Open Thread

Open Thread

5 2 votes
Article Rating
86 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
David Wojick
December 3, 2022 2:32 am
Tom Abbott
Reply to  David Wojick
December 3, 2022 4:18 am

I wonder if Whole Foods will weigh in on this?

Whole Foods in Maine said the other day that they were not going to sell anymore lobsters because they feared the lobster traps would harm Wright whales, even though there is no evidence a Wright whale has ever been killed or even terribly inconvenienced by a lobster trap.

Will Whole Foods now condemn the building of these off-shore windmills in their continuing efforts to protect the Wright whales?

David Wojick
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 5:06 am

Entanglement is a major issue with right whales but I know nothing about it except the lobster industry is indeed threatened, including by litigation. Maybe I can ping on Whole Foods. OSW is a much greater threat.

Rich Davis
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 11:32 am

That’s Right, Tom.

😉

strativarius
December 3, 2022 2:39 am

Just how much is my Fraxinus excelsior worth?

“”Exclusive: Trees standing alone and in small groups worth billions to UK, which researchers say justifies spending to protect them””

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/02/a-uk-tree-provides-hundreds-of-pounds-of-benefits-a-year-report-finds

Nobody move or the tree gets it…

Joseph Zorzin
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 4:07 am

At the bottom of that article is some Guardian boiler plate:

There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed. Guardian analysis recently revealed how human-caused climate breakdown is accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts triggered by the climate crisis.

strativarius
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 4:22 am

That’s their cris de coeur – and they believe it

Joseph Zorzin
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 4:31 am

“supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed”

That’s so over the top- it’s hard to believe anyone could believe it.

strativarius
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 4:48 am

Well, nobody I know of has, or knows anybody else who has, this fabled climate anxiety thing. Yet the Graun say’s there is an epidemic of it….

Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/10/overwhelming-and-terrifying-impact-of-climate-crisis-on-mental-health

Pure bolleaux; as only the Grauniad can provide.

Joseph Zorzin
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 5:18 am

The terrified youth just need to be told “all you have to fear is fear itself”. (FDR)

strativarius
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 5:20 am

Find me one school who would do that!

That did make me chuckle. Thanks.

Tom in Florida
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 5:37 am

“Well, nobody I know of has, or knows anybody else who has, this fabled climate anxiety thing.”
Have forgotten our old pal Griff?

strativarius
Reply to  Tom in Florida
December 3, 2022 5:55 am

Griff was a propagandist – in league with the, er, Grauniad and BBC!

Tony_G
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 2:51 pm

Well, nobody I know of has, or knows anybody else who has, this fabled climate anxiety thing.

There was a guy around here earlier this year who believed that humanity would be extinct in 3 years based on some nutcase website. He was either very sincere or a brilliant troll.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 8:37 am

Well this letter writer to the Grauniad certainly does believe

“There can be no human prosperity on a climate-wrecked planet where people drop dead in the street from the heat, everything we build gets blown away, flooded or burnt to the ground, and we can no longer produce food to nourish ourselves.”

Letter 23rd November 2022 from a chap in Dorset – I won’t name him to save him from further embarrassment.

Joseph Zorzin
Reply to  Dave Andrews
December 3, 2022 9:04 am

the end is near

the_end_is_near_179885.jpg
Tony_G
Reply to  Dave Andrews
December 3, 2022 2:53 pm

where people drop dead in the street from the heat,

How do people function day-to-day when they live in abject terror like that?

Lee Riffee
Reply to  Dave Andrews
December 3, 2022 7:35 pm

Gee, welcome to planet earth! The kind of stuff they mention have been going on for all of history. Even the Bible mentions catastrophic weather and natural disasters….

PeterD.
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 8:22 pm

Rather than providing a statement backed by objective, empirical evidence, the Guardian have handed a two word brief to an advertising copywriter – ‘Climate Catastrophe’, “And put your heart into articulating the catastrophe, son. The planet is counting on you”.
The entire content is loaded with classic copywriting verbiage and hyperbolic rhetoric.

Janice Moore
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 10:38 am

Pardon, Strat, but, most of those promoting the human CO2 scams (solar, wind, EV’s, etc.) do not believe it.

They say it.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 4:34 am

“There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed.”

The author of this statement is either completely clueless about the Earth’s climate and weather or he is a damn liar.

There is no evidence that CO2 is supercharging anthing.

