Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[Typhoon Tip]

11 hours ago, chubbs said:

Here's a blog article on the "acceleration" paper that you linked above by a climate scientist who wasn't involved. Good discussion of what is known and not known about recent global temperature trends. Bottom line, we already knew that warming was accelerating; but, we don't know why with any precision which makes it difficult to extrapolate forward. Not a good position to be considering the amount of warming we have already experienced. 

 https://diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2026/03/07/for-a-rainy-day/ 

 

  

+That bold statement of yours is the very reason the world should be very afraid.   

It still does not resonate enough with people that enormity of raising an entire planetary system, air, sea and air-sea coupled, unilaterally, by a whole degree C, over span of time that is virtually instant in geological scales - but frankly, disturbingly fast even for the single life span of a human being. 

If that can happen without warning and those zero extrapolated expectation, ... good luck

[chubbs]

17 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

+That bold statement of yours is the very reason the world should be very afraid.   

It still does not resonate enough with people that enormity of raising an entire planetary system, air, sea and air-sea coupled, unilaterally, by a whole degree C, over span of time that is virtually instant in geological scales - but frankly, disturbingly fast even for the single life span of a human being. 

If that can happen without warning and those zero extrapolated expectation, ... good luck

There's no doubt that warming is accelerating. The blue line in the chart below is the warming rate over the previous 30-years using GISS. The 30-year warming rate started to increase at the start of the 2015/16 nino and has been increasing steadily since then. The latest 30-year warming rate includes a little over 10 years of faster warming and roughly 20 years at the slower pre-15/16 nino rate, so the chart is completely consistent with the 0.35/decade rate for the past 10 years estimated in the paper.  Note that it would take until 2045 for the current warming rate to be fully reflected in the 30-year rate, assuming it continues. When warming started to increase in 1970, the 30-year warming rate didn't stabilize until the 1990s.

The red line takes the current 30-year warming rate and extrapolates temperatures in 2050 under the assumption that warming will continue at the same rate as the last 30 years. The projection is conservative as the faster recent warming rate isn't fully reflected in the 30-year rate.  Warming will have to slow down somewhat to hit the latest 2050 number. Of course we don't know the future. The main factor determining 2050 temperatures is our emissions. The recent increase reflects increased man-made forcing as greenhouse gases continue to increase; while, cooling aerosols have dropped. We have agency, but our ability to influence 2050 temperatures decreases with time as more and more of our emission trajectory gets baked in. Our odds of staying under 2C are decreasing.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[WolfStock1]

On 3/8/2026 at 6:04 PM, Typhoon Tip said:

+That bold statement of yours is the very reason the world should be very afraid.   

It still does not resonate enough with people that enormity of raising an entire planetary system, air, sea and air-sea coupled, unilaterally, by a whole degree C, over span of time that is virtually instant in geological scales - but frankly, disturbingly fast even for the single life span of a human being. 

If that can happen without warning and those zero extrapolated expectation, ... good luck

 

Sorry but the FUD approach is just getting tiresome.   I think you vastly underestimate both the adaptability of humans and the durability of planet Earth.

People hear what Chicken Littles have been saying for decades - and then they look at the *actual* impacts that are happening - and the two just don't match.   E.g. Weather-related deaths continue to decline, mass die-offs of species like polar bears isn't happening, coastal areas aren't becoming inhabitable due to being underwater, the polar regions still have year-round ice, etc.

As a result the general population seems to be souring on the climate change hysteria, realizing that we aren't in fact in an existential crisis, with many even questioning the veracity of the predictions wholesale.   Maybe it would behoove to be more pragmatic in the approach - something other than "the world should be very afraid" stance.

[TheClimateChanger]

 

[csnavywx]

21 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Sorry but the FUD approach is just getting tiresome.   I think you vastly underestimate both the adaptability of humans and the durability of planet Earth.

People hear what Chicken Littles have been saying for decades - and then they look at the *actual* impacts that are happening - and the two just don't match.   E.g. Weather-related deaths continue to decline, mass die-offs of species like polar bears isn't happening, coastal areas aren't becoming inhabitable due to being underwater, the polar regions still have year-round ice, etc.

