Climate change sperging - That thing everyone likes to sperg about when there's nothing more pressing to sperg about

[The Last Stand]

Optimistically speaking, I think we're the cleanest nation in the world. Limiting selections and resources isn't going to help the climate.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

This is light that would be hitting the Earth regardless.
Not even going to bother with the rest of this post because either the energy is going to be stored by electromechanical systems that use the energy for various means or it will be stored by the soil directly as heat.

Albedo means a certain percentage of the light hitting earth would be reflected back immediately. Lowering the albedo in a given area, like a bank of solar panels, means less light is reflected back and more is kept.

Notwithstanding Relativity describing the amelioration of some tiny, immeasurable amount of that energy via its hypothetical storage as mass, what you instantly notice is that the panels themselves are hot. Downstream from that is heat generated from resistance along the conductors that transport the energy to a useful destination, then the heat generated from conductor resistance within appliances and then heat from mechanical friction from any moving parts. Those are all observable, and you’re claiming they’re mitigated by a theoretical but unobservable phenomenon.

I’m sorry, dude, but no. The only way to clarify that photovoltaics are a net benefit over fossil fuels is to make a comparison between the greenhouse effect and the extra heat capture from photovoltaic panels.

There is definitely a point where photovoltaics exceed the greenhouse effect in terms of heating the planet, and the only way to answer this question would be to determine what area of photovoltaics would do that. How many square miles or kilometers or whatever.

 

[Penis Drager]

Albedo means a certain percentage of the light hitting earth would be reflected back immediately. Lowering the albedo in a given area, like a bank of solar panels, means less light is reflected back and more is kept.

Notwithstanding Relativity describing the amelioration of some tiny, immeasurable amount of that energy via its hypothetical storage as mass, what you instantly notice is that the panels themselves are hot. Downstream from that is heat generated from resistance along the conductors that transport the energy to a useful destination, then the heat generated from conductor resistance within appliances and then heat from mechanical friction from any moving parts. Those are all observable, and you’re claiming they’re mitigated by a theoretical but unobservable phenomenon.

I’m sorry, dude, but no. The only way to clarify that photovoltaics are a net benefit over fossil fuels is to make a comparison between the greenhouse effect and the extra heat capture from photovoltaic panels.

There is definitely a point where photovoltaics exceed the greenhouse effect in terms of heating the planet, and the only way to answer this question would be to determine what area of photovoltaics would do that. How many square miles or kilometers or whatever.

I'll actually accept your premise for a moment. Photovoltaics result in heating of the earth. Fine.
Does that heat surpass the heat generated from literally burning shit? Sure, that chemical energy was already on earth, but it was sequestered in a non burning form.
To say PV cells are bad is to imply that they not only offset greenhouse emissions via their intrinsic properties, but also the literal burning of hydrocarbons.
How much heat do you think these things actually put out compared to something as insignificant as lighting a match?

 

[SpergioLeonne]

I'll actually accept your premise for a moment. Photovoltaics result in heating of the earth. Fine.
Does that heat surpass the heat generated from literally burning shit? Sure, that chemical energy was already on earth, but it was sequestered in a non burning form.
To say PV cells are bad is to imply that they not only offset greenhouse emissions via their intrinsic properties, but also the literal burning of hydrocarbons.
How much heat do you think these things actually put out compared to something as insignificant as lighting a match?

That’s a good point. And thank you for mentioning that it was here but sequestered for the sake of accuracy. And I agree that considering the actual heat released from burning hydrocarbons makes it a lot more iffy to say, but what happens if we make the comparison to solar panels be something other than fossil fuels?

What if we compare hydro to solar, or nuclear?

 

[Penis Drager]

That’s a good point. And thank you for mentioning that it was here but sequestered for the sake of accuracy. And I agree that considering the actual heat released from burning hydrocarbons makes it a lot more iffy to say, but what happens if we make the comparison to solar panels be something other than fossil fuels?

What if we compare hydro to solar, or nuclear?

Hydro is a different animal altogether. The problem with that is you're flooding a vast area and directly destroying an ecosystem.
Nuclear is ostensibly in the "burning shit" category if you know how the shit actually works. Though at least there's no greenhouse emissions.