Extreme weather is *normal* weather. Every storm can become extreme, and they do. There’s no evidence CO2 has anything to do with the severity. People who claim there is don’t know what they are talking about.

Unfortunately, these alarmist dupes and liars are misleading a lot of people and causing them to do really stupid, destructive things in an effort to control CO2, when CO2 doesn’t need any controls.

Human-caused Climate Change is the biggest science scam in human history. And it’s still going strong. That would be because there is lots of money and power to be had by promoting these lies to the public, and because there are a lot of clueless people who believe these lies.

Scissor
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 6:53 am

Climate lockdown anyone?

AndyHce
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 1:37 pm

Human-caused Climate Change is the biggest science scam in human history

Actually, it is probably about in the same league as fear of the devil getting you if you think about sex, which has a very long history in the west.

Scissor
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 6:48 am

Does Greta write for them or is she simply a plagiarist?

Janice Moore
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 10:30 am

Follow the money (as always).

comment image

In other words:

BUY OUR SOLAR/WIND/ELECTRIC VEHICLE JUNK!!

Graham
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 4:15 pm

Yes Joseph the Guardian has sure swallowed global warming hoax .
There is no proof that CO2 is causing extreme weather as going back in history there has always been extremes .
I will refer any of you who doubt this to Google Glacier Bay National Park and they will see how the ice started retreating long before any CO2 was being emitted from fossil fuel use .
Then Google the Vikings in Greenland and see how they farmed there before the Little Ice Age but they ’till cannot farm a lot of those areas now.
We know that the Guardian don’t and won’t want to publish facts like these and so do many other news media outlets keep the scare going.
Keep the public worried about extreme weather and they will keep buying the news papers is how they operate.

Retired_Engineer_Jim
Reply to  Graham
December 3, 2022 9:31 pm

And the public are continually worried about extreme weather, they won’t notice all the other things going on behind the scenes – good diversion.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Graham
December 4, 2022 11:10 am

There is no proof that CO2 is causing extreme weather

You forgot about the highly accurate forecast for the number of Atlantic hurricanes this year. [Do I have to?]

Retired_Engineer_Jim
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 9:26 pm

Guardian “analysis”!!!

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
December 4, 2022 11:10 am

That does seem like an oxymoron.

roaddog
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
December 4, 2022 2:00 pm

Moronalysis.

Alan Welch
December 3, 2022 3:19 am

I love “What If” scenarios. What if the Earth had no moon or 3 moons. What if gravity was twice as strong or half as strong.
So, what if the Industrial Revolution had started just before the Ice Age ended and before the sea rose 130 metres over 8 thousand years. The Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have started in Britain. Us Brits would have been living on the South of France, driving north over what would become the English Channel and doing all year-round skiing in the North of England.
Perhaps it would start in South America. Large cities all down the East Coast. Then the sea starts encroaching at 50 metres per year. It’s the CO2 they all scream. Let’s convene a COP1 and solve all our problems. 8000 years later, at COP8000 the sea stops rising. Great applause.  Al Gore’s Great (250 times) Grand Father gets the Noble Prize. Michael Mann’s GGGF takes up Hockey and Greta Thunberg’s GGGM sells off her unused bottles of super glue. 

Peta of Newark
Reply to  Alan Welch
December 3, 2022 4:21 am

What if everyone stopped eating sugar…………..
(Just for starters, there’s £4 Trillion per year healthcare costs saved, in the US alone)

strativarius
Reply to  Peta of Newark
December 3, 2022 4:56 am

Blimey, sounds every bit as bleak as the greenies worldview.

As Jethro Tull opined: “A little of what you fancy does you good”

Scissor
Reply to  Peta of Newark
December 3, 2022 7:00 am

People would live longer and healthier lives but healthcare costs in the U.S. are already distorted as it is, so one might question your monetary claim.

doonman
Reply to  Peta of Newark
December 3, 2022 2:08 pm

What if the body stopped digesting all carbohydrates ?

JohnC
December 3, 2022 3:32 am
Oldseadog
Reply to  JohnC
December 3, 2022 3:44 am

Almost all very commendable.

I wonder where the prize money is coming from?

