Lars Schernikau and Bill Smith received peer-review for ‘Climate Impacts’ of Fossil Fuels in Today’s Energy Systems
- The paper is available at SSRN electronic journal https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3968359 and is published at SAIMM.
- Low-resolution version is attached, the SSRN website has the high-resolution version.
Energy Economics
Dr. Lars Schernikau, energy economist, entrepreneur, and commodity trader explains in a short 18min video a new peer-reviewed research paper authored by him and Prof William H. Smith of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis about the ” ‘Climate Impacts’ of Fossil Fuels in Today’s Energy Systems” .
Lars and Bill Smith analyzed new information published over the past year by the IPCC and IEA on methane and carbon dioxide. Some of the analysis confirms what we knew before, i.e. that about half of CO2 that is emitted to the atmosphere actually doesn’t end up airborne and thus cannot contribute to global warming… it is taken up by nature and contributes to greening of the Earth (also confirmed by NASA). All sources are well documented in the paper including links.
Other analysis results are rather surprising, which even the authors didn’t expect. For this, however, “IPCC’s Global Warming Potential GWP” needs to be accepted (see Lars’ YouTube video for a short introduction). A short summary of the main points from the paper:
Energy policy needs to take the entire life-cycle environmental impact of emissions and non-emission of energy systems into account. Focusing only on combustion leads to economically and environmentally undesired effects.
- life-cycle includes production, processing, transportation, operations, and recycling
- non-emissions environmental impacts include energy input, material requirement, space requirements, animal/plant life, health/safety, and more
All energy systems need to be analyzed for this full life-cycle effect on the environment, including conventional and “renewables”, to decide on priorities and compare those to the economic impact of switching from one to the other.
Applying this logic to the coal and gas value chains and including only reported methane (CH4) and CO2 emissions, it turns out that surface-mined coal is “better for the climate” than the average naturally gas, especially LNG
- 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘕𝘎 𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘨𝘢𝘴, 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺… 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺… 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘐𝘗𝘊𝘊 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘌𝘈 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢)
The point is not to favor coal over gas or the other way around, but to analyze what IPCC and IEA reported numbers would mean. With a large portion of green-house gas warming stemming from methane (much of it natural and from agriculture), we may start to see the world differently.
These are quite eye-opening analysis outcomes that would result in significant energy policy adjustments especially after COP26’s anti-coal agenda. Logically, based on this information, CO2 taxation and most decarbonization efforts (see ESG metrics in large conglomerates or banks) are not having the modeled envrironmental advantages and lead to unwanted market distortions
the academic peer-reviewed research paper is available online at SSRN’s electronic journal, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3968359
Sorry.
Masses of extremely freezing air will reach South Carolina and North Carolina.
A violent surge in the stratosphere.
WTF are you doing interjecting a weather report into these comments on methane vs coal ?
Since Methane and water vapour overlap strongly in their infra red absorption spectra its unlikely that methane does much at all to greenhouse warming.
The IPCC needs to get the narrative straight.
If the CO2 is the driver of more water vapour in the atmosphere,from ocean evaporation, then that blocks methane, a clear negative feedback.
So what is the narrative?
Are we going to be so dry and burn like a crisp and the dams run dry and water will not run off to fill them……OR
We will be hit by floods and rain and destruction caused by climate change.
In Australia just ask Prof Flannery.
There is nothing that CO2 cannot do.
There is therefore no testable hypotheses.
Even if water vapor goes up, its absorption is also highly saturated so … no big deal.
If water vapor goes up, sea level goes down..
In Australia over the last 20 years we have had more of both: more droughts and dry rivers, more bushfires, more and bigger floods. It is not OR, it’s AND. It’s almost as though there’s more energy in the atmosphere, leading to extremes, (these tend to occur in different places due to the underlying geography and atmospheric patterns). If it’s not CO2, then come up with another hypothesis we can test.
One of the big problems for the scientist is to accept that he does not actually know something.
I used be a believer in anthropogenic global warming.
Things started to shift when I embarked on an experimental method of increasing the height of coral atolls, by precipitating calcium from the sea using naturally occurring solar heat in the lagoon.
Eventually I discovered that the rate of change of SLR had not changed despite a large increase in CO2. Also coral atolls were doing fine.
So this test failed on the theory.
Also I had wasted time on a theory that was not true in its predictions.
Then, of course there was the failure to find the equatorial tropospheric hot spot.
That was something that was testable.
So I stopped believing and became a skeptic.
I could go on.
Start reading this site.
There has been a few other theories canvassed.
Right now the second La Nina, an oceanic process is bringing cool temperatures to Australia and heavy rain.Its extending into July.
There is no evidence that the ENSO has anything to do with CO2.
I have become a heretic now.
I have stopped believing.
When Prof Flannery wrote his latest in Daily Telegraph he changed the narrative.
There now is nothing that CO2 can not do.
As an aside, the vast majority of opinion makers don’t believe either.
I am not talking rhetoric, I am talking behavior.
As Obama pointed out, if the US was to cut emissions, it must have the rest of the world to agree, because the US’ 15% would not make any difference to climate.
The IPCC is now moderating by suggesting adaptation may be a good idea to beat climate change.
It sure beats running the grid on solar panels and expecting the floods to stop.
The geologists see the recent temp rise as being normal and a welcome change from the past 12000 years.
I don’t know why there is a small rise in temperature now.
However I don’t believe that the believers in AGW know either.
What exactly did Prof Flannery write in the Daily Telegraph and when did he write it ? And in what way did it change the narrative?
Has the narrative change affected policy?
Just asking for a friend
Dear RM
It was all the rage back at the century turn.
We knew that we were going to burn.
The science was in, according to Kevin 07, backed by his Climate Commissioner.
Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.
Christine Lagarde
Prof Flannery was the Aussie climate commissioner and predicted that our dams would dry and effectively the future was hot and bleak.
As a result most cities built expensive desalination plants, but not dams.
