30 Comments

Like too obvious to need saying. Which is I suppose WHY it needs saying.

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You would think, and yet there is a multibillion dollar market full of folks using 40-year term reforestation projects to justify burning more coal...

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Great simulations! It seems our best hope is to reduce current usage of fossil hydrocarbons as quickly as possible. Nature has figured out how to store carbon for tens to hundreds of millions of years. If we stop pulling that carbon out of long term durable storage, we don't need to figure out a bunch of short term methods that may or may not work and also have higher cost than leaving it the ground in the first place. Thanks Zeke!

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Net zero is essentially a legitimate starting point. Without the direct sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere formulating to a valuable solid, by the volume of at least 2.5 of the over 3,500,000,000,000 tons we have added to its original constituency, or screwed. We have flipped the ubiquitous “tipping point“ the permafrost is melting. It contains over 400 ppm CO2 equivalent of methane. If that is not stopped, it’s curtains. Our one single reprieve. I think we should take it…..

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Much more is at stake than Co2 removal and as Zeke has stated will not immediately cool our planet. So there are many other things pulling the chord of heating this planet and I'm certain that Zeke has likely mentioned them. What I'm concerned about is all the stuff most folks remain unconvinced of or totally unaware. So it appears that whatever we are doing to help mitigate the continuous warming problems certainly has shown no such signs of cooling. If we focus on temperature maps of the northern most portions of our Hemisphere one notices that the largest heat gain and most rapid warming is occuring in the northern-most latitudes of the Northern hemisphere all the way across.

Now there are many theories as to why the polar and subpolar regions are showing the greatest and fastest heating and several scientific studies have doubled down that state these regions are warming at least 2-4 times faster than anywhere else on our planet.

I'm certain that zeke maybe a few others can point to the other theories out there. But my specialty lies in the hydrology, and natural cycles of rivers that used to exist throughout the upper latitudes and the delicate temperature balance that maintains Cryosphere(sea-Ice/glaciers. Something happened up there and to this day it is still impacting our lives down here. In many ways, many of us still cannot or will not accept this

Russian and Canadian subarctic hydro dams have forced a radical alteration to

the fragile yet critical hydrologic engine regulating our planets water cycle.

Since the 1950s both Canada and Russia dammed major rivers in the Arctic region for hydroelectric generation. This area has the largest concentrations of fresh water in the Northern Hemisphere and is highly, highly climate sensitive to human or natural disruptions to existing historical river-flow conditions.

For over 65 years of existence, the cumulative effects of mega dams with their inland sea-size impoundments and unnatural strict flow regimens have initiated Arctic Amplification. Impacts include winter humidity and heat pollution, altering weather patterns, warming coastal seas and the Gulf of Maine, and include reducing dynamics of sea ice formation. Additionally, these impacts alter global thermohaline currents with global climate implications. This also major reductions in and timing of nutrients delivered to marine species . This has decreased the marine biospheres sequestration of CO2.

Our research group is not discounting fossil fuels as a culprit however we have many years of discoveries from gathering onsite weather station data from the early 1900s to present. Much of our temperature and precipitation data show a remarkable correlation and a rapid warming of regions which occurred immediately after rivers, somewhat close to weather stations, were dammed out of existence forming hundreds even thousands of square miles of Sea-size reservoirs .Burying whole Boreal forest, Tundra, and permafrost earth. It should be mentioned that much of these x rivers flow was permanently sitting stagnant in huge reservoirs for at least 6 months every summer since the 1950's and early 1960's. After stagnating for months, waters begin warming and raising regional humidity levels in an historically dry and cool region. Mostly Wintertime generation of hydroelectric is pulled from a water column well below the top of dams where the water is close to 40F. When finally discharged out the dam, waters hit severely cold temperatures guaranteeing condensation forming into huge clouds(heat), methane rich water vapor spilling into the atmosphere throughout the river valley below. This has been happening undeterred for 65 years. This is “Strict flow Regulation” which basically destroys the entire ecological integrity of the rivers

We will make the case that Arctic mega dams and strict flow regulations are driving up sea level rise and CO2 emissions. We suggest an immediate focus of scientific funding and pressure on Canada to take responsibility and immediately begin decommissioning Arctic dams letting the rivers flow again. Energy costs are cheap in Canada. How cheap? it may be costing all of us a live-able planet. Links to abstracts and studies supporting these claims

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.8194

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rra.4220

https://cda.ca/dams-in-canada/dams-in-canada

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282706783_Effect_of_streamflow_regulation_on_mean_annual_discharge_variability_of_the_Yenisei_River

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282706783_Effect_of_streamflow_regulation_on_mean_annual_discharge_variability_of_the_Yenisei_River

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Water vapour follows temperature, and while water vapour is more powerful than CO2 it is the CO2 that controls the temperature of the planet, high up in the atmosphere where energy is radiated outwards to space. (The energy radiated downwards is the greenhouse effect.)

