What will happen to the Great Barrier Reef?

[theMeat]

I'm sure @Thales is aware of Milankovitch cycles, as he has training in science. As I am sure that he and anyone else with a training in science can tell you, the Milankovitch cycles (small variance in the orbit of the earth around the sun over long time periods) are what drives long term climate cycling (i.e. ice ages and interglacials) that we can see in ice core data that go back 2 million years. We are currently in an inter-glacial period (warmer temperatures), and global temperatures have been this high or a little higher for periods over the past 2 million years.

However, our carbon dioxide levels are currently MUCH higher (407.4 ppm) than they have been in 2 million years, based on ice core data. Even though we are not getting more solar radiation from Milankovitch cycling, temperatures are rising at an incredibly rapid pace. This is primarily due to increasing CO2 levels that have come from human activities, dating back to the industrial revolution. The associated rapid rise in global temperatures is the number one long term threat to the GBR and reefs elsewhere. The increase in atmospheric CO2 levels has also led to a decreasing pH in the oceans (ocean acidification), which most reefers with a Ca reactor should understand. This is the second looming threat to reefs around the world.

EDIT: here is a figure of the ice core data (going back 800,000 yrs) from one of the courses that I teach. Note the red line is average global temperatures and the blue lines are atmospheric CO2 concentration. This figure is slightly outdated as current CO2 levels are at 407. ppm. Normal long term cycling can be seen in the relationship between CO2 and temperature that is driven by small changes in the amount of radiation that earth gets from the sun. (Earth gets more radiation from the sun and warms the oceans and melts the tundra -> warmer oceans hold less dissolved CO2 (warming tundra releases CO2 as it decomposes), so CO2 is released from the oceans and thickens the layer of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This results in a strengthened "greenhouse effect" and leads to further warming.)

As you can see by the much higher current levels of CO2, we have jumped well above the "natural" climate cycle. Scientists predict that rapid temperature rise will continue because of our high CO2 levels.

97% of scientists agree that humans are responsible for global climate change. Follow this link for a paper that documents this. (They analyzed 12,000 papers by climate scientists to come to this conclusion.)

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

iopscience.iop.org

Incidentally, do you know how hard it is to get 97% of scientists to agree on anything? The evidence for human causes of climate change is overwhelming.

What can we do about it? I would argue that we can do something. What that is, is a political discussion that I will not get into so this thread does not get locked.

Let’s start with a clearing up of this post and get a baseline language going on.
We are currently in an ice age that started around 2.5 million years ago known as Pliocene -Quaternary. We will continue to be in an ice age until the poles melt away. Which they gave a few times in our past. Within this ice age we have glacial periods which last around 100,000 years, and interglacial periods that last around 11,500 years. How/why these glacial/interglacial periods happen we know mostly thanx to Milankovitch. The current interglacial we are enjoying started 11,700 years ago.
The oceans have 99% of our climate’s capacity, and control 50x more co2 than everything above them.
We are currently experiencing extremely low solar activity, after centuries of very high activity. Lower solar activity causes our magnetosphere to weaken because of less solar wind, and a weaker magnetosphere allows more cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere. Long and short we have less solar energy but more cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are much more effective at warming our oceans and causing more evaporation. Warmer water evaporating is a climate drive, as c02 is not. If you look at correlation of co2 and planet temps you should except that co2 goes up because the oceans warm, not the other way round as we are led to believe. If this is not the case then why can we point to countless times when this is the case, and zero times when c02 was a clImate driver. Except now. When new taxes and restrictions are the fix. Just silly.
I could go on, let’s see where this goes.

 

[lexinverts]

We are currently experiencing extremely low solar activity, after centuries of very high activity. Lower solar activity causes our magnetosphere to weaken because of less solar wind, and a weaker magnetosphere allows more cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere. Long and short we have less solar energy but more cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are much more effective at warming our oceans and causing more evaporation. Warmer water evaporating is a climate drive, as c02 is not. If you look at correlation of co2 and planet temps you should except that co2 goes up because the oceans warm, not the other way round as we are led to believe. If this is not the case then why can we point to countless times when this is the case, and zero times when c02 was a clImate driver. Except now. When new taxes and restrictions are the fix. Just silly.
I could go on, let’s see where this goes.

If you could publish this in scientific journals you would win the Nobel Prize.

The explanation for our current warming trend that I posted above is supported by 97% of climate scientists.

 

[Jase4224]

There are a few reasons actually. Primary being cost and secondary being generation output. Cost we have a bit of wiggle room with government subsidies for home owners and small businesses. Even larger businesses. This is the easy part. The bigger issue though is solar panel efficiency. Number of panels needed to be positive generation is crazy high and most homes do not have the space. More efficient panels of course this goes away. We need low earth orbit type solar generation panels at the consumer level (40%+ sort of thing).

Once you have efficient panels, home owners reduce emergency consumption, production positive on generation, and then have batteries to bank positive energy....well, you can now charge that fancy new Mustang Mach E sitting in your garage and know it is truly green.

Keep in mind this only works in the states, geo locations, that have a good solar generation window. Not everyone does.



