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Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

theguardian.com

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Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#391

Post by anonymousDan »

VintageCool wrote: post #254
anonymousDan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this basically what caused the last ice age? The gulf stream is effectively the only thing keeping places like Ireland and England relatively mild given their latitude.

No. The effect of the gulf stream is overstated. Wind at these latitudes travels prevailingly westerly. England and Ireland are downwind of the ocean, which maintains more stable temperature than the land. British Columbia and Seattle are also downwind of the ocean and also relatively mild. New England gets cold because it is downwind of the continent. Also because the Rocky Mountains diverts the jet stream, exposing…

Very interesting, thanks. One less thing to worry about!

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#392

Post by roter »

circlefavshape wrote: post #350
roter wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream. What the paper is referring to is the three-dimensional circulation driven by salt and heat fluxes. Sinking cold water near places like Iceland and gradual upwelling of hot water in the tropics. Net result is transport of heat from tropics to poles and since it is water with a high heat capacity, a lot of heat! If this 3D flow is lessened, it…

> As long as the winds blow and the Earth spins, we will have a Gulf Stream I don't think this is true. Didn't the Gulf Stream shut off during the Ice Ages? At least that's what I learned at college in the early 90s

The Gulf Stream doesn't shut down. The AMOC shuts off or decreases in intensity. This is thought to have led to a number of interesting climate blips since coming out of the last ice-age. i.e. melt water from North American land sheets flows into North Atlantic, making it less dense, and less likely to sink. This leads to a lessening in the AMOC. The Gulf Stream would have still flowed but perhaps not as intense nor have been "pulled" as far northward. One such event was 8200 years ago [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#393

Post by felgueres »

jacquesm wrote: post #388
felgueres wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy consumption correlates to quality of life. Lower energy consumption is politically less feasible to implement, regressive and undesirable. Bipartisan refers to cooperation of two political parties, not 'America'. But sure, few other countries have only two major political factions. More generally I meant to promote nuclear energy in political cooperation. You are right in that the obvious is shutting down coal…

You are a couple of years behind the times when it comes to your knowledge of the cost effectiveness of solar and wind. They are $ for $ competitive with nuclear, and are being rolled out at scale. 8 MW onshore turbines are now pretty normal, larger ones are on the drawing board, and in the offshore wind market there are now 15 MW turbines. Base load can be provided through carbon neutral sources, such as the burning…

'Base load can be provided through carbon neutral sources, such as the burning of rest-mass left over from crop production.'

This statement is very uncalibrated. Biomass is possible just as much as tidal power but that doesn't make it viable for scale. It's not even part of the conversation.

'Smart control of appliances is another way in which the need for baseload power could be reduced'

Wrong. Smart control of appliances is used to shift demand from peak load not base.

Storage is not optional to make renewables base load.

'But it need not be so, not every source of pleasure or quality of life needs a combustion engine or a plug.'

You are obviously trivializing quality of life. High energy consumption means access to quality products and services in food, transport, education, entertainment and healthcare at minimum.

Unfortunately your arguments are uncalibrated so I will stop. Please take a look at the cost-effectiveness of nuclear on this source for future discussion: https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#394

Post by croes »

NonContro wrote: post #343
backprop1993 wrote: post #79

I think back to how we have responded to this pandemic. We were in denial until the pandemic was spreading unchecked wildly through the population, and even a good chunk of the population is still in denial after 100,000s of dead. We are a hopeless species when it comes to organizing effective collective action ahead of known disaster. We seem to only respond collectively once disaster has struck, and even then it ta…

The popular attitude to the pandemic is set by politicians and the media. If those groups want urgent action on climate change, they will get it. Those groups wanted lockdowns, and they got it (along with most of the $5.2trillion printed in the US alone since the pandemic began). This not a new concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent The question is, why don't the elites want urgent action on cli…

With money, you can mitigate the consequences of climate change for yourself or even avoid them altogether; you can't do that with the coronavirus.

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#396

Post by antisthenes »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #232
tomcooks wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In order to reach 1.61 metric tons an individual would not be able to own a gas-powered car, could not regularly consume meat, could not live in remote areas only visitable by plane etc. Many things people don't even consider "luxuries" (like visiting family overseas) would be a non-starter. So literally what was normal life in Europe up to the 80's, even 90s for some regions. It's not difficult to imagine how to ac…

Are electric planes physically impossible or just not realistic with current oil prices and no carbon tax?

At the range where electric planes are possible, they compete heavily with trains (which have less overhead for boarding and arrive closer to city center, which saves time).

Basically, imagine you have an electric plane with a range of 500 miles and travels at 250mph, and a train that travels at 125mph.