As a result the general population seems to be souring on the climate change hysteria, realizing that we aren't in fact in an existential crisis, with many even questioning the veracity of the predictions wholesale.   Maybe it would behoove to be more pragmatic in the approach - something other than "the world should be very afraid" stance.

We win when we hedge the risk properly. The phenomenon you're describing is literally us discarding that tendency to hedge out the window, right as volatility ramps. Yeah, policy prescription has sucked to this point and the shilling about the "low cost of transition" has turned out to be damaging and wrong (if you have doubts, look at PPA prices and virtually every base metal in the past couple of years) It was always going to be costly (a significant % of GDP). The balking at the cost is understandable and the damage costs *to this point* have been mostly a "freebie" since it's a) mostly indirect, b) have not pushed us outside historical ranges except at/very near the equator, c) non-linear change tends to be slow at first, and d) tech/econ growth rate has been enough to offset. Problem is, if you wait until forward economic growth is meaningfully impacted, much slowing towards zero, then you are already too late.

Hedging 20 years ago would've been much cheaper.

Hedging now is fairly expensive.

Hedging 20 years from now will be extraordinarily expensive.

You hedge when it's cheap, not when you have to. But until we do hedge this risk properly and start really taking it seriously, the doomers will be right. You are literally short selling a temp graph that is accelerating up.

[WolfStock1]

9 hours ago, csnavywx said:

We win when we hedge the risk properly. The phenomenon you're describing is literally us discarding that tendency to hedge out the window, right as volatility ramps. Yeah, policy prescription has sucked to this point and the shilling about the "low cost of transition" has turned out to be damaging and wrong (if you have doubts, look at PPA prices and virtually every base metal in the past couple of years) It was always going to be costly (a significant % of GDP). The balking at the cost is understandable and the damage costs *to this point* have been mostly a "freebie" since it's a) mostly indirect, b) have not pushed us outside historical ranges except at/very near the equator, c) non-linear change tends to be slow at first, and d) tech/econ growth rate has been enough to offset. Problem is, if you wait until forward economic growth is meaningfully impacted, much slowing towards zero, then you are already too late.

Hedging 20 years ago would've been much cheaper.

Hedging now is fairly expensive.

Hedging 20 years from now will be extraordinarily expensive.

You hedge when it's cheap, not when you have to. But until we do hedge this risk properly and start really taking it seriously, the doomers will be right. You are literally short selling a temp graph that is accelerating up.

 

It was *never* going to be anywhere close to "cheap" to hedge, at any point.   You're fighting not only physics, but politics and human nature.   It would require not only taking a huge hit to our prosperity - but convincing all the other countries in the world to take that same hit.  Good luck with that.  I don't think you understand just *how* much of our prosperity is based on the foundation of fossil fuel use.   It's literally been the basis for the industrial revolution.   The big inflection point was 150 years ago - not 20 years ago.   But if we somehow had managed to avoid that inflection point - we wouldn't have anything close to the prosperity we do today.

We perhaps had a smidgen of a chance decades ago, with the advent of nuclear power.   But then the clueless anti-nuke lobby, led by the likes of Ralph Nader, ensured that wasn't going to happen*.    Even still that would have only gotten us so far; even with all-nuclear electricity we still would have other fossil fuel uses in transportation and industry to deal with.

(*Edit: In his defense - he didn't know about MMGW back then.   He might have a difference stance today if so.   Nevertheless - he and others like him were responsible for the extreme over-reactive risk aversion that killed nuclear.)

[chubbs]

9 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

It was *never* going to be anywhere close to "cheap" to hedge, at any point.   You're fighting not only physics, but politics and human nature.   It would require not only taking a huge hit to our prosperity - but convincing all the other countries in the world to take that same hit.  Good luck with that.  I don't think you understand just *how* much of our prosperity is based on the foundation of fossil fuel use.   It's literally been the basis for the industrial revolution.   The big inflection point was 150 years ago - not 20 years ago.   But if we somehow had managed to avoid that inflection point - we wouldn't have anything close to the prosperity we do today.