Scissor
Reply to  Oldseadog
December 3, 2022 7:04 am

If you are a taxpayer, then look into a mirror.

auto
Reply to  JohnC
December 3, 2022 4:43 pm

From the Beeb: –
“Who are the winners?Clean Our Air:

  • Mukuru Clean Stoves, Kenya: Kenya’s Mukuru Clean Stoves is a female-founded business with mostly female staff. They produce stoves that are fired by processed biomass made from charcoal, wood and sugarcane instead of solid fuels, which can lead to air pollution and accidents that claim four million lives each year, the Earthshot Prize said.

Protect and Restore Nature:

  • Kheyti, India: In India, Kaushik Kappagantulu’s Greenhouse-in-a-Box helps small-hold farmers protect their crops from extreme weather and pests, in a country that has been severely impacted by climate change.

Build a Waste-free World:

  • Notpla, United Kingdom: A waste-free solution from the UK was also among the winners, where Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez have been able to create natural, bio-degradable plastic made out of seaweed. The company made more than one million takeaway food boxes for the food delivery platform Just Eat this year. More on the UK winner here

Revive Our Oceans:

  • Australia: The Indigenous Women of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia were chosen for a programme that has trained over 60 women in both traditional and digital ocean conservation methods.

Fix Our Climate:

  • 44.01, Oman: In Oman, Talal Hasan’s project 44.01 promises to turn carbon dioxide into peridotite, a rock that is found in abundance both in Oman and globally, including the US, Europe and Asia. It offers a low-cost and safe alternative to traditional methods of storing carbon, which include burying it underground in disused oil wells.”

So
Clean Our Air
Protect and Restore Nature And
Build a Waste Free World
all seem to me to be worthy endeavours. Congratulations!

Revive our Oceans seems to have training idea, which may be good – if it is training, rather than indoctrination. I hope it is. Muted congratulations.

Fix Our Climate wants to sequester CO2. That doesn’t help agriculture, forest regeneration etc. I am sure the initiator – Talal Hussein – is earnest – but [s]he appears misguided.
No friend of te greening of the Sahara, it appears.

Auto – my take on this.
YMMV

Geoff Sherrington
Reply to  auto
December 3, 2022 5:07 pm
  • Australia: The Indigenous Women of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia were chosen for a programme that has trained over 60 women in both traditional and digital ocean conservation methods.”

I have seen no evidence that Australian aborigines ever visited the Great Barrier Reef, especially the main outer reef where few of any people have ever been.
If I can be shown wrong, I will apologise and correct, for I am not an expert in these matters. Geoff S

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
December 4, 2022 11:14 am

That’s OK, Geoff. Most of the alarmists are not expert in these matters either. 🙂

wilpost
December 3, 2022 4:11 am

Here is an example of EXPENSIVE

Solar an Unreliable Nothing-burger in the UK in Winter, and in New England
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/solar-an-unreliable-nothing-burger-in-the-winter-in-the-uk-as-it ;

Francis Menton

The Zero-Carbon folks have no idea how an electrical system works, because they never analyzed, designed, and operated any energy system. Often, they are various types of environmentalists.

They are demanding an expensive, highly subsidized wind/solar/battery replacement of fossil fuels that has zero chance of success, as was shown in Europe in 2021, well before the Ukraine situation, and in 2022.
Europe is frantically trying to correct its under-investments in fossil fuel and nuclear.
It’s only a question of when, and how big, will be the wind/solar/battery failure, and how damaging the consequences of the failure will be.

Paul Homewood posted on his website “Not A Lot Of People Know That”, an article titled “Why Solar Power Is Useless In Winter in there UK.”

Homewood obtained the hourly data of electricity generation from UK solar panels from this website.
Open URL to see website

For context, the typical electricity usage in the UK at this time of year, per Homewood, is about 840 GWh, or 840/24 = 35 GW of daily average demand; some hours are less and others are more, depending on the daily demand curve.

The capacity of the UK solar systems is about 14 GW, as AC loaded onto the high voltage grid.

If the solar systems produced at full capacity for the 24 hours, they would have produced 14 x 24 = 336 GWh, or 336/840 = 40% of the UK’s typical usage for the day.

But hey, it’s late November in the UK

The days are short, the sun gets up late and goes to bed early, and there are lots of clouds, and often there is snow and ice on the panels, and some panel systems are out of service.
So how much did the solar facilities actually produce today?

Here is the chart:
Open URL to See chart

The peak output of the solar panels was about 1.33 GW, less than 1.33/35 = 4% of the 35 GW loaded onto the high voltage grid.
Production from the solar panels (the area under the curve) was 5.46 GWh, or 5.46/840 = 0.65% of the 840 GWh loaded onto the high voltage grid. By any definition, this is a nothing-burger.

