The implications of warming in the pipeline

[Jim Baird]

Bomb’s Bursting in Air Portend Twilight’s Last Gleaming.

John Abraham, professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, reported in The Guardian “Last year (2021) the oceans absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Europe's climate monitor, reported yesterday, “2023 Likely Hottest Year Recorded, At 1.43C Above Preindustrial Era.” So, presumably this year the oceans will have absorbed slightly more than seven Hiroshima atomic bombs worth of heat.

In the paper Global warming in the pipeline, researchers lead by James Hansen of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, show “the concept that a large amount of additional human-made warming is already “in the pipeline” was introduced by E.E. David, Jr., President of Exxon Research and Engineering, in 1984. And that this warming in the pipeline, exceed the IPCC’s best estimates.”

“The fast-feedback response time of Earth’s temperature and energy imbalance to an imposed forcing, concluding that cloud feedbacks buffer heat uptake by the ocean, thus increasing warming in the pipeline and making Earth’s energy imbalance an underestimate of the forcing reduction required to stabilize climate,” the paper notes.

The paper showed that the Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) measured by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System ( CERES) satellite over the 22-years March 2000 to March 2022 revealed a decrease of albedo and thus an increase of absorbed solar energy of 500% coinciding with the 2015 change of International Maritime Organization (IMO) emission regulations with respect to sulphur in content of the bunker fuel used in marine shipping. Per the following graphic from the Hansen paper, the absorbed solar energy of + 1.05 W/m2 over the period January 2015 through December 2022 relative to the mean for the first 10 years of data was 5 times the standard deviation  of  0.21 W/m2 in the first 10 years of data and 4.5 times greater than the standard deviation through December 2014.  

The upshot has been ocean heat content, the true measure of global warming in the pipeline, has doubled the past 10 years. And has jumped again over the course of the last 2.5 years.

In an Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists to discuss new research, principally the Hansen paper, on Global Warming, moderated by Jeffrey Sachs, former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.

Nevertheless, the global warming in the pipeline is coming at us like a freight chain. And since the cycle time of circulation of the thermohaline is 1500 years that is all, we have.  After which the  Hiroshima bombs worth of heat in the ocean will start bursting in air, which will spell the end of civilization. Unless of course we can diffuse those bombs by converting their energy to the useful energy humanity requires with Thermodynamic Geoengineering. Which will cost less than $3 trillion /year, while providing 4.3 gigatonnes of CDR annually at no additional cost.

 

[Greg Rau]

Could someone explain this calculation and conclusion?:

“ Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.”

Thanks,

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

[Dan Miller]

Here you go…  From Hansen’s press conference (worth a listen to the whole thing):

"Let’s first look at greenhouse gases.  Several years ago IPCC defined a scenario RCP 2.6 aimed at keeping global warming less than 2ºC and Pushker will comment on the modeling assumptions that lead to such drastically declining greenhouse gas emissions. But the real world overshot the plan. We could close the gap by extracting CO2 from the air. But the annual cost now has reached 3.5 to 7 trillion based on estimates of David Keith on CO2 extraction. The cost of offsetting cooling would be 115 to $230 trillion. Conclusion, the 2ºC global warming limit is dead unless we take purposeful actions to alter Earth’s energy imbalance."

Pushker comments on over reliance on CDR around the 30 minute mark.

They are saying that to reduce CO2 emissions to stay in line with model assumptions of CO2 emissions would cost $3.5 to 7 trillion. But to offset the warming caused by aerosol reductions (not included in the models) in order to stay within temperature targets would cost $115 to $230.

One of the most important take aways from Hansen’s Pipeline paper is:

GHG warming is much higher than IPCC assumes (4.8 vs. 3ºC climate sensitivity) and aerosol cooling is much higher than IPCC assumes. The predicted past and current temperatures are the same for the IPCC and Hansen but future temperatures will be much higher under Hansen’s analysis since as we reduce aerosols (as we are doing now) the underlying warming is much higher.

For an example (using my numbers, not numbers from Hansen):

Current temperature is ~1.5ºC above pre-industrial.

IPCC: GHG warming is ~2ºC and aerosol cooling is ~0.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

Hansen: GHG warming is ~3ºC and aerosols cooling is ~1.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

Michael Mann’s “temperature increase will stop when we get to zero emissions” assumes the IPCC scenario. But zero emissions means zero aerosols so we would be screwed.

Note that the current temperature of 1.5ºC still has a lot of warming in the pipeline. Since we are at a 2X CO2e now, that implies 4.8ºC warming (using only “near-term” feedbacks). With zero emissions, some of that pipeline warming will be offset by a reduction of atmospheric CO2 as the oceans continue to uptake CO2 just as they are doing now (since ocean uptake depends on total extra CO2, not annual emissions). And some of the aerosol cooling will be offset by reductions of short-lived GHGs (e.g., methane). But under Hansen’s analysis, these factors won’t cancel out like they do under the IPCC analysis.

This is why Hansen calls for Sunlight Reflection Methods (my preferred term for SRM). He says we also need CDR but it is too expensive now.

I did a 2 hour podcast on Hansen’s paper that you can watch here: 

Dan

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[Jim Baird]

Greg, this starts at about the 14 minute mark of the Intimate Conversation.

 

From Negative Emissions CO2 Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion  we said 1 GW of NEOTEC would sequester 5 million tonnes of CO2.  In Direct electrolytic dissolution of silicate minerals for air CO2 mitigation and carbon-negative H2 production you said  “The total gross cost of this CDR system would be ≈ $154/t of CO2 captured, which is in the range of David Keith’s 94 to 232 $/t-CO 2 in his Joule paper. Thermodynamic Geoengineering would covert the heat of global warming to 31 terawatts of primary energy over 31,000 GWs times 5 million tonnes of CO2 would be 155 billion tonnes (155 Gt) sequestered/year at $154/ton ~ $23.4 trillion per year. Since about 1000 Gt have been added to atmosphere since 1750 this is about 6.5 years worth so to get back to the preindustrial level would cost ~$152 trillion.

 

At 3.5 to 7 trillion/year I guess Hansen is figuring on between 22 and 44 years to get back to 1750 levels.

 

Jim

[Jim Baird]

Dan in this conference he said something along the lines of “we are all looking for miracles”.

 

Two days ago I submit to him Thermodynamic Engineering is that miracle. Because  it converts the heat of warming to work to produce two and a half times more energy than is currently derived from fossil fuels at half the cost of fossil fuels, cools the surface to the preindustrial level in about 226 years, and prevents the offgassiing of about 4.3 gigatonnes of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere annually, plus mitigates every consequence of climate change.

 

In view of his no doubt heavy correspondence load and unfamiliarity with the sender I doubt this miracle message was ever received?

 

Regards

Jim Baird

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Dan Miller
Sent: November 8, 2023 10:40 AM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [HCA-list] [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

Here you go…  From Hansen’s press conference (worth a listen to the whole thing):

 

An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming youtu.be

"Let’s first look at greenhouse gases.  Several years ago IPCC defined a scenario RCP 2.6 aimed at keeping global warming less than 2ºC and Pushker will comment on the modeling assumptions that lead to such drastically declining greenhouse gas emissions. But the real world overshot the plan. We could close the gap by extracting CO2 from the air. But the annual cost now has reached 3.5 to 7 trillion based on estimates of David Keith on CO2 extraction. The cost of offsetting cooling would be 115 to $230 trillion. Conclusion, the 2ºC global warming limit is dead unless we take purposeful actions to alter Earth’s energy imbalance."

 

Pushker comments on over reliance on CDR around the 30 minute mark.

 

They are saying that to reduce CO2 emissions to stay in line with model assumptions of CO2 emissions would cost $3.5 to 7 trillion. But to offset the warming caused by aerosol reductions (not included in the models) in order to stay within temperature targets would cost $115 to $230.

 

One of the most important take aways from Hansen’s Pipeline paper is:

 

GHG warming is much higher than IPCC assumes (4.8 vs. 3ºC climate sensitivity) and aerosol cooling is much higher than IPCC assumes. The predicted past and current temperatures are the same for the IPCC and Hansen but future temperatures will be much higher under Hansen’s analysis since as we reduce aerosols (as we are doing now) the underlying warming is much higher.

 

For an example (using my numbers, not numbers from Hansen):

 

Current temperature is ~1.5ºC above pre-industrial.

 

IPCC: GHG warming is ~2ºC and aerosol cooling is ~0.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

 

Hansen: GHG warming is ~3ºC and aerosols cooling is ~1.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

 

Michael Mann’s “temperature increase will stop when we get to zero emissions” assumes the IPCC scenario. But zero emissions means zero aerosols so we would be screwed.

 

Note that the current temperature of 1.5ºC still has a lot of warming in the pipeline. Since we are at a 2X CO2e now, that implies 4.8ºC warming (using only “near-term” feedbacks). With zero emissions, some of that pipeline warming will be offset by a reduction of atmospheric CO2 as the oceans continue to uptake CO2 just as they are doing now (since ocean uptake depends on total extra CO2, not annual emissions). And some of the aerosol cooling will be offset by reductions of short-lived GHGs (e.g., methane). But under Hansen’s analysis, these factors won’t cancel out like they do under the IPCC analysis.

 

This is why Hansen calls for Sunlight Reflection Methods (my preferred term for SRM). He says we also need CDR but it is too expensive now.

 

I did a 2 hour podcast on Hansen’s paper that you can watch here: 

 

Climate Chat: Hansen's New "Global Warming in the Pipeline" Paper youtube.com

Dan

 

On Nov 8, 2023, at 9:32 AM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

 

Could someone explain this calculation and conclusion?:

“ Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.”

Thanks,

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 8, 2023, at 8:09 AM, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.

 

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[Dan Miller]

I doubt he read it. I’m sure he gets many such submissions. He is not the arbiter of what schemes are real and which ones aren’t.

Just like he is waiting to see when CDR becomes “cost effective” and scales, I’m sure he will wait to see what low-carbon energy schemes get implemented. Fortunately, existing renewable energy and storage technologies are low cost and are dropping in cost rapidly. And, as you know, Jim also is a proponent of nuclear power.