The polar amplification you speak about concerns the distribution of energy retained not the energy balance, and I would think the amount of water vapour attributable to the dams you speak about would be negligible compared water vapour occurring "naturally".

I remember Prof Dessler has answered you but you don't hear. Maybe a bee in your bonnet?

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Thanks for your critical thinking and yes there seems to be conflicting terminologies around water vapor. yes I understand your thought process and wv only exists when there is an observed temperature differential. In that cloud or fog(wv) is stored heat AND it it's continually released on a regular basis over many years in a region that is climatologically highly sensitive to any changes. The accumulation of localized regional ongoing evaporative and water vapor emissions does modify localized regional weather. If one continually modifies the humidity and heat index in an historically dry and often cooler region that 's often covered by permafrost, weather and environmetal changes occur. It is the water relationship to the land areas that is the key player, once atmosphere closer to ground heats up from its relationship with water there is increases in humidity aka-water vapor there is no stopping the system from reaching feedbacks. However if you decommission dams this could reverse the process by again permitting the largest amount of fresh- water in the Northern Hemisphere to be flowing again. This is such a climatologically fragile region, covered by dams for almost 70 years, impounding large quantities of water all summer from Siberia to Labrador and releasing the Lions share of it throughout winter months insuring plenty of WV throughout the winter months there.. And you should be aware that many scientists have noted that this region is heating up faster during winter months than summertime . It is the humidity and extensive WV emissions coming off the dams all winter long

Yea I'm stuck and I have a whole bees nest in my ear

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Antarctica also showing polar amplification. Damn, damn, damn...

My gut feeling in the absence of knowledge is that more lakes have some effect but it is irrelevant.

Would you accept an opinion from an expert other than those at this blog, or is the infestation of bees overwhelming?

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Dennis it is a pleasure to converse with you and your opinion has great validity

So we'll keep chatting. 1st I'm not discounting the important over-reaching effects of Co2 however the stubborness of the scientific community to even consider localized on the ground easy peasy facts continuing over and over for many decades has a lasting cumulative effect on both weather and climate of the affected regions. The Radically altered water cycle, the permafrost and sea Ice melting, increasing humidity, these are direct impacts of impounded inland waters areas rich in organic matters. You cannot stopt most of a major rivers flow without impacts particularly in a highly climate sensitive region.

Yes lakes larger lakes do emit WV and Methane caused when much sediment and organic matter sits on the bottom behind the dams and slowly over some years leads to anerobic reactions leading to Methane bubbling.

There are a few dams, and the number is growing rapidly in the Southern Hemisphere. So yea it to is affected by the change in the water cylcle. Stored water for months heats up increasing humidity and more Wv. It is certainly more nuanced than this but should not be discounted as

significant effect on the southern polar regions

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Cliff, although you didn't answer my query I did send your "theory" to Professor Richard Alley at Penn State - an expert on the Arctic.

"Dennis—Nice to hear from you. Indeed amazing how things go. We’re actually up in --- Manitoba at the moment, where --- does some sea-ice research.

"Anyway, my guess is that you are better focusing on other issues and not spending too much effort on mistaken ideas about Arctic forcings of climate change.

"Yes, the Arctic is warming faster than the globe, and that is really important and really interesting (and a bit depressing for those who liked the old Arctic…). But, there is sooo much evidence that the global warming is not primarily driven by some land-surface or lake-related or water-vapor process in the Arctic—the extra Arctic warming is what is expected based on what the Arctic is, and is confirmed by paleoclimatic evidence showing similar amplification in the past. Warming is global, and not something centered on the Arctic and decreasing away, arguing against an important role for Arctic forcing. Water vapor is transported into the Arctic, not out, so the Arctic can’t be exporting something to other regions. Water vapor is a feedback and not an important forcing on climate anyway; the ~9-day residence time in the atmosphere is so short that it takes an immense source to make any significant change in the reservoir of water vapor; the only really important way we know to change water vapor a lot is to warm the world (usually by raising CO2), with the warmer air then picking up more water vapor mostly from the ocean but also from land surfaces. We could go on, and on, but you’ve already figured this out; climate science has a lot of work to do, but there is no hugely important process in the Arctic that has somehow been missed. (The questions about feedbacks from thawing ice and methane clathrate in permafrost and sea-floor sediments in the Arctic are important, though.)

