[vox_mundi]

As spring temperatures in the UK inched above 20C in recent weeks, air conditioners in offices across the country will have rumbled into life after a silent winter.
But while these machines cool our buildings and cars, they could be having an increasing warming effect on the planet, a new study says

Hydrofluorocarbon emissions up 54% with air conditioning on the rise

https://www.carbonbrief.org/hydrofluoro ... n-the-rise

Natural Refrigerant Replacements Reduce Energy Costs and Conserve the Environment

Recently, a team of Iranian researchers investigated how natural refrigerants could replace CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs in geothermal heat pumps to reduce energy consumption and operating costs. They report their findings in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.

Based on their modeling, the researchers determined that natural materials, including ammonia and n-butane, are the most economical and environmentally friendly replacement refrigerants for geothermal heat pumps.

In their review, the researchers ran an Hour Analysis Program to calculate the heating and cooling loads in a 14-story, residential building. Then, they applied their findings to an Engineering Equation Solver to model the thermodynamic cycle of an open and closed loop ground source heat pump with different known refrigerants.

"The big challenge for the coming years in the HVAC and refrigeration industry is to establish natural refrigerant technology to substitute CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs refrigerants," said Mostafa Mafi, one of the authors on the paper. "A solution to reduce energy consumption in heat pumps is using the earth as a renewable heat source/sink to both increase efficiency and create a diversity of energy sources."

[Plantagenet]

In 2016 a new UN Treaty was signed to ban hydrofluorocarbons.

On 15 October 2016, due to these chemicals' contribution to climate change, negotiators from 197 nations meeting at the summit of the United Nations Environment Programme in Kigali, Rwanda reached a legally-binding accord to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in an amendment to the Montreal Protocol.[5][6][7]

Note that unlike the phony Paris Accords, the agreement to stop the use of hydrofluorocarbons is legally binding.

Cheers!

[vox_mundi]

This Problem is not limited to "Europe".

Wood Density of European Trees Decreasing Continuously Since 1870

Trees are growing more rapidly due to climate change. This may sound like good news—after all, this means that trees are storing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in their wood, and hence modulating a key ingredient in global warming. But is it that simple?

A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) analyzed wood samples from the oldest existing experimental areas spanning a period of 150 years, and reached a surprising conclusion.

With the combination of wood samples from the 1870s to the present day coupled with the latest measurement technology, the team at the School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan were able to demonstrate that the annually growing wood has gradually become lighter since observations began by up to 8 to 12 percent since 1900. Within the same period, the volume growth of the trees in central Europe has accelerated by 29 to 100 percent.

In other words, even though a greater volume of wood is being produced today, it now contains less material than just a few decades ago. "Some people might now surmise that the more rapid growth could itself be the cause for our observations," says Dr. Peter Biber, co-author of the study—"In some tree species, it is, in fact, the case that wider annual rings also tend to have lighter wood. But we have taken this effect into account. The decrease in wood density we are talking about is due to other factors."

Instead, Pretzsch and his team see the causes as being the long-term increase in temperature due to climate change and the resulting lengthening of the vegetation period. But the nitrogen input from agriculture, traffic and industry also play a part. A number of details lead experts to support this, such as the decrease in the density of late wood and the increase in the percentage of early wood in the annual rings.

Lighter wood is less solid and it has a lower calorific value. This is crucial for numerous application scenarios ranging from wood construction to energy production. Less solid wood in living trees also increases the risk of damage events such as breakage due to wind and snow in forests.

But the most important finding for practical and political aspects is that the current climate-relevant carbon sequestration of the forests is being overestimated as long as it is calculated with established but outdated wood densities. "The accelerated growth is still resulting in surplus carbon sequestration," says Pretzsch. "But scaling up for the forests of central Europe, the traditional estimate would be too high by about 10 million metric tons of carbon per year."

