will not survive this decade.  Chinese demographics suggest that it will not survive this decade as a functioning state, with is population shrinking by half by 2050.  European populations are declining.  Japanese population is both ageing and shrinking.  North Africa and the Middle East import most of their calories and face a future of famine.  Global manufacturing and supply chains will not survive the demographic unwinding.  Large parts of the world will deindustrialise and their populations will collapse.  So human GHG emissions at present levels are a temporary problem.  By 2050, without any deliberate measures to reduce them, they will be half or less what they are now.  No one will be worrying about anthropogenic climate change thirty years from now.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-09-25 17:35:28)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#87 2022-09-25 17:55:39

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

What does a barometer actually measure since we know that pressure is the height of the column of air above the surface plus water content.

Like ripples in a pond the oceans wave pressure can be seen
global-barometric-pressure1-l.jpg

The wind currents overlay those areas
R.2897b5b2159333d40f7300490614f81e?rik=O9c0X%2fao0qOz5w&riu=http%3a%2f%2fgeography.name%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f08%2f568678.jpg&ehk=9Ygj5QfF2wNZj3hYV2fomRpxoGL6EDnaR%2f18ag2lNrA%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

Now imagine the incoming wave of the ocean water rising as it comes ashore and that it is pushing up the air column above it as it reaches land. That oscillation moves back in the air at altitude and repeats as it collides at the H as it's indicated on the images.

Since the air is not changing in mass it's the water content that is as vapor will rise when its warm and condense and fall out of the air.

Hurricane Ian Could Gain Strength Rapidly. Here’s Why.

Here are key facts about how climate change can rapidly intensify tropical storms.

Warming oceans fuel higher winds; More than 90 percent of the excess heat from human-caused global warming over the past 50 years has been absorbed by the oceans. Since 1901, sea surface temperatures have risen an average of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That’s crucial, because storms gather strength over the ocean. And, the warmer the water, the more power they pick up. Higher surface temperatures allow hurricanes to reach higher levels of maximum sustained wind, a common metric used to describe the intensity of a storm.

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#88 2022-09-27 00:39:57

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Study finds no evidence of climate emergency.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k7P4zyxM8zc


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#89 2022-09-27 14:07:56

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Accelerating ice flow at the onset of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32999-2

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#90 2022-09-27 20:31:31

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Yes, Calliban the emergency is decades away, but the trip is going to be hell for sure

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#91 2022-09-28 18:22:36

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut,

Emergencies don't happen over decades.  Any event that takes 100+ years to occur is not an emergency.  This would be like claiming that we have a "lightning emergency" because you stuck a tall steel pole in the ground out in the middle of a desert, then stood there with your tongue glued to said pole for decades on-end, and eventually a bolt of lightning from a random thunderstorm would electrocute you as a result.

Some of us choose not to stick our tongues on or even stand next to tall steel poles during thunderstorms.  That does require a little "uncommon sense", though.

100 years from now, some place that's already prone to flooding will be "more prone to flooding".  Maybe live somewhere else?

This is like the people who complain about hurricanes or tidal waves who live near the ocean.  Well...  The ocean is where all the water is, water is very powerful, and if you live next to a large body of water long enough, then eventually it'll wipe out whatever you build there.  Ask me how I know this.  My solution to my personal experience with that "flooding problem" was not to go live some place lower in elevation.

You know what I find most humorous?

Some people think planet Earth is supposed to remain in their own personal definition of its "ideal state", for all time.  The fact that those same people think we're going to drive a different type of car, in order to prevent the world from changing... is nuts.  Said people never were beacons of rational thought, though, so I guess that figures.

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#92 2022-09-28 18:41:52

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Right now, we are reading the tea leave of the future in the present and forecasting that we will not be able to adapt. We are using a crystal ball to see that future state which will change rapidly at the last bit towards that unbelievable end. It's about the same as rewinding time to say that we had a very large continent until we did not.

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#93 2022-09-29 11:19:27

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Some may want to read this.  It seems to me that the USA does make contributions.  Actually, using natural gas is one such, it just needs more care about leaks.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc … nt/671579/
Quote:

The Senate Just Quietly Passed a Major Climate Treaty

Done

Last edited by Void (2022-09-29 11:22:56)


Done.

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#94 2022-09-29 19:23:07

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut,

Are you asserting that humans will die if the temperatures are a few degrees warmer, on average, or that their legs don't allow them to simply walk away from areas that are prone to flooding, long before the flooding happens?  If so, what makes you think that?