Christine and Prof Flannery nailed the narrative.
Now however we are told that CO2 really causes dangerous weather events and floods.
In fact, it does both droughts and flooding rains.
So the narrative is changed.
Now in science that’s not how things work.
You set up a testable null hypotheses and test it.
So if you predict that any event can be CO2, you can never be wrong.
Commentators have done the heavy lifting here on this site.
The planet is its own out of contact control for analysis.
Geology then is a powerful science to determine climate.
It sure beats climate modelling.
Just as an aside.
The IPCC models regard ENSO as being self cancelling in heat to the atmosphere.
However this time there have been two La Ninas. The first filled the water tables after the last El Nino, the second flooded the plains.
Now this is a proximate observation, unusual in its magnitude.
Using Occom’s razor it is sufficient to explain things for the moment.
There may be a CO2 signal in it, but if so, its behind the noise.
The Telegraph op ed by Prof Flannery was I think last Saturday 12/3/22.
To understand this it helps to have a scientific background.
As a result of the predictions children in Australia fear extinction in 10 years, now seven as the count down continues.
Public policy is directed to mental health.
People spend on things that change nothing climate, such as solar panels.
They would be better off putting in shade trees, eaves, fans, insulation white rooves, water tanks and drainage.
So we best adapt.
As Plimer points out, this is the first generation that has feared warming.
I don’t.
If you think it’s CO2 you could try breathing less 😉
Or not at all
It’s always the other people who are supposed to stop breathing.
If you look at actual history, you aren’t having more of either. Just because you want to believe lies, does not mean everyone else has to as well.
20 years, huh?! You clearly don’t understand probability, although that could be said for the vast majority of climate ‘scientists’.
There is no evidence whatever — none, zilch, zip — that what’s been happening over the past 20 years is anything other than Mother Nature doing what she’s always done, i.e. change; and in very unpredictable ways.
Of course it’s highly likely that man-made emissions will have had an impact but, again, there’s absolutely no evidence that this is anything other than negligible. A far more likely explanation for fires is land management — or lack of it — combined with arson.
As for droughts and dry rivers and more and bigger floods by all means produce the records from the past couple of thousand years revealing that these things have never happened before, perfectly naturally. Given Australia’s size and geographical position it’s highly likely that ‘extreme’ weather is actually the norm, when measured over climatic timescales.
Given the 100,000 year cycles in and out of ice ages, yes, Mother Nature is in charge. We are now at or near the warm peak of a 100,000 year cycle. If you disagree, let us hang around for about 15,000 years as we fall into the start of the next ice age and we can have this discussion again.
There has certainly been more caterwauling about so-called “extreme weather”, but that doesn’t means that these “events” are actually happening more. And the attempt at blaming man for the weather is laughably pathetic, and akin to blaming it on “witches”.
Can you say “Null Hypothesis”?
I knew you could.
No, CO2 fails the tests YOU find another theory … and you are wrong about AND we do not see more extremes
Tom, everything in Australia falls within historical norms, there is nothing unprecedented.
So it is up to you to prove CO2 dun it.
Worldwide trends of practically everything are flat or trending down so if the climate is being changed by us it is for the better.
I don’t know about Australia, but I doubt it is an outlier. Here in the US, when you look at only 20 years, you can see a “troubling” warming trend. However, if you look back to the 1930’s, still the warmest decade in contiguous US history (Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states back then), there has been little to no warming. Even the National Climate Change Assessment says the 1930’s had more extreme warm temperatures than recently.
I used to be worried about CO2 and “global warming”. I got into a discussion with my mother about it once, describing GHG effect and all that. Her response? “It was warmer when I was growing up (which was during the 1930’s).” I told her I would get the actual numbers and show her… well, she was right.
Think about your 20 year claim – entirely bogus in terms of anything being actual data to use for comparison to Earth’s weather and climate. That’s why it seems to me that the older one is, the less concerned they are, because of the “been there, done that” point of view. I lived through the “coming Ice-Age” days in the 1970’s, and it was real. My mom lived through the 1930’s, and that too was real.
And speaking of which, it occurred to me that my grandparents, who were adults living through the 1930’s, NEVER mentioned a “climate crisis”. And they lived through it without air conditioning. The crises of their lives were the Great Depression, then WW-II, not the weather.
Not at all; there’s always a place in Australia either in drought or flood
Co2 is the magical molecule – simultaneously causing increased rain and drought, heat waves and cold spells. Next, it will be blamed for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sort of.
Part of the reason for Putin’s ability to invade now is due to climate change policy.
So yes, CO2 did that too.
Just like the magic Covid virus which you mask up for going into a restaurant , then
stands by patiently not infecting you , while you take off the mask and eat.
Must watch to end….
Censored and what is about to happen to energy in Europe
Watch till the end or skip to the last 10 min
Just wait for Russia to shut of gas…
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1MwylltmXhmQ/
Here’s the punch line:
To top it all off, when you take everything, including methane, into account, surface mined coal has less greenhouse potential than LNG.
This is similar to Monckton’s take down of Hansen’s positive feedback. The method of argument is this: even if we accept Hansen’s assumptions, we can show that he made a serious mistake in his analysis.
So, even if we accept the IPCC’s data and flawed science, they omitted serious factors in their analysis. Therefore Germany should continue strip mining coal. Because strip mined coal has less greenhouse potential than evil Russian natural gas. 🙂 ROTFL
Even if we accept the IPCC’s flawed data and science, they are still hoist on their own petard.
When natural gas is oxidized it results in about 40% less CO2 than coal for the same amount of heat. This fellow is basically saying that the leakage of methane during production, multiplied by it GWP, makes methane worse for CO2 equivalent than coal. It’s playing with numbers, or see Steve Case’s assessment a couple of comments further on…
I don’t disagree.
It’s about the methane. The IPCC asserts that methane has many times the greenhouse potential of CO2.
That puts the IPCC on the horns of a dilemma.