I think the miracle he was referring to is the IPCC use of future “negative emissions” technologies to allow business as usual emissions to continue. This, as he points out, puts an unreasonable burden on young people and future generations. So he is saying that it was, and still is, wrong to assume the use of CDR in the future, because we have failed to reduce emissions as required, we are now forced to rely on CDR and SRM to maintain a livable climate.

Good luck with your idea. I just came back from an XPrize conference where we were talking about potential future prizes. One such potential prizes is to use low temperature waste heat (<150ºC) and turn it into useful energy. Not only could we use waste heat from current energy applications, but it would also open the use of geothermal energy almost anywhere on Earth.

While the heat of warming is enormous (I worked with Jim to come up with the fact that the Earth Energy Imbalance, back in 2012, was equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs each and every day  — the number is now about 1 million/day), it is almost impossible to access that energy for useful work since there isn’t a temperature differential to exploit. If you have figured it out, more power to you (excuse the pun)!

Best,

Dan

On Nov 8, 2023, at 11:44 AM, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

Dan in this conference he said something along the lines of “we are all looking for miracles”.

 

Two days ago I submit to him Thermodynamic Engineering is that miracle. Because  it converts the heat of warming to work to produce two and a half times more energy than is currently derived from fossil fuels at half the cost of fossil fuels, cools the surface to the preindustrial level in about 226 years, and prevents the offgassiing of about 4.3 gigatonnes of CO2 from the ocean to the atmosphere annually, plus mitigates every consequence of climate change.

 

In view of his no doubt heavy correspondence load and unfamiliarity with the sender I doubt this miracle message was ever received?

 

Regards

Jim Baird 

 

From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com On Behalf Of Dan Miller
Sent: November 8, 2023 10:40 AM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [HCA-list] [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

Here you go…  From Hansen’s press conference (worth a listen to the whole thing):

 

<image001.jpg>

An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming youtu.be

"Let’s first look at greenhouse gases.  Several years ago IPCC defined a scenario RCP 2.6 aimed at keeping global warming less than 2ºC and Pushker will comment on the modeling assumptions that lead to such drastically declining greenhouse gas emissions. But the real world overshot the plan. We could close the gap by extracting CO2 from the air. But the annual cost now has reached 3.5 to 7 trillion based on estimates of David Keith on CO2 extraction. The cost of offsetting cooling would be 115 to $230 trillion. Conclusion, the 2ºC global warming limit is dead unless we take purposeful actions to alter Earth’s energy imbalance."

 

Pushker comments on over reliance on CDR around the 30 minute mark.

 

They are saying that to reduce CO2 emissions to stay in line with model assumptions of CO2 emissions would cost $3.5 to 7 trillion. But to offset the warming caused by aerosol reductions (not included in the models) in order to stay within temperature targets would cost $115 to $230.

 

One of the most important take aways from Hansen’s Pipeline paper is:

 

GHG warming is much higher than IPCC assumes (4.8 vs. 3ºC climate sensitivity) and aerosol cooling is much higher than IPCC assumes. The predicted past and current temperatures are the same for the IPCC and Hansen but future temperatures will be much higher under Hansen’s analysis since as we reduce aerosols (as we are doing now) the underlying warming is much higher.

 

For an example (using my numbers, not numbers from Hansen):

 

Current temperature is ~1.5ºC above pre-industrial.

 

IPCC: GHG warming is ~2ºC and aerosol cooling is ~0.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

 

Hansen: GHG warming is ~3ºC and aerosols cooling is ~1.5ºC = 1.5ºC net

 

Michael Mann’s “temperature increase will stop when we get to zero emissions” assumes the IPCC scenario. But zero emissions means zero aerosols so we would be screwed.

 

Note that the current temperature of 1.5ºC still has a lot of warming in the pipeline. Since we are at a 2X CO2e now, that implies 4.8ºC warming (using only “near-term” feedbacks). With zero emissions, some of that pipeline warming will be offset by a reduction of atmospheric CO2 as the oceans continue to uptake CO2 just as they are doing now (since ocean uptake depends on total extra CO2, not annual emissions). And some of the aerosol cooling will be offset by reductions of short-lived GHGs (e.g., methane). But under Hansen’s analysis, these factors won’t cancel out like they do under the IPCC analysis.

 

This is why Hansen calls for Sunlight Reflection Methods (my preferred term for SRM). He says we also need CDR but it is too expensive now.

 

I did a 2 hour podcast on Hansen’s paper that you can watch here: 

 

<image002.jpg>

Climate Chat: Hansen's New "Global Warming in the Pipeline" Paper youtube.com

Dan

 

On Nov 8, 2023, at 9:32 AM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

 

Could someone explain this calculation and conclusion?:

“ Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.”

Thanks,

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 8, 2023, at 8:09 AM, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.

 

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[Dan Miller]

Jim:

Note that we have emitted about 2.4 trillion tons of CO2. Oceans, plants and soils have absorbed a little more than half of that which means there is about 1.1 Gt-CO2 of human-emitted excess CO2 in the atmosphere now (which is 1/3rd of the total, so humans increased Atmospheric CO2 by 50% so far).

But as we remove CO2 from the atmosphere using CDR, the sequestered CO2 in the oceans and land will go back into the atmosphere.  So to get back to 280 ppm, we need to remove the entire 2.4 trillion tons we have emitted (so far).

Dan

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[Jim Baird]

I know he is a proponent of nuclear power but I ascribe to Tom Murphy’s Limits to Economic Growth theory that the historical escalation of energy consumption at a rate of 2.35% per year since 1650 will  result in the boiling of the oceans in 400 years.

 

Take the case of 7 Hiroshima bombs per second which is  220,752,000/year. Sixty Hiroshima bombs are the equivalent to 60 terawatts/hours. So, 220,752,000 bombs is the equivalent of 31,536,000 terawatt/hours which is 420 terawatts. Thermodynamic Geoengineering converts 7.6% of this energy to work, which is 32 terawatts and sends 388 terawatts of heat to a depth of 1000 meters from which it returns in 226 years and can then can be recycled  to produce more work. The 32 terawatts of work is an extraction of heat (BOMBS) from the ocean and the waste of the consumption of that work can be harmlessly dissipated to space.

 

Fission however, is only about 33% efficient so in producing 32 terawatts of energy you add another 64 terawatts of heat to the oceans which is a 64 terawatt addition to the heat in the pipeline. Which becomes the exponential growth of warming that we are now witnessing.

 

Since TG recycles the heat of warming 13 times it is essentially 99% efficient.

 

TG is already one of the qualified entries in the Musk XPIZE for carbon dioxide removal.

 

it is not impossible to access the heat of the ocean to produce work. Greg Rau and I showed how in Negative-CO2-emissions ocean thermal energy conversion and numerous examples are in referenced in that paper and elsewhere.

 

Best,

The other Jim

 

 

From: Dan Miller

Sent: November 8, 2023 12:16 PM
To: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>

[Jim Baird]

I agree with your calculation but I didn’t want to belabour the point with the CDR proponents.

 

From: Dan Miller
Sent: November 8, 2023 12:36 PM
To: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>
Cc: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

Jim:

 

Note that we have emitted about 2.4 trillion tons of CO2. Oceans, plants and soils have absorbed a little more than half of that which means there is about 1.1 Gt-CO2 of human-emitted excess CO2 in the atmosphere now (which is 1/3rd of the total, so humans increased Atmospheric CO2 by 50% so far).

 

But as we remove CO2 from the atmosphere using CDR, the sequestered CO2 in the oceans and land will go back into the atmosphere.  So to get back to 280 ppm, we need to remove the entire 2.4 trillion tons we have emitted (so far).

 

Dan

 

[robert...@gmail.com]

Without getting too picky on the numbers, if we accept that we have to remove 2.4T of past CO2 emissions over the coming century and simultaneously remove current emissions, we're looking at an annual average of something of the order of say, 30-60 GtCO2 removal annually.  Let's forget about the cost because we can always afford anything we really want to do, there's literally no limit to the amount of debt we can incur to bail out banks, fight wars, deal with pandemics, so CDR will be no problem if it's deemed necessary.  But can someone explain where the resources come from to do CDR at that scale - energy, materials, land, labour etc.  And when those numbers have been crunched and the size that these new industries will have to be has emerged, can someone explain how we build them in the time available and what impact doing so would have on the rest of the global economy.  And then when that's been done, can someone explain what the climate is doing all the while and whether it'll be making the delivery of all that CDR easier or more difficult.

I think we need to keep our feet on the ground and keep the flights of fancy for the fiction writers.

Regards

Robert Chris

On 09/11/2023 18:18, Jim Baird wrote:

It is a show stopper because you get a better environmental result and twice the energy of fossil fuels for $3T/year. CDR would make the cost of the same energy and the same environment $6.7T/year.  Or actually it would be at a minimum $9.7T because the cost of FF is twice that of TG.

 

Bottomline, cool the surface you don’t need CDR.

 

I reckon it will take 20 years to scale to the first 1 terawatt of TG power and then another terawatt every year after that until you have 31 TW. Since the life of these plants is 30 years, make it 31 years, then replace the oldest every year.  There will be a learning curve along the way that should bring these costs down.

From: Greg Rau
Sent: November 9, 2023 9:55 AM
To: 'Dan Miller' <d...@rodagroup.com>; Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>
Cc: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; 'via NOAC Meetings' <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; 'Planetary Restoration' <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; 'Healthy Climate Alliance' <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; carbondiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

If we need to remove "2.4T t CO2" and this costs "$154/t", then the total cost is $370T.  If that $370T is spread over 100 years and global GNP remains at $100T/yr for this period, the CDR will cost 3.7% of GGNP/yr. Why is this a showstopper, and what is the cheaper, better alternative to returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels at a speed faster than the 10's kyrs required by present, natural CDR after we get to zero anthro CO2 emissions? If the preceding natural CDR cost $0/t, is it inconceivable that with a little R&D we can greatly accelerate/augment that CDR for something less than $154/t and therefore cost less than 3.7% GGNP?

