Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[ChescoWx]

15 hours ago, chubbs said:

Your table shows the 2F cooling associated with the Phoenixville move, but you need to go back to 1945 to capture the Coatesville move. Here are two data tables which isolate the moves more clearly. Roughly 2F cooling according to the raw data. Regarding the site photos which you complained about. Coatesville's housing stock is almost entirely pre-1920, the city's population peaked in 1930, so todays photos provide useful information about conditions in 1945.

 

The mistake you made in the chart is the actual 1st full year at the new location in Coatesville was 1949. A full one-third of 1948 was actually at the old location. When we look at the actual data for that first full year following the move which was 1949 - you can clearly see that temperatures far from cooling as you keep saying in reality actually warmed by 2.2 degrees - no cooling at all. You would think moving from what you called a "UHI" location would have resulted in cooling - it of course did not!  Also of importance all 3 stations warmed that year!  And look at those altered NOAA temperatures for the county....what station in 1945, 1946, 1947 was as cold as that ghost station they used? Answer of course absolutey none - it's a ghost for Halloween!!

[donsutherland1]

6 hours ago, WolfStock1 said:

 

Sorry but think about this statement.   Yes the "result is the same" but ONLY FOR DELOS.   (that place where only 25 people live, and that at the current rate will be fully underwater in about 120,000 years.)

For the vast majority of the world the result is NOT the same.

Not only that but the policy implications are completely different.

If the whole world was experiencing what Delos is experiencing - faster water level rise due mostly to tectonic-movement-driven subduction - then any attempts to halt sea level rise via CO2 reduction are simply pointless.    Even if CO2 increase was stopped today and reversed - we would all still be doomed.   Thus - why bother?   Unless perhaps you think we have the ability to stop continental drift (?)

You really need to consider your stance here - you're sounding quite foolish IMO.

 

This is getting to absurd "twilight zone" alternate reality territory. Wild claims are made. No scientific literature is cited to support the thesis of doom.

Comparing CO2 mitigation to “stopping continental drift” is rhetorically clever but scientifically irrelevant. Continental drift operates over tens of millions of years, not the decades/centuries/millennia under discussion with climate change and the responses to changes in forcing. 

It’s incorrect to suggest that halting or reversing CO2 rise would have no effect. If CO2 concentrations stabilize or decline, global temperatures would likely follow over decades to centuries, as radiative forcing equilibrates (equilibrium climate sensitivity). The system’s inertia is large but not infinite. "Doomed no matter what” has little or no scientific support. It is nothing more than a rallying cry to stick with an unsustainable status quo.

To be sure, a degree of melt/sea-level rise is baked in. However, there is no evidence that an inflection point has been reached where the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are doomed to disappear. The latest estimate for an inflection point for Greenland is 1.7°-2.3°C.   For Antarctica, the latest estimates for the West is 1°-3°C  and 2°-6°C for the East. One recent study suggested that an additional 0.25°C ocean warming could reach the inflection point for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Mitigation can reduce the extent of warming. Society is not helpless. The problem is largely not technical or technological. It's largely political. It's about societal choice, specifically a choice to stick with the status quo while fully aware of the consequences of that choice. 

The "Doomist" characterization deployed to argue against mitigation is what's foolish, particularly as human agency exists. Alternative paths away from the status quo of dumping some 40 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year do exist.

[TheClimateChanger]

Always be wary of the concern troll!

 

[ChescoWx]

Now that we are done with any 90+ degree days. Below is the by-decade trend of the average number of 90+ days across Chester County PA from the 1890's through the 2020's. There is a clear decline at all elevations in the number of such hot days. In fact, the 2020's are trending to be the 2nd lowest number of average 90-degree days behind only the 1970's.

[rcostell]

5 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

The mistake you made in the chart is the actual 1st full year at the new location in Coatesville was 1949. A full one-third of 1948 was actually at the old location. When we look at the actual data for that first full year following the move which was 1949 - you can clearly see that temperatures far from cooling as you keep saying in reality actually warmed by 2.2 degrees - no cooling at all. You would think moving from what you called a "UHI" location would have resulted in cooling - it of course did not!  Also of importance all 3 stations warmed that year!  And look at those altered NOAA temperatures for the county....what station in 1945, 1946, 1947 was as cold as that ghost station they used? Answer of course absolutey none - it's a ghost for Halloween!!

Again- Please take the Chester County, PA.  back and forth to the thread created for the Chester County PA. back and fort. Please. 

[ChescoWx]

3 minutes ago, rcostell said:

Again- Please take the Chester County, PA.  back and forth to the thread created for the Chester County PA. back and fort. Please. 

Is this thread not for climate change  on a world wide, United States, State Level or County basis? I do present climate change thoughts on a county basis. For example I posted real climate stats showing climate change across Chester County regarding the number of 90+ days. That is a climate post correct?