1 – They could back off and admit that methane doesn’t matter because its absorption lines exist within the very wide band absorption spectrum of water vapor.
2 – They could admit that surface mined coal has less greenhouse potential than natural gas.
Or maybe they’ll find a creative way around the problem. 🙂
So this fellow has blindly followed the GWP concept of the IPCC. The problem is that you can’t do what he has done here and just take CH4 emissions associated with NG production, supposedly 2.5% or so (a ridiculously high number) and multiply by 28 or 86 GWP. At least that is what I assume he has done because only an abstract of the paper is linked. Those GWP numbers were specifically formulated to scare the bejeebers out of the refrigerant industry by Sir John Houghton back in the days of the ozone hole scare.
Dr. Schernikau has borrowed graphics from van Wijngaarden and Happer’s paper but has left out their following important one…see it attached.
Yes….. CH4 radiates 1/8 as much per molecule as CO2 at any given temperature….and at 1.8 ppm versus 400 ppm….of course there is so relatively little CH4 in the atmosphere that adding 1000 Kg of it versus adding 1000 Kg of CO2 to the 3200 Gigatons of CO2 already in the atmosphere has a relatively larger effect compared to its base case. This is why there is argument within the IPCC as to whether the GWP method or their Temp method is better, but their Machiavellian tendencies seem to be winning out. The GWP method is flawed.
The GWP method is flawed.
_____________________________
You’re too kind, it’s bullshit.
Fossil fuel combustion and global warming cause:
* Corona virus
* Hemorrhoids
* Toenail fungus
* Planters warts
* Explosive diarrhea
* The heartbreak of psoriasis
* Wilder weather
* Human sacrifice
* Dogs and cats living together
* Mass hysteria…
https://youtu.be/JmzuRXLzqKk
Theory is theory is theory is theory…a lot of “what if” strung together to reach the desired result…enriching the “scientists” who chase the grant money to survive at the overvalued various universities and world wide agencies proposing everyone pay them for breathing. Mostly grifters and oxygen thieves attempting to prolong their paychecks via the public troughs.
Yes, its all bullshit. Did we learn nothing from the recent revelations re: the scamdemic and its consequential deadly and dangerous “vaccines”? Its also true of the AWG crap.
Rant done.
if you read between the lines of the following paper, which has good graphs for RCPs, and some of the references, you will find more than a little agreement with your assessment.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0086-4
Considering that CO2, at 340ppm and at a temperature of 33 Celsius has an emissivity of 0.001 – how much energy is methane radiating at the average tropospheric temperature of minus 15 Celsius?
Especially that for gases, emissivity fall off a cliff as temperatures drop. Also as pressure drops.
That is after all the working principle of Spencer’s highly regarded Sputniks
Doesn’t anyone apuse to think that if the gases aren’t radiating, they can hardly be absorbing very much – what precisely were the test conditions for all the absorption graphs we see?
NB = Exactly why the much quoted Tyndall Tyndall Tyndall got it all wrong, making a wild guess/assumption using a qualitative experiment at 1 Bar pressure and 100° Celsius.
While the guys Hottel and Leckner who carefully meticulously quantified the effect are completely ignored – especially by self declared skeptix of all people.
WTF is going on here
I made it as far as 100 seconds.
Jeesus wept, what an unthinkingly brain-washed, lying, depressed and guilt ridden guy, trying to be upbeat about a continued expansion/growth of the Free Lunch supply.
In case anyone hasn’t yet worked out what Magical Thinking is, the guy in the video The Best I’ve seen for aaaaaages. If you ever quit eating carbs (and also especially drinking alcohol) – he is a beautiful example of the zombie world you will enter.
We’ve all witnessed people who are really drunk (chemically depressed) trying/pretending not to be drunk. That is him = monotonous, slow & ultra careful and barely a spark of animation/life. Compare with President as was Trump or Mr Putin.
And it was/is the consumption of wheat and corn, his poster children, that is the very root cause of his demeanour. It is the consumption of so much of that mush which causes 80%+ of all global deaths these days.
Yes, eating sugar makes you feel happy but…..
Free Lunches literally are, A Deal With The Devil. Beelzebub hails from a very cold place – as the South East US is finding out.
For the ‘Scientists’ and Captains Of Minutia – why didn’t all that cold air descend upon the ocean? either side – ocean covers 70% of Earth’s surface yet the cold always impacts the land.
Why is that?
For the benefit of those who may be wondering what Peta was talking about in mentioning Hottel and Leckner I post this chart.
Except Hottel’s charts are very broad-band and can ‘t be extrapolated to to say 250 K for atmospheric radiation, plus the units are bar-cm and the atmosphere is many cm thick…..used them myself for designing firetubes in big heaters. Hottel would have liked Hitran.
As I said before the experiments were done when HITRAN existed by Leckner and Fanag. Note the dates.
Also this was posted only as clarification for folks who may have wondered what Peta was talking about.
here is further clarification re Hottel chart, now that I’m done my morning coffee.
Radiation path length…say 30 km = 3,000,000 cm
CO2 bars = 1 bar x 400 parts/ 1,000,000 parts x estimate of average pressure over the 30 km path of say 0.2 bars = 8 x 10E-5
Very rough numbers used here, folks who feel they know better !
Multiply 3,000,000 by 8E-5 and you get 240.
Look on Hottel chart for a 240 line and temp of say 255 Kelvin….oops… off chart upper left, but can be extrapolated (never a good idea, sometimes the only idea) to .25 or .3….which happens to be about the IR going through the atmospheric window. So Hottel wasn’t bad on a broad band basis. But to say the y-axis is the emissivity of an atmosphere deep cloud of CO2 isn’t correct.
“Those GWP numbers were specifically formulated to scare the bejeebers out of the refrigerant industry by Sir John Houghton back in the days of the ozone hole scare.”
Agreed.