We perhaps had a smidgen of a chance decades ago, with the advent of nuclear power.   But then the clueless anti-nuke lobby, led by the likes of Ralph Nader, ensured that wasn't going to happen*.    Even still that would have only gotten us so far; even with all-nuclear electricity we still would have other fossil fuel uses in transportation and industry to deal with.

(*Edit: In his defense - he didn't know about MMGW back then.   He might have a difference stance today if so.   Nevertheless - he and others like him were responsible for the extreme over-reactive risk aversion that killed nuclear.)

Not sure what "physics" you are referring to. Sure fossil fuels easily beat all comers for a long time; but, the day of clear advantage has passed, and fossil fuels continue to slip relative to competition. The combustion of fossil fuels is: inefficient, technically mature, and uses a diminishing natural resource. Meanwhile renewable energy and batteries continue on steady cost improvement curves. 

The current crisis only makes fossil fuels more costly and highlights the geopolitical risk. It isn't easy to replace fossil infrastructure; but, long-term costs are lower without the disruption risk. This will become more apparent as some countries move away from fossil fuels and flourish. Even the US with pro-fossil and anti-renewable policies isn't ramping fossil fuel use, only slowing the transition away. Linked a blog article that discusses India. 

Climate change is only the cherry on the non-fossil cake. 

https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/indias-electrotech-fast-track

 

[csnavywx]

RE will continue to get more expensive on a PPA basis so long as we continue to ignore the issues plaguing transmission, distribution and direct competition between industrial scale AI/DC buildout and the insane lack of investment in upstream base materials supply (like spinning up mining and refining). I maintain that negative prices on the spot market are a sign of market failure, not something that should be cheered.

These prices certainly are not going to get better this year: 

 

The correct take is that *all energy* will continue to get more expensive in the world we've built for ourselves now. (Disclosure that I am long ICLN -- because yes, most of these companies will try and expand their margins off the backs of the ratepayer and externalizing the grid cost -- my PNL tells me if I'm right or not, so far, so good.)

[WolfStock1]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

Not sure what "physics" you are referring to. Sure fossil fuels easily beat all comers for a long time; but, the day of clear advantage has passed, and fossil fuels continue to slip relative to competition. The combustion of fossil fuels is: inefficient, technically mature, and uses a diminishing natural resource. Meanwhile renewable energy and batteries continue on steady cost improvement curves. 

The current crisis only makes fossil fuels more costly and highlights the geopolitical risk. It isn't easy to replace fossil infrastructure; but, long-term costs are lower without the disruption risk. This will become more apparent as some countries move away from fossil fuels and flourish. Even the US with pro-fossil and anti-renewable policies isn't ramping fossil fuel use, only slowing the transition away. Linked a blog article that discusses India. 

Climate change is only the cherry on the non-fossil cake. 

https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/indias-electrotech-fast-track

 

 

 

The physics I was referring to is simply energy density.  Fossil simply has much, much higher energy density than solar, wind, or hydro.   (though a lot less than uranium)

As an example of that - the county that I live in has two interestingly-comparable new power plants:

1.  A natural gas plant that produces 780 MW of power, on 100 acres of land

2.  A solar farm (being built) that will produce 100 MW of power (when the sun peaks), on 800 acres of land

When accounting for base load levels - the solar farm will produce roughly 1/250th the amount as the natural gas plant, on a per-acre basis.

That's what I mean.

(Obviously there's more to it than just acreage-used; that's one example facet)

With regards to India - I don't see any "fast track" in that chart you posted.   It looks like they're behind to me.

They are, however, rapidly catching up in regards to how much CO2 they are emitting, at least compared with the US:

 

 

 

[csnavywx]

13 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

It was *never* going to be anywhere close to "cheap" to hedge, at any point.   You're fighting not only physics, but politics and human nature.   It would require not only taking a huge hit to our prosperity - but convincing all the other countries in the world to take that same hit.  Good luck with that.  I don't think you understand just *how* much of our prosperity is based on the foundation of fossil fuel use.   It's literally been the basis for the industrial revolution.   The big inflection point was 150 years ago - not 20 years ago.   But if we somehow had managed to avoid that inflection point - we wouldn't have anything close to the prosperity we do today.