The times of peak electricity demand are early morning and late-afternoon/early-evening.
At those times the UK’s solar systems produced absolutely nothing, i.e., a nothing-burger during peak hours.
In fact, the solar systems produced absolutely nothing from 4 pm to 8 am the next day; for 16 hours!!

So, how is the UK (or NE, or anyplace else) ever going to obtain a meaningful amount of its electricity from solar panels, in winter?

What About Building More Solar Systems?

Well, considering just today, the UK could have built 840/5.46 = 154 times as many solar panels as the UK currently has.
With the wind/solar/battery trio, favored by zero-carbon folks, the UK could have obtained the exact amount of electricity the UK loaded onto the high voltage grid, 840 GWh from solar, if winds had been near-zero, as often happens during a UK winter (and an NE winter)

However, almost all of that solar electricity would be at midday, when it was not needed
There would be near-zero solar electricity during the morning peak, 6-8 AM, and during the evening peak, 5-8 PM, as shown by the graph
To cover those peak periods, the UK would need a lot of energy storage.
Hundreds of GWh of storage would be needed just for this one day.
One GWh = one million kWh
The noon-time solar would be stored, and partially released during the evening peak, with the rest released during the morning peak of the next day.
That roundtrip procedure involves about 18 to 20% of losses, on an A-to-Z basis. See below.

What About Seasonal Solar Variations?

You could save the electricity from the summer time, when there is more intense sun, for more hours.
But for that, tens of thousands of GWh of storage would be required, just for the winter, in the UK.
Solar electricity would be stored for about 5 or 6 months, and released during the winter months, as needed by demand.

All-in, Turnkey Capital Cost of 1666 GWh of Li-ion Battery Systems

On an everyday basis, batteries should not be discharged to less than 20% full and not be charged to more than 80% full, to achieve 15-y useful service life, per Tesla recommendations.
On rare occasions, such a rare, long-distance driving, in case of EVs, discharging and charging is OK from 10% to 90%
 
Battery system rated capacity would be
1000 GWh/0.6, available capacity factor = 1666 GWh, delivered as AC at battery voltage
 
All-in, turnkey, capital cost of Li-ion battery systems would be
1666 million kWh x $400/kWh/$1000000000 = $666 billion; most of it would need to be replaced every 15 years. See Note

NOTE:
The rated capacity of the Moss Landing, California, Tesla battery system, owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company is 300 MW/1200 MWh
The all-in, turnkey, capital cost was $370 million, or $370 million/1200000 kWh = $308/kWh, delivered as AC at battery voltage; 2018 pricing
The 2018 pricing has increased at least 30% to $400/kWh in 2022. See Appendix
In late 2021, Tesla increased its 2021 battery module pricing by 24.5% for 2022

NOTE:
Li-ion battery systems have a loss of about 18%, when new, and about 20%, when older, on an A-to-Z basis
Here is the round-trip loss of a new, 1.666 GWh battery system, that delivers 1 GWh to the high voltage grid
Delivered by battery system is 1 GWh, as AC to high voltage grid
Charge in battery system is 1 GWh/0.92 = 1.087 GWh, as DC
Electricity to battery system is 1.087/0.92 = 1.181 GWh, as AC from high voltage grid
The 0.181 GWh round-trip loss has to be produced by additional solar panels, or other (fossil, nuclear, hydro, etc.) generators, if they were still present!!

NOTE:
Remember, all of this solar fantasy to “save the planet”, including huge-capacity battery systems, and hugely expanded electric grids, is highly subsidized with ratepayer and taxpayer money, to provide tax shelters to line the pockets of the world’s, well-connected, high rollers, who often have private planes, and private yachts, and mega mansions, and God knows what else.

bairddavid
December 3, 2022 4:31 am

After the publication of internal messages and emails exposing the Biden White House and the DNC to suppress and censor/cancel information RE: The Laptop From Hell. Elon Musk needs to expose the same internal/external coordination done by twitter staff to suppress factual information regarding the scam “Global Warming”.

Scissor
Reply to  bairddavid
December 3, 2022 7:09 am

It will be interesting to see where he draws the line between corruption he’s observed by others on one side and butter on his bread on the other.

In his favor, his investment in Twitter does not appear to be driven by monetary gain.