True. Stop wasting money on deep space exploration or landing rovers on Mars. Low earth orbit and mining on asteroids is the next step. Humans will never, or are a very long way off, of deep space. Technology isn't there to get between A and B fast enough for any type of life line / supply chain of basic things like food and water.... To sort of prove this point just watch the 4k video from the Russian cosmonaut. He captures the re-supply launch and you can just see the amount of energy used to reach them. It is incredible really and just shows visually the effort...

Anyway....as a solar user I can honestly say it isn't really worth it based on the current home user panel efficiency. And the local utilities are not going to want people having efficient panels because that will be a revenue loss for them. Such is life.

Come on I’m lower-middle class and easily afforded ($5,500) to put 6.5kw on my roof that way out produces my daily use. Unfortunately storage is still too expensive for me. Solar has cut my bill by 2/3rds in winter and 3/4 in summer. The rest of the power goes back into the grid for others to use. I do live in Australia so plenty of sun but even on rainy days it still produces enough power for the day.

There is a huge solar boom happening in Oz because people are taking advantage of the low cost and recognising the advantages to producing your own power.

As far as your points on space travel I agree that mining probably should be prioritised over going to Mars. However.. people need to be inspired and see what’s possible first. Boots on Mars or even the Moon again will (hopefully) inspire a new generation of tech that will be based on gathering resources. But yeah I would like to see resources be a bigger deal than just exploration.

 

[theMeat]

If you could publish this in scientific journals you would win the Nobel Prize.

The explanation for our current warming trend that I posted above is supported by 97% of climate scientists.

This is typical when talking about this subject. Especially on the interwebz. Don’t really understand the need for character assassination when someone disagrees. Guess I’m old school and remember a time when debate and discussion was a good thing.
You should know that the 97% of scientist agree is not true. Know some climate scientists that do not agree, some who are afraid to air any disbelief professionally, and some who are upset that they are included in said 97% even thou they disagree and were counted as agreeing simply because they took part and the majority did.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I completely agree with you here. I’m guilty of getting into the causes due probably to frustration. If only politicians could see your point and act.

What can the politicians do? Forcing people to change won’t work. It’s not fair to pull the rug out on people like that anyways

I’ve read about different ways to deal with the carbon. One way filters it right out of the air. Critics go to town criticizing it as not being good enough. Solar wasn’t worth a dern 30 years ago, but look at it now. Each year it’s gets cheaper and more efficient.

We need to attack this thing in parts. We can’t just tax the daylights out of everything or make ICE cars cost a fortune. We need to think up long term goals.

Sadly, we probably need to say goodbye to the reefs, for now anyways. The solution won’t be anytime soon.

I’d be okay with government spending money on carbon sequestration study over landing another Mini Cooper on Mars. $2.5BILLION to see if there might have been life on Mars? How many Carbon sequestration units could be built for that? 1000s!

We have so much uranium in our crust it’s crazy! We need to get over nuclear power and go gang busters with it. We need to build reactors that are safe and reliable. Use up this mighty amount of uranium that we have for GOOD.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Come on I’m lower-middle class and easily afforded ($5,500) to put 6.5kw on my roof that way out produces my daily use. Unfortunately storage is still too expensive for me. Solar has cut my bill by 2/3rds in winter and 3/4 in summer. The rest of the power goes back into the grid for others to use. I do live in Australia so plenty of sun but even on rainy days it still produces enough power for the day.

There is a huge solar boom happening in Oz because people are taking advantage of the low cost and recognising the advantages to producing your own power.

As far as your points on space travel I agree that mining probably should be prioritised over going to Mars. However.. people need to be inspired and see what’s possible first. Boots on Mars or even the Moon again will (hopefully) inspire a new generation of tech that will be based on gathering resources. But yeah I would like to see resources be a bigger deal than just exploration.

Can you give more details on how you built a 6.5kW system for $5500?

 

[Thales]

Let’s start with a clearing up of this post and get a baseline language going on.
We are currently in an ice age that started around 2.5 million years ago known as Pliocene -Quaternary. We will continue to be in an ice age until the poles melt away. Which they gave a few times in our past. Within this ice age we have glacial periods which last around 100,000 years, and interglacial periods that last around 11,500 years. How/why these glacial/interglacial periods happen we know mostly thanx to Milankovitch. The current interglacial we are enjoying started 11,700 years ago.
The oceans have 99% of our climate’s capacity, and control 50x more co2 than everything above them.
We are currently experiencing extremely low solar activity, after centuries of very high activity. Lower solar activity causes our magnetosphere to weaken because of less solar wind, and a weaker magnetosphere allows more cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere. Long and short we have less solar energy but more cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are much more effective at warming our oceans and causing more evaporation. Warmer water evaporating is a climate drive, as c02 is not. If you look at correlation of co2 and planet temps you should except that co2 goes up because the oceans warm, not the other way round as we are led to believe. If this is not the case then why can we point to countless times when this is the case, and zero times when c02 was a clImate driver. Except now. When new taxes and restrictions are the fix. Just silly.
I could go on, let’s see where this goes.

