Pretty bold move….

[field & stream]

Originally Posted by OTRA15

Z . . . z . . . z . . . z . . .

Excuse me, but your snoring woke me up.

[LNBright]

Originally Posted by jcl

I believe I did understand you. No joke.

You didn't want to estimate how much of the current warming is due to anthropogenic effects. But a consensus of scientists did just that, as part of the IPCC reports. In different reports, they pegged the effects at up to 110%. That is because with no anthropogenic effects, they found that we would be cooling now. The effects they considered included aerosols (anthropogenic cooling) and without that, we would see more net warming than we are seeing.

Read the IPCC reports, it is there. And this isn't new, it is 8 years old, and more data since then has further backed the conclusions, not reversed them.

One article summarized it as follows:



https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis...-due-to-humans

My apologies.

Sadly, their basis is wrong.... based on pre-Industrial Revolution trends, we've still thousands of years to go still before we'd peak and then would have began cooling, into the next ice age.


The new debate is wondering, if we've actually prevented the possibility of that turn into the next ice age from occurring.

[Al and Missy]

Originally Posted by mikeinca

There is little doubt there is a natural component to climate change. But it's difficult to look at the graph below and not conclude that the pace of change is bound to accelerate in conjunction with the pumping of more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by anthropogenic activity.

As you've suggested, changes in our atmosphere and climate have indeed occurred over thousands of years. But short of cataclysmic events like asteroid strikes and huge scale volcanic activity it doesn't occur over decades; until now. Coincidence? I don't think so.





And there are a bunch of people taking it nowhere near seriously enough.

An interesting graph. While I am still trying to form an educated opinion on the subject, I have a question:


How does the vertical axis on the right relate to the axis on the left? How would this curve look if the scale on the right were cut in half? or doubled? I'd like to see this graph with both axes in ppm in the atmosphere. Maybe it is already, but I have to assume that; the graph doesn't say.



Mass of the earth's atmosphere - 5.2 x 10^25 kg. Picking the point at which CO2 output was 25 billion tons, i.e. 1.1x10^14 kg, that is 2.1x10^-6 ppm of the atmosphere, when the CO2 in the atmosphere was 360 ppm. I know I'm missing something like maybe at what level in the atmosphere the CO2 is concentrated, but my point is the scale of the graph appears to have been manipulated to make a point. What am I missing?

[mikeinca]

Originally Posted by Al and Missy

An interesting graph. While I am still trying to form an educated opinion on the subject, I have a question:


How does the vertical axis on the right relate to the axis on the left? How would this curve look if the scale on the right were cut in half? or doubled? I'd like to see this graph with both axes in ppm in the atmosphere. Maybe it is already, but I have to assume that; the graph doesn't say.



Mass of the earth's atmosphere - 5.2 x 10^25 kg. Picking the point at which CO2 output was 25 billion tons, i.e. 1.1x10^14 kg, that is 2.1x10^-6 ppm of the atmosphere, when the CO2 in the atmosphere was 360 ppm. I know I'm missing something like maybe at what level in the atmosphere the CO2 is concentrated, but my point is the scale of the graph appears to have been manipulated to make a point. What am I missing?

The graph is an overlay of two sets of data. The left and right axis don't relate to each other, they each relate to the x-axis which depicts time.

The magenta scale on the left correlates with the magenta line showing the concentration of atmospheric CO2 at a given point in time and the blue scale showing CO2 on the right relates to the blue line showing the amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions at a given point in time.

The scale of the lines isn't important except to show that there is a correlation between increasing CO2 emissions and an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over time. It's the rising shape of both lines that is relevant.

The one potentially significant missing piece of data is whether other major sources of CO2 could be paralleling the human contribution and affecting the result. But since there are no natural events that are remotely on the scale of human CO2 contribution in the last 100 years, the similar shape of the two graphs is the story.

And before someone asks, "Well what about volcanic eruptions? What about Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo?" Well, according to the USGA, volcanos (including those undersea) release on average about 200 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year which is less than 1% of that generated by human activity. Mount St. Helens is estimated to have released .01 GT of CO2 while Pinatubo released .05 GT, both insignificant puppy-sh*t compared to the almost 40 GT released by anthropogenic activity.