Full Text: Hans Pretzsch et al, Wood density reduced while wood volume growth accelerated in Central European forests since 1870, Forest Ecology and Management (2018).

Conclusion: The results indicate that current increased wood volume growth rates must not be straightforwardly converted into sequestrated C and biomass harvest potentials assuming historic values for wood density. This should be taken into account in monitoring, modeling, and utilization of carbon and biomass in forests under global change.

Figures & Tables

[Plantagenet]

the most important finding for practical and political aspects is that the current climate-relevant carbon sequestration of the forests is being overestimated as long as it is calculated with established but outdated wood densities. "The accelerated growth is still resulting in surplus carbon sequestration," says Pretzsch. "But scaling up for the forests of central Europe, the traditional estimate would be too high by about 10 million metric tons of carbon per year."[/b]

Very interesting paper, Vox. THANKS!

The whole idea of carbon sequestration in forests is is over hyped because all trees eventually die and decompose and the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. There is some temporary storage, yes, but its not anything useful for permanent removal and sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Cheers!

[GHung]

the most important finding for practical and political aspects is that the current climate-relevant carbon sequestration of the forests is being overestimated as long as it is calculated with established but outdated wood densities. "The accelerated growth is still resulting in surplus carbon sequestration," says Pretzsch. "But scaling up for the forests of central Europe, the traditional estimate would be too high by about 10 million metric tons of carbon per year."[/b]

Very interesting paper, Vox. THANKS!

The whole idea of carbon sequestration in forests is is over hyped because all trees eventually die and decompose and the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. There is some temporary storage, yes, but its not anything useful for permanent removal and sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Cheers!

Gosh. Maybe they need to use coal trains to return billions of tons of biomass to coal mines to be buried for a few million years.If they can move mountains to get the coal, they can move them back to sequester new carbon. .....

..... or maybe we just need to stop burning stuff....

[Newfie]

Plant,
Not 100% true, a certain amount remains captured in the soil. That’s how we got coal and oil in the first place. I can’t say what percentage. Probably varies a lot. Pretty sure it’s somewhere betwe n. 0% and 100%.

[vox_mundi]

Here in the North it means more tree and infrastructure damage after extreme weather events. This will only get worse as CO2 levels rise.

[vox_mundi]

U.S. $23 Trillion Will Be Lost If Temperatures Rise Four Degrees By 2100

Economists have largely underestimated the global economic damages from climate change, partly as a result of averaging these effects across countries and regions, but also because the likely behavior of producers and consumers in a climate change future isn't usually taken into consideration in climate modelling.

Imagine something similar to the Great Depression of 1929 hitting the world, but this time it never ends. Economic modelling suggests this is the reality facing us if we continue emitting greenhouse gases and allowing temperatures to rise unabated.

... This is the first large dimensional model that captures damages for each country from climate change, allowing for a measure of extremes, without averaging, along with forward-looking behaviour.

It is a conservative model, in that it only accounts for some of the impacts of climate change – loss in agricultural productivity, sea level changes, human health and productivity effects. It doesn't account for losses from extreme weather events or the increased frequency of fire damage.


Poor countries are likely to be the hardest hit economically by climate change.

We examine both the 4 degrees Celsius and 3 degrees Celsius scenarios, compared to the 2 degrees Celsius case.

The estimated damages from not complying with the Paris Accord are severe. At 4 degrees Celsius of global warming, for example, the losses in income to the global economy are over US$23 trillion per year, or the equivalent in economic damage of three or four 2008 Global Financial Crises each year.

Losses, for example, at 4 degrees Celsius, for Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Nicaragua are over 17 per cent, for Indonesia 19 per cent, for India 14 per cent, Thailand 17 per cent, Singapore 16 per cent, and the Philippines 20 per cent. For much of Africa the losses range from 18 to over 26 per cent of GDP.

These results emphasise the equity problem that goes with these effects – many countries that are major per capita greenhouse gas emitters are the ones less impacted by climate change.

