Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#301

Post by ftrobro » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 11:49 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #265

ftrobro wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think your conclusion that this loop doesn't accelerate the greenhouse effect is correct It's not like mammalian herbivores are a recent invention. If a constant amount of mammalian herbivores in the world would cause a constant acceleration of greenhouse effect then the greenhouse effect would have increased exponentially for millions of years already. That has not been the case. If you increase the number…

> It's not like mammalian herbivores are a recent invention. If a constant amount of mammalian herbivores in the world would cause a constant acceleration of greenhouse effect then the greenhouse effect would have increased exponentially for millions of years already. Factory style livestock farming is a recent invention. There's no way a similar amount of herbivores existed a million years ago in the wild compared t…

You're missing the point. An increase in the number of mammalian herbivores just means an increased point of equilibrium for methane. But there will still be an equilibrium.

In contrast, using fossile sources of carbon (oil etc) will increase the greenhouse effect every year even if the usage is constant.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#302

Post by himinlomax » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 11:55 AM UTC

cesnja wrote: post #287

himinlomax wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After how long? A half-life of a decade, as I understand it? Not exactly the order of magnitude of luxury time we have to spare Doesn't matter, if we keep the number of heads of cattle constant, the methane from them in the atmosphere will be constant. If we keep using the same number of ICE cars otoh, the CO2 from them in the atmosphere will keep increasing. We would have to drop the number of ICE cars to 0 to sto…

If the amount of methane in the atmosphere is constant, the CO2 from that in the atmosphere will keep increasing.

Cows don't eat coal or oil.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#303

Post by acdha » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 11:59 AM UTC

shrubble wrote: post #40

This is exactly what the "deniers" have been saying - that the mathematical model is not fleshed out enough, and the data is not present in sufficiently accurate quantity, for the climate models to be accurate. This research shows that the mechanism of action was misunderstood all this time. What else hasn't been researched enough and has simplistic assumptions baked into the climate models? That shockingly simplisti…

If you want to talk about predictive power, let’s look at the first IPCC report from 1990. That had estimates which we now have data to judge them against, and have held up well:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/ipccs-climate-projec...

Similarly, Dr. James Hansen (director of NASA's Goddard Institute) testified before Congress based on his 1988 study predicting global warming and his numbers were very close to what we saw over the subsequent 3 decades:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

This research shows that one variable might be 30-40% smaller but the impact of that is clearly still within the margins on reports from 3 or 4 decades ago, so perhaps consider that the fossil fuel-funded sources telling you that the models are “shockingly simplistic” are not being entirely honest about their motives.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#304

Post by machina_ex_deus » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 12:33 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #300

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The narrative is very misleading. There are two directions to look at it: convincing yourself via a convincing story, or convincing yourself via a convincing calculation. The story they tell defies basic thermodynamic intuition, and seems to skip over all the parts that would put the narrative in doubt. The premise is that greenhouse gases absorb black body radiation from the surface. First of all, greenhouse gas is…

> So what can possibly cause warming is only the effect of the difference in temperatures between the CO2 gas and the surface. This shows you have a complete misunderstanding of the basic physics going on. If you have a source of radiation directly hitting a surface, some of the radiation will warm the surface by being absorbed by the surface material, but some of that radiation will be reflected back into space. Whe…

No, you're the one misunderstanding the physics. The reflected radiation is in a different spectrum than greenhouse gas absorption spectrum. The greenhouse effect is supposed to be about the difference in thermal radiation absorption frequencies, not sunlight absorption frequencies. You can read again about greenhouse effect to see that you misunderstood it. CO2 is the same as air in sunlight spectrum, which is the reflected radiation. Both are negligible. The entire argument rests on thermal radiation absorption, not sunlight absorption.

Do you have any background in physics at all? Seems like you don't really understand physics.

Here, wikipedia's entry:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

The warm surface emits thermal radiation in IR, which is what is absorbed by greenhouse gases.

That's not your fault, their explanation is extremely misleading, like I have said.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#305

Post by Thiez » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 12:37 PM UTC

alex_lav wrote: post #247

eastof wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nutrients [...] only found in meat Nutritional yeast is tasty and naturally has b12, and most cereals/grains are fortified with it. > amino acids [...] only found in meat This just isn't true, you can get all amino acids from plant-based sources like soybeans, lentils, and peanuts. Source: I have been vegan for 5 years and I still have a healthy 6 minute mile, 25 consecutive pullups, V5-V7 range boulder problem cli…

> Source: I have been vegan for 5 years and I still have a healthy 6 minute mile, 25 consecutive pullups, V5-V7 range boulder problem climber, etc. Is "I'm athletic right now" really a legitimate argument to "veganism at a large scale could have unintended health consequences"?