CO2isLife
December 3, 2022 4:45 am

Will Elon expose Twitter’s censorship of Climate Realists?

Editor
Reply to  CO2isLife
December 3, 2022 5:00 am

CO2isLife, consider that Musk is CEO of Tesla, which manufactures cars for the gullible and naive people who believe the climate nonsense.

Regards,
Bob

Tom in Florida
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
December 3, 2022 5:40 am

I think his cars are for the RICH gullilble and naive. But do they really buy Teslas for that reason? Perhaps it’s just another toy for those with money to spend and nothing worth while to spend it on.

Scissor
Reply to  Tom in Florida
December 3, 2022 7:19 am

There is definitely a subset of population with more money than brains.

Those with a lot of money can afford to take losses. For example, it’s been reported that Alyssa Milano sold her Tesla because she no longer supports Musk.

AOC says she would love to sell her Tesla. She might not know how.

doonman
Reply to  Scissor
December 3, 2022 2:31 pm

Alyssa Milano said she “gave back” her Tesla because she no longer supports Elon Musk’s politics. Then she bought a Volkswagen EV, which she said “I love”.

Then she was told that Volkswagen was founded by Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1938 and became the laughingstock of Twitter all day.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Scissor
December 4, 2022 11:17 am

There is definitely a subset of population with more money than brains.

I’ve long said, “More dollars than cents.”

strativarius
Reply to  CO2isLife
December 3, 2022 5:23 am

He’ll probably dump on Hunter Biden.

Musk has his own agenda, what that is I don’t know, but no Mr Nice Guy gets to be a billionaire many times over.

Scissor
Reply to  strativarius
December 3, 2022 7:21 am

I see a lot of PT Barnum in Musk, but Musk puts on a better show.

joe x
Reply to  CO2isLife
December 3, 2022 5:43 am

no. for the very reason mr. tisdale expresses.

Gunga Din
Reply to  CO2isLife
December 3, 2022 7:20 am

If he doesn’t expose the censorship, we can at least hope he ends it.

roaddog
Reply to  CO2isLife
December 4, 2022 2:03 pm

In other news, foreshadowing California’s future, Switzerland plans to ban the use of electric cars during periods of electricity shortages. Electric cars are the new, upscale lawn ornaments, and sidewalks are the future of public transportation.

Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 4:49 am

Elon Musk is shining the light of truth on Twitter and the radical, criminal Democrats, who used Twitter and other social media groups to rig the election for Joe Biden.
After the election of 2020, a poll was done which showed that 10 percent of those who voted for Biden would not have voted for him had they known the truth about the Biden influence peddling and taking money from China and Russia and Ukraine.

‘This will be awesome’: Musk leaks Twitter’s Hunter Biden files

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2845191552617/this-will-be-awesome-musk-leaks-twitter-s-hunter-biden-files

Scissor
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 9:13 am

Interesting take from James Woods.

Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 5:29 am

Swiss Government May Ban EV Use This Winter to Conserve Electricity
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/swiss-government-may-ban-ev-use-this-winter-to-conserve-electricity-205479.html

There’s not enough electricity for your electric cars!

And alarmists want all of us to drive electric cars. No thanks, I’ll stick with an internal combustion engine.

Scissor
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 7:32 am

Some say they are after people’s mobility (freedom).

In my life, there has always been some social movement against fossil fuels, albeit for evolving reasons, air pollution, peak oil, global warming, etc.

I’m with you on ICEs.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 9:04 am

Earlier this year the President of Toyota, the world’s largest car manufacturer, said

“Japan (for one) would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were running on electric power”

https://climatechangedispatch.com/toyota-warns-were-nowhere-near-ready-to-jettison-gas-powered-vehicles/

Tony_G
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 2:59 pm

Tom: A good twitter thread on that a couple days ago from John Hayward:
https://twitter.com/Doc_0/status/1598304484891004930

Quoting the start of the thread:

Spoiler alert: the endgame of the “electric vehicle revolution” is NOT the same number of people driving around, except using EVs instead of gas-fueled cars. The endgame is sharply restricting or eliminating personal transportation for the middle and lower classes.