Nuclear is my first choice for base load production.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Hydro is a different animal altogether. The problem with that is you're flooding a vast area and directly destroying an ecosystem.
Nuclear is ostensibly in the "burning shit" category if you know how the shit actually works. Though at least there's no greenhouse emissions.

Nuclear is my first choice for base load production.

I think some of nuclear’s “burning shit” effect is offset in that all radioactive material emits radiation, and fuel rods are a largish scale hyper-concentration of it.

The heat it creates is also controlled to a useful amount, where with coal, it burns if you burn it and the temps can’t go below a certain floor.

For hydro, something I’ve thought about was if you could translate it to the ocean. Probably be bad to disrupt currents, but what if you could chunk out a piece of coast to create an artificial bay, then sluice it off and try to capture the tidal flow?

 

[Penis Drager]

I think some of nuclear’s “burning shit” effect is offset in that all radioactive material emits radiation, and fuel rods are a largish scale hyper-concentration of it.

The heat it creates is also controlled to a useful amount, where with coal, it burns if you burn it and the temps can’t go below a certain floor.

For hydro, something I’ve thought about was if you could translate it to the ocean. Probably be bad to disrupt currents, but what if you could chunk out a piece of coast to create an artificial bay, then sluice it off and try to capture the tidal flow?

The whole point of nuclear is to amass a bunch of fissile material together so it heats up enough to boil water.
It's not much different from coal in that respect.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

The whole point of nuclear is to amass a bunch of fissile material together so it heats up enough to boil water.
It's not much different from coal in that respect.

I’ve come to believe in a vision of the future where all usable electricity comes from bicycle style generators.

Gamers will be renowned for their athleticism

 

[Merried Senior Comic]

Climate alarmism is the Rapture for atheists.

 

[Puff]

All electricity is made by spinning things other than solar. Come up with innovative ways to spin things if you want to help with energy production.

RE: the greenhouse effect. Someone explain to me how increasing the refractivity of our atmosphere doesn't turn away as much or more light than it traps.

I've been actively looking for bugs the last few years and insect population decline is real.

There used to be hordes of moths around every light at night, different species too. I haven't seen a butterfly in ages. Same with ladybugs and aphids. Beetles? Forget it. Nightcrawlers used to come out and coat the sidewalks after the rain but they're nowhere to be found now. I haven't seen cocoons in ages, and one dragonfly in the past 2 years.

Shit's fucked.

Bruh, there's no shortage of ladybugs. They cover my house and didn't previously.
If it's not just in your head, it's likely local changes in pesticide usage causing it.

 

[TurdFondler]

Are you sure they're not the invasive chink knockoff?

 

[Puff]

Are you sure they're not the invasive chink knockoff?

Yes. My brother has a bug-related degree.

 

[Meriasek]

I'll actually accept your premise for a moment. Photovoltaics result in heating of the earth. Fine.
Does that heat surpass the heat generated from literally burning shit? Sure, that chemical energy was already on earth, but it was sequestered in a non burning form.
To say PV cells are bad is to imply that they not only offset greenhouse emissions via their intrinsic properties, but also the literal burning of hydrocarbons.
How much heat do you think these things actually put out compared to something as insignificant as lighting a match?

The warming effect from PV is likely less than literally burning stuff or the potential warming effect from released greenhouse gases, but I think it needs to be considered that mass PV in an urban environment would significantly contribute to the urban heat island effect. Solar cells have an albedo comparable to freshly tarred black streets, and they get really hot, and it will have a noticable negative impact on the local climate if not offset by enough plant life.
Wind power also has an effect on the local climate via disrupting the airflow and potentially resulting in intermixing of air layers, which can result in locally higher temperatures on the ground. Depending on the conditions it can also lead to lower or higher relative humidity after the wind turbine, and that might also be significant.