[WolfStock1]

5 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

This is getting to absurd "twilight zone" alternate reality territory. Wild claims are made. No scientific literature is cited to support the thesis of doom.

Exactly, which is why we are criticizing your thesis of doom in your post the other day.

 

5 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Comparing CO2 mitigation to “stopping continental drift” is rhetorically clever but scientifically irrelevant. Continental drift operates over tens of millions of years, not the decades/centuries/millennia under discussion with climate change and the responses to changes in forcing. 

 

Continental drift is constant.  It operates over tens of millions of years, but it also operates over tens of seconds.   As such it is very much not scientifically irrelevant.   In this case specifically it is operating faster than climate change, with regards to how it is affecting the land/sea level relationship at this one location.   Why are you ignoring that simple fact?   You can't just ignore it away.  

 

5 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

It’s incorrect to suggest that halting or reversing CO2 rise would have no effect. If CO2 concentrations stabilize or decline, global temperatures would likely follow over decades to centuries, as radiative forcing equilibrates (equilibrium climate sensitivity). The system’s inertia is large but not infinite. "Doomed no matter what” has little or no scientific support. It is nothing more than a rallying cry to stick with an unsustainable status quo.

 

I have made no such suggestion.

 

5 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

Mitigation can reduce the extent of warming. Society is not helpless. The problem is largely not technical or technological. It's largely political.

 

It's not "political" - it's economic.   It's about the welfare of society.    Reducing the extent of warming will be *hugely* expensive and painful.    It's not just a matter of people arguing in a room somewhere - it's about the prosperity of the world.   Including, BTW: lives.   Yes - it will certainly cause greater loss of life to reduce CO2 to a level that you're wishing for, than not.

Just look at the life expectancy rates of developed countries vs undeveloped countries.   What's one key component of that?   Reliable electricity and transportation.   What's a the primary input to reliable electricity and transportation?   Fossil fuels.    What's a key attribute of poverty?   They tend to have *much* higher pollution - including many still using wood and charcoal for most cooking (look it up - Africa and India especially).   This causes health problems, including premature death due to lung conditions.   This is in part because they don't have fossil-fuel-driven electrical power plants.  

Yes there a couple of notable small exceptions - e.g. Norway gets almost all of of its electricity from hydro and not fossil; they won the topography lottery.   But the rest of the 99% of the world relies on fossil fuels for their prosperity.   Even Norway does for transportation; despite winning the electricity lottery.

Yes this can, and will, change slowly over time.    It has to, because fossil fuels are limited.   But it will be painful, because of physics.    And it will take hundreds of years - not dozens.   Trying to push the changes by policy mandates, rather than letting them happen organically as technology evolves just increases the pain and reduces prosperity.

[ChescoWx]

28 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

Exactly, which is why we are criticizing your thesis of doom in your post the other day.

 

 

Continental drift is constant.  It operates over tens of millions of years, but it also operates over tens of seconds.   As such it is very much not scientifically irrelevant.   In this case specifically it is operating faster than climate change, with regards to how it is affecting the land/sea level relationship at this one location.   Why are you ignoring that simple fact?   You can't just ignore it away.  

 

 

I have made no such suggestion.

 

 

It's not "political" - it's economic.   It's about the welfare of society.    Reducing the extent of warming will be *hugely* expensive and painful.    It's not just a matter of people arguing in a room somewhere - it's about the prosperity of the world.   Including, BTW: lives.   Yes - it will certainly cause greater loss of life to reduce CO2 to a level that you're wishing for, than not.

Just look at the life expectancy rates of developed countries vs undeveloped countries.   What's one key component of that?   Reliable electricity and transportation.   What's a the primary input to reliable electricity and transportation?   Fossil fuels.    What's a key attribute of poverty?   They tend to have *much* higher pollution - including many still using wood and charcoal for most cooking (look it up - Africa and India especially).   This causes health problems, including premature death due to lung conditions.   This is in part because they don't have fossil-fuel-driven electrical power plants.  

Yes there a couple of notable small exceptions - e.g. Norway gets almost all of of its electricity from hydro and not fossil; they won the topography lottery.   But the rest of the 99% of the world relies on fossil fuels for their prosperity.   Even Norway does for transportation; despite winning the electricity lottery.

Yes this can, and will, change slowly over time.    It has to, because fossil fuels are limited.   But it will be painful, because of physics.    And it will take hundreds of years - not dozens.   Trying to push the changes by policy mandates, rather than letting them happen organically as technology evolves just increases the pain and reduces prosperity.

Bravo! an excellent post! Too often folks bring in politics where it has nothing to do with the political whims of a democratic society like here in the US. Thank you!!