It is about time that those who have been honoured with knighthoods started doing their (original) job of leading troops into battle, it would surely give them a dose of realism.
While looking up von Neumann’s elephant I came upon this interesting essay.
http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2015/02/derek-lowe-to-world-beware-of-von.html
It seems that the complete failures of computational modelling are being noticed in very many technical fields. Apart from Climate Change, of course….
Computers are prone to responding to the garbage put into the system by spitting out more garbage. Including Climate Change. We need to deal with these AGW charlatans with the respect they deserve…none.
It has been know for a long time that all models are wrong. Some are useful.
?
If we accept the IPCC’s ‘Global Warming Potential’ metric or not, to play Lars Schernikau and Bill Smith’s game we must still accept that CO2 is the driver of atmospheric warming, and that every effort to reduce atmospheric CO2 will have no other outcome than IPCC, “save the planet”.
They glossed over the greening of the planet these dangerous CO2 levels have produced on their way to killing the planet. Ignored the eradication of third world famine cycles and a concomitant easing of global poverty. And they cannot reasonably point to a crisis. They predict a coming crisis.
Governments investing trillions of taxpayer dollars in solar and wind isn’t the way forward. If it can stand alone and compete, people will buy.
I’ll end on this analogy, government funded “climate change” is a one trick pony running in last place on the global positive effect scale. That drum is beaten ragged on the presumption that climate activism has already won the race.
You have to be a believer. If not? Well… Taxpayers gonna be taxed. Services cost. Somebody has to push this ‘green’ boulder up the hill, and it’s not going to be the top 10%.
That drum is beaten ragged on the presumption that climate activism has already won the race.
___________________________________________________________
Propaganda is rigging the win. I am reminded of well known illustration of the power of the propaganda technique of misdirection:
Carter & Brezhnev competed in a 100 m run – Carter won. Pravda reported,
“Comrade Secretary General won second place and Carter finished next to last.”
Misdirection [mis·di·rec·tion] noun:
The action or process of directing someone’s attention away
from certain facts so that they arrive at the wrong conclusion.
The IPCC’s global warming potential numbers fit that definition perfectly.
Too true. I excuse the taxpayer. Not everyone has the time or interest to be up on all things. They have families and businesses to care for and right or wrong have invested trust in our institutions. But governments?
Governments have no excuse for abusing the taxpayer. Spending trillions of our hard-won money on such as climate change no matter the state of the scientific investigation and projections.
It was inevitable that actual science would take a backseat to supping at the govt teat when governments first began to support science and scientist. Propaganda has become a necessary sales factor for the next govt check.
Climate change is hoaxy as heck but, it is now the only route to a steady paycheck, and no one wants to upset the apple cart in the name of real science. I think the long-term hope is that before everyone’s patience reaches tipping point, that they have come up with something genuine that justifies the trillions other than the massive wealth transfer it has been void of any real world positive scientific effect.
Papers like this are usually ignored but …The Germans would like to end their dependence on Russian gas. In that light, because the paper asserts that strip mined coal has less greenhouse potential than natural gas, and because the Germans have realized that renewables don’t work, I expect this paper to get a lot of interest.
The IPCC and its minions will have trouble arguing against this paper without contradicting themselves.
I’m sure Germany will latch onto any excuse. President Trump offered Germany a way out of that dependency on Russian energy with inexpensive American LNG. Germany said, no thanks, mean tweets.
Germany has been a leader in socio-politicalizing their ‘green’ energy considerations as a virtue. Any pragmatism today is just panic, not to be mistaken for thoughtfulness or future proofing their energy security. That pipeline from Russia isn’t going anywhere. The spigot remains, and Germany is watching for the slightest drip at their end. As Arnold says, they’ll be back.
I can’t say you’re not right but …
A few days ago, Rod Evans had this to say:
link
(I do wonder how Merkel would have reacted to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.)
Anyway, there has been a change in leadership and a change in policy.
His mistake is making the assumption at the end that climate policy is supposed to permit to “eradicate poverty, enable economic growth and avoid global energy shortage.
We know that but most people don’t. Many people are getting an inkling that something is wrong with the official narrative though.
Recently, a horde of angry truckers descended on Ottawa. (Also don’t forget the Yellow Vests and the angry Dutch farmers) link Most of the demonstrators couldn’t articulate what was actually bugging them. What would happen if those people, and many many more, came to realize that the goal of the Great Reset is poverty for all?
The problem for the climate alarmists is to keep their real motivations secret. This paper makes that a little more difficult.
The irritable oligarchs want it all. They want you to own nothing and really would prefer that you cease to exist.
With a large portion of green-house gas warming stemming from methane (much of it natural and from agriculture), we may start to see the world differently.
A large portion of human-caused global warming is attributed by the IPCC and IEA to CH4
__________________________________________________________
I didn’t see where he says how much that portion is. Maybe I missed it. I know this, the whole of the discussion of methane in the press or anywhere else as near as I can tell, NEVER says how much warming, in degrees, methane is projected to contribute to global warming.
______________________________________________________________
However, the undisputed benefits of increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere because of its photosynthetic and growth effects (fertilization)
______________________________________________________________
CO2 is way more than mere fertilizer, and he even put up the basic photosynthetic chemical formula showing that CO2 is a basic component. We are a carbon based life form, and every carbon atom in your body was once CO2 in the atmosphere.
Those points aside, I really didn’t follow what he was talking about. Other than it was another “Here’s a better way to “Tackle” climate change.” And not here’s ten reasons why climate change is bullshit.
So, the ‘science’ isn’t settled. Who’d a thunk it ?
“All energy systems need to be analyzed for this full life-cycle effect on the environment, including conventional and “renewables”, to decide on priorities and compare those to the economic impact of switching from one to the other.”
Priority for most of 7.5bn humans on this Earth is to have a nice life and for their family .Affordable energy has brought prosperity to the western world , i don’t think those that have no electricity or prosperity in the world today would be worried about the climate getting warmer by a degree or 2 verses having the energy that is non existent for them atm .