To expand a bit on how albedo and greenhouse effects work, as far as I understand it, most of the solar radiation would be reflected back into space. Said solar radiation is made up of a wide spectrum of wavelengths from UV to far infrared. Some materials absorb or reflect some wavelengths better than others. Generally, anything dark will obviously absorb visible wavelengths, while white objects reflect visible wavelengths. Absorbing wavelengths basically turns the energy into heat in that object, warming it up, which will then warm up the surrounding air. This is what CO2 is doing in the atmosphere, except with far infrared wavelengths in the 10 µm range. These wavelengths wouldn't really be absorbed by the air or the ground, but CO2 absorbs them because it has some molecular kinetic states that are in that range (used by CO2 lasers, for example). When the CO2 in the air absorbs these wavelengths, the molecules move more, they get hot, and eventually pass that heat to other molecules in the air, raising the temperature. Dark objects on the ground do the same, so I would expect an area with lots of solar cells to be warmer than an area with something of lighter colour. These things easily go over 70°C in the sun, and that heat is going to the surrounding air.
Of course, every powerplant, stove, electrical device or car is doing the same, heating up the surrounding air, so it's not like this is an unknown effect. Just the scale at which solar cells would be implemented could make it really noticable.

Spoiler: Disregard this, I basically wrote this rambling garbagepost last month already

What I'm a little concerned about is that ground sealing, buildings, drying of swampy areas and so on as well as wind and solar power all cause slight local warming, and all the climate change science is based around accumulating local temperature data and calculating some global average. But all these local effects, are they properly accounted for? Since the IPCC models basically only allow CO2 forcing as an influence on global temperatures, using data that has a lot of other influences might not yield accurate results, i.e. a massive overestimation of the level of CO2 forcing.
There are some more things that don't quite gel with me when it comes to manmade climate change. First, there's the Arctic-Antarctic temperature bipolar seesaw, which saw a maximum of antarctic temperatures and minimum of arctic temperatures around 1970, and is now at the opposite end with a maximum of arctic temperatures. Now, the temperature data shows an additional upwards trend in both temperatures, resulting in antarctic temperatures to be practically stagnant, while arctic temperatures rose much more than usual. This is never mentioned when there is another news blurb about "the arctic is warming much faster than anything else", and I find that a bit dishonest. Yes, it's warming much faster, but it's also likely going to stop warming this fast very soon, and likely remain stagnant or even cool off then.
Then there is the fact that we live near the end of an ice age, and the known fact that temperatures during ice ages can vary a lot more than during warm ages, but that's not really something that can be well accounted for, and thus makes global predictions much harder.

Anyway, rambling aside, the change of weather during my lifetime made it obvious that something is changing. I find it hard to believe that a comparatively small change in CO2 content would have such a large impact, but I'm not ruling it out. Still think other factors are severely understudied, though, and we might have some nasty surprises there waiting for us.

 

[Penis Drager]

The warming effect from PV is likely less than literally burning stuff or the potential warming effect from released greenhouse gases, but I think it needs to be considered that mass PV in an urban environment would significantly contribute to the urban heat island effect. Solar cells have an albedo comparable to freshly tarred black streets, and they get really hot, and it will have a noticable negative impact on the local climate if not offset by enough plant life.
Wind power also has an effect on the local climate via disrupting the airflow and potentially resulting in intermixing of air layers, which can result in locally higher temperatures on the ground. Depending on the conditions it can also lead to lower or higher relative humidity after the wind turbine, and that might also be significant.
What I'm a little concerned about is that ground sealing, buildings, drying of swampy areas and so on as well as wind and solar power all cause slight local warming, and all the climate change science is based around accumulating local temperature data and calculating some global average. But all these local effects, are they properly accounted for? Since the IPCC models basically only allow CO2 forcing as an influence on global temperatures, using data that has a lot of other influences might not yield accurate results, i.e. a massive overestimation of the level of CO2 forcing.
There are some more things that don't quite gel with me when it comes to manmade climate change. First, there's the Arctic-Antarctic temperature bipolar seesaw, which saw a maximum of antarctic temperatures and minimum of arctic temperatures around 1970, and is now at the opposite end with a maximum of arctic temperatures. Now, the temperature data shows an additional upwards trend in both temperatures, resulting in antarctic temperatures to be practically stagnant, while arctic temperatures rose much more than usual. This is never mentioned when there is another news blurb about "the arctic is warming much faster than anything else", and I find that a bit dishonest. Yes, it's warming much faster, but it's also likely going to stop warming this fast very soon, and likely remain stagnant or even cool off then.
Then there is the fact that we live near the end of an ice age, and the known fact that temperatures during ice ages can vary a lot more than during warm ages, but that's not really something that can be well accounted for, and thus makes global predictions much harder.