Greg 

 

 

How does "$152T" to return to pre-industrial CO2 levels make "the economics of CDR impossible”?  What is the cheaper, better alternative if we are interested in returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels more quickly than the many 10's of kyrs required by natural CDR following zero anthro CO2 emissions? If

 

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[Greg Rau]

If we need to remove "2.4T t CO2" and this costs "$154/t", then the total cost is $370T.  If that $370T is spread over 100 years and global GNP remains at $100T/yr for this period, the CDR will cost 3.7% of GGNP/yr. Why is this a showstopper, and what is the cheaper, better alternative to returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels at a speed faster than the 10's kyrs required by present, natural CDR after we get to zero anthro CO2 emissions? If the preceding natural CDR cost $0/t, is it inconceivable that with a little R&D we can greatly accelerate/augment that CDR for something less than $154/t and therefore cost less than 3.7% GGNP?

Greg 

 

How does "$152T" to return to pre-industrial CO2 levels make "the economics of CDR impossible”?  What is the cheaper, better alternative if we are interested in returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels more quickly than the many 10's of kyrs required by natural CDR following zero anthro CO2 emissions? If

On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 02:19:30 PM PST, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/00b301da1291%249c8c76e0%24d5a564a0%24%40gwmitigation.com.

[Jim Baird]

It is a show stopper because you get a better environmental result and twice the energy of fossil fuels for $3T/year. CDR would make the cost of the same energy and the same environment $6.7T/year.  Or actually it would be at a minimum $9.7T because the cost of FF is twice that of TG.

 

Bottomline, cool the surface you don’t need CDR.

 

I reckon it will take 20 years to scale to the first 1 terawatt of TG power and then another terawatt every year after that until you have 31 TW. Since the life of these plants is 30 years, make it 31 years, then replace the oldest every year.  There will be a learning curve along the way that should bring these costs down.

From: Greg Rau

Sent: November 9, 2023 9:55 AM

[Jim Baird]

Fair comment. But, you however been provided the energy, materials, land, labour etc. costs for Thermodynamic Geoengineering and still demur.   

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/60fc8b0f-ab2d-4469-9112-57b1dfc03cb4%40gmail.com.

[Michael Hayes]

[...] but the potential scale of CDR poses significant challenges associated with reliance on future removals and with the distribution of the benefits and burdens of CDR deployment. These challenges will require a proactive and collaborative approach to CDR governance. [...]

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4592312

MH] Governance largely sets priorities for the public good, yet setting policy priorities covering an extreamly broad range of profoundly complex technical/economic/social issues is full of political landmines. In simple words, one has to have specific technical priorities in hand before specific competent policies can be crafted. Striving for a 'silver buckshot' plethora of CDR tech options is needed at the R&D level, yet policy makers also need a specific priority list of scalable CDR tech options that can be deployed rather soon.

The scale of some marine CDR methods, individually or in combination, that can be deployed in the near future can rival both the Chinese and the US national highway systems, possibly combined. The highseas-grade mCDR options are likely the best options for rapid scale up due to a rather simplistic current governance structure and fewest biological issues, that is roughly 50% of the planetary surface. Moreover, the mCDR methods that produce critical coproducts, such as clean water, energy, and nutrients needs to be singled out from within the mCDR class as top policy priorities. Most importantly, equitable profitability of such tech packages is likely the best business model for long-term policies as nation-state funding may not be overly reliable at the multi generational time scale C management involves, especially during times of radical climate disruptions.

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023, 3:31 PM

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023, 4:39 PM Peter Eisenberger <peter.ei...@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe everyone agrees that climate change is going to be catastrophic and that we need to greatly 

increase the global effort and there is no time to waste! My suggestion is that we all focus with highest priority on

getting the world mobilized to the level needed to fight the war against climate change. Without global mobilization all efforts will fail.  

  

There is much uncertainty and confusion about the issues of the impacts of climate change as a function of time and to what level the CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be going forward to have a stabilized climate  . Determining  the best way  to address the climate threat clearly depends upon those variables and without at least agreeing on them(with uncertainty) we are left with no framework to have a meaningful discussion and importantly no consensus message to the decision makers.   

In making that case for mobilization  we  do  need  to  provide a target  for  the CO2 concentration that needs to be achieved ( of course including other greenhouse gases .) All the calculations about how much warming we need to reduce is clearly connected to the CO2 concentration we want to stabilize at. I have argued for years that returning to 350ppm,not to mention 280 ppm  is the wrong target because in equilibrium  life on the planet prospers the higher the CO2 concentration there is and the warmer it is . Our planet had 2000 to 4000 ppm CO2 during the dinosaur era where life flourished. I have seen no assessment of what future temperature of the planet will be the best for all life including our species .  I suggest that is an important input to the magnitude of the challenge we face. The justification for  350 or 280 that I have heard was because the climate was stable,  is flawed. The current  Holocene era  in which we evolved was good for life because it was stabile and it was stable because human rice farming and other activities provided warming (like today) that matched  the rate of cooling  accompanied previous Milankovitch Cycles in which a mini ice age follows (ocean is trapping less CO2 with time )  ( https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf

We achieved net zero without knowing it.

 Adopting 350 or 280 as a target not only makes no sense but it clearly makes the challenge much greater than it need be.  

So the question becomes what temperature(CO2 concentration)  should we now consciously pick as the target in making a science based call for climate mobilization. We know once we reach it we can easily maintain it because of the long time of the natural cycles so  we can slowly adjust it up or down by just controlling the CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the planet but this time do it consciously.https://www.jstor.org/stable/43735295

Based on the above I have adopted  for stabilization between 425  and 450 but I am certainly open to and welcome a process that will result in something we can all support. I do point out that in scaling the technologies to achieve the target that one can easily adjust our target  if knowledge we get provides better guidance. I do think in those discussions we should differentiate between the short term overshoot  of the CO2 concentration-next 50 years  and near term stabilization concentration.

Getting this right is the role of the science community but in presenting it to the decision makers

we need to learn from the Manhatten project how critical it is in these situations to speak with  

one voice on the things we all agree on  -We are facing a challenge to our

Without a coherent voice from the scientific community on the challenge we face all our individual efforts will fail.  

Peter    

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[Peter Eisenberger]

I believe everyone agrees that climate change is going to be catastrophic and that we need to greatly 

increase the global effort and there is no time to waste! My suggestion is that we all focus with highest priority on

getting the world mobilized to the level needed to fight the war against climate change. Without global mobilization all efforts will fail.  

  

There is much uncertainty and confusion about the issues of the impacts of climate change as a function of time and to what level the CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be going forward to have a stabilized climate  . Determining  the best way  to address the climate threat clearly depends upon those variables and without at least agreeing on them(with uncertainty) we are left with no framework to have a meaningful discussion and importantly no consensus message to the decision makers.   

In making that case for mobilization  we  do  need  to  provide a target  for  the CO2 concentration that needs to be achieved ( of course including other greenhouse gases .) All the calculations about how much warming we need to reduce is clearly connected to the CO2 concentration we want to stabilize at. I have argued for years that returning to 350ppm,not to mention 280 ppm  is the wrong target because in equilibrium  life on the planet prospers the higher the CO2 concentration there is and the warmer it is . Our planet had 2000 to 4000 ppm CO2 during the dinosaur era where life flourished. I have seen no assessment of what future temperature of the planet will be the best for all life including our species .  I suggest that is an important input to the magnitude of the challenge we face. The justification for  350 or 280 that I have heard was because the climate was stable,  is flawed. The current  Holocene era  in which we evolved was good for life because it was stabile and it was stable because human rice farming and other activities provided warming (like today) that matched  the rate of cooling  accompanied previous Milankovitch Cycles in which a mini ice age follows (ocean is trapping less CO2 with time )  ( https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf

We achieved net zero without knowing it.

 Adopting 350 or 280 as a target not only makes no sense but it clearly makes the challenge much greater than it need be.  

So the question becomes what temperature(CO2 concentration)  should we now consciously pick as the target in making a science based call for climate mobilization. We know once we reach it we can easily maintain it because of the long time of the natural cycles so  we can slowly adjust it up or down by just controlling the CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the planet but this time do it consciously.https://www.jstor.org/stable/43735295

Based on the above I have adopted  for stabilization between 425  and 450 but I am certainly open to and welcome a process that will result in something we can all support. I do point out that in scaling the technologies to achieve the target that one can easily adjust our target  if knowledge we get provides better guidance. I do think in those discussions we should differentiate between the short term overshoot  of the CO2 concentration-next 50 years  and near term stabilization concentration.

Getting this right is the role of the science community but in presenting it to the decision makers

we need to learn from the Manhatten project how critical it is in these situations to speak with  

one voice on the things we all agree on  -We are facing a challenge to our

Without a coherent voice from the scientific community on the challenge we face all our individual efforts will fail.  

Peter    

On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 2:14 PM Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/00a001da1290%24fc900b20%24f5b02160%24%40gwmitigation.com.

[Jim Baird]

“We should differentiate between the short term overshoot  of the CO2 concentration-next 50 years  and near term stabilization concentration.”

 

I propose a 30 year time frame. Per the following graphic it will allow for the production of 31,000 1GW Thermodynamic Geoengineering platforms.

 

These will cool the surface over the course of 226 years to the preindustrial temperature. This will be accomplished by shifting surface heat into the deep at a conversion rate of 7.6% which produce 31 terawatts of primary energy.  The 92.4% sent into the deep becomes banked solar energy that can be metered out in 13 tranches over the course of about 2950 years. The cost of these platforms is ~$3 trillion/year which is $3.7 trillion less than the cost of energy that has to incorporate CDR.

 

In Canada the governments climate plan is foundering due to the cost of energy and I don’t think my country is alone in this.

 

IMHO TG is a win/win/win. Cost of energy/environment/sustainability.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/CANx_M7Sq-QF7rPo7Swz0vVzM6gXvhJChFZYLZxqWSeyuE_-s4Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sev Clarke]

I concur. Several of the climate and ocean methods our groups’ recommend have mid-term profit potential and should not require carbon or radiative cooling credits or subsidies (except probably ones for independent MRV) once R&D costs have been funded at relatively low cost and short (say less that seven years) duration. In these I include a few seaweed technologies, more general ocean fertilisation ones, some ocean surface brightening methods, and MCB methods that offer regional cooling and precipitation-influencing services. Others may be added if public funds are provided to gain their climate and habitat restoration services. Whilst several direct climate cooling methods also provide mitigation and GGR services, CDR carbon credits may be key to principally-CDR ones being deployed at scale and to complement the direct cooling ones.