The belief that one can perform an “entire life cycle environmental impact” analysis is the definition of hubris. Such an analysis would require complete & total knowledge. This is impossible. The “experts” need to just stop. All the math, charts, and graphs an misleading them into thinking they are omniscient.
Life went better before we had all the “experts” telling us what to do. We have had 20 years now of one failure after another. We can’t survive much more of this “expert” analysis.
When perusing the various reports and studies regarding AGW etc., I keep in mind that most of these folks have jobs which if they stepped away from the ivy league institutions and actually had to do something useful, they’d starve and wander naked in the wilderness.
Since fossil fuels logically have no impact on climate (which is LONG term), why are we still accepting the premise that they do and arguing about it?
They may have an effect on LOCAL weather. Let’s discuss that.
As long as the IPCC ignores the effects of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) on global warming potential, these kinds of analysis will be worthless.
Essentially, thermal equilibrium with the surface negates most of the warming potential of any downwelling IR. The ABL is known to exist in thermal equilibrium with the surface. Thus, all those emissions emitted from within the ABL to the surface cannot provide any warming.
This is where the saturation effect comes into play. As Wijngaarden and Happer 2019 discuss,
“For current atmospheric concentrations, the per-molecule forcings of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 are suppressed by four orders of magnitude from optically-thin values because of saturation of the strong absorption bands and interference from other greenhouse gases.”
Unfortunately, their paper does not take into effect the ABL and still predicts far too much warming potential.
Just finished watching the video at the top of this post. I highly recommend it, 18 minutes long and it’s an excellent introduction to the basic science of the climate with a new revelation on methane emissions and how surface mined coal produces less methane than LNG, as an example. The authors of this study looked at the entire “value chain” or the entire system of drilling or mining, processing, transporting, combustion and recycling for oil, gas and coal. Very convincing and very watchable video.
Doug S ==> Always a pleasure to see someone comment who not only can, but does actually make the effort to understand what a research papers (and accompanying video) is about.
Far too many here read the lede (or sometimes, even just the title) and whip out their favorite drum and start beating it. Most of them make the same comment over-and-over again, a thousand times.
Congratulations — you get the Adult of the Day Award!
Interesting that the reference link doesn’t actually include the full research. The paper does make this peculiar claim at the onset, “Note: This is paper has been peer-reviewed [by whom?] and will be officially published in March 2022 [in what credible and peer-reviewed journal?] the PDF contains the abstract and conclusions only. Please contact the author for a complete draft paper.” [Why not simply post link to where it was published by a credible, peer-reviewed journal?]
Given that the Schernikau is a member of the fossil fuel shill organization, “The CO2 Coalition,” and the abstract and conclusions in the excerpts provided reek of pseudo science and and fraudulent claims, this attempt at misinformation falls flat on its face.
Barry ==> You are hugely misinformed. The CO2 Coalition is not a “fossil-fuel shill organization” — see their About page here: “https://co2coalition.org/”
We (notice the pronoun) simply wish to inform the general public and policy makers that CO2 is not some demon gas destroying the world but rather one of the three necessary gases that support life on Earth (the others are oxygen and nitrogen — both far more abundant than CO2).
We oppose with vigor the efforts of NetZero madness and the destructive efforts to force modern societies back into the hose-and-buggy era by banning fossil fuels before there are adequate, abundant, dependable and affordable alternatives.
As for the paper, as is often the case, what you see here is a “pre-publication” announcement of a paper to be published later this month in the journal SAIMM – the journal of the the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. The link for this is in the text. Most journals forbid publishing the full paper, and even offering it on the web, before it is published in either the online version of the journal or the print journal — this varies by journal.
You might actually try reading the paper or watching the explanatory video — before commenting.
There’s no way you typed that with a straight face, Kip.
https://www.desmog.com/co2-coalition/
Please let us know which of the facts in that article aren’t cited, or which of the citations are wrong.
And is this list of Directors of the CO2 Coalition still current, Kip?
– Jan Breslow- Physician with no climate science background.
– William Happer- A well-documented track record of corruption with no published peer-reviewed climate science research and a long history of patently false claims surrounding same. https://www.desmog.com/william-happer/
– Jeffrey Salmon: A former speechwriter with no scientific background.
– Bruce Everett: A career oil industry executive with no scientific background.
– Patrick Moore: A well-documented fraud and liar that cashed in on his former involvement with Greenpeace to shill for a variety of anti-environmental and fossil fuel industry interests. He has no climate science background.
– Leighton Steward: A lifelong oil industry executive with no climate science background and a collection of truly idiotic statements when attempting to discuss climate science.
– Gordon Fulks: An aging physicist that appears to be struggling badly. His frequent rants by way of letters to editors have usually repeated the same long-disproven Denier tropes. Fulks has published no climate science research. It appears his last published research was “HF Ground Wave Propagation Over Smooth and Irregular Terrain” in 1981.
– Norman Rogers: A small-time participant in the Denier misinformation network, involved in a handful of the usual shill organizations constantly repeating the same worn-out nonsense as the rest of them. He has no climate science background, nor any published research.
-Gregory Wrightstone: Again, no published climate science research. No published research at all, in fact. And in fact a rather unapologetic shill, also with a track record of fossil fuel industry ties and ridiculous public commentary regarding climate change. “’I’ve got to make some money,’ he added.” https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2019/03/27/house-panel-hosts-climate-change-doubter-whose-beliefs-draw-a-rebuke-from-scientists/
And…
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/gregory-wrightstone-article-in-the-washington-times-presents-list-of-false-and-misleading-statements-about-the-impacts-of-co2-and-climate-change-co2-coalition/?fbclid=IwAR10ubI0OuXJOfMVBdSjMp16Snjfm4WDIq353eyyIHkxfnaRyYXLyug4TeA
I think we’re done here.