Anyway, rambling aside, the change of weather during my lifetime made it obvious that something is changing. I find it hard to believe that a comparatively small change in CO2 content would have such a large impact, but I'm not ruling it out. Still think other factors are severely understudied, though, and we might have some nasty surprises there waiting for us.

Okay. so that's a lot of wrods and I'm going to make my best attempt to address the relevant points before I immediately pass out:

mass PV in an urban environment would significantly contribute to the urban heat island effect. Solar cells have an albedo comparable to freshly tarred black streets

The albedo of solar panels is actually comparable to the average roof. Yes, they are dark colored. But they're also quite shiny (long story sort: they're typically optimized to capture blue light and the rest is reflected. Also, the blue light that gets obsorbed also gets reflected at a lower energy state which is essentially red shift). So rooftop solar is as much a problem in that regard as the roofs they're placed on.

Wind power also has an effect on the local climate via disrupting the airflow and potentially resulting in intermixing of air layers, which can result in locally higher temperatures on the ground. Depending on the conditions it can also lead to lower or higher relative humidity after the wind turbine, and that might also be significant.

This is true. Downstream wakes result in greater turbulent flow overall which has consequences. These effects, however, are minor and practically microscopic compared to other energy sources (not that I'm advocating for wind. It's not a great energy source for other reasons).

Since the IPCC models basically only allow CO2 forcing as an influence on global temperatures

This is just flat wrong. The IPCC studies all known relevant parameters such as solar irradiance, Milankovitch cycles, atmospheric aerosols, and basically everything else which has either a warming or cooling effect on the global average temperature. These are people who know what they're talking about regardless of whether you believe them or not. Call them liars all you want. But you'd be a moron to call them stupid.

Arctic-Antarctic temperature bipolar seesaw

When one pole warms, the other tends to cool. This is true. However, the general trend in temperature is upward. The average temps in both regions is increasing despite the various troughs between peaks.

we live near the end of an ice age

Highly debatable. These "ages" aren't cyclical. Whenever there is a climactic shift, there is a cause for it. Lacking flood basalt events or increase in solar irradiance, the generally accepted causes for an ice age to end go out the window.
What we do see is people burning Carboniferous era fossils which are made of the carbon that, the initial sequestration of which, caused the "Carboniferous rainforest collapse" due to a global cooling effect.

a comparatively small change in CO2 content

Since the industrial revolution, CO2 composition in the atmosphere increased by about 50%. That's not fucking minor.
"Oh, but I heard we only contribute about 2% to carbon flux!"
That's true. But carbon flux refers to the output vs input. We increased the global output of CO2 by about 2% and, absent new sequestration sources, the result is that excess carbon continues to pile up.

Still think other factors are severely understudied

Like what? The common talking points regarding "what about the sun? What about the precession of the Earth? What about volcanism?" have all been addressed and studied extensively. These are factors that contribute, but none of them match the results as well as our burning of fossil fuels.

 

[teriyakiburns]

@Penis Drager

This is just flat wrong. The IPCC studies all known relevant parameters such as solar irradiance, Milankovitch cycles, atmospheric aerosols, and basically everything else which has either a warming or cooling effect on the global average temperature.

This is where you're wrong. None of the models used to produce the ensemble means, on which IPCC predictions are based, account for cloud effects. Not one. At best they parameterise it with a fixed effect, but they have no understanding - and thus no modelling - of how cloud effects change over time.

The various GCMs all predict the emergence of a tropospheric hotspot, which has never been observed in real life. Their models are unphysical.

All of them are currently running extremely hot compared to temperature observations, which are bumping along just below the lower error bound of the ensemble mean.

I'm sure they're smart, but the fact that they're operating with faulty data and a faulty assumption - that CO2 is the primary driver of climate, when all of its effect is swamped by water vapour - means that their outputs are also faulty.

 

[Penis Drager]

None of the models used to produce the ensemble means, on which IPCC predictions are based, account for cloud effects. Not one

You mean this?