Sev

On 10 Nov 2023, at 4:35 pm, Kevin Wolf <kevin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greg and all,

Hundreds of trillions for CDR is not likely going to happen nor is it needed.. We need to pursue options that make money for people and thus won't require carbon credits and subsidies to keep going.  CO2 into cement, kelp farming, and ocean iron fertilization for the primary purpose of fisheries improvement can sequester a lot of carbon and make profits for businesses..  OIF is especially cheap once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton  and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms. The costs in the early years will be on the research needed to ensure negative impacts are limited etc .  But once that is done I've seen estimations of less than $1 per ton. If in the process, the ocean's fisheries increase, that is a big plus. 

Kevin 

******

Kevin Wolf, Co-chair

Ocean Iron Fertilization Alliance

kevi...@gmail.com

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:57 AM Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

If we need to remove "2.4T t CO2" and this costs "$154/t", then the total cost is $370T.  If that $370T is spread over 100 years and global GNP remains at $100T/yr for this period, the CDR will cost 3.7% of GGNP/yr. Why is this a showstopper, and what is the cheaper, better alternative to returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels at a speed faster than the 10's kyrs required by present, natural CDR after we get to zero anthro CO2 emissions? If the preceding natural CDR cost $0/t, is it inconceivable that with a little R&D we can greatly accelerate/augment that CDR for something less than $154/t and therefore cost less than 3.7% GGNP?

Greg 

 

How does "$152T" to return to pre-industrial CO2 levels make "the economics of CDR impossible”?  What is the cheaper, better alternative if we are interested in returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels more quickly than the many 10's of kyrs required by natural CDR following zero anthro CO2 emissions? If

On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 02:19:30 PM PST, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

I agree with your calculation but I didn’t want to belabour the point with the CDR proponents. 

 

From: Dan Miller 
Sent: November 8, 2023 12:36 PM
To: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>
Cc: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

Jim:

 

Note that we have emitted about 2.4 trillion tons of CO2. Oceans, plants and soils have absorbed a little more than half of that which means there is about 1.1 Gt-CO2 of human-emitted excess CO2 in the atmosphere now (which is 1/3rd of the total, so humans increased Atmospheric CO2 by 50% so far).

 

But as we remove CO2 from the atmosphere using CDR, the sequestered CO2 in the oceans and land will go back into the atmosphere.  So to get back to 280 ppm, we need to remove the entire 2.4 trillion tons we have emitted (so far).

 

Dan

 

<image001.jpg>

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kevin...@gmail.com

+1.530.758.4211

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[Clive Elsworth]

Peter

 

It seems there will always be climate deniers, but many people around the world now recognise the dangers of climate change and the urgency of taking effective action. The question is what action would be most effective?

It’s not so much the actual temperature, but the rate of temperature increase that is so dangerous for life on Earth. In his press conference on his team’s global warming in the pipeline paper, Jim Hansen said the climate is warming about 10 times faster than it ever has in geological history. Strictly, that would have been since the beginning of the Hadean eon around 4.5 billion years ago before life began.

 

Jim also said our first payment in our Faustian bargain has become due. The Faustian bargain is with aerosols providing cooling that is masking the warming from greenhouse gases, less so now that sulphur dioxide is being removed from pollution, especially shipping pollution. He also said 2°C is on its deathbed without some cooling. In his paper I believe he mentioned that aerosols should now be considered for providing cooling.

 

How many more lives and ecosystems need to be destroyed on the altar of fossil fuel industry punishment, for them continuing to supply products that you and I can’t resist buying?

 

We hear a lot about how marine cloud brightening could replace the cooling lost from pollution cleanup, by spraying very fine equal sized sea water droplets into the air in certain parts of the world where stratocumulus clouds can be brightened. Where is the funding for that?

To me, an interesting question is: how was it possible to produce so much cooling by accident all across oceans, without a single thought of droplet size or location of emission? It looks like particle hygroscopicity plays an important role. Chemists have known how to make hygroscopic particles for around 100 years.

 

But most people prefer to talk about what they already know, rather than what will make an important difference. So, we forget about what Jim Hansen said, and prefer to stick to the old dogma that greenhouse gas concentrations need to be reduced, the implication being that nothing else should be considered.

 

Some of us would prefer not to collude with that insanity. We meet regularly in groups like HPAC, PRAG, and NOAC. Some group members are even talking about creating an albedo union, a movement to rebrighten the planet. That is meant to be a play on words with a double meaning. Forgive me, this is meant for the climate movement in general: The second meaning is: we need to get brighter ourselves.

 

Clive

 

On 10/11/2023 09:29 GMT Peter Eisenberger <peter.ei...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

 

Dan 

I am not sure we disagree 

Certainly 4 degrees would be devastating and certainly as you note if it occurs in a time faster than we can adapt to would not be better for us humans since much of global population is located near the sea 

 

But at 2 to 2,5 degree temperature increase the rise is about 2 meters by 2100 

Now we do know sea level rise has and will happen naturally and life has adapted to it of course with many species becoming extinct and new species appearing on evoluntary time scales 

 

Of course us humans can adapt more quickly than other life and it is clear already that the historic population distribution has to change to be more in harmony with nature 

 

My point is that our first priority is to get the world to greatly increase their efforts to combat climate change mitigation and adaptation by global mobilization and a significant fraction of the global economy being a war time economy in which governments increase their budgets as we did in world war 2 and spend them on what is determined to be most effective 

 

By arguing first about the solution to a problem that is not recognized to be as serious as it is we are actually providing those resisting the seriousness a reason to avoid making the commitment needed eg doe timescales versus a manhattan project 

Peter 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 9, 2023, at 9:59 PM, Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:

Peter, I disagree. We are on track for 3~10ºC warming. With 6~8ºC warming 252 million years ago, 90% of all life perished. As Kevin Anderson said in 2010, "There is a widespread view that a +4°C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. +4°C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level).  Consequently…+4°C should be avoided at ‘all’ costs."

 

Recent research shows that with our current warming, we should expect an AMOC shutdown in 20~30 years. That is one hell of a tipping point leading to about 1 foot less rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere and “several meters” of sea level rise this century, plus lots of other really bad things.

 

Yes, life may thrive at higher temperatures, but it won’t be our life or the lives of most of the species around today.

 

Dan

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023, 4:39 PM Peter Eisenberger <peter.ei...@gmail.com> wrote:

I believe everyone agrees that climate change is going to be catastrophic and that we need to greatly 

increase the global effort and there is no time to waste! My suggestion is that we all focus with highest priority on

getting the world mobilized to the level needed to fight the war against climate change. Without global mobilization all efforts will fail.  

  

There is much uncertainty and confusion about the issues of the impacts of climate change as a function of time and to what level the CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be going forward to have a stabilized climate  . Determining  the best way  to address the climate threat clearly depends upon those variables and without at least agreeing on them(with uncertainty) we are left with no framework to have a meaningful discussion and importantly no consensus message to the decision makers.   

 

In making that case for mobilization  we  do  need  to  provide a target  for  the CO2 concentration that needs to be achieved ( of course including other greenhouse gases .) All the calculations about how much warming we need to reduce is clearly connected to the CO2 concentration we want to stabilize at. I have argued for years that returning to 350ppm,not to mention 280 ppm  is the wrong target because in equilibrium  life on the planet prospers the higher the CO2 concentration there is and the warmer it is . Our planet had 2000 to 4000 ppm CO2 during the dinosaur era where life flourished. I have seen no assessment of what future temperature of the planet will be the best for all life including our species .  I suggest that is an important input to the magnitude of the challenge we face. The justification for  350 or 280 that I have heard was because the climate was stable,  is flawed. The current  Holocene era  in which we evolved was good for life because it was stabile and it was stable because human rice farming and other activities provided warming (like today) that matched  the rate of cooling  accompanied previous Milankovitch Cycles in which a mini ice age follows (ocean is trapping less CO2 with time )  ( https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf

We achieved net zero without knowing it.

 

 Adopting 350 or 280 as a target not only makes no sense but it clearly makes the challenge much greater than it need be.  

So the question becomes what temperature(CO2 concentration)  should we now consciously pick as the target in making a science based call for climate mobilization. We know once we reach it we can easily maintain it because of the long time of the natural cycles so  we can slowly adjust it up or down by just controlling the CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the planet but this time do it consciously.https://www.jstor.org/stable/43735295

 

Based on the above I have adopted  for stabilization between 425  and 450 but I am certainly open to and welcome a process that will result in something we can all support. I do point out that in scaling the technologies to achieve the target that one can easily adjust our target  if knowledge we get provides better guidance. I do think in those discussions we should differentiate between the short term overshoot  of the CO2 concentration-next 50 years  and near term stabilization concentration.

 

Getting this right is the role of the science community but in presenting it to the decision makers

we need to learn from the Manhatten project how critical it is in these situations to speak with  

one voice on the things we all agree on  -We are facing a challenge to our

Without a coherent voice from the scientific community on the challenge we face all our individual efforts will fail.  

 

Peter    

On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 2:14 PM Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

I know he is a proponent of nuclear power but I ascribe to Tom Murphy’s Limits to Economic Growth theory that the historical escalation of energy consumption at a rate of 2.35% per year since 1650 will  result in the boiling of the oceans in 400 years.

 

Take the case of 7 Hiroshima bombs per second which is  220,752,000/year. Sixty Hiroshima bombs are the equivalent to 60 terawatts/hours. So, 220,752,000 bombs is the equivalent of 31,536,000 terawatt/hours which is 420 terawatts. Thermodynamic Geoengineering converts 7.6% of this energy to work, which is 32 terawatts and sends 388 terawatts of heat to a depth of 1000 meters from which it returns in 226 years and can then can be recycled  to produce more work. The 32 terawatts of work is an extraction of heat (BOMBS) from the ocean and the waste of the consumption of that work can be harmlessly dissipated to space.

 

Fission however, is only about 33% efficient so in producing 32 terawatts of energy you add another 64 terawatts of heat to the oceans which is a 64 terawatt addition to the heat in the pipeline. Which becomes the exponential growth of warming that we are now witnessing.

 

Since TG recycles the heat of warming 13 times it is essentially 99% efficient.

 

TG is already one of the qualified entries in the Musk XPIZE for carbon dioxide removal.