I think our crystal ball is defective.  Everyone knows you need runes or chicken bones to read the future.  I learned that from Hollyweird movies.  Tea leaves only tell you what you last put in your cup.  How do you read the "instant tea" that dissolves into the water?  Never thought about that one, did you?

Every time "the end is near", it's proven wrong.  Over billions of years, sure, eventually the Sun will transform into a "Red Giant" and incinerate planet Earth and anyone / anything left on it, but there's nothing we can presently do about that, which is why we're trying to colonize Mars and then travel to other solar systems to replace the Sun with a "brand new star".

Say you're right.  I'll play along and assume that you are.

What are we doing to prevent the flooding that we "know" is coming from becoming a much bigger problem?

Are we relocating our cities and other critical infrastructure to much higher elevations that rising sea level could never reach, even if all the ice melted, to prevent the ocean from swallowing them up?

Are we building giant nuclear-powered "city ships" or "offshore platforms", so that regardless of what melting ice does to the shoreline, it cannot become more than an annoying inconvenience?

We build oil tankers and offshore platforms that carry 500,000 dead-weight tons, constructed from low-alloy steel weighing about half of that, so how would those be more expensive than the enormous sprawling cities and suburbs, if we're "deeply worried" about catastrophic sea level rise from climate change?

Ships don't require cars for practical personal mobility, electronic or combustion-powered.  There are no elevators, either, except for the cargo elevators.  Apart from cargo / main propulsion / steering, warships are almost entirely human-powered in the US Navy.  There are a literal handful of electrically-driven or hydraulically-driven systems that use power from the reactors.  Anything that can be hand-carried, is moved around that way.  Every sailor hand-carries all personal belongings on and off the ship, so we led minimalist lifestyles and had money in our pockets for entertainment.  We didn't have closets and houses filled with junk because we'd have to hand-carry it.  We had no use for cars, only large passenger / cargo vans and semi-trucks.  We mostly walked everywhere.  The ship's reactors can also make fuel to supply the smaller boats used to transport crew between ship and shore, and crew transport vans or buses ashore.

Let's say we need to employ and house 50 million people in our newly-formed "Civilian Navy", as an extension to our existing Merchant Marine.  These people can work on civil infrastructure projects around the world to prepare for what they believe would otherwise come and kill hundreds of millions to low billions of people, using their giant ships as transports, homes, and mobile power stations for their work ashore.  If we prepare now, then there should not be any measurable loss of life 100 years from now.  In point of fact, if the ships are kept in good shape, the US Navy has proven that steel ships can last a century.  Heck, we still maintain USS Constitution, a wooden ship that's as old as America.

How much easier would it be to start right now, while labor / energy / materials / infrastructure are still completely in-tact and functioning?

Do you see how this solution creates jobs and makes people less dependent upon someone concocting a "miracle solution"?

If we ever do solve fusion, can you see how we will be able to power these ships, essentially indefinitely?

With tens of millions of our people living and working on ships (that permit them to go to new places and allows them to see things that they otherwise have no opportunity to see) for most of their lives, then even if we lose a lot of land mass, the relative population density doesn't change one iota?

I left the Navy over my disagreement with what we were being ordered to do (killing illiterate / angry peasants, in the name of "making freedom and democracy safe around the world"), not because I took issue with living on our ships or working with my fellow sailors.  After awhile, watching / reading / communicating the results was just insufferably stupid and immoral.  I couldn't see devoting another 14 years to mowing down people using weapons that none of them had ever seen before, nor had any clue existed.  It was like pitting a group of Bronze Age tribesmen against America's Ranger Battalion and Armored Cavalry Brigade, with fighter jet air support.  You already know what the result will be before you begin.  I knew the people we were shooting at included some truly evil cretins mixed in with the rest of the villagers, but the notion that they could ever be a threat to America would be laughable if so many people didn't actually believe it.  They can only be a threat if we allow them to, and at all other times they're more of a detriment to themselves than anyone else.  Short of a surprise nuclear or chemical attack which would wipe out anyone anywhere, we were far better protected and cared for than the average civilian.  Some of the best friends I ever had, and likely ever will have, were my fellow sailors.

If we build this stuff now, then we don't have to worry about what the future brings, because we'll be prepared no matter how good or how desperate conditions become.