We perhaps had a smidgen of a chance decades ago, with the advent of nuclear power.   But then the clueless anti-nuke lobby, led by the likes of Ralph Nader, ensured that wasn't going to happen*.    Even still that would have only gotten us so far; even with all-nuclear electricity we still would have other fossil fuel uses in transportation and industry to deal with.

(*Edit: In his defense - he didn't know about MMGW back then.   He might have a difference stance today if so.   Nevertheless - he and others like him were responsible for the extreme over-reactive risk aversion that killed nuclear.)

I mean, you made the point for me here. If we had hedged off w/nuclear (on a scientific, rational basis) we'd be in a much better spot today. But fear won and so did the campaign to offload responsibility onto the individual (e.g. "carbon footprint", "carbon offset" nonsense) and away from capital interests. Label the individual as the "junkie" (Purdue Pharma style, just nicer words) while perpetrating fraud. Sell the fix as cheap and easy and ultimately again, as up to the individual. Ignore the obvious ideological holes. And by god, never ever talk honestly about the tail risk. It was and continues to be a systemic, collective action and thermodynamic problem.

[WolfStock1]

13 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

RE will continue to get more expensive on a PPA basis so long as we continue to ignore the issues plaguing transmission, distribution and direct competition between industrial scale AI/DC buildout and the insane lack of investment in upstream base materials supply (like spinning up mining and refining). I maintain that negative prices on the spot market are a sign of market failure, not something that should be cheered.

These prices certainly are not going to get better this year: 

 

The correct take is that *all energy* will continue to get more expensive in the world we've built for ourselves now. (Disclosure that I am long ICLN -- because yes, most of these companies will try and expand their margins off the backs of the ratepayer and externalizing the grid cost -- my PNL tells me if I'm right or not, so far, so good.)

 

Interesting.   Got a link for that?   I didn't realize wind and solar prices had been going up like that.   You hear about prices going down, though generally it doesn't include the transmission aspect; which is generally much higher because wind and solar are prevalent in areas where people that use the energy *aren't* as prevalent.   

As such I've maintained that we're about done picking the solar and wind "low hanging fruit"; this chart appears to show evidence of that.

[WolfStock1]

5 minutes ago, csnavywx said:

I mean, you made the point for me here. If we had hedged off w/nuclear (on a scientific, rational basis) we'd be in a much better spot today. But fear won and so did the campaign to offload responsibility onto the individual (e.g. "carbon footprint", "carbon offset" nonsense) and away from capital interests. Label the individual as the "junkie" (Purdue Pharma style, just nicer words) while perpetrating fraud. Sell the fix as cheap and easy and ultimately again, as up to the individual. Ignore the obvious ideological holes. And by god, never ever talk honestly about the tail risk. It was and continues to be a systemic, collective action and thermodynamic problem.

Presuming that you're talking about nuclear - the problem is that there has always been *too much* talk about the tail risk; i.e. blowing out of proportion.

[csnavywx]

1 minute ago, WolfStock1 said:

Presuming that you're talking about nuclear - the problem is that there has always been *too much* talk about the tail risk; i.e. blowing out of proportion.

Yes, too much talk about tail risk of nuclear and a chronic downplay of ECS >4C scenarios up until very very recently.

[csnavywx]

9 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Interesting.   Got a link for that?   I didn't realize wind and solar prices had been going up like that.   You hear about prices going down, though generally it doesn't include the transmission aspect; which is generally much higher because wind and solar are prevalent in areas where people that use the energy *aren't* as prevalent.   

As such I've maintained that we're about done picking the solar and wind "low hanging fruit"; this chart appears to show evidence of that.

LevelTen warns of rising PPA prices amid US trade, policy strain – pv magazine International

 

This is even more up to date. Tariffs are mentioned and I'm sure those aren't helping, but the trend was there prior to that. And it does not include the global run up in almost all base materials over the last 1-2yr. There's a lot more supply that needs to be unlocked, but that requires sustained higher prices. This was mostly dismissed for years as there was "plenty enough global reserves to go around and the market would take care of it". Well the market is going to take care of it alright. By taking it right out of your pocket.