 

it is not impossible to access the heat of the ocean to produce work. Greg Rau and I showed how in Negative-CO2-emissions ocean thermal energy conversion and numerous examples are in referenced in that paper and elsewhere.

 

Best,

The other Jim

 

 

From: Dan Miller
Sent: November 8, 2023 12:16 PM
To: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>

Dan

Could someone explain this calculation and conclusion?:

“ Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.”

Thanks,

Greg

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 8, 2023, at 8:09 AM, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

Hansen said “the annual cost of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) efforts is currently between 3.5 and 7 trillion/years. And the cost of the albedo implications of the IMO’s sulphur regulations alone will  be between $115 to $230 trillion. All of which makes the economics of CDR impossible.

 

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[robert...@gmail.com]

Derek

Thanks so much for the link to this lecture by Johann Rockstrom.  It is really worth investing an hour in watching.  This is a link to the beginning of his presentation.

My takeaways from the talk are fourfold.  First, how science has deepened our understanding of the critical planetary boundaries and crucially, where we are with respect to each of them.  Second, the extent to which we have already disturbed the stability of the systems on which we depend.  Third, the scale of the challenge to prevent disaster.  And fourth, the complete absence of any reference to SRM and the assertion that reducing emissions and maintaining the biodiversity crucial in Earth's natural carbon sequestration processes, will be sufficient, albeit, only just, to avert disaster.

Regards

Robert

On 10/11/2023 10:22, Derek Maggs wrote:

Hello fellow planet carers

if you have not yet seen this lecture on what is happening on the planet, it is worth investing the time to hear the latest science concerning the tipping points, risks and potential mitigations.

We will need to use multiple interventions simultaneously in order to mitigate the massive risks we face.

Best regards

Derek

CEO - The Blue Beat Group 

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:59 AM Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:

Peter, I disagree. We are on track for 3~10ºC warming. With 6~8ºC warming 252 million years ago, 90% of all life perished. As Kevin Anderson said in 2010, "There is a widespread view that a +4°C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. +4°C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level).  Consequently…+4°C should be avoided at ‘all’ costs."

Recent research shows that with our current warming, we should expect an AMOC shutdown in 20~30 years. That is one hell of a tipping point leading to about 1 foot less rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere and “several meters” of sea level rise this century, plus lots of other really bad things.

Yes, life may thrive at higher temperatures, but it won’t be our life or the lives of most of the species around today.

Dan

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[Kevin Wolf]

Greg and all,

Hundreds of trillions for CDR is not likely going to happen nor is it needed.. We need to pursue options that make money for people and thus won't require carbon credits and subsidies to keep going.  CO2 into cement, kelp farming, and ocean iron fertilization for the primary purpose of fisheries improvement can sequester a lot of carbon and make profits for businesses..  OIF is especially cheap once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton  and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms. The costs in the early years will be on the research needed to ensure negative impacts are limited etc .  But once that is done I've seen estimations of less than $1 per ton. If in the process, the ocean's fisheries increase, that is a big plus.

Kevin

******

Kevin Wolf, Co-chair

Ocean Iron Fertilization Alliance

kevi...@gmail.com

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:57 AM Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

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[Dan Miller]

Peter, I disagree. We are on track for 3~10ºC warming. With 6~8ºC warming 252 million years ago, 90% of all life perished. As Kevin Anderson said in 2010, "There is a widespread view that a +4°C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. +4°C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level).  Consequently…+4°C should be avoided at ‘all’ costs."

Recent research shows that with our current warming, we should expect an AMOC shutdown in 20~30 years. That is one hell of a tipping point leading to about 1 foot less rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere and “several meters” of sea level rise this century, plus lots of other really bad things.

Yes, life may thrive at higher temperatures, but it won’t be our life or the lives of most of the species around today.

Dan

[Charles H. Greene]

Kevin:

I agree that carbon-negative cement production has some potential in the relatively near future. However, the technology readiness levels (TRL) of open ocean kelp farming and ocean iron fertilization (OIF) are so low that no serious scientist should offer them as excuses to discount the need for other methods of large-scale CDR.

ARPA-E recently spent tens of millions of dollars on kelp farming through its MARINER Program, and while the TRL has improved, I would argue that the scalability for globally relevant CDR is no closer to be demonstrated. Show me the potential of open ocean kelp farming providing more and than a few percent of the CDR required globally, and then we can start to think about it as a serious climate solution..

With regard to OIF:

Can you cite a single controlled and replicated in situ study of ocean iron fertilization (OIF) that has demonstrated statistically significant enhancement of fisheries? 

Can you provide any modeling results demonstrating that OIF can be scaled up sufficiently to tackle >5% of the global CDR requirements? 

Do you have a plan for assessing the environmental impacts of large-scale OIF?

Do you have a plan for conducting in situ experiments and monitoring them on a relatively large scale and over a sufficiently long period time to verify your hypothesized benefits of OIF?

Until the above questions can be answered affirmatively, nobody will certify the CDR benefits being suggested. Whether you care about carbon credits or not, certification is an essential step in demonstrating that you have a climate solution worth being taken seriously. So, maybe you should not be so quick to dismiss the ideas of others in the CDR community.

And, BTW, as an oceanographer, I was blown away by your comment, "OIF is especially cheap once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton  and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms.” 

Is that all?

Chuck Greene

Associate Director for Research and Strategic Planning

Friday Harbor Laboratories
University of Washington
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
https://www.chuckgreene.com

On Nov 9, 2023, at 9:35 PM, Kevin Wolf <kevin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greg and all,

Hundreds of trillions for CDR is not likely going to happen nor is it needed.. We need to pursue options that make money for people and thus won't require carbon credits and subsidies to keep going.  CO2 into cement, kelp farming, and ocean iron fertilization for the primary purpose of fisheries improvement can sequester a lot of carbon and make profits for businesses..  OIF is especially cheap once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton  and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms. The costs in the early years will be on the research needed to ensure negative impacts are limited etc .  But once that is done I've seen estimations of less than $1 per ton. If in the process, the ocean's fisheries increase, that is a big plus. 

Kevin 

******

Kevin Wolf, Co-chair

Ocean Iron Fertilization Alliance

kevi...@gmail.com

On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 9:57 AM Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

If we need to remove "2.4T t CO2" and this costs "$154/t", then the total cost is $370T.  If that $370T is spread over 100 years and global GNP remains at $100T/yr for this period, the CDR will cost 3.7% of GGNP/yr. Why is this a showstopper, and what is the cheaper, better alternative to returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels at a speed faster than the 10's kyrs required by present, natural CDR after we get to zero anthro CO2 emissions? If the preceding natural CDR cost $0/t, is it inconceivable that with a little R&D we can greatly accelerate/augment that CDR for something less than $154/t and therefore cost less than 3.7% GGNP?

Greg 

 

How does "$152T" to return to pre-industrial CO2 levels make "the economics of CDR impossible”?  What is the cheaper, better alternative if we are interested in returning to pre-industrial CO2 levels more quickly than the many 10's of kyrs required by natural CDR following zero anthro CO2 emissions? If

On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 02:19:30 PM PST, Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com> wrote:

I agree with your calculation but I didn’t want to belabour the point with the CDR proponents. 

 

From: Dan Miller 
Sent: November 8, 2023 12:36 PM
To: Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>
Cc: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CDR] The implications of warming in the pipeline

 

Jim:

 

Note that we have emitted about 2.4 trillion tons of CO2. Oceans, plants and soils have absorbed a little more than half of that which means there is about 1.1 Gt-CO2 of human-emitted excess CO2 in the atmosphere now (which is 1/3rd of the total, so humans increased Atmospheric CO2 by 50% so far).

 

But as we remove CO2 from the atmosphere using CDR, the sequestered CO2 in the oceans and land will go back into the atmosphere.  So to get back to 280 ppm, we need to remove the entire 2.4 trillion tons we have emitted (so far).

 

Dan

 

<image001.jpg>

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[Peter Eisenberger]

Dan 

I am not sure we disagree 

Certainly 4 degrees would be devastating and certainly as you note if it occurs in a time faster than we can adapt to would not be better for us humans since much of global population is located near the sea 

But at 2 to 2,5 degree temperature increase the rise is about 2 meters by 2100 

Now we do know sea level rise has and will happen naturally and life has adapted to it of course with many species becoming extinct and new species appearing on evoluntary time scales 

Of course us humans can adapt more quickly than other life and it is clear already that the historic population distribution has to change to be more in harmony with nature 

My point is that our first priority is to get the world to greatly increase their efforts to combat climate change mitigation and adaptation by global mobilization and a significant fraction of the global economy being a war time economy in which governments increase their budgets as we did in world war 2 and spend them on what is determined to be most effective 

By arguing first about the solution to a problem that is not recognized to be as serious as it is we are actually providing those resisting the seriousness a reason to avoid making the commitment needed eg doe timescales versus a manhattan project 

Peter 

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 9, 2023, at 9:59 PM, Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:

Peter, I disagree. We are on track for 3~10ºC warming. With 6~8ºC warming 252 million years ago, 90% of all life perished. As Kevin Anderson said in 2010, "There is a widespread view that a +4°C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of eco-systems and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. +4°C would be an interim temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium level).  Consequently…+4°C should be avoided at ‘all’ costs."

[Derek Maggs]

Hello fellow planet carers

if you have not yet seen this lecture on what is happening on the planet, it is worth investing the time to hear the latest science concerning the tipping points, risks and potential mitigations.

We will need to use multiple interventions simultaneously in order to mitigate the massive risks we face.

Best regards

Derek

CEO - The Blue Beat Group 

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:59 AM Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:

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[Kevin Wolf]

Chuck,

Thank you for the good questions. Here are my answers and some questions.

I am wondering why you say the TRL is low for OIF. Is it because you think scientists can't predict the species that will grow from different iron and trace mineral applications?  My reading of the literature says that there is enough knowledge to pretty accurately predict how to get diatoms to grow and dominate dinoflagellates and coccolithophores.  Mostly it's about the amount of silica available. I think there is enough information to know how to conduct OIF experiments to promote herrings and not anchovies (the abundance of which are now harming our salmon).  We are working on a bill in 2024 that would fund the opportunities for Blue Carbon and ocean restoration off our coast. One of the things it would do would be to evaluate if in fact there is enough information to know what to do to grow more herring than anchovies with OIF.