[jcl]

Originally Posted by LNBright

My apologies.

Sadly, their basis is wrong.... based on pre-Industrial Revolution trends, we've still thousands of years to go still before we'd peak and then would have began cooling, into the next ice age.

I suspect you are referring to longer term cycles, eg 20,000 years, relating to ice ages, based on your reference to Milankovitch cycles. How have you evaluated the impact of shorter term shifts in volcanic activity, solar activity, aerosols, land use, ozone, and so on, the things the climate scientists factored in, in deciding that their basis is wrong?

[TR Anderson]

Originally Posted by Daquenzer

But will that happen in 15 years? People continue to compare this to moving from horses to cars. It’s not that simple. With horses there was little to no infrastructure that had to be dismantled or reconfigured.

Not that simple? There were no roads as we know them anywhere. They were DIRT, not even gravel. When it rained they were MUD. There were no signs, no stoplights, no gas stations, no oil change places, no garages to park them in, no mechanics to fix them. There were no auto parts stores or tire stores.

This is far simpler. So much easier. The only thing that changes is the fuel source. A fuel source that everyone has in their home, their workplace, and the businesses they frequent. A fuel source that is available 24/7. Yes, charging stations will be everywhere. Apartment buildings will allocate at least one, possibly two for each unit, even with outside parking. I've already seen them at condo complexes. It's really not that difficult.

If you're skeptical, don't buy one. There will still be auto manufacturers that will be glad to sell you an ICE vehicle. But your arguments are unproductive.

[mikextr]

Originally Posted by OTRA15

Z . . . z . . . z . . . z . . .

That post is very rude and impolite.

[LNBright]

Originally Posted by jcl

I suspect you are referring to longer term cycles, eg 20,000 years, relating to ice ages, based on your reference to Milankovitch cycles. How have you evaluated the impact of shorter term shifts in volcanic activity, solar activity, aerosols, land use, ozone, and so on, the things the climate scientists factored in, in deciding that their basis is wrong?

It’s been awhile since I was in the research trenches (in grad school, we were looking at clays and how saline versus fresh conditions changed flocculent conditions, so that we could more accurately determine what had been occurring with sea level rise in different locations and times), and then I slid on into teaching, before going to work in a regulatory field (FYI, BS in field geology, MS in both engineering geology and environmental geology (at that point, I slid into phd work in tectonics, away from short term into large-scale mapping interests, but that’s down a different road)).

While my daily work is now regulatory, my agency is shifting into other focusing on energy, and so I do enjoy perusing articles on glacial retreat both on the clock and for fun….

So, no, “I” haven’t done the calculations recently, but I’d trust Woods Hole:
https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean...ittle-ice-age/
Or, if you want something from climate researchers, how about:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/human-em...ars-study-says

So, there are two different professional groups in climate research, and while the when may differ on the when, both are indicating that we would not have yet reached the start of the next ice age.

And, both are also stating what I did earlier, that it appears likely that the anthropogenic input has made it unlikely that the next ice age would now begin when it would have…

[mikeinca]

Originally Posted by mikextr

That post is very rude and impolite.

To your point, I've seen this happen many times in forums before and have never understood why someone would come to a thread and then post that they are bored by the topic. I mean, there millions of threads in thousands of forums and no one is being forced to read what other people are writing about in any particular one, are they?

[jcl]

Originally Posted by LNBright

So, no, “I” haven’t done the calculations recently, but I’d trust Woods Hole:
https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean...ittle-ice-age/
Or, if you want something from climate researchers, how about:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/human-em...ars-study-says

So, there are two different professional groups in climate research, and while the when may differ on the when, both are indicating that we would not have yet reached the start of the next ice age.

And, both are also stating what I did earlier, that it appears likely that the anthropogenic input has made it unlikely that the next ice age would now begin when it would have…

The point under discussion was about what percentage of global warming was due to anthropogenic causes, vs natural. It appears from the research that the best estimate is, essentially all of it. We can debate whether it is more likely to be 80%, 100%, or 120%, but it seems a rather futile debate. Natural warming is so insignificant as to be immaterial, and over the past 50 or so years we experienced a natural cooling trend due to effects other than the 20,000 + year cycles associated with ice ages.