Most of that is just, well, off. No attack on your character - the information is not correct.

 

[theMeat]

Most of that is just, well, off. No attack on your character - the information is not correct.

Tell me what is off. If you can correct me I’d appreciate it

 

[Thales]

Tell me what is off. If you can correct me I’d appreciate it

How do you think GCR's warm the ocean?

 

[lexinverts]

Tell me what is off. If you can correct me I’d appreciate it

Hey, like I said earlier, if you can publish this stuff you could win the Nobel Prize. You're wasting your time on a fish forum...
Show us a single publication that argues that rising global temperatures are not mainly due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
As stated by the late great Christopher Hitchens, "what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

 

[Double monti 61]

Thanks skim

 

[csb123]

What can the politicians do? Forcing people to change won’t work. It’s not fair to pull the rug out on people like that anyways

Changing laws is the ONLY thing that makes people and industry do the right thing.

ie. Child labor laws, anti pollution laws, heck, seatbelt laws...

PS. Life is “not fair”. Just ask my buddy with metastatic cancer.

 

[sde1500]

This is typical when talking about this subject. Especially on the interwebz. Don’t really understand the need for character assassination when someone disagrees. Guess I’m old school and remember a time when debate and discussion was a good thing.
You should know that the 97% of scientist agree is not true. Know some climate scientists that do not agree, some who are afraid to air any disbelief professionally, and some who are upset that they are included in said 97% even thou they disagree and were counted as agreeing simply because they took part and the majority did.

I agree the 97% quote is flawed and not worth arguing. Stating that the vast general consensus is backing anthropogenic climate change is not wrong though. You’ve made statements that require backing up. I welcome you to do so.

 

[Brian_68]

Since wind and solar generated power is in many cases cheaper than the carbon alternative it seems pretty clear to me, push these much harder than we are doing currently. It is clean technology and people are not getting cancer breathing in the affects of the carbon alternatives. Can't happen soon enough for our pocket book, and the environment. I went to snorkel reefs on St. John USVI over 20 years ago and they were incredible. Went back to some of the same spots 10 plus years later and it was barren, and mostly rubble with just a few fish. It is pretty sad what is happening similar to this on land and in the ocean worldwide regardless of what people think is the cause.

 

[theMeat]

How do you think GCR's warm the ocean?

In a few ways.
Simply by penetration, which cosmic rays do very well, directly into oceans.
They penetrate up to 2 miles, that we know of, into earth/ground itself. Which would think reacts with mantle on some level, and ocean floors are closer to mantle by up to 7 miles in some places.
They also help to seed clouds which as a result we would have more of. Clouds are moisture, and moisture/water vapor is a well known climate driver. Look to Arctic for proof of this. Wintertime lows are warmer, while summertime melt is within satellite era averages. Albeit on the low side, but with average. The colder it is the harder it is for air to hold moisture. While at the same time the more moisture there is the harder it is to get colder.
This can also cause more rain in some places, and less in others. Because the quicker clouds get seeded the quicker they precipitate.

Which is happening in front of our eyes, not too far from Australia, right now, yet man made global warming is all the talk.

 

[theMeat]

I agree the 97% quote is flawed and not worth arguing. Stating that the vast general consensus is backing anthropogenic climate change is not wrong though. You’ve made statements that require backing up. I welcome you to do so.

Agreed. A majority believe.
What would you like me to “back up”?

 

[Brian_68]

I don't need to be a scientist to see a correlation between CO2 and temperature in the last 100 years....

but there will always be some naysayers, just a fact of life people take sides.

 

[theMeat]

Hey, like I said earlier, if you can publish this stuff you could win the Nobel Prize. You're wasting your time on a fish forum...
Show us a single publication that argues that rising global temperatures are not mainly due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
As stated by the late great Christopher Hitchens, "what is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Show me one point in time when co2 was a climate driver. Not a time 4 million or 10 million years ago where we think it might have or could have.
As Christopher Hitchens once said,,,

 

[theMeat]

I don't need to be a scientist to see a correlation between CO2 and temperature in the last 100 years....

but there will always be some naysayers, just a fact of life people take sides.

Not a naysayer or taking sides. I remain open minded and am a former “ believer”
Correlation is not causation, but I agree. Within this interglacial there has been a pretty strong correlation. When you realize that when oceans warm they release c02 it starts to make sense. Because oceans control 50x more co2 than everything above them. This is not only provable in a lab like co2, but in countless events in the real world. This is known, or should be, as the 800 year lag.

 

[Brian_68]

Not a naysayer or taking sides. I remain open minded and am a former “ believer”
Correlation is not causation, but I agree. Within this interglacial there has been a pretty strong correlation. When you realize that when oceans warm they release c02 it starts to make sense. Because oceans control 50x more co2 than everything above them. This is not only provable in a lab like co2, but in countless events in the real world. This is known, or should be, as the 800 year lag.

Oceans are a CO2 / carbon sink now, not releasing it. Otherwise the air CO2 levels would be much higher based on current CO2 annual releases. That is what is causing the oceans ph to drop..... If they are releasing CO2 the ph would increase, and it isn't.