There is plenty of evidence that natural OIF helps fisheries. Here is one paper. Geochemical evidence of oceanic iron fertilization by the Kasatochi volcanic eruption in 2008 and the potential impacts on Pacific sockeye salmon

The Haida experiment by Russ George was followed by great salmon years. Some scientists claim that there is no proven correlation. The native people who conducted the experiment and noted the significant increase in all trophic levels including whales that came to the induced bloom believe the iron application is the reason they had the best  salmon runs in generations the next few years. I'd trust the native people over scientists, some of whom wanted to stop "pirate" OIF because it could release the fossil fuel companies from needing to reduce emissions.

None of the 13 OIF experiments measured the benefits to fish. I think the longest any researcher stayed in the experiment area was 4-5 weeks, but most of the blooms continued long past that.  In theory the phytoplankton should have used up the N and P quickly but  the blooms continued, like they often do. The theory is pretty strong that the fish and heterotrophs cause nutrients to upwell. Their defecation along with N producing phytoplankton and cyanobacteria also feeds the blooms. 

I don't think any of the 13 experiments measured any carbon sequestration except by measuring dead phytoplankton and organic matter that reached the depths.

Here is a paper that describes the role of whales in phytoplankton blooms.  The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind

Here is an article by Woods Hole that says "Only a small percentage of carbon—in the form of dead cells and fecal pellets—falls to the seafloor and stays there, unused, for millennia. A higher percentage (between 20 and 50 percent) will at least reach middle-depth waters, where the carbon will remain in underwater currents for decades." 

"Once dissolved in the ocean, a carbon atom will stay there, on average, more than 500 years, estimates Michael McElroy, Butler professor of environmental science.”

Regarding negative impacts of large scale OIF experiments, I have seen nothing in the literature about the negative impacts of the natural OIF through volcanic eruptions etc. For exmple, the unexpected large scale phytoplankton blooms off the coast of Australia and California that develop. When the unusually intense winds bring aeolian dust from the Sahara deep into the Caribbean and add iron to iron deficient zones, I haven't seen any reports of negative impacts. Same with the blooms stimulated by volcanic eruptions. There are many huge natural OIF events where they don't normally occur, practically every year and no one is correlating these with negative side effects.   Of the 13 OIF, one identified a higher level of toxin produced but there was no evidence that this species that often grows in phytoplankton blooms caused any harm.

Given how long unexpected natural OIF has been occuring, the possibility of significant long term harm is remote.  OIF would basically mimic natural OIF to help make up for the deficiencies in iron and trace minerals that many parts of our oceans are experiencing. Certainly there is evidence that should stop humanity from aggressively researching and experimenting with this very promising way of sequestering carbon and restoring fisheries.

We are moving a bill through Congress sponsored by Buddy Carter (R. GA) that would fund $165M to the DOE to provide grants to conduct OIF experiments. The amount of money follows the NAS recommendations. 

I am not sure what you mean by "certification".  There is a Climate Restoration Safety and Governance Board though which OIF experiments would be reviewed before undertaken.

Last, you seem surprised the OIF can be so inexpensive once research isn't needed.  It doesn't take much iron and other trace minerals to trigger blooms. And once triggered, many can be remarkably self-sustaining.

Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions.

Kevin

******

Kevin Wolf, Co-chair

OIF Alliance

kevin...@gmail.com

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[Kevin Wolf]

Michael,

I think everyone agrees that OIF should not occur in shallow waters without a lot more information on when the iron could produce diatoms that suck out nutrients that feed the wrong kind of plankton and algae. But for now, the focus is in eddies in the deep ocean.

Russ George's Haida experiment was done in the deep ocean.  It is unfortunate that the Canadian police declared it an illegal operation and destroyed the data he'd collected.  Can't do peer reviewed articles without data. But the salmon runs in subsequent years and the tribal peoples' observations of the life that came with the extended bloom follows the pattern of what we see when salmon runs improve after volcanic events.

Kevin

*****

Kevin Wolf, Co-chair

OIF Alliance

kevin...@gmail.com

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 7:32 PM Michael Hayes <electro...@gmail.com> wrote:

The use of OIF in shallow waters is nothing more than fish chumming in already over nutrified waters. Chumming for salmon, chumming by any means for any fishery, is illegal in the US, Canada, and many other nation states. OIf was designed for and tested for far offshore use, not in shallow coastal waters.

What happened around the Russ George event never generated a single peer-reviewed paper by the group. Why are we still including it in the CDR discussion? 

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[Michael Hayes]

The use of OIF in shallow waters is nothing more than fish chumming in already over nutrified waters. Chumming for salmon, chumming by any means for any fishery, is illegal in the US, Canada, and many other nation states. OIf was designed for and tested for far offshore use, not in shallow coastal waters.

What happened around the Russ George event never generated a single peer-reviewed paper by the group. Why are we still including it in the CDR discussion? 

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023, 5:49 PM Kevin Wolf <kevin...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Tom Goreau]

You say:

 

there is enough knowledge to pretty accurately predict how to get diatoms to grow and dominate dinoflagellates and coccolithophores.  Mostly it's about the amount of silica available.

 

It doesn't take much iron and other trace minerals to trigger blooms.

 

Your first point about silica is correct, and is precisely why the second point is misleading, and the effects more complex than suggested.

 

OIF is a misnomer since the critical limiting nutrient for diatoms is not iron but silica, which they need thousands of times more of, and which becomes limiting after diatoms consume it all.

 

Once dissolved silica is gone, the amount of Ocean Silica Fertilization (OSF) needed to produce diatom blooms requires orders of magnitude more material than just “pixie dust” rust!

 

The amount needed is equivalent to the amount of dissolved silica being upwelled from dissolution of diatoms on the deep sea bottom plus inputs from weathering on land and sea. Upwelling of silica is decreasing due to global warming-caused increasing vertical stratification, so it will not be simple or cheap to match this amount even if nitrogen and phosphorus were not also limiting in the open ocean.

 

On the other hand, we are increasing river and wind silica erosion inputs to coastal waters through mismanagement of land, which is a much smaller silica source than upwelling except in coastal waters, but not as fast as we are adding nitrogen and phosphorus from sewage and fertilizer, the cause of coastal zone suppression of diatoms by dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria.

 

Volcanic ash inputs of silica and iron from explosive eruptions in nearby Kamchatka are a likely contributor to diatom blooms in the Bering Sea, which lies immediately down-wind, and which has intense nitrogen and phosphorus upwelling.

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

“When you run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting, when you run to the sea, the sea will be boiling”, Peter Tosh, Jamaica’s greatest song writer

 

 

 

 

 

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[Clive Elsworth]

Thanks Tom

 

Phytoplankton primary productivity in general is supposed to have declined 40% since around the 50s. Do you see that as more a function of nutrient loss from surface stratification than acidification?

 

BTW Franz Oeste and I suspect the decline of phytoplankton productivity is a major factor behind surface acidification, not so much the higher atmospheric CO2 concentration. That is because the biological influences on surface pH are stronger. e.g. growth of organics strongly raises pH, and calcite production lowers it.

 

Clive

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[Tom Goreau]

Acidification appears to have very mixed effects on calcification because calcification is the result of biochemical pumping of ions inside the cell, not of inorganic precipitation reactions outside the cell, as most geochemists still assume.

 

The effects of acidification on marine organisms are much more subtle, and varied, and are balanced by compensating biochemical pathways.

 

Almost every article about ocean acidification shows photos of corals bleached by high temperature, but as a matter of fact acidification does NOT cause coral bleaching at all!

 

You can put a coral in acid seawater, dissolve the skeleton completely, and the coral remains alive and healthy and does not bleach at all, it becomes much like a sea anemone, and it will grow a new skeleton when put back into normal seawater.

 

Acidification is a serious issue for oyster larvae, calcareous plankton, and deep sea shells in cold and deep water, but the tropical surface ocean is the last place that will be seriously affected by acidification because of the temperature and pressure effects on limestone solubility.

 

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[Clive Elsworth]

Tom

 

You describe the effects of acidification, which is helpful.

 

Do you not have an opinion on the cause of surface acidification?

Clive

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[Tom Goreau]

It’s due to the sum of ALL the acid-base reactions in the water, including dissolution of higher levels of atmospheric CO2, so large changes in local photosynthesis/respiration ratios will have strong pH effects.

 

You’re right that biological sources and sinks of acidity can dominate, they are the major control on deep ocean pH and the chemistry of upwelling waters.

 

The effects are clearest in the deep sea carbon cycle, but intense surface phytoplankton blooms can deplete dissolved CO2 faster than it can diffuse in from the air, which can cause local CO2 limitation in the core of the bloom instead of nutrient limitation (this shows up in the C-13 signal).

 

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[Clive Elsworth]

Thanks

 

> intense surface phytoplankton blooms can deplete dissolved CO2 faster than it can diffuse in from the air

 

The absorption of CO2 in the Calvin cycle by chloroplasts appears well established. However, we find it odd that life chose that difficult pathway, rather than absorbing dissolved bicarbonate anions directly from the ocean, which is always abundant.

 

Clive

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[Tom Goreau]

Most carbon uptake enzymes use dissolved CO2 rather than electrically-charged bicarbonate ion as a substrate.

 

The rate of formation of CO2 from bicarbonate, and of hydration of dissolved CO2 to make carbonic acid, are kinetically slow far too slow for biological purposes, which is why life evolved carbonic anhydrase to greatly speed up and regulate carbon hydration and ionization in both directions. Carbonic anhydrase plays a central role in regulating photosynthesis, respiration, acidification, and calcification (T. F. Goreau, 1956, A study of the biology and histochemistry of corals, Yale).

 

It’s precisely the same reason why spraying seawater drops into the air does not make it equilibrate with atmospheric CO2 (as so many are now proposing) before it falls back to the surface, unless they are extremely fine. Stephen Salter may have information on equilibration rates and fall velocities as a function of droplet size.

