Hadley conference concludes: IPCC projections may need to be raised 04 February 05

It seems as though the gravity of the situation worsens by the week.

When they refer to the equivalent concentration of CO2 presumably this means the forcing of CO2 and all the other gases converted to the level of the equivalent amount of CO2 alone, in which case are we therefore way over the 400ppm level already?

The post about the increased rate of accumulation is no longer on the Blog but if I recall the rise over the last couple of years was slightly in excess of 2.5ppm per year, in which case if considering CO2 alone we hit that level in just under 8 years (if that rate of increase is sustained)!

I know when I look at Greenhouse Gas Inventories; I see CO2 equivalents based on 100 year time frames. These include Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and other gases.

The time frame can be important since each gas has a relative life in the atmosphere with methane being a comparatively very short lived gas. If the time frame were reduced to a few decades, the percentage of the methane contribution to the warming effect increases significantly. So, with your question, we must also ask the time frame of the gases.

I have posted on occasion that if we are looking at mitigating strategies, a short time frame would be interesting to look at since 100 years may be irrelevant if irreversible conditions happen well before that time.

I say this because it may mean reducing methane emissions could help more in the short run when it appears we need a faster boost to slow the onset of climate change. Reducing CO2 emissions will not have the same short-term boost because of the higher accumulation and longer life of CO2 over methane.

Reducing methane generated at landfills and coal mine vents has been successful and could be further accelerated. There are other sources from nature, and from rice patties, cattle, etc. Methane derived from wells could be better contained with fewer leaks through the pipeline delivery system.

Methane as a molecule has 23 times the effect of a CO2 molecule over a 100 year time frame. Its warming potential in CO2 equivalents is more than double when the time frame is reduced to 2 decades.

In addition, using the gas as a fuel which is flared at oil wells is equivalent to 20 percent USA’s natural gas consumption or all of Germany and France combined. Doing this could reduce CO2 emissions by simply using the fossil fuel instead of wasting it by flaring it.

This is my understanding when I look at the published data but I wonder how much merit it really has with respect to mitigating climate change by focusing more on other greenhouse gases and also looking at natural sources in addition to man made.

I guess the first word must be “top.” I’m too lazy to look it up, and others might want to know.

Also, I don’t quite have it down what “sensitivity” means – I guess it is a formula regarding how much warming we can expect from some set amount of GHGs.

because the science behind the Global Warming scare is getting MORE dubious.

By shouting disaster if we don’t do something NOW the evidence that Globasl Warming has been overhyped gets drowned out.

e.g Broken Hockey Stick.

Evidence for Medieval Warm period being hotter than today and the Little Ice age being cooler

Satellite temperature data showing NO signs of warming in the lower troposphere

Evidence that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere lag warming periods (ie suggesting increased CO2 is the result of Warming not the cause)

I think it takes about 5 years to make a movie, and so many of Crichton’s claims (such as Antarctica is getting colder) will be so severely contradicted by incoming data in 5 years (I’m not talking climate models, which skeptics love to critized as pure sci fi, but hard data), that the producers would be fools to release it to a jeering public. Or maybe they’ll convert it into a farce or a comedy about how skeptics cannot be made to accept GW, no matter how much data contradict their claims.

Whatever the case, if the movie version of STATE OF FEAR comes out, I plan to boycott it. Maybe I’ll rent it from Blockbuster once it gets into the center section, and by then it will really be a laugh, which we will need to help us go through the difficult future.

Oh dear, now I’m really confused. Who to believe-dozens of climate experts attending a three day conference hosted by the UK’s Met Office, or your post?

I’m assuming for the moment,as there are no details about you, that you are a climate scientist and that your demands to attend the Exeter conference to state your case were turned down, or that your work towards the next IPCC report was simply so pressing that you did not have time to attend. Perhaps you could post some info about your qualifications, career and research to help me decide, as I had thought that the points you raise had already been dealt with by the scientific community (much of the detail being set out at Realclimate)

in natural scenarios does not really reassure me. It simply means warming triggers releases of CO2.