Retired_Engineer_Jim
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 3, 2022 10:06 pm

But don’t EV’s suffer serious performance degradation in the cold? So maybe the Swiss, if they do this, will save all those virtue-signalling folks from some embarrassment.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 4, 2022 11:20 am

It’s for their own good, to prevent them from getting stranded in a cold car with a dead battery — and joining their battery in a better place.

roaddog
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 4, 2022 2:04 pm

Foreshadowing California’s future.

wilpost
December 3, 2022 6:40 am

Here is the epitome of unaffordable solar

Solar an Unreliable Nothing-burger in the UK in Winter, and in New England
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/solar-an-unreliable-nothing-burger-in-the-winter-in-the-uk-as-it ;

The Zero-Carbon folks have no idea how an electrical system works, because they never analyzed, designed, and operated any energy system. Often, they are various types of environmentalists.

They are demanding an expensive, highly subsidized wind/solar/battery replacement of fossil fuels that has zero chance of success, as was shown in Europe in 2021, well before the Ukraine situation, and in 2022.

Europe is frantically trying to correct its under-investments in fossil fuel and nuclear.
It’s only a question of when, and how big, will be the wind/solar/battery failure, and how damaging the consequences of the failure will be.

See URL for rest of article

wilpost
Reply to  wilpost
December 3, 2022 7:22 am
Quondam
December 3, 2022 7:13 am

Given a shielded, well-insulated 1 km vertical cylinder of dry nitrogen in earth’s gravitational field, what is the top-to-bottom temperature differential after the system has reached equilibrium?

Today, every self-professed authority on climate science answers 9.5 K. Every authority on thermodynamics, 0.0 K. Less well-known is that this differential was the focus of a Battle Royale in the late 19th century between the forces of Maxwell and Boltzmann and those of Josef Loschmidt.(1) Triggering the conflict was a 1862 paper by Wm. Thomson (Kelvin) noting that the observed temperature decrease of atmospheric temperature with altitude could be explained by an isentropic equilibrium model (e.g. 9.5 K). Maxwell was quick to point out that, based on his kinetic theory of gases, the distribution of molecular velocities was not altered by inclusion of gravitational accelerations. Indeed, should a non-isothermal equilibrium state exist, construction of a perpetual motion II machine would become possible. Independently, Boltzmann verified Maxwell’s conclusions. Loschmidt had reservations about the 2nd Law and espoused notions that Maxwell’s perpetuum mobile would actually offer an invaluable energy source. Imagine being able to extract the heat content of the ocean! By the end of the century, however, it had become apparent to all but an apostate fringe, no loopholes were to be found in the 2nd Law.

Nonetheless, isentropic equilibria reemerged in the latter part of 20th century in the guise of the adiabatic lapse rate, without evident acknowledgment of its checkered past. It was adopted to circumvent an inability to formulate convective energy fluxes. But an elementary thermodynamic calculation shows this gradient defines a tipping point for the convective instability of a flux-free system.(2)

Unanswered, why then is there a thermal gradient? Thermodynamic gradients are a consequence of material resistance to fluxes of extensive parameters, coulombs or kilograms or joules. For the atmosphere, it’s greenhouse gases and radiative absorption abetted by convection and viscosity. Such a schema was, in fact, posited by Roy Spencer in 2009.(3) Without greenhouse gases, the atmosphere would become isothermal save for diurnal surface variations. He speculated that weather/convection might significantly ameliorate global warming by increasing a system’s available degrees of freedom. In unpublished work on coupled radiative and convective fluxes, I’ve observed a reduction of CO2 warming from 2.26 K to 0.79 K when the constraint of a fixed boundary temperature differential is replaced by a variable lapse rate jointly determined by both fluxes.

  1. https://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~mtamash/f320_termo/continuum_mech_thermodyn12_151.pdf
  2. Fluid Dynamics, “§4. The condition that convection is absent”, L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, Addison-Wesley (1959)
  3. https://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/12/
Mike McMillan
Reply to  Quondam
December 3, 2022 3:10 pm

Ah, a denier of adiabatic lapse rates, ubiquitous on all the atmosphered rocky planets. You apparently missed the discussion of this back in 2012:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/24/refutation-of-stable-thermal-equilibrium-lapse-rates/

Not to worry. This will clear up all your misgivings:
https://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/adiabatic_lapse_rate.html

Joseph Zorzin
December 3, 2022 7:14 am

The big question is— to what extent do skeptics of human caused climate disaster have any influence? I get the sense the answer is almost none. Can the Republicans taking over the House make a difference? Or, are too many of them already compromised?

rah
December 3, 2022 7:23 am
Scissor
Reply to  rah
December 3, 2022 2:37 pm

I interviewed with LanzaTech. Decided I didn’t want to move to Chicago area (Skokie).