Baryy==> Quoting propaganda sites as “fact” is usually a very bad idea.
Your reading list, bluntly, makes you stupider. For instance, look at Dr. William Happer’s bio at Princeton University.
https://dof.princeton.edu/about/clerk-faculty/emeritus/william-happer
So, no, you can’t even begin to dispute any of the facts I’ve provided. Thanks for confirming, Kip.
When the assumptions are a crock [CO₂ emissions cause warming, period], the conclusions are a crock [CO₂ emissions cause warming, oh no!].
I’ve been having an exciting time defending my climate-skeptic posts on LinkedIn. One very educated academic physicist asked whether I thought Tyndall was wrong. In return, I asked whether radiation physics is a valid theory of climate. He went away.
It seems to me that Lars Schernikau and Bill Smith suffer from the identical myopia. They see radiation physics, stop there, and then infer climate.
They have all jumped the shark in physics, leaping over the enormous work that must first be done to justify any conclusion about the response of the climate to CO₂ emissions.
I believe it’s self-serving and delusional. The negligence permits grand sweeping judgments and lots of soul-satisfying attention. But it’s Physics degrading into Sociology.
How can you defend your “climate-skeptic” stance when the first sentence in your post is laughably one of outright Denial, not “skepticism?” A skeptic questions all methodologies and conclusions, but then respects overwhelming evidence supporting the assertion. A Denier just ignores evidence that doesn’t support their confirmation bias.
Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections
Laugh yourself silly, Barry. I’ve done the work. You haven’t.
“overwhelming evidence supporting the assertion“? Just a statement indicating your inability to discern pseudoscience from the real thing.
This may help you with that …. Negligence, Non-Science, and Consensus Climatology … though I tend very much to doubt it.
Check your own confirmation bias, Barry.
I started my journey in 2001 when the 3AR came out, wanting to know whether to be worried about CO2 emissions. An honest question, fairly investigated by going to the primary literature.
On digging in, I found the whole thing is a crock — the grandest exposition of false precision, ever.
False precision — why do I suspect you know nothing of that, either.
And if it’s your insinuation that your “work” somehow proves that, as per your OP, “[CO₂ emissions cause warming, period]” then your conclusions are wrong to a laughable degree.
So, yes, you could say I’m laughing myself silly at the childish posturing you’re demonstrating if that makes you feel better.
But, humor us all when you have a moment. How, exactly, does your sole-contributor work prove that CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels aren’t causing global warming when far more exhaustive and empirical research such as Feldman 2015 essentially nails the coffin of doubt firmly shut? And that’s of course not including the avalanche of previous research proving CO2’s role as a key driver of the greenhouse effect?
Yes, please, Patrick. Sweep all that science away. The floor is yours.
“[CO₂ emissions cause warming, period]” is your assumption not mine, Barry.
My work demonstrates that no one, including you and the IPCC, knows what they’re talking about as regards CO2 emissions and air temperature.
“I’m laughing myself silly at the childish posturing …”
Your laughter is an expression of silliness that has nothing to do with me, Barry. Your laughter is ignorant.
“How, exactly, does your sole-contributor work prove that CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels aren’t causing global warming…”
You’re being silly again. My work shows that climate models have no predictive value. Meaning there is no basis to say that CO2 emissions are warming the climate.
That’s not to say they’re not. It’s to say that no one knows they are.
Feldman 2015 is a complicated demonstration of radiation physics in the clear sky atmosphere. It says nothing about whether CO2 emissions are causal to warming. A physical theory of climate is required for that conclusion, and that theory is not in hand.
The problem with “all that science” Barry is that it’s not capable of supporting your case.
But you’re free to laugh dismissively at your pleasure. After all, that’s all you’ve got. Silly laughter.
And observationally, there’s zero evidence the climate is doing anything unusual at all.
Is that your dodge, then? “Air temperature?” Are you attempting to debate/Deny the reality of CO2’s role in driving surface temperatures through the greenhouse effect?
What a ridiculous comment, especially given the simple empirical reality that major climate models going back decades (including those of Exxon) have proven to be exceptionally accurate against direct observation. Unless of course recent Nobel prizes in science are handed out for bogus work?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/how-climate-models-got-so-accurate-they-earned-a-nobel-prize?fbclid=IwAR0gfeYNX2LdQnc44f271C31ec0mGtNGLa-HvqLJcIVec7SGLeo-bUqa_qk
Good grief. Yet another demonstrably false claim. Your credibility is getting raked over the coals in no uncertain terms, Pat. “These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.” http://asl.umbc.edu/pub/chepplew/journals/nature14240_v519_Feldman_CO2.pdf
“Is that your dodge, then? “Air temperature?”
Read the paper. Your question displays substantive ignorance.
Climate model air temperature projections are physically meaningless.
“Are you attempting to debate/Deny the reality of CO2’s role in driving surface temperatures through the greenhouse effect?”
Show me the physical theory that predicts a CO2/greenhouse effect.
“exceptionally accurate against direct observation.”
Accuracy is not defined by extrapolation of tuned correspondences into a secular observational trend.
Climate models vary in ECS over a factor of three. Accuracy is foreign to them.
“affecting the surface energy balance”
The surface energy balance is not known to better than ±17 W/m^2. The Feldman claim is empirically groundless.
Apart from which, affecting the surface energy balance does not mean produces tropospheric warming. To know the former causes the latter requires a physical theory not in hand.
You, like so many others, make a spurious inferential jump to a preferred conclusion. To be tendentious, as you are, is a mockery of science.
Feldman 2015 claim to detect “statistically significant trends
of 0.2 Wm^-2 per decade” in downwelling LWR, equivalent to 0.02 W/m^2 per year. But the empirical magnitude of OLWR at the TOA is not known to better than ±4 W/m^2.
Guess what all of that means, Barry. Bet you can’t.
So let me give you a hint. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Manabe got his Nobel for figuring out how to incorporate spectral lines into his early climate model. His accomplishment is mentioned in my paper. You missed that too, didn’t you.