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[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Peter E and all,

Hansen lays out the need for restoring our climate to the Holocene at no more than 350 ppm CO2, which represent the evolution boundaries of Earth's systems in which our advanced civilization evolved. An optimal climate equilibrium temperature neglects the services performed by our current Earth systems that allowed our advanced civilization to arise. Conditions beyond these evolutionary boundaries create system collapses that once begun, do not stabilize until either their evolutionary boundary conditions are restored, or new systems evolve over time frames typical longer than are meaningful to our civilization as we know it. During re-equilibrium, systems' carbon sequestration typically fails and reverses, creating feedback emissions much larger than humankind's.

In 2008, Hansen's Target Atmospheric CO2, Where should humanity aim? described the meaningfulness of our current Earth systems as they warm, "Paleoclimate evidence and ongoing global changes imply that today’s CO2, about 385 ppm, is already too high to maintain the climate to which humanity, wildlife, and the rest of the biosphere are adapted. Realization that we must reduce the current CO2 amount [in the atmosphere] has a bright side: effects that had begun to seem inevitable, including impacts of ocean acidification, loss of fresh water supplies, and shifting of climatic zones, may be averted." It is important to note that since 2008, many more Earth systems have been declared in collapse. Most of these systems too, will self-restore with climate restoration back to the Holocene range of less than 350 ppm CO2 and 1 C warming.

Paleo evidence does indeed show us that there are climate states that create greater biological efficiency, but the point is that to get to these states, our former stable state (relative to systems evolution) must be re-evolved with species and mechanisms that are tolerant of the increased temperature and changed water cycle, with loss and reversal of ecosystem services our advanced civilization depends upon.

I have been filming these collapses across North America since they began to become wildly obvious in the field in the late 2000s. They appear larger and more extreme than described in the literature (as are so many things), and still larger and more extreme than stated in much more reticent and compromising consensus reporting that barely acknowledges their collapses. An example is McDowell 2020 that tells us, "...at the global scale, disturbances [climate change related] and LUC [land use change] have likely amplified tree mortality beyond that suggested by the doubling of background mortality rates in undisturbed forests." A doubling of forest mortality from say 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent annually may seem small, but over decadel time frames a doubling of forest mortality halves forest age, and halves stored carbon. Because forest are at best only modest sequestration resources, a halving of carbon storage means a flip from sequestration to emissions while the forest is undergoing re-evolution to a new stable state, where a stable state is not achievable while warming continues. This flip has a two-fold effect on climate. It eliminates negative sequestration from natural systems sequestration that is supposed to be mitigating for some warming, and compounds existing warming from emissions from the collapsing forests.

Steep trails,

Bruce M

From my archives on forest mortality and current emissions, and regeneration failure -

Summary with citations - Forest Mortality, Emissions and  Regeneration Failure

Many lines of research collaborate a general global flip of forests to emissions from increased mortality: Baumann 2022 - doubling of Australian tropical forest mortality in the previous 35 years, with a plausible similar shift in southeast Asian tropical forests, Mantgem 2009 - US West tree mortality from the mid 1950s to late 2000s, more than double, McDowell 2015 - Western North American forest mortality increased two to four times between 1980 and the mid-2000s with much of the increase happening recently, Rosenblad 2023 - Thermophilization: Mortality increased eight times in western US forests, Liu 2023 - Canada's boreal forest mortality about doubled 1970 to 2020 and lost (net) 3.5 Gt carbon as CO2, about 90 percent since 2000, and Allen 2015 – Ten drivers of a warmer climate that reveal underestimation in forest mortality.

Emissions from these collapsing systems are now being documented: Forzieri 2022 - Forest collapse globally of 12.2 Gt CO2 2000-2022, equal to 23 percent of intact undisturbed forests at a critical threshold, Qin 2021 - From 2000 to 2019 the Amazon had a gross above ground carbon loss of 0.6 gigatons, or 2.45 Gt CO2eq, with 73 percent from forest degradation and 27 percent from deforestation, Gatti 2021 - Amazon emitting, not absorbing, 1 Gt CO2 annually on average from 2010 to 2018, Canadian Forest Service 2020 - Canadian forests emitting 250 Mt CO2eq annually, and Natali 2019 - Permafrost collapse of 2.3 Gt CO2eq annually, including emissions from drowned forest.

Mortality alone is just a part of the picture. Regrowth can minimize emissions, but forest regeneration is failing:  Hill 2023 - Increased regeneration failure and wildfire risk from warming across the Sierra Nevada, Hill and Field 2022 - Seedling regeneration in unburned plots is reduced by 15 to 36 percent from 2000 to 2019 in Western forests, Singleton 2021 - Poor ponderosa regeneration because of climate warming and moisture limitation, Coop 2020 - An era when prefire forests may not return, Davis 2019 -- Forests exceed climate change regeneration threshold leading to non-forested states, Stevens-Rumann 2017 - One third of burned Western US forests are not regenerating at all, Crasubay 2017 - Anticipated transition from forested to shrubland ecosystems, and Singleton 2021 - Poor Ponderosa Regeneration because of climate warming and moisture limitation.

Findings On Increasing Forest Mortality -

McDowell 2020 - US and European Forests mortality more than doubled… "The impacts of global change on forest demographic rates may already be materializing. In mature ecosystems, tree mortality rates have doubled throughout much of the Americas and in Europe over the last four decades (7-9)…  Beyond changing vegetation dynamics within “intact” or relatively undisturbed forests, episodic disturbances are tending to be larger, more severe and, in some regions, more frequent  under global change(17-20).  Similarly, the rates and types of land-use change (LUC) vary widely (21) but have, on average, increased globally in the past few centuries (2,22,23)… Thus, at the global scale, disturbances [climate change related] and LUC [land use change] have likely amplified tree mortality beyond that suggested by the doubling of background mortality rates in undisturbed forests (7-9)."
McDowell et al, Pervasive shifts in forest dynamics in a changing world, Science, May 29, 2020.
https://www.dora.lib4ri.ch/wsl/islandora/object/wsl%3A23827/datastream/PDF2/McDowell-2020-Pervasive_shifts_in_forest_dynamics-%28accepted_version%29.pdf

Baumann 2022 - Australian tropical forest mortality doubled in the last 35 years, mostly recently. A personal communication with Baumann says global tropical forests are likely behaving similarly because of the same water stress… Bauman 2022 analyzed a 49-year record across 24 old-growth tropical forests in Australia and found mortality has doubled because of water stress across all plots in the last 35 years indicating a halving of life expectancy and carbon residence time and suggesting that Australian tropical forests have now flipped from a CO2 sink to a source of CO2 emissions. Further, they suggest Southeast Asian tropical forests are behaving similarly. When I asked Bauman to confirm that Australian tropical forests are analog to Southeast Asian tropical forests,  he suggested what he believed now was that the same water stress is likely affecting all tropical forests globally in a similar way. 
Bauman et al., Tropical tree mortality has increased with rising atmospheric water stress, Nature, May 17, 2022.
(Researchgate, free account required) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360691427_Tropical_tree_mortality_has_increased_with_rising_atmospheric_water_stress

Mantgem 2009 - US West tree mortality from the mid 1950s to late 2000s, more than doubled… This is a good view of early tree mortality trends showing the increasing trend accelerating after the 1970s. Regional mortality in prior to the 1970s was 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 percent in Pacific Northwest, Coastal California, and the interior. After the 1970s mortality rate accelerated and at 2008 was 0.5, 1.3 and 1.8 percent, indicating a more than doubling to a more than tripling or mortality. Average forest age was 450 to 1000 years.
Mantgem et al., Widespread increase of tree mortality rates in the Western United States, Science , January 23, 2009.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2009_vanmantgem001.pdf

Rosenblad 2023, Thermophilization – Mortality increased eight times in Western US Forests… Simply put, thermophilization is forest evolution due to warming. It is driven in Western US forests by two factors, recruitment of new heat and drought tolerant species and mortality of less heat and drought tolerant species. Mortality is winning by 2:1. Rosenblad reveals a 20 percent mortality rate in 10 years - four to eight times normal. A doubling of mortality rate halves carbon storage... ""Here, we analyze 10-y changes in tree community composition across 44,992 forest subplots in the western United States... The dataset comprised 316,519 trees that survived between censuses (mean = 5.6 per subplot), 64,024 that died (1.1 per subplot), and 35,836 that recruited (0.63 per subplot)."
Thermophilization... Rosenblad et al., Climate change, tree demography, and thermophilization in western US forests, PNAS, April 24, 2023.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2301754120

Liu 2023 - Canada's boreal forest mortality about doubled 1970 to 2020 and  lost (net) 3.5 Gt carbon as CO2, about 90 percent since 2002… "From 1970 to 2020. We show that the average annual tree mortality rate is approximately 2.7%. Approximately 43% of Canada's boreal forests have experienced significantly increasing tree mortality trends (71% of which are located in the western region of the country), and these trends have accelerated since 2002. This increase in tree mortality has resulted in significant biomass carbon losses at an  approximate rate of 1.51 ± 0.29 MgC ha−1 year−1 (95% confidence interval) with an approximate total loss of 0.46 ± 0.09 PgC year−1 (95% confidence interval). Under the drought condition increases predicted for this century, the capacity of Canada's boreal forests to act as a carbon sink will be further reduced, potentially leading to a significant positive climate feedback effect… The boreal ecosystem accounts for about a third of the Earth's extant forests, containing an estimated one-third of the stored terrestrial C stocks (Bradshaw & Warkentin, 2015; Pan et al., 2011). The land area of Canada's boreal forests (including other wooded land types) covers 309 Mha (Brandt et al., 2013), nearly 30% of the global boreal forested area (Brandt, 2009)… The overall increase in the biomass loss rate led to a significant reduction in biomass over the study period. From 1970 to 2020, the reduction in biomass was estimated at 3.01 ± 0.58 Mg ha−1 year−1 (95% confidence interval) with a total biomass loss throughout the entire boreal forested area of Canada (310 Mha) of approximately 0.93 ± 0.18 Pg, [3.4 Gt CO2eq] of which 83% was aboveground biomass and 17% was belowground biomass." Mortality increase from Figure 1b.
Liu et al., Drought-induced increase in tree mortality and corresponding decrease in the carbon sink capacity of Canada's boreal forests from 1970 to 2020, Global Change Biology, January 3, 2023.
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1962503

McDowell 2015 - Western North American forest mortality increased two to four times between 1980 and the mid-2000s with much of the increase happening recently... It is also pertinent that warming since the mid-2000s has just about doubled as of 2022, and that much of the recent western US forest mortality from bark beetles and increase in burn area was not captured in McDowell 2015:

Mortality of Western North American forests from McDowell 2015:
-- Sierra Nevada mortality has doubled from 0.75 to 1.5 percent
-- Western Canadian forest mortality has quadrupled from 0.6 percent to 2.5 percent
-- Eastern Canadian forest mortality has nearly doubled from 0.8 to 1.45 percent
-- Western US interior forests mortality has more than doubled from 0.3 percent to 0.65 percent.
-- Pacific Northwest forests mortality has tripled from 0.45 to 1.25 percent

McDowell et al., Multi-scale predictions of massive conifer mortality due to chronic temperature rise, Los Alamos National lab, Nature Climate Change, December 21, 2015.
https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~dsmackay/mackay/pubs/pdfs/nclimate2873.pdf

Allen 2015 – Ten drivers of a warmer climate that reveal underestimation in forest mortality, a literature review… "Studies from diverse forest biomes show increased background tree mortality rates that have been associated with warmer temperatures.. High confidence drivers – Drought occurs everywhere, Warming creates hotter droughts, nonlinear vapor pressure deficit, faster death fro from water stress,increased frequency of lethal drought and forest death in a warmer climate is faswtser than growth."
Allen et al., On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene, Ecosphere, August 7, 2015.
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1890/ES15-00203.1

Findings on Systems Collapse Emissions From Forested Lands -

Forzieri 2022 - Forest collapse globally of 12.2 Gt CO2 2000-2022, equal to 23 percent of intact undisturbed forests at a critical threshold… "We show that tropical, arid and temperate forests are experiencing a significant decline in resilience, probably related to increased water limitations and climate variability [during 2000 – 2022]… Reductions in resilience are statistically linked to abrupt declines in forest primary productivity, occurring in response to slow drifting towards a critical resilience threshold. Approximately 23% of intact undisturbed forests, corresponding to 3.32 Pg C (12.2 Gt CO2e) of gross primary productivity (above ground carbon), have already reached a critical threshold and are experiencing a further degradation in resilience. Together, these signals reveal a widespread decline in the capacity of forests to withstand perturbation that should be accounted for in the design of land-based mitigation and adaptation plans."
Forzieri et al., Emerging signals of declining forest resilience under climate change, Nature, July 13, 2022.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04959-9.pdf

Qin 2021 - From 2000 to 2019 the Amazon had a gross above ground carbon loss of 0.6 gigatons, or 2.45 Gt CO2eq, with 73 percent from forest degradation and 27 percent from deforestation… This is the second major finding that the Amazon has flipped from carbon sink to carbon source. See also Gatti 2019.
Qin et al., Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Nature Climate Change, April 29, 2021.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2206/2206.07363.pdf

Gatti 2021 - Amazon emitting, not absorbing, 1 Gt CO2 annually on average from 2010 to 2018… based on atmospheric measurements over time…  "Considering the upwind areas of each site, we combine fluxes from all sites to calculate a total Amazonia carbon balance for our nine-year study period (see Methods) of 0.29±0.40 Pg Cyr−1 (FCTotal=0.11±0.15gCm−2d−1), where fire emissions represent 0.41±0.05PgCyr−1 (FCFire=0.15±0.02gCm−2d−1), with NBE removing −0.12±0.40PgCyr−1 (31% of fire emissions) from the atmosphere (FCNBE=−0.05±0.15gCm−d−1). The east (region 1 in Extended Data Fig.6), which represents 24% of Amazonia (of which 27% has been deforested), is responsible for 72% of total Amazonian carbon emissions, where 62% is from fires. One recent study showed cumulative gross emissions of carbon of about 126.1MgCO2 ha−1 for 30yr after a fire event, where cumulative CO2 uptake from forest regrowth offsets only 35% of the emissions. Another recent study13 reported that fire emissions from Amazonia are about 0.21±0.23PgCyr−1. Recently, vander Werf etal.24 estimated for the period 1997–2009 that globally, fires were responsible for an annual mean carbon emission of 2.0PgCyr−1, where about 8% appears to have been associated with South American forest fires, according to estimates from the Global Fire Emission Data set (GFED V.3). The Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR) project showed a decline in sink capacity of mature forests due to an increase in mortality1–3. Adjusting the three RAINFOR studies to a consistent area (7.25×106km2) and taking their mean yields a basin-wide sink for intact forests of about −0.57, −0.41 and −0.23PgCyr−1 for 1990–1999, 2000–2009 and 2010–2019, respectively. The NBE from this study is consistent with the RAINFOR results for the last decade, because NBE represents the uptake from forest but also all non-fire emissions, such as decomposition, degradation and other anthropogenic emissions (see Supplementary Table 3)."
Gatti et al., Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change, Nature, July 14, 2021.
https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/176729920/s41586_021_03629_6.pdf

Canadian Forest Collapse 250 million tons CO2eq annually in 2018… This collapse began in about 2002 when the pine bark beetle attack became extensive. These emissions are largely from native mountain pine beetle mortality and do not include fire emissions since 2018.
The State of Canada's Forests, Adapting to Change, Canadian Forest Service, 2020.
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/state-canadas-forests-report/16496

Natali 2019 - Permafrost collapse of 2.3 Gt CO2eq annually, including emissions from drowned forests… These emissions are the average from 2003 to 2017. Assuming permafrost was stable in 2003 with zero emissions, the annual in linear trend 2017 was double this 2.3 gigatons, and because warming is increasing nonlinearly, permafrost is plausibly release as many greenhouse gases as all of transportation globally at 7 to 9 gigatons annually, not including the increase in the trend from 2017 to present.Natali et al., Large loss of CO2 in winter observed across the northern permafrost region, Nature Climate Change, October 21, 2019.
https://www.uarctic.org/media/1600119/natali_et_al_2019_nature_climate_change_s41558-019-0592-8.pdf

Findings on Forest Regeneration Failure -

Increased regeneration failure and wildfire risk from warming across the Sierra Nevada… Warming has created regeneration failure and a greater risk of wildfire across up to 19.5 percent of the Sierra Nevada. In this study that compared assumed stable forest conditions from 1915 to 1955, a mismatch in climate and forest regeneration for forest stability was found compared to the period 2000 to 2022. This mismatch is degrading or eliminating regeneration or the ability of sapling trees to survive because of water stress in the warmed environment at lower elevation areas along the western slope of the Sierras. Of most importance in this study, the comparison was made between the average conditions from 1915 to 1955 and 2000 to 2022. Because it is quite likely that the period 2000 to 2022 has seen more warming later rather than sooner during this period, the 19.5 percent mismatch is biased low or is understated.
Full - Hill et al., Low-elevation conifers in California’s Sierra Nevada are out of equilibrium with climate, PNAS, February 28, 2023.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-pdf/2/2/pgad004/49406200/pgad004.pdf
Press Release - Jordan, Stanford-led study reveals a fifth of California’s Sierra Nevada conifer forests are stranded in habitats that have grown too warm for them, Stanford, February 28, 2023.
https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2023/02/28/zombie-forests/

Seedling regeneration in unburned plots is reduced by 15 to 36 percent from 2000 to 2019 in Western forests... In burned plots, seedling regeneration is 89 percent greater than in unburned plots with regeneration reduced by 28 to 68 percent. This study is based on the average regeneration of 28 different tree species. It also includes a bias where recent warming is greater than earlier warming during the study period of 2000 to 2019, as well as not including the most warming during the period 2020 to present where wildfire burn area  in California increased to Pre-European burned area in 2020.
Hill and Field, Forest fires and climate-induced tree range shifts in the western US, Nature Communications, November 15, 2022.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26838-z
Press Release - Jordan, Stanford researchers reveal how wildfire accelerates forest changes, Stanford, November 15, 2022.
https://news.stanford.edu/2021/11/15/trees-on-the-move/

Poor Ponderosa Regeneration because of climate warming and moisture limitation… "Regeneration density varied among fires but analysis of regeneration in aggregated edge and core plots showed that abundance of seed availability was not the sole factor that limited ponderosa pine regeneration, probably because of surviving tree refugia within high-severity burn patches.  furthermore, our findings emphasize that ponderosa pine regeneration in our study area was significantly impacted by xeric topographic environments and vegetation competition. Continued warm and dry conditions and increased wildfire activity may delay the natural recovery of  ponderosa pine forests, underscoring the importance of restoration efforts in large, high-severity burn patches."
Singleton, Moisture and vegetation cover limit ponderosa pine regeneration in high-severity burn patches in the southwestern US, Fire Ecology, May 7, 2021.
https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42408-021-00095-3

An era when prefire forests may not return… "Changing disturbance regimes and climate can overcome forest ecosystem resilience. Following high-severity fire, forest recovery may be compromised by lack of tree seed sources, warmer and drier postfire climate, or short-interval reburning. A potential outcome of the loss of resilience is the conversion of the prefire forest to a different forest type or nonforest vegetation. Conversion implies major, extensive, and enduring changes in dominant species, life forms, or functions, with impacts on ecosystem services. In the present article, we synthesize a growing body of evidence of fire-driven conversion and our understanding of its causes across western North America. We assess our capacity to predict conversion and highlight important uncertainties. Increasing forest vulnerability to changing fire activity and climate compels shifts in management approaches, and we propose key themes for applied research coproduced by scientists and managers to support decision-making in an era when the prefire forest may not return."
Coop et al., Wildfire Driven Forest Conversion in Western North American Landscapes, BioScience, July 1, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaa061

Old trees just don't die, they are killed by something and old forests are a part of a stable ecology…
"Large, majestic trees are iconic symbols of great age among living organisms. Published evidence suggests that trees do not die because of genetically programmed senescence in their meristems, but rather are killed by an external agent or a disturbance event. Long tree lifespans are therefore allowed by specific combinations of life history traits within realized niches that support resistance to, or avoidance of, extrinsic mortality. Another requirement for trees to achieve their maximum longevity is either sustained growth over extended periods of time or at least the capacity to increase their growth rates when conditions allow it. The growth plasticity and modularity of trees can then be viewed as an evolutionary advantage that allows them to survive and reproduce for centuries and millennia. As more and more scientific information is systematically collected on tree ages under various ecological settings, it is becoming clear that