Hundreds of millions of Asians are vegetarian or vegan. It's not like these diets were invented yesterday.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#306

Post by adgjlsfhk1 » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 12:42 PM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #302

cesnja wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the amount of methane in the atmosphere is constant, the CO2 from that in the atmosphere will keep increasing.

Cows don't eat coal or oil.

they eat oil (fertilizer is an oil byproduct).

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#307

Post by smonn_ » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #300

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The narrative is very misleading. There are two directions to look at it: convincing yourself via a convincing story, or convincing yourself via a convincing calculation. The story they tell defies basic thermodynamic intuition, and seems to skip over all the parts that would put the narrative in doubt. The premise is that greenhouse gases absorb black body radiation from the surface. First of all, greenhouse gas is…

> So what can possibly cause warming is only the effect of the difference in temperatures between the CO2 gas and the surface. This shows you have a complete misunderstanding of the basic physics going on. If you have a source of radiation directly hitting a surface, some of the radiation will warm the surface by being absorbed by the surface material, but some of that radiation will be reflected back into space. Whe…

I'd recommend watching this video if you'd like to know the more nuanced story behind climate change: https://youtu.be/oqu5DjzOBF8 I am not qualified at all to really comment on it but this did open my eyes to how confusing the entire thing is.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#308

Post by kcplate » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 1:00 PM UTC

kredd wrote: post #225

kcplate wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem with the attitude of “so what if the models aren’t accurate, we should still undertake giant unpopular sacrifices because I, the expert, says so…”.is that it makes people more and more distrustful of future models that may be more accurate. We just watched with front row seats what happens when once trusted scientific authorities rely on poor data, poor communications, and poor models. The general…

Significant portion of population will always act against status quo even if the data is accurate to the T. Something about “don’t let perfect be enemy of the good” heavily applies to climate modeling, in my opinion. Worst case scenario, we convert to better sources of power through a ton of investment, and make general populace’s life “cleaner” anyways.

The worse case scenario is investment in your your movement towards cleaner energy is constantly hampered by scientists and politicians making near term apocalyptic predictions based on conjecture.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#309

Post by adgjlsfhk1 » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 1:07 PM UTC

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #297

dataflow wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Methane naturally turns into CO2 in the atmosphere After how long? A half-life of a decade , as I understand it? Not exactly the order of magnitude of luxury time we have to spare. > Even if it did increase warming more than CO2 "Even if it did" is strange wording for an established fact. Do you write "even if the sky was blue"? > once methane emissions reach a steady level, reducing methane emissions won't change…

The narrative is very misleading. There are two directions to look at it: convincing yourself via a convincing story, or convincing yourself via a convincing calculation. The story they tell defies basic thermodynamic intuition, and seems to skip over all the parts that would put the narrative in doubt. The premise is that greenhouse gases absorb black body radiation from the surface. First of all, greenhouse gas is…

> So what can possibly cause warming is only the effect of the difference in temperatures between the CO2 gas and the surface

This is wrong. If you do the math, you actually find that you get warming from CO2 if the atmosphere is colder, the same temp, or hotter than the surface.

When the ground emits a photon there are two possibilities. it either gets absorbed by an atom in the atmosphere or it goes to space. about half of the photons absorbed by the atmosphere get radiated back to the earth (compared to roughly zero percent of the ones that go to space).

Since CO2 is better than air at absorbing infrared radiation, it traps some energy that would otherwise be lost. The situation isn't really any different than wearing a coat. a jacket will warm you even if the jacket is colder than you are because it prevents some heat from leaving the system. this doesn't violate thermodynamics because the jacket itself isn't causing warming, it's just preventing heat loss to a colder source.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#310

Post by machina_ex_deus » Sun, Apr 23, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

smonn_ wrote: post #307

brabel wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what can possibly cause warming is only the effect of the difference in temperatures between the CO2 gas and the surface. This shows you have a complete misunderstanding of the basic physics going on. If you have a source of radiation directly hitting a surface, some of the radiation will warm the surface by being absorbed by the surface material, but some of that radiation will be reflected back into space. Whe…

I'd recommend watching this video if you'd like to know the more nuanced story behind climate change: https://youtu.be/oqu5DjzOBF8 I am not qualified at all to really comment on it but this did open my eyes to how confusing the entire thing is.

I know that video. The thing is, when you get to this point, it should've been pretty clear for any honest scientists that you shouldn't trust the narrative / story, you should do the full calculation, and be honest about how trustworthy the calculation is.

The picture presented is as if the story is already enough (it definitely isn't), and the shortcomings of the calculations are not important, while the truth is that the story was heavily biased, and the calculations are very important. And the calculations really are dumpster fire.