By not squandering another $2T on pointless wars against illiterate peasants, we can build a fleet of civilian ships that can evacuate refugees, serve as mobile power plants, floating hospitals, educate the local populace, help them construct new shelter away from oceans or that can withstand the most severe storms if the former is not possible, feed people who would otherwise starve to death, move great masses of materials and machinery to where they're needed, and probably lots more stuff I've never thought of, maybe mobile hydroponic farming.  I remember that not-so-long-ago we had a Peace Corps, which was our overseas arm of American power that did not involve killing everyone.

Why is "the answer" never something pragmatic that actually works using existing technology?  Why do all of our supposedly "smart people" resort to utter nonsense such as "we're going to get all of our power from the Sun, the way we did when nobody knew what a lightbulb or an air conditioner was"?  Why should we all be poorer due to the lack of creativity of our "smart people"?  Don't you think the results of doing that were a version of humanity (living the way we did before industrialization) that pretty much nobody actually wants to go back to?  You see how the people in Africa live, to this very day.  Is that really what you want?  If not, then maybe try a different strategy that doesn't involve making everyone an illiterate tribesman who is energy-poor.

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#95 2022-09-30 00:30:30

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I am inclined to agree with Kbd512, at least the first three paragraphs.  Whilst I don't think climate change is a non-issue, it does appear to me to be a problem that will be overtaken by other events.  I have spent a lot of time recently studying the work of Peter Zeihan.  He is probably the best geopolitical analyst alive today.  Most of the people that are critical of his conclusions, appear to be critical because they don't 'like' what he is saying, rather than having any data or analysis that proves him wrong, or even presents a credible alternative theory of events.

There are two trends at work in the world now that would suggest to me that human induced climate change is not the dominant crisis that we need to worry about.  The first is demographic declines around the world.  Most of the world's heavy fossil fuel consumers (China, Russia, Europe and Japan, being the biggest) are ageing into mass retirement.  In the case of Russia and China, demographics are so bad that imminent collapse begins to look quite likely.  Even in countries where decline is more gradual, population is going to shrink.  The second trend, in some ways resulting from the first, is the collapse of globalisation.  The explosion in global trade that has occured since ww2, has ground to a halt and is going to unwind.  This will result in deindustrialisation in many parts of the world, with rapid drops in per capita energy and material consumption.

The compounding effect of both trends suggests collapsing consumption of fossil fuels on a global scale and large reductions in CO2 emissions.  A lot of concerns over fossil fuel depletion appear to me to be more serious issues than GHG emissions.  Global oil production cannot expand much further.  The peaking of conventional oil production put a hard stop to the expansion of globalisation back in 2008.  Growth in real traded goods has been anaemic ever since then.  European gas production peaked (due to depletion) back around 2000.  Natural gas is the foundation of the German manufacturing system and unlike other fuels, it is very difficult and expensive to transport over long distances.  So declining production in the North Sea put the European manufacturing system on borrowed time, with Russia providing the gas that Europe no longer could.  The end of globalisation will aggrevate local fossil fuel depletion problems, because it makes trade in fossil fuels and globally mobile investment in development of new production capacity more difficult to sustain.  This will accelerate deindustrialisation in many places, most visably East Asia and Germany.

In theory, nuclear power could have replaced much of the energy derived from fossil fuels, had there been enough foresight and common sense to build out the infrastructure.  But it didn't happen; with the gradual unwinding of globally mobile capital it will become more difficult to make it happen and because energy demand is going to collapse in most places, any attempt at mass nuclear build out will only be applicable to a limited number of industrial players moving fwd.  Renewable energy will be a niche player in energy markets by the middle of this century.  Wind and PV are even more reliant on global supply chains than fossil fuel based production and their industrial materials requirements are 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than coal, gas or nuclear electricity production.  They will have some uses, in some places.

None of this suggests that the 'end is nigh' for human civilisation.  What we are facing is something that no one seems to think is possible these days: Decline.  It is happening for a number of reasons, and those factors appear to reinforce one another in ways that make it impossible to avoid and impossible to reverse on a time frame less than centuries.  Climate change may end up being another problem that humanity has to face, but in the backdrop of what I am describing, it will not be the dominant concern for most of humanity.  All of the reductions in GHG emissions will occur non-voluntarily for most of the people involved.  We are heading into a poorer and more disconnected world.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-09-30 00:42:24)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#96 2022-09-30 20:52:53

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Calliban,

Population collapse doesn't mean our global population goes to 500 million.  It means we go from 8 to 8.5 billion people to 5.5 to 6 billion or so, over the next 30 years, maybe 4 billion over the next 100 years, with people colonizing other planets and space.  Why is that "a sign" that we cannot still build bigger and better things?  If not, then what was the purpose behind building all these automated manufacturing machines and AI-enabled design tools that permit a single engineer to do what an entire design team would require months to years to accomplish?