The take away from your links is, I believe, that not not only is the anthropogenic component significant, but that the effects will last not for decades, or centuries, but rather for tens of thousands of years, potentially enough to delay the next (otherwise naturally occurring) ice age. This appears consistent with the position that human causes are more significant to us now than natural causes.

All those claiming that the climate has always changed, so there is nothing to worry about, should give their head a shake. Of course it has always changed. That doesn't have any impact on the current situation we find ourselves in.

[jcl]

Originally Posted by mikeinca

To your point, I've seen this happen many times in forums before and have never understood why someone would come to a thread and then post that they are bored by the topic. I mean, there millions of threads in thousands of forums and no one is being forced to read what other people are writing about in any particular one, are they?

I didn't interpret it as posters being bored. I interpreted it as posters wanting to suggest to others that they should be bored. To leave the room. That is a way of attempting to control the debate.

I am impressed that the thread has remained so civil. Very different than years ago. It seems that things are changing on more than the sea level front.

[mikeinca]

Originally Posted by jcl

I didn't interpret it as posters being bored. I interpreted it as posters wanting to suggest to others that they should be bored. To leave the room. That is a way of attempting to control the debate.

I am impressed that the thread has remained so civil. Very different than years ago. It seems that things are changing on more than the sea level front.

I chose not to comment on motivation, but I suspect you are right.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by mikeinca

I chose not to comment on motivation . . .

Amen!

[RedSHED]

Closer to the original subject. Two thoughts
1. We're starting to see a subscrption model. You don't own a car, but access to one. Designed for urban use, eventually the goal as I understand it is to have a subscriber summon a vehicle - like an Uber - and it self-drives to them.
2. Electrification is intertwined with connected highways and level 5 autonomy (a Willys CJ-3 is level 0, cruise gets you level 1, Tesla's autopilot is level 3, I think).


Personally, I'm guessing we'll start seeing carpool lanes replaced by "level 4 lanes," and access controlled more like a toll booth.

I understand the big thing pushing this along isn't emissions but the 30k killed on US highways each year. I think "Old tech" will still be available, but speeds will likely be lower and insurance likely higher

It's not necessarily what I want to happen, but what I think will happen.

[field & stream]

Originally Posted by jcl

I didn't interpret it as posters being bored. I interpreted it as posters wanting to suggest to others that they should be bored. To leave the room. That is a way of attempting to control the debate.

I am impressed that the thread has remained so civil. Very different than years ago. It seems that things are changing on more than the sea level front.

Respectfully, an alternative explanation could be that the posters are trying to suggest that the discussion should return to the original topic of the coming switch to electric powered RV’s and tow vehicles for our Airstreams.

This might be far more engaging to an Airstream community than yet another discussion/debate on the human contribution to the history and future of our climate.

[LNBright]

Originally Posted by jcl

The point under discussion was about what percentage of global warming was due to anthropogenic causes, vs natural. It appears from the research that the best estimate is, essentially all of it. We can debate whether it is more likely to be 80%, 100%, or 120%, but it seems a rather futile debate. Natural warming is so insignificant as to be immaterial, and over the past 50 or so years we experienced a natural cooling trend due to effects other than the 20,000 + year cycles associated with ice ages.

The take away from your links is, I believe, that not not only is the anthropogenic component significant, but that the effects will last not for decades, or centuries, but rather for tens of thousands of years, potentially enough to delay the next (otherwise naturally occurring) ice age. This appears consistent with the position that human causes are more significant to us now than natural causes.

All those claiming that the climate has always changed, so there is nothing to worry about, should give their head a shake. Of course it has always changed. That doesn't have any impact on the current situation we find ourselves in.

My point in sharing those articles was that we had not yet reached the point coming out of this last ice age to have turned the corner and begun going into the next ice age (little ice ages or middle ages warmings excepted). I previously said I wasn't pinning what the percentage is, as I'm not actively researching such, so I'll leave the percentages to the researchers.