Global losses of this size are comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s, with its global fall in GDP of 15 per cent, except these will occur year after year, with no way for effective redress.

Many governments around the global won't be able to cope and will, to put it simply, fail.

Without significant weather effects included in the modelling, and at 4 degrees Celsius global warming, damages per person in Australia are projected to be US$4,886, or roughly US$13,945 per household, per year, every year.

We are now extending this work to account for increases in the frequency and severity of weather events induced by climate change.

Early results for the effects of tropical storms alone indicate that global economic damages increase significantly, at all temperature ranges, and more than double the more than US$23trillion in global economic damages at 4 degrees Celsius found in the current paper.

-
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https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 18EF000922

[dissident]

But W. Bush claimed that addressing climate change would cost $400 billion. Too expensive, he said. The moron and many like him didn't think hard enough. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[dohboi]

More here:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/humans ... cliff.html


Humans are pushing the Earth closer to a climate cliff

we don’t actually know when these various feedbacks will be “tipped.”

[Tanada]

The constant refrain of using terminology like CLIFF where what we are actually talking about is a step change on the stairway of climate variability is not helpful. Each tipping point we pass places us a step up/down on the staircase, pretending that one tipping point is going to rocket us all the way to the top of the steps overnight is not IMO helpful. It is especially not helpful because when disaster diesn't strike after catastrophic predictions that it will the average Joe6P then discount ALL climate science rather than simply ignoring the catastrophist end of the climate change understanding.

[GHung]

The constant refrain of using terminology like CLIFF where what we are actually talking about is a step change on the stairway of climate variability is not helpful. Each tipping point we pass places us a step up/down on the staircase, pretending that one tipping point is going to rocket us all the way to the top of the steps overnight is not IMO helpful. It is especially not helpful because when disaster diesn't strike after catastrophic predictions that it will the average Joe6P then discount ALL climate science rather than simply ignoring the catastrophist end of the climate change understanding.

Then. again. abrupt climate change has likely occurred in the past -

..... Timescales of events described as 'abrupt' may vary dramatically. Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10 °C (+18 °F) within a timescale of a few years.[6] Other abrupt changes are the +4 °C (+7.2 °F) on Greenland 11,270 years ago[7] or the abrupt +6 °C (11 °F) warming 22,000 years ago on Antarctica.[8] By contrast, the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum may have initiated anywhere between a few decades and several thousand years. Finally, Earth Systems models project that under ongoing greenhouse gas emissions as early as 2047, the Earth's near surface temperature could depart from the range of variability in the last 150 years, affecting over 3 billion people and most places of great species diversity on Earth.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change

Either way, methinks our grandkids have a big problem to deal with. There's no guarantee that humans will have time to adapt in any manageable way, since, collectively, J6Ps are reactionary creatures rather than proactive.

[dohboi]

T eloquently wrote: "...what we are actually talking about is a step change on the stairway of climate variability..."

True, but if you are an ant, coming to the edge of a step looks a hell of a lot like a cliff. Everything is perspective.

Since we are completely inside and dependent on this earth system, when we push the planet well beyond the boundaries of anything our species (much less our civilization) has ever seen, I think it's fair to call it a cliff.

Cliff also doesn't mean that there might not be further cliffs ahead!

[Cid_Yama]

How Abrupt is Abrupt

Jim White, AGU

[careinke]

the most important finding for practical and political aspects is that the current climate-relevant carbon sequestration of the forests is being overestimated as long as it is calculated with established but outdated wood densities. "The accelerated growth is still resulting in surplus carbon sequestration," says Pretzsch. "But scaling up for the forests of central Europe, the traditional estimate would be too high by about 10 million metric tons of carbon per year."[/b]

Very interesting paper, Vox. THANKS!

The whole idea of carbon sequestration in forests is is over hyped because all trees eventually die and decompose and the CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. There is some temporary storage, yes, but its not anything useful for permanent removal and sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Cheers!