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/clouds-and-aerosols/

Yeah, I know this is just a set of graphics from the IPCC report linked on the page. But the point still remains this is a thing they do take into account. Clouds, in general, have a cooling effect whereas uncondensed water vapor is a very potent greenhouse gas.

they're operating with faulty data and a faulty assumption - that CO2 is the primary driver of climate, when all of its effect is swamped by water vapour

This "assumption" is the result of observational data showing that, on geologic time scales, periods with more CO2 tend to me warmer and warmer periods have more CO2. That and on a theoretical basis regarding the fact that a little warming from CO2 causes a positive feedback loop where other warming variables increase in turn. More CO2 means hotter air which can store more water vapor which heats things further. Melting ice means reduced albedo causing greater heating. Methane trapped in the ice... Ibid.
The models have been remarkably accurate, even before that infamous readjustment, despite the conservative rag talking points. And it's because they do, in fact take this shit into account.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Yeah, I know this is just a set of graphics from the IPCC report linked on the page. But the point still remains this is a thing they do take into account.

They say they account for it, but the actual models don't. That's the key issue: the models themselves, which all of the reports are based on, don't account for the variable nature of cloud effects. A few of them parameterise it at a fixed value, but none of them model actual cloud behaviour. All of those graphics don't matter, if the models themselves don't account for the effects.

And that still doesn't address the fact that model projections are running wildly hot.

There is no tropospheric hotspot, which is a key part of the model projections.

CO2 absorption wavelengths are swamped by water vapour.

And CO2 levels lag temperature in the historical record. If CO2 change lags temperature change, it cannot be a cause of the change.

 

[Penis Drager]

All of those graphics don't matter, if the models themselves don't account for the effects.

Yes they do. Here is the IPCC third annual report, complete with citations, which discusses, in detail, how/why cloud cover is expected to increase and the effect this is expected to have on the global climate:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/WGI_TAR_full_report.pdf

There is no tropospheric hotspot

Yes there is. The reason that particular claim is so common is because measuring temperature via satellites had a lot of hurdles to overcome. Many of these hurdles have since been overcome:

https://atmos.uw.edu/~qfu/Publications/jtech.pochedley.2015.pdf

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/5/054007

CO2 absorption wavelengths are swamped by water vapour.

This is absolutely true and I already addressed this:

CO2 causes a positive feedback loop where other warming variables increase in turn. More CO2 means hotter air which can store more water vapor which heats things further.

And CO2 levels lag temperature in the historical record. If CO2 change lags temperature change, it cannot be a cause of the change.

This claim comes from ice core surveys. Obviously, these particular surveys can only account for the ice age we happen to live in right now and only apply to polar regions. Two easy explanations are as follows:

• Milankovitch cycles (which have especially profound effects during ice ages and is the reason that famous graph of global temperatures over the last 100,000 years looks cyclical) caused the initial warming/cooling, the following CO2 changes were part of the positive feedback loop
• Changes in polar CO2 concentrations lag global average CO2 concentrations by a considerable degree

A lot of column A and a little column B will give you a pretty clear picture of what happened. This does not mean adding more CO2 does not cause warming.

 

[anti SJW]

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I've been actively looking for bugs the last few years and insect population decline is real.

There used to be hordes of moths around every light at night, different species too. I haven't seen a butterfly in ages. Same with ladybugs and aphids. Beetles? Forget it. Nightcrawlers used to come out and coat the sidewalks after the rain but they're nowhere to be found now. I haven't seen cocoons in ages, and one dragonfly in the past 2 years.

Shit's fucked.

I noticed that too. I blame habitat destruction.

Nothing kills bug population more than covering a large area with solid concrete and cement. I noticed the bug population is basically extinct in cities. Women don't get to complain anymore but cities are virtually baren wastelands.

Where there's no cities, it's farmland. Farmers dump so many pesticides in the crops it kills everything above and under. Highways are also a nightmare for bugs, especially flying ones. Bugs can't fly high enough or fast enough to avoid incoming traffic, so pretty much anything that's flying or burrying gets exterminated.

I noticed the decline too; where there were flies and mosquitoes every day, now there's none. Night crawlers and beetles larger than a chickpea are basically gone. People don't miss them, they're basically proud they're goe, but I think it's a catastrophe. Fuck global warming.

The only thing that survives are snails (since they don't fly or borrow, they spend most of their time in one landspot) and any form of roaches (because they can basically crawl through walls).