So yes, then. That’s your dodge. You’re simply slithering around the reality that rising atmospheric CO2 by way of the combustion of fossil fuels has been the dominant anthropogenic driver of surface temperatures by increasing the greenhouse effect. (Roy Spencer has been trying the same dodge for years. It isn’t working for him. It definitely won’t work for you.)
And, given that it’s obvious you, like Spencer, are trying to pull a grade-school con, there’s no surprise whatsoever that you’re conveniently overlooking more recent and comprehensive research that, shocker, points out considerably more concerning numbers than what you’ve put forth:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24544-4
And…
https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2013/2020/#section8
And it’s always good for a hoot watching those such as yourself howl to high heaven about how climate models are so damnably inaccurate, when hard data simply proves your narrative to be an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00154.1
And…
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2019GL085378?fbclid=IwAR1qFW-yxvW202DmtC0s1EHyxEN1uJUJNiXpInasDSirUT_lDkY55ZC8qNg
And, of course your masturbatory attempt at downplaying the significance of the Manabe’s Nobel award was hardly unexpected.
I’ll ask you one more time: To you agree the that rising atmospheric CO2 through the combustion of fossil fuels is increasing surface temperatures through the greenhouse effect? Yes, or no?
“So yes, then. That’s your dodge.”
That’s my demonstration. Not that you’d understand.
“has been the dominant anthropogenic driver of surface temperatures”
You can’t demonstrate that, and neither can anyone else.
Your Nature evidence: “Using climate model simulations” they produced physically meaningless results.
“So yes, then. That’s your dodge.”
That’s my demonstration. Not that you’d understand.
“has been the dominant anthropogenic driver of surface temperatures”
You can’t demonstrate that, and neither can anyone else.
Your Nature evidence: “Using climate model simulations…” they produced physically meaningless results. See the demonstration link above. Not that you’d understand.
Likewise your Copernicus link: climate models all the way down. Physically meaningless.
“so damnably inaccurate” Not one climate modeler paper includes physically valid uncertainty bounds. Accuracy is not part of their professional lexicon.
Your ametsoc authorities (Hawkins & Sutton) say that models are true because “the [temperature] changes over time are similar.” Incredible.
Not word one about their exploitation of offsetting errors. And these people think they’re doing science. Not that you’d understand.
And your AGU authorities are Zeke Hausfather and Gavin Schmidt (one can only laugh), who published projections without any physical uncertainty bounds at all.
Neither one of them has ever shown competence in evaluating physical data integrity. Not that you’d understand.
Your authorities are science mockers, Barry. Just as you are.
In answer to your last question: no one knows. That’s my demonstration. See above.
Pat => “Barry Anthony” is trolling. He is “here for the fight” like a drunken EU soccer hooligan.
Unfortunately the admins haven’t yet approved my reply to Pat’s post above. I’m hopeful they elect to do so, as I’ve no doubt it will bring you to a considerably higher level of butt-hurt. But, until they do, would you like me to put forth even more dirt on the CO2 Coalition and its principals? There’s plenty to share.
Thanks, Kip. I figured. 🙂
Hey, Pat. Perhaps you can ask the admins why they haven’t released my earlier reply to you? Perhaps they don’t want to see one of their own “scientists” continue to get dragged? Have you frequently hidden behind their protection?
You’ve lost every round, Barry. You’re merely too ignorant and benighted to know it.
You attempted some grade-school parlor tricks and got called out on it.
[I’m gonna step in here. Barry, you have nothing to offer in a discussion except to say: you’re wrong see this link. You do not engage in any sort of logical discussion. You’re handlers give you some references to spew and you dutifully do your job. Your inability to even see that Willis offered more transparency than you’ve ever seen betrays everything else you do and say. You aren’t band, but I will delete or remove insults from your comments with abandon should you continue to perform your sock puppet function here. This means lots and lots of ‘snips’-cr]
Yes, I’m providing references to credible, independent, and peer-reviewed research that supports my stance and conclusively debunks Pat’s. This is how science is discussed and debated, not an exchange of jeering and sneering as Mr. Frank has unfortunately demonstrated. And the fact that he can’t provide research in response that contradicts my references underscores the vacuity of his argument.
[snip]
Feel free to ban or block me if you’d like. It’s your playpen, after all. But people are watching how Pat hasn’t been able to put forth a credible response and how you [admins] have tried to muzzle me.
If you were right, would you have have to stoop to such measures?
[because you’re annoying, not because you’re winnning-cr]
“credible, independent, and peer-reviewed research that supports my stance...”
No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even support the authors’ stance about AGW.
“… and conclusively debunks Pat’s.”
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t touch my work. Not that you’d understand.
“jeering and sneering”
Which of us deployed, “masturbatory,” Barry. Which of tossed “slithering” and “high school con” at the other? Hint: not I.
You’re guilty of your own indictment.
“the fact that he can’t provide research in response that contradicts my references”
Here you’ve provided all the proof we need of the observation that you don’t know whereof you write.
I refuted every single one of your sources by pointing out that they claim data of lower magnitude than the limits of resolution of their instruments.
A failure of science common across all of AG climatology. You apparently haven’t the training to grasp even that much.
“Pat hasn’t been able to put forth a credible response…”
How’s life on your planet, Barry. You’re evidently not on Earth.
But I can use Barry. His japes illustrate the stupidity of his arguments, and the arguments of alarmists.
He gave you links to back up his assertion all you did was avoid making a reasonable counterpoint to them.
This means you have no argument to offer just pointless angry screaming replies.
And I provided direct links to multiple examples of credible, independent, and peer-reviewed research both more recent AND more comprehensive than Pat’s feeble examples that kicked his nonsense to the curb. You seem to have overlooked that reality.
You didn’t address his links at all that is what I was pointing out thus HIS assertions remains unchallenged.