Who says we can't have consumption-led growth in a world where everyone is a lot richer, on average, because there's more wealth for housing / health care / education / food / materials to spread around, even if that means we have fewer things and fewer people overall?

I would opine that materials selection and build quality is what makes a car a Cadillac.  Many of the cars of the 1950s were still Cadillacs by modern standards, because of their build quality.  It didn't matter that we could not produce as many of them or that the engines were less efficient.  That certainly doesn't matter today when we can make a 125 pound snow mobile engine produce 300hp.  Each unit costs more, but in a world where we pay people more so that they have more to spend, they can afford nicer vehicles, even though they buy fewer of them and less frequently.  People act like a certain kind of car or food or electronic gadget is "all there is", and then there's no more to life.  Well, what about travel or public service or defense of home and country or building great things?  Interplanetary spaceships, anyone?  Those were Unobtanium in the 1950s, despite the fact that there was plenty of easy-to-exploit energy.

Now we have to make our energy from scratch, but we also have the technology to do it, so what's wrong with that?  Building a solar or nuclear fuel synthesis plant is real organic economic growth that pays well and keeps everyone motoring along.  If we "crack the code" on far more energy-dense batteries, then we'll start using those instead of gasoline and diesel.  Until that day, if we build the fuel synthesis plants now, then there will be plenty of energy and wealth to make and buy better batteries.

Basically, when will everyone else recognize that we have enough, inordinately more than enough to go around, especially with recycling, and if what you do have is very high quality, then you will "get buy" just fine, even if your car is on the "simple side" or requires a bit more regular maintenance as a result.  More and more cheap junk is not a sign of a healthy society.  Technology should be used to meet design requirements, not satisfy complexity or futurism fetishes.  High production volume alone is not any sort of "useful end unto itself".  There's a bewildering array of meaningless choices, but you cannot buy an affordable and practical car that will last 20 years.  In past decades, yu could buy a car from almost any manufacturer that could be economically operated and repaired if you were willing to do most of the work yourself.

We had to experiment to figure out what worked, what didn't, and why.  Now we know.  Now we can focus on proven design methodology, we have high quality materials to work with, and we can produce high quality components repeatably without lots of manual touch labor.  After we figured that out, we should've focused on applying what we learned to gradually accumulating enough high quality machinery to satisfy demand.  We need to stop fixating on "newness".  An ever-increasing number of widgets of ever-decreasing quality is not the way forward.

A car door handle or toaster oven does not need to be digitally-controlled by a plethora of microchips that puts a Cray Supercomputer to shame.  That is not a sign of "improvement".  It's a sign that the engineers weren't provided with proper oversight from a competent and pragmatic manager who was there to "use technology to solve problems", rather than "invent problems for technology to solve".

How important is it that every car has remote-start, a touch-screen entertainment system with surround sound, or a GPS-enabled cellular navigation device?  Didn't we already invent smartphones?  Why does a motor vehicle need to be integrated with an absurdly expensive and chintzy version of the truly excellent devices made by Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and others?  If the electronic device actually adds so much value that it absolutely has to be there, then how much more value is added by a rock solid design like the iPad?  Why not let Apple figure out how to make a world-class computing and entertainment device so you can focus on making a good car?

If you took away all the pointless "features" (ways to radically increase complexity and therefore cost while providing very little value) and instead spent money on AI-enabled design, then how fast and easy would it be for a handful of engineers to design, test, and build a durable and reliable car capable of, you know, doing a good job of getting you from Point A to Point B a lot faster than walking?  After all the gizmos are deleted, which are the very reason why we have parking lots filled with shiny new cars that cannot be sold because they will not start, then perhaps it's possible to bring everything except for raw materials production in-house.

We squandered an inordinate amount of time and money adding pointless features, chasing after engineering perfection, and making things that are extremely expensive appliances that will have to be discarded after 3 to 5 years at most because there is no way to economically repair one.  Force the engineers to repair the things they design.  That's how we arrest feature bloat and scope-creep.  It's a car, not a Space Shuttle.