In our times it is gluttony and stupidity (people could cost-effectively reduce emissions) that is triggering release of CO2 in a fairly rapid fashion (in geological time). Even most skeptics agree there is slight warming going on – so now we can expect nature to start releasing more CO2, leading perhaps to a positive feedback loop and perhaps runaway global warming. As mentioned before my lay standard of proof is “perhaps” not .05 significance.

Hello again,

since last having had chat with Dan, I have been looking at Peak Oil production information. For those interested, try the following link: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/campbell/commons.htm This report was dismissed at the time (1999), but is now ( post Shell reserves re-allignment) starting to be noticed by investment advisers.

China and India’s growth and the recent Iraq war have rather lit the fire under this situation.

Some have recently been quoting the ‘end of the production plateau’ as early as June 2006. From there on in, so the scenario indicates oil price will go up from $50/barrel to double, treble, quadruple that price on an exponential curve.

Where does that leave the current world economy?

Think about it: Most conventional transport, and therefore global trade will become effectively unaffordable.

Expect the rush for coal and Nuclear, but it does give the renewables and conservation lobby the biggest break yet that we can see on the radar.

So maybe the opportunity for a commercially driven shift away from CO2 production may not need to rely on warnings of climatic disaster alone.

As ever, your thoughts would be appreciated. With kind regards.

Colin Keyse

Hi Lynn, if you’re still interested TAR is the Third Assessment Report put out by the IPCC

A related question: Does anyone have thoughts on how the increased cost of oil production and the resulting increased sale price of oil will impact on the economic incentive to exploit potentially filthier sources of oil like tar sands and shale etc?

Thinking it to be some CC calculation or equation, my next step would have been to go to the IPCC reports to see if they defined it . . .

Lynn,

Your points are well taken and I keep hearing this issue coming up so I want to post again the full story so we can all have more clarity.

A leading theory on how ice ages and warming periods are triggered have to do with Milankovitch cycles. These cycles combine in different ways over very long periods of time and they can trigger an ice age or a warming period.

There is the orbit eccentricity cycle lasting 100,000 years. It brings the earth closer or father from the sun during parts of earth’s orbit.

The earth’s axis tilts over a 41,000 period from 21.5 degrees to 24.5 degrees. We are currently at 23.5 degrees in this cycle.

There is the Precession of the Equinoxes which is the earth’s wobble and it where the earth’s axis points in relation to the orbit. This wobble cycle is 23,000 years long.

For more information about these cycles and how they affect climate, simply check out this site below:

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

Now, these cycles could have triggered the release of CO2 and methane during warming periods of the past.

Interestingly, we are within a long-term cooling phase of these cycles so these cycles cannot be causing our current climate warming.

Now with respect to the release of these greenhouse gases, an ice core analysis showed that half of the total warming was due in fact to these greenhouse gases. A quote from my ice core reference below:

“From a climatic viewpoint, CO2 and CH4 have played an important role. Together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, these greenhouse gases have amplified the initial orbital forcing, and they account for about half of the glacial-interglacial climate changes. This supports the idea that significant greenhouse warming will occur in the next century”

The ice core analysis where I post the quote above is shown below:

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/vostok.html

So, our resident skeptics only told one side of this story and now we have the full story!

Best, Dan

I am just getting in “The End of Oil” by Paul Roberts (2004) which looks like a good, balanced discussion on what needs to be done.

On a practical level, I really found the book “Renewable Energy” by Godfrey Boyle (2004) extremely re-assuring.

If you are doing up a house, maybe think about heat exchangers?!

Here are some sites

http://www.iceenergy.co.uk/

http://www.energyenv.co.uk/Geo_Pumps.asp

http://www.juliahailes.com/News-EcoRenovation.htm

Regards,

Peter

The 400ppm level refers to CO2-equivalent, i.e. the climate forcing effect of CO2 plus other greenhouse gases like NOx and CH4, with sulphates (which have a negative forcing effect) subtracted. So don’t worry – we still have 10 years to go!