“multiple examples of credible”
Which I established are credible neither to your case nor to the limits of resolution.
All of which you ignored. Mostly because you don’t know what you’re talking about, Barry.
Not happy with the impact of dilute unreliables and their scorched earth policy-
MATT HANCOCK: Why I am protesting against the UK’s largest solar farm (msn.com)
while the demise of the Felicity Ace is beginning to tell with concern about their incendiary backup.
You think the Felicity Ace is the first car transporter to be lost in a fire? 8 such ships have gone down since 2002.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a39181217/felicity-ace-ship-fire-is-out-but-why-do-car-carriers-have-such-trouble/
Agricultural CO2 should not be a factor in the greenhouse argument because it is continuously being taken from the atmosphere by the plants, especially grasses, and sequestered when they are mown, cropped or grazed, and excess roots are dropped. Ploughing releases CO2 but that fraction is quickly pulled back into soil as the roots of the new fertilized and watered crop as fibre carbon. Just one more error that explains “garbage out”.
Does anybody still think of petroleum as a ‘fossil fuel’?
Excellent and needs wide distribution. You know to the average Joe.
Let our Climate Czar have a technical discussion with this professor in front to Congress. What a show!. .
Variables, parameters, and metrics…
Reading the various comments, Lars and I thought we clarify a few more points.
Methane has a short airborne lifetime, a variable, nominally 12 years, due chemical and photochemical removal processes. The accumulated CH4 is known, presently well mixed at near 1.8 ppmv.
CO2 airborne lifetime, another variable, is ill-determined. Only half of the annual addition of CO2 is airborne after one year. This is acknowledged by the IPCC (in AR5 and AR6) as 46%. That is, 54% of additional CO2 ”disappears” annually. The candidates for this removal process are also ill-defined. The OCO-2 and OCO-3 missions have been searching, unsuccessfully, for the missing carbon since 2014. The Keeling Curve shows that this relationship has persisted since measurements began in 1958.
As CO2 is added faster, it is removed faster.
A long term CO2 airborne lifetime, then, depends on the cessation of the fast removal processes. The lifetime of a CO2 molecule can extend into centuries and millennia, if the fast removal processes are inoperative. Models which Archer repeatedly has published (e.g. Climatic Change (2008) 90:283–297 DOI 10.1007/s10584-008-9413-1) make exactly that assumption. Fast removal is ASSUMED to have ceased. That assumption is tantamount to the assumption that biology has ceased. Fast removal has certainly occurred, as shown in Archer’s Figure 1, where a CO2 impulse is assumed to have decayed to 60% at the start of his analysis. To date, however, biology is tracking anomalies in airborne CO2 , and has not ceased to do so, but has expanded by 30% between 1982 and 2015, according to NASA.
About one trillion tons of CO2 has been cumulatively added to the atmosphere since 1750. The accumulation of CO2 frightened Kellogg, and other modelers. The zero-order assumption of climate modelers since the 1970’s is that this accumulation of CO2 is so terrible that CO2 must be removed at any cost to our civilization and to humanity. The terrible consequences of CO2 were asserted by Kellogg (WMO Technical Note 156, 1977 and in Climatic Change 10 113–36, 1987) and he was determined to prove its terrible nature via (you guessed it) models.
Models are nearly infinitely flexible. By assigning a ‘climate sensitivity’, a parameter, to CO2, whatever climate warming one wishes can be attained. In other contexts, a large, assumed climate sensitivity parameter causes serious discrepancies between models and data. For example, EMICs (Earth models of intermediate complexity), assuming a large CO2 climate sensitivity, create a climate conundrum (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1407229111). The climate from the end of the last glaciation warms continuously according to a variety of EMICS, but data persistently show a temperature peak was reached about 8000 years ago. ‘The data must be wrong’ suggest the authors. Another scientist might question the models and parameter assumptions first.
Now, we arrive at a ‘metric’. The global warming potential, GWP, is a metric, not a parameter. It was created outside of physics and has no physical meaning. See http://www.bu.edu/ise/files/2020/11/the-global-warming-potential-misrepresents-the-physics-of-global-warming-thereby-misleading-policy-makers-final.pdf. The analysis there is mirrored in many other papers. The metric is the absorption cross-section DIVIDED , rather than multiplied, by the atmospheric lifetime, that is, it depends inversely on how long a molecule persists in the atmosphere. As a result the short-lived CH4 is caused to be more potent than the “long-lived” CO2, for their assumed absorption cross-sections. The difficulty is clear for CO2 since its lifetime is very uncertain. Nonetheless, whatever its lifetime, the metrics GWP100 and GWP20 are defined as UNITY for CO2 and then GWP100 and GWP20 for CH4 is computed.
Conversely, Archer’s papers depend on a long lifetime of CO2 to effect climate change, while CH4 depends on a short lifetime to effect climate change. Provided the fast processes disappear, Archer’s analysis is physical. There is no plausible physical interpretation of the GWP metric. Many authors have attempted to rationalize the IPCC GWP, and as many have failed.
Metrics and parameterizations are attempts to simplify the climate equation to a single number.
These attempts fail utterly. All science cannot be reduced to the number 3.
As an addendum, I take the opportunity to extract a comment from the Archer paper above. I quote:
“If the lifetime of nuclear waste were only a century, instead of tens of millennia; that would probably make a substantial difference in many people’s opinions of nuclear power.”
Archer’s ‘what if’ is granted. Fast Breeder Reactors spent fuel residual radioactivity lasts on the order of one century, solving the climate equation. NO CO2 or CH4 is emitted from nuclear reactors. Even the concrete can now be made CO2 free (https://synhelion.com/news/cemex-and-synhelion-produce-the-world-s-first-clinker-with-solar-energy).
One final note: The paper is an “accepted” manuscript. The article by Schernikau and Smith will be published in March, 2022, VOLUME 122 of The Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, an appropriate journal where referees are experts in the environmental consequences of mining and energy production.