For the 500 mile trip, it's 2 vs 4 hours, but the train ride is generally going to be a better experience, and you'll arrive more rested and closer to your destination.

For a location like Europe, where high-speed rail is fairly developed, it's a hard sell to switch to electric planes in this case, IMO.

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#397

Post by InitialLastName »

croes wrote: post #394
NonContro wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The popular attitude to the pandemic is set by politicians and the media. If those groups want urgent action on climate change, they will get it. Those groups wanted lockdowns, and they got it (along with most of the $5.2trillion printed in the US alone since the pandemic began). This not a new concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent The question is, why don't the elites want urgent action on cli…

With money, you can mitigate the consequences of climate change for yourself or even avoid them altogether; you can't do that with the coronavirus.

> you can't do that with the coronavirus.

Wealth sure managed to make it easier to reduce your risk of getting covid, as well as substantially reducing the quality-of-life sacrifice from lockdowns.

Look at how many wealthy people somehow managed to achieve entry/residency/citizenship to countries where Covid was well-contained.

The wealthier you were during the quarantine, the more likely you were to be able to access services that were denied to others. Gym is closed? No problem, I have a home gym anyway. Many elite athletes brought their trainers, cooks and physical therapists into their households (IIRC Russell Wilson said he had a staff of ~11 in his family's bubble, meaning he was paying those people to isolate with his family instead of being with theirs.

At a lower level of wealth, access to WFH-able jobs, more living space (including being able to avoid living with multi-generational and potentially vulnerable family members), delivery everything, tech and tutoring for your kids' educations, and private transportation options certainly made it easier to mitigate the lifestyle sacrifices of avoiding contagion.

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#398

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #180
octaonalocto wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with your comment. Your definition of luxury is narrow and proscriptive. If you're trying to evaluate whether people would accept certain changes in their lifestyle, their definition of luxury is the one that matters. In a tight definition, indoor plumbing is a luxury. As a person whose family vacations used to include an outhouse, I most certainly do not consider that a luxury in my life.

No, my definition of luxury is to take anything that we didn't have in the last 100 years and consider it optional, because that's the kind of world you'll be living in regardless of your opinion on the matter. And then you will realize that it is a luxury to be able to zoom around the planet on a moments notice, to have a multiple 100's of KW personal energy budget per month and so on. These things are not givens an…

[deleted]

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#399

Post by tablespoon »

handrous wrote: post #382
tablespoon wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economic libertarianism saw some important activity near the beginning of that span, and its very confident anti-government and laissez-faire positions and language became very influential through the 90s, and it continues to grow. That's true, but I'd quibble with the "it continues to grow" part. IMHO, it's peaked. It's still strong, but Trump and other populists dealt it a blow; and it's arguably now sclerotic "o…

Yeah, of course the Trumpist/(maybe? I'm not 100% sure on connecting the two)Tea-party wing is the new wave I'm talking about that might represent another transformation of the party (we'll see, may just be a blip). You're right that there's probably less influence from the libertarian thought in that—there remains a rhetoric of "government is definitely bad always" but I'm not sure there's follow-through in actual p…

> Nearly every Republican I've actually known since at least the 90s has had positions that match Trump's more than they match the average R politician, even as the party itself ignored, downplayed, or gone directly against many of those positions—I think that's exactly why Trump took those positions and ignored the orthodox Republican platform where it didn't match...

Yeah, my understanding is that the Republican politicians basically governed for the capital class but used popular conservative social positions to keep enough support to make that work.

> Actually, some Trumpist positions, including anti-neoliberalism, anti-interventionism, and free trade skepticism, are very popular on the left too, but, as with pre-Trump Republicans, not well-represented among their politicians—I think there's an opportunity there, should someone find the right angle to attack it.

Yeah, I hope so. Trump is the kind of person the damages everything he touches. Usually that was bad, but in some significant areas the things he damaged really deserved that treatment (particularly the free trade dogma).

Re: Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Gulf Stream

#400

Post by asdff »

cableshaft wrote: post #351
yodelshady wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the greens don't get away that easily. Fossil fuel companies are the prime cause, but the opposition were every bit as aware of the consequences of not shifting away and every bit as culpable for frustrating that shift. They chose to ignore the consequences because shouting "nein danke" at everything makes you look principled.

While I agree it shouldn't have been slowed down when it did, Nuclear Power Plants are not going to save us now. "Nuclear energy is being outcompeted by renewable energy sources and is an inefficient solution to carbon emissions, according to the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) published on 24 September 2019." "The report estimates that the average construction time for reactors worldwide was ten…

For a major project averaging two years behind estimates is pretty good actually. Look at how long it takes to build a train in the U.S.
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