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#97 2022-10-02 04:12:36

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Kbd512, in North America, things could remain stable and prosperous for longer.  You might get a shot at colonising the solar system if SpaceX survives the coming great recession.

But for most of the world, declining demographics and oil & gas depletion mean that deep declines in prosperity are baked in.  The 21st century is going to be a tough time for most people.  The problem is that shrinking and ageing demographics make the globalisation of goods production more difficult to sustain, even if oil and gas depletion problems did not exist.  The world is going to become more disconnected and unstable.  Over the past fifty years, local depletion of oil and other commodities (i.e US conventional) was mitigated by the ability of companies to explore and produce in other places, like Mexico, the middle east, Russia, North Sea, Chinese coal, etc.  There are two problems going forward.  Firstly, the entire world is more depleted now.  Secondly, the unwinding of globalisation due to both energy depletion and demographics, will make global supply chains more difficult to maintain.  On top of that, the US is no longer prepared or able to police that system.  This suggests that the globalised system faces some sort of cascade failure.

I don't think things will be uniformly bad everywhere.  North America may actually survive as an island of prosperity.  But much of the world is going to deindustrialise and regions will start to decouple from each other.  European countries may need to start empire building again to keep their own supply lines open without the American help.

For the UK to do most of what America does now with 1/5 the population, would mean turning our economy into some sort of nuclear powered naval war machine.  That will be a miserable way to live.  Which is why I raised the thread on CANZUK alliance.  Those four countries combined have about 1/2 US population.  And between them they have enough people and physical resources to be a collective superpower with a wealthy, first-world consumer base of 150 million people and a nuclear navy capable of sustaining trade routes between them.  They can sustain a more limited global trade network with a navy perhaps half to two-thirds of what the US has now.  It will be heavier on destroyers but will need carriers to keep regional challengers in check.  Because of the need for global reach in order to maintain global supply lines between Europe, North America and Australasia in an unstable world, that vision works much better if those ships are nuclear powered and do not need a string of supply bases everywhere they go.

I think the US would be quite happy to see this develop and would probably contribute, as it achieves all of its geopolitical objectives without the cost being so squarely on the shoulders of US tax payers.  This is the only geopolitical option that I can see that will sustain some semblance of order and first world prosperity in a world where globalusation has unravelled, oil is less abundant and the US has retreated to a North American supply and consumer base.  The problem is that no one is talking about it at present.  In the UK, there really does not appear to be an adult political class these days that are capable of nation building.  They really are nothing like the pre-war nation builders that occupied the same buildings and had the same job titles.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-10-02 04:27:06)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#98 2022-10-02 18:21:22

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Tropical Wetlands Emit More Methane Than Previously Thought
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/tro … ly-thought

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#99 2022-10-02 19:24:59

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

kbd512 wrote:

The "good reason" is called "Democrats want to spend your money", and probably most "Republicans want to spend your money", too.  There is no other reason, nevermind a good reason.  They have a love-hate relationship with the thing that keeps them warm / fed / housed / clothed / entertained.  It's just dumb.  Hurting poor people because you lack the creativity to devise better solutions is plain old evil, full stop.

here is the example of that with its own residents that voted them in.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says he'll fight against a federal relief bill that would assist his state's recovery from Hurricane Ian if it has 'pork in it'
Matt Gaetz Votes No On Relief Money As Florida Grapples With Hurricane Ian Aftermath

Some Fort Myers Beach residents frustrated, confused by Hurricane Ian emergency response

FEMA administrator: Floridians must ‘understand what their risk is’ when rebuilding

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#100 2022-10-02 19:48:48

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut,

Democrats adding money for their political projects into otherwise functional spending bills is why Republicans vote against them.  Stop adding political garbage to relief bills and they'll be passed without issue.  Your party won't stop trying to push their ideological brain vomit onto the rest of us who don't want any part of it.

Your party can still vote on its own ideological crapola using separate bills, but understand that it will receive no Republican support.  We're not buying into your political party's ideology or playing their stupid games.  Maybe you can understand that or maybe you can't.  None of the actual Republicans, as opposed to Democrat-lite, view the tax payer as a piggy bank for their ideological beliefs.  That's the difference between us.

Nobody is forcing the people you vote for to use people as political pawns, that's all on you, the voter, and the people you vote for.  Beyond that, you seem to think government actually solves problems, whereas we don't.  More government and more spending is not the answer to most problems.

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