Sorry not to be more specific. Climate ‘sensitivity’ is simply a shorthand term: it means the temperature rise associated with a doubling of pre-industrial levels of CO2, i.e. to roughly 550ppm. That’s why sensitivity estimates differ from warming projections: the latter include sensitivity plus likely emissions scenarios.

Peter,

I know something about heat exchangers. Wonder if they have one for the dryer vent during the winter!

Much heat goes out the house with venting the moist warm air out. Same is true with hot water use. Much heat goes down the drain. Letting hot waste water stand in the basin or tub for an hour or two is a low tech way of exchanging this heat without a heat exchanger. I meant to do some calculations on that but put it off.

I will check out your sites.

I need to order some books that I have been putting off and check out your selections to put on my list

I have been wanting to buy the book Lynn recommended, Natural Capitalism as well and still have not done that.

I would rather spend my time and leave the science to the scientists. It seems that we will know soon enough where the climate is going.

Whatever the future, we still will have to diversify our energy resources and change are infrastucure even if climate issues are not the main driver anyway.

Thanks, Dan

I sort of figured there was much more to the story. In addition to your point that GHGs cause warming (supporting the GW theory), the acknowledgement that warming can increase GHGs lends support to the runaway global warming theory.

It seems some skeptics suffer from what scholars may call the “authoritarian personality” or “paranoid personality,” a subset of which is the “racist personality.” One aspect of this is rigid and simplistic in thinking.

Those skeptics seem to allow only single causes of an effect. For them only one thing causes global warming, and their favorite is increasing solar radiation or sun spots, or whatever (any single thing, except greenhouse gases). Other people have little problem with an extremely complex world of multiple causes and feedback loops, unknowns, uncertainties, gray areas, etc. These things might even be frightening to rigid thinkers, because it seems to be almost chaos or disorder or sloppiness.

Hello Dan,

your question on heat recovery units. Try the link: http://bespoketesting.co.uk/baxi/products.php

These units are UK spec with metric fittings, but there is bound to be a US supplier with a similar unit.

I am working on a similar idea: I have ducts in place from both bath & shower room currently venting up a spare chimney flue, but I want to install a heat exchanger and was wondering how I could route the dryer exhaust into it as well without blowing fluff back out all over the bathroom!

I will let you know if I succeed.

kind regards

Colin Keyse

Hi Colin,

One of my favorite interests is computing the actual energy savings. It would be of great benefit I think if we could find a way to measure more precisely the actual economic benefits. It is always difficult to do this but I think that the ambiguity is a problem when selling good ideas.

This is an area I have always been interested in developing. If all our houses are wired to inform us as to where our energy goes daily, then we can make adjustments easier and evaluate ideas better. It would help to evaluate anything we purchase in its overall effectiveness.

I am interested in your efforts. I am bookmarking the sites you post in a special folder called Colin Keyse.

Best, Dan

I’m mechanical engineer and I am included in producing RECUPERATIVE HEAT RECOVERY USING. So, in our firm we produce AIR TO AIR PLATE – TYPE HEAT EXCHANGER and we want to know for some other companies who have interest to buy from us ( from our firm ) plate – type heat exchangers and to install in their climatic systems for low prices and extremely high quality. Please help us to find a market for seling the plate – type heat exchangers For more details please send us mail to senfilip@mail.net.mk

I am sourcing a plate type heat exchanger on behalf of a client in Norther Ireland.

It will be used to heat functional spring water to a temperature of between 88 – 95 degrees C for several seconds and requires a built-in cooling unit to cool to 15 degrees C prior to bottling.

Can you help?

Many thanks in anticipation. Jules Birch Joules Marketing Tel 01200 441003 Mob 077 483 44220 E jules@joulesmarketing.co.uk