"So, my advice, continue to enjoy that important blog, and contribute as you can, but don’t sweat this one issue too much. I think most of the other readers have seen your work already and are up to speed with you."

So the Arctic has warmed like this in the past - before dams and artificial lakes were constructed - and polar amplification is seen in the Antarctic where there are none. If Richard Alley can't persuade you you're on the wrong tack then the bees have won.

You ought to hear Alley's lectures anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVb--2-PBg

American Geophysical Union

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkcTZZlikg

National Academy of Sciences

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Now both stubborn fools and know dam ..dam? well that we'll likely not be here when sea level makes coastlines move a bit inland and a bit more and a bit more. I obviously agree with you on many levels and as you've stated there is something that we've missed in the Arctic

The weather stations located in Siberian Arctic and Canadian Arctic tell a clear story. And in disagreement with you. There's huge amounts of water vapor,mostly during winter months because the hypoliminal releases from these dams mainly in winter is drawn from a warm water column well below dam surface where it is almost 40F and the temperature differential of severe Arctic cold interacting with warmer waters creates very abundant clouds of water vapor all winter. Humidity levels continue high in summer because 90% of major rivers have become forced into stagnation creating sea-size oceans all over the inland subarctic. again look at the weather stations before and after dam commisSioning. Rather then me hashing this over please let me send you a direct email with some of our most recent research. As I said I understand the compexities of this issue.

but there is something that we have missed as scienific researchers. I'm not discounting the effects of a Co2. Ask the fish why their nutrient supply is lacking in the ocean and lacking at the exact time they need it..Spring and summer months, little if any flow occurs from these man-made inland seas then. Ask the diatoms why they are starving for Silica and are rapidly becoming endangered . Again disappearing from their diet is the required amount of silica. Silt and organic sediments stored /deposited behind dams, all summer, only to be released in the dead of winter when all Marine life does not want or need it then. Do you know how much Co2 diatoms sequestor? Let me email you DIRECT some of our work. We can always disagree. .

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Great post. I have been trying to understand the earth's carbon cycle and came to the same conclusion that CO2 lasts for a long time in the atmosphere. You mentioned 400,000 years in a previous post. But looking at J. Hansen's paper the high CO2 concentration 50 million years ago of about 1200 ppm came down to about 300 ppm only relatively recently. Shouldn't we conclude therefore that the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is millions of year?

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I am highly doubtful - not of the need or potential benefits, but of the practicality. In terms of the quantities of "product" CDR has to become one of the largest industries in the world, if not THE single largest. But it is all cost and no profit and must run entirely on levies and taxes... in a world where absence of corruption and excessive corporate influence is the exception.

Going by the way Carbon Offsets and CCS are currently being used - stealing land use carbon gains (recovery?) to claim ongoing fossil fuel emissions are being reduced and accounting shell games with unproven CCS, often (eg Australia) for offsetting the increases in "production" emissions of expanded fossil fuel extraction for export - the end use isn't in Australia, so Australia can claim domestic emissions are going down... so long as offsetting hides the rise from the single largest source of rising Australian emissions.

In two faced style credit is claimed for local electricity becoming increasingly RE - which is driven primarily by simple demand for electricity at least cost ie would happen anyway - even as the FF export growth adds - enormously - to global emissions.

When the climate across Australia swings to wet then soils and vegetation take down some CO2, especially if grazing animals are removed, whether on purpose or not, and emissions "reductions" to offset growth in gas and coal production emissions are claimed. When it swings to drought and fire carbon offsets schemes crash and burn, often literally -the fossil fuel miners will not be held accountable, the carbon offsetters will; it is a financial write off, and "oh, too bad". I don't see how CDR will be done better.

I think that as bad as the climate impacts directly can get the worst outcomes from global warming will come from the mismanagement, blameshifting and conflict. Decades of Doubt, Deny, Delay politicking an example in itself.

The political response to more difficult economic conditions arising from global warming seems more likely to see the rise in populist blame shifting and conflict than in support for paying for CDR.

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Why is the 100 year storage line concave and the 1000 year storage linear?