Unless you turn it to bio-char.

[Tanada]

Then. again. abrupt climate change has likely occurred in the past -

..... Timescales of events described as 'abrupt' may vary dramatically. Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10 °C (+18 °F) within a timescale of a few years.[6] Other abrupt changes are the +4 °C (+7.2 °F) on Greenland 11,270 years ago[7] or the abrupt +6 °C (11 °F) warming 22,000 years ago on Antarctica.[8] By contrast, the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum may have initiated anywhere between a few decades and several thousand years. Finally, Earth Systems models project that under ongoing greenhouse gas emissions as early as 2047, the Earth's near surface temperature could depart from the range of variability in the last 150 years, affecting over 3 billion people and most places of great species diversity on Earth.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change

Either way, methinks our grandkids have a big problem to deal with. There's no guarantee that humans will have time to adapt in any manageable way, since, collectively, J6Ps are reactionary creatures rather than proactive.

You are taking a regional effect that took place in the climate on an Ice Sheet and projecting that effect on a global scale. Fortunately that isn't how real world physics works. The Ice Sheet and the rest of the North Pole region will indeed experience a very large amplitude change with every step up the climate staircase. However that change affects a tiny percentage of the human population directly, those living north of 60 degrees, and the alterations to their environment actually make life easier in that region, not more difficult in toto. The further south of 60 north you live the less change you will personally see in the climate. By the time you transition from 60 north to 30 north you will have gone from a large change to a very small change and south of 30 north the change is very subtle.

The reason is pretty basic, while the tropics do experience SOME change in the transition from icehouse to hothouse climate the degree of change in the actual tropic zone is very small, no more than 3 degrees C and average reports say 2C increase. At the North pole on the other hand the climate shift is from -20C yearly average to +15C yearly average with warm summers and cold winters. That 35C shift in yearly average is where nearly all of the 'climate change' takes place when the Earth shifts from 10C as Icehouse Earth to 25C as Hothouse Earth. Even more significant the earth acts as two independent climate systems because of the current arrangement of the continents and ocean currents. The Northern Hemisphere was ice free from 34 million ybp until 3 million ybp. During this same period Antarctica went from having mountain glaciers to being entirely buried under massive ice sheets. The world average temperatures in this period started out at 18C world average and gradually declined to 15C around which time the Arctic started accumulating ice increasing albedo and temperature on the 'world scale' abruptly dropped to 12C. However during this entire 34 million year period equatorial temperatures dropped at most 3C which is strong evidence that the reverse is likely to be true as we transition back up.

These are the reasons I keep telling people now is the time to prepare to survive in the hothouse world, not plan on becoming extinct. I promise you, all those folks who are not planing for either climate change or extinction who survive in the short term are going to be looking for someplace to migrate to where they will be able to live. For most of them that will simply mean moving up slope to evade sea level rise, but islands like Erie and Great Britain will be reduced in size as much as 50% over a long period of melting which means not enough food can be grown on the reduced area to feed everyone. Worst case sea level rise is still far short of Hollywood imagery, but it will mean moving large numbers of people up slope AND building new infrastructure to support them in the new location.

So we lose NYC, so what? The people living and working in NYC move to the north a few dozen miles to live in the hilly Westchester and Putnam counties just north of the current city. For Jersey's coast the same thing happens except they go more west to get into the high ground. While someone may propose the crazy sea wall idea in that picture KJ likes to post in reality the cost of building and maintaining such a structure while continuing to inhabit Manhattan island below sea level is a non starter. When people all along the world ocean coastline are being forced to relocate nobody is going to be willing or able to spare the resources to 'save Manhattan', especially when high ground is so nearby and available to relocate. Heck the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is about 150 feet high above present island surface level and it is not actually on the shore, it is t the highest point on the island giving it another couple dozen feet. This means flooding will gradually creep up to the pedestal and then up the pedestal itself for a very long time before it could actually reach the statue. Given how sentimental Americans are I think it is far more likely Lady Liberty will be taken apart and reconstructed above the new potential water level around 2100 AD than it is Manhattan island will be defended forever.