And again, you can't have more than 100%: 100% is all of it. There is a natural component, albeit small... so maybe it's 1% natural and 99% anthropogenic, but the total cannot exceed 100%.

I just said this in another thread here, the real problem, is that "we" (the human race) should have reached ZPG long ago. What I said in the other thread was, if we want to have a mat to sleep on, and a daily bowl of rice and a cup of water, yeah, we can support 15 billion people, but if you want a 'western' lifestyle with an RV and a favorite vacation spot, we should have stopped populating the planet before we hit a billion people on this planet. That's the real cause and problem here, and, I don't want someone making the call on how to get back to a billion people as opposed to our fast-approaching 8 billion. China's attempts didn't work, India's not done such... we don't have a global government that could make such happen....


But climates have always changed, they always change, they don't ever remain the same. We just really screwed up the rate of change, because we've got far too many of us around. That's the problem, and solar panels and EVs aren't going to fix that.

[jcl]

Originally Posted by LNBright

And again, you can't have more than 100%: 100% is all of it. There is a natural component, albeit small... so maybe it's 1% natural and 99% anthropogenic, but the total cannot exceed 100%.

Of course you can, it depends what you are calculating.

Use a towing example. Front rear weight balance. Put 3000 lbs on your front axle and 3000 lbs on your rear axle. 50:50 weight distribution, you can’t exceed 100 in this calculation. But if one axle is rated for 2500 lbs, then you are at 120% of rating. Same axle, same load, but a different, while equally valid, calculation.

With global warming, of all the anthropogenic factors, CO2 may represent a significant portion, but it has to be less than 100%. Now calculate the relative impact of CO2 on the net temperature change. Some factors are negative, eg volcanic activity and solar irradiance, over certain time scales. Even some anthropogenic factors are currently negative, such as aerosols. In these cases, the impact of CO2 can exceed 100%. That is of the net change, not of anthropogenic change.

This is all shown in the article that I linked for you. If you would like to discuss the calculations further, perhaps we could use DMs and spare others.

[LNBright]

Ok, yes, there are situations where you can double something, and go to 200% or what it was.

What *I* was referring to is the total amount of heating/sealevel-rise/ whatever you wnat to refer to, that has occurred. thus 100%.

SO there's the problem: I'm talking about apples, and you're talking about oranges.

I'm saying the anthropogenic PLUS the natural have to total 100%. Can't be any more than that.

We're on the same page, humans have messed the nest. I've just spent so long seeing people talk about things in gross terms, which is fine, as long as they are accurate; it's when in gross terms they start painting too broadly that I usually speak up. Such won't change the fact that the damage is done....

DM me if you want, or not... as I said, I'm not saying you're wrong, but, what I said was factual, too....

[jcl]

Originally Posted by field & stream

Respectfully, an alternative explanation could be that the posters are trying to suggest that the discussion should return to the original topic of the coming switch to electric powered RV’s and tow vehicles for our Airstreams.

This might be far more engaging to an Airstream community than yet another discussion/debate on the human contribution to the history and future of our climate.

Good comment. In that vein, back to the Mercedes announcement. Some blue sky impacts:

1) Mercedes SUVs, used by some posters here, will be BEV only at some point.

2) The Sprinter will move to a new BEV platform. It will be targeted at parcel delivery vans, with a corresponding relatively low daily range requirement.

The impact of these, to the extent that other manufacturers make similar moves in their product lineups (and several of them have made very similar announcements) will be a reduced number of options for similar vehicles in these applications. I suspect the likely change with RVs, unless drastic changes are achieved in battery technology in the very short term, will be a shift to much lighter and more aerodynamic camping vehicles, and a simultaneous shift to heavier duty platforms for both towing, and building motor homes.

Classes 5 and 6 will be the new Classes 2 and 3 A BEV Class 6 will have the design load capacity for increased weight of the camping components, and chassis space for larger batteries. Also, the design spec for vehicle range will consider a payload or towing allowance, which passenger BEVs generally don’t.

Watching for the first production Freightliner EM2 Super C motorhome.