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They are both concave (using identical functions for a given mean duration); the 1000-year line just reaches well off the plotted graph so it looks locally linear.

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Thanks for clarifying. Makes sense. Great article.

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Hi Zeke, I think you are needing to mention the ocean's part in vacuuming up CO2 once we reach net zero. With the continual overturning, and its rate of once per 1000 years for one complete overturning, there is immense capacity for the oceans to bring the level back to 300ppm, even at 2C higher surface temperatures. Remember, with less northern ice, there is more exposed cold ocean surface to take up the CO2.

Also, all the leaked methane from the fossil fuel extraction and tundra thaw will slowly turn into the much less effective GHG, CO2, over a 20 to 50-year period, helping cool the planet. And, despite your naked claim there is no way to cool the planet, almost any catastrophe that puts dust or SO2 into the upper atmosphere, or interrupts the AMOC (Gulf Stream) global conveyor of ocean heat, will cool the planet drastically, which is more dangerous than warming.

Cheers, Ron

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This topic needs more publicity like Zeke’s.

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"we cannot use temporary climate removal to buy time until the climate cools back down (similar to how geoengineering would not actually solve the problem)."

Thank you for pointing that out, and quantifying the time scales. Erm - did you mean to type "temporary carbon removal"? Anyway, my hobby is oak savanna restoration, and I'd really like to bring back controlled fire to my oak patch, to emulate the millennia-old Indigenous practice before Euro-American settlement put an end to it. That's not feasible now, for liability and air quality (not to mention statutory) reasons. But I get push-back on the "fire-climax" idea from otherwise-well-informed, thoughtful people who think landscape fire must must always contribute to global warming. Now I can confidently tell them just why they're wrong: the vegetation burning today has only held its carbon for a few decades at most, and that carbon would soon return whence it recently came through normal death and decay, if not burning. Yes, I'm aware ecological restoration is a rear-guard action at best. I still like having expert backup!

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Another argument for restoring historical grassland fire, is that it can enhance long-term soil carbon storage (agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2005GB002670). TBH though, my private motivations are more aesthetic than data-driven.

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This is a big aside but do the 2500 scenarios in Meinshausen, M. et al. specify energy use as well? Pretty sure I looked at one point and found they were silent on that point.

I’m curious in how many doublings of total energy use are specified over that period.

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Zeke, as always, thanks for posting your results. I have tried to communicate in my small way for several years the consequences we might face if net zero is not achieved in a reasonable amount of time: we don't really know what that number is. China. the US and India are the top emitters (https://theconversation.com/trump-voters-said-they-were-angry-about-the-economy-many-of-them-had-a-point-239039?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20November%2011%202024%20-%203161832240&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20November%2011%202024%20-%203161832240+CID_628d37e04991311974a5e9d961cddebd&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=Trump%20voters%20said%20they%20were%20angry%20about%20the%20economy%20%20many%20of%20them%20had%20a%20point) . The last thing on the minds of the minds of the "average", not the median, person in those countries is when the world will reach net zero. I am guilty too, academic exercises are beautiful, realty is not. Just reflect on the outcome of the Nov 5 election in the US.

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What did you mean by, "every ton of CO2 we put in the atmosphere continues to warm the earth for millennia to come?" I thought that reaching net zero (if it is true net zero, of course) would stop warming. If so, that ton of CO2 would not warm the earth for millennia to come. Which is right?

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When we reach net zero global temperatures stop increasing, they don't cool back down. CO2 we've emitted before that point continues to trap heat and its warming effect persists for millennia (even as global temperatures stabilize)

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Right, got it. That extra ton wouldn't warm the earth any more but would keep temperature elevated for millennia. Thanks.

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Here is a very tough look at what has happened and what is awaiting us in the future with Global Warming. From Medium.com Richard Crim

https://smokingtyger.medium.com/the-crisis-report-50-eecedc5d8385

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Hadn’t realized the relatively short time scales for re-emission from soil and forest projects … so re-read your March 19 post (linked in the text). Thanks! Good analyses.

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Bottom line, if it comes out of the ground it has to go back in the ground forever.

What is the story with biofuels, like ethanol? I am not finding a consensus about the net emissions for corn ethanol. Advocates are suggesting that with improvements we can achieve net-zero carbon emissions, https://ethanolproducer.com/articles/corn-ethanol-can-achieve-net-zero-carbon-emissions-before-2050-19018 . As the article points out, it will take a significant amount of carbon capture to get there.

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