[Newfie]

Tanada,

Re NYC:
To some extent you are correct and to some extent it’s already happening. Many, many workers do not live in NYC but commute. They just change the direction of their commute.

BUT there are a huge number of folks who do live in NYC with subsidized rents or in public housing or who can not afford to move. This would require a LOT of government assistenance likely at a time when local governments are already strapped at the cost of moving the transit infrastructure and other service to the new locations. I’m betting a lot of NYC gets abandoned to these poverty classes and they have to fend for themselves.

It can be done, maybe, if we have enough energy resources to do it. At the very least it won’t be pretty. And maybe it won’t be done because our government can’t get it’s act together to do what needs doing.

It’s the difference between what is within our physical capability and what’s within our emotional capability.

[Tanada]

Tanada,

Re NYC:
To some extent you are correct and to some extent it’s already happening. Many, many workers do not live in NYC but commute. They just change the direction of their commute.

BUT there are a huge number of folks who do live in NYC with subsidized rents or in public housing or who can not afford to move. This would require a LOT of government assistenance likely at a time when local governments are already strapped at the cost of moving the transit infrastructure and other service to the new locations. I’m betting a lot of NYC gets abandoned to these poverty classes and they have to fend for themselves.

It can be done, maybe, if we have enough energy resources to do it. At the very least it won’t be pretty. And maybe it won’t be done because our government can’t get it’s act together to do what needs doing.

It’s the difference between what is within our physical capability and what’s within our emotional capability.

You are arguing that making people move because their buildings with its artificially low rent is no longer safe to inhabit is a bad thing. Good bad or indifferent is of no baring on the issue, NYC can not be saved on anything like a permanent basis and if the real problem that concerns you is rent controlled buildings then change the rules so that the current occupants can stay until the building is no longer safe but no new residents can move in after a fixed date. That way there will not be a fresh crop of displaced people when the time to demolish the building arrives.

Being poor is not much fun, but it doesn't mean you can demand extraordinary measures be taken on your behalf so you can keep your subsidized or rent controlled lease on your apartment. Unfortunately politicians are limited to looking to the next election cycle and influential people don't want the rules changed, yet. When sea level rise makes it unprofitable to maintain structures in the current NYC and is destroying infrastructure like sewage/subway/roadway/underground cable runs regularly even the politicians will be forced to accept reality.

If we were a wiser culture we would be doing the new infrastructure construction right now while energy is relatively cheap and available and at the same time vacating and demolishing structures currently within 30 feet of present sea level. Unfortunately we are not that wise of a culture and things will be done haphazardly as time marches on.

[dohboi]

"If we were a wiser culture we would be doing the new infrastructure construction right now while energy is relatively cheap and available and at the same time vacating and demolishing structures currently within 30 feet of present sea level. Unfortunately we are not that wise of a culture and things will be done haphazardly as time marches on."

Well put. And 'not wise' starts with not even acknowledging the accepted science that establishes that the problem is very real and very much at our door step (actually, a bit past the doorstep at this point).

And the party in control of all branches of US government at the current time doesn't even rise to that minimal level of 'wise.'

Just sayin'

[Newfie]

Tanada,

I’m not arguing it’s a bad thing, I’m arguing it’s not gonna happen. Because we are not wise.

As to your comments about our wisdom I agree. There are a lot of things we should be doing differently that we are not. First of all get our damn population under control because that just makes everything worse everywhere. That means for the USA slow down immigration. No point filling up the cities with folks we have to move. But also improve our grid, switch to energy saving methods where ever possible. Get rid of as many one use products as possible. Time shift work so we use our infrastructure more efficiently. Etc, etc, etc in no particular order.

But we are not that wise, as you noted.