One of their processes takes advantage of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (synthesis gas) that is a waste gas from steel making.

Ostensibly, it reduces emissions directly but is only profitable through harvesting credits. They make alcohols that are dehydrated to olefins and then turned into fuels, polymers or other chemical products.

LanzaTech and Gevo are the only surviving companies from Khosla Ventures in this space. LanzaTech has gone the grant seeking finance route and has raised hundreds of millions this way and continues to do so. Gevo went the stock equity route and has bleed their stock investors dry.

In the grand scheme, they are less than drops in a bucket.

PMHinSC
December 3, 2022 7:54 am

I have both observed and read that temperature increase is primarily warmer nights with little increase in daytime temperatures. Other than Dr. Spencer’s recent article about UHI effects, I have seen little discussion of this phenomena. Does anyone have insight about other causes of warmer nights but not warmer days?

Rich Davis
Reply to  PMHinSC
December 3, 2022 12:10 pm

I would guess that during the day when the sun is heating the surface, there’s more convection than at night. The hotter it gets, the more convection. More greenhouse gases don’t act to slow convection. So increased greenhouse gases don’t have much impact on daytime temperatures. There’s still a reduction in radiative cooling, but convective cooling dominates and is not reduced.

At night, on the other hand, when there is no heat source, the atmosphere stratifies and radiative cooling dominates. If cooling is slowed by an enhanced greenhouse effect, the temperature will stay warmer at night.

AndyHce
Reply to  Rich Davis
December 3, 2022 1:59 pm

Many years of observation where I’ve lived show that daytime convection/advection is strongly dependent on pressure differences, especially in the summer. Frequently there is little air movement for days on end. Daytime temperatures continue to rise and very little night time cooling occurs.

I think this is due to stationary high pressure air masses but this is admittedly speculation on my part. Different geological conditions probably produce different weather conditions.

Elliot W
Reply to  PMHinSC
December 3, 2022 12:31 pm

Warmer nights/not-warmer days IS the red flag for UHI.

Chris Nisbet
December 3, 2022 9:04 am

If our emissions from FF magically dropped to zero tomorrow, what would we expect to happen to the slope of the CO2 concentration graph? Would it level right out (or even drop)? If not, it means that our emissions are just reducing the time it will take for the levels to reach the same point they will naturally, doesn’t it? In which case, we’d be able to calculate how much earlier that would be. Have we calculated how much earlier we’ll reach naturally-expected 2100 levels? Are we talking decades/months/weeks/days?

Scissor
Reply to  Chris Nisbet
December 3, 2022 2:44 pm

Good question. All things being equal, CO2 could drop up to around 1 ppm/year assuming that all of the current rise is due to us.

We really don’t know though, and, fortunately, we will not do the experiment.

Steve Case
December 3, 2022 9:38 am

Colorado University’s Sea Level Research Group recently put out 2022_rel2

Scissor
Reply to  Steve Case
December 3, 2022 2:38 pm

University of Colorado.

walterr070
December 3, 2022 9:53 am

I want to know what everyone’s thoughts are regarding this, especially our European friends.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/uk-germany-france-hottest-year

Steve Oregon
December 3, 2022 10:08 am

It’s nearly 2023.
Why can’t modern man provide abundant low cost energy and fuel to all of mankind?
There is plenty of it. Who is to blame.
Interestingly the places who seem to be adopting policies that impede doing so have the highest household prices of electricity & fuel.
https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/
https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
Also interesting is that the middle east has very low cost household electricity. Is it subsidies? Or due to gas and oil power being dominant?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-sources-diversity-in-electricity-generation-in-the-Middle-East_fig1_40755390

No surprise Germany (being the most aggressive climate regime) has the highest priced electricity and fuel.

MIke McHenry
December 3, 2022 10:34 am

I noticed that NOAA hasn’t been making the absurd claims of one year being hotter than another in a while. Anyone know why?

Rich Davis
Reply to  MIke McHenry
December 3, 2022 12:18 pm

Maybe because a focus on “extreme” weather allows them to exploit any disaster for The Cause ™ rather than being limited to hot weather.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  MIke McHenry
December 4, 2022 11:32 am

It might have something to do with no statistically significant warming in more than 8 years. It could be embarrassing to claim “Tied for 20th place.”

%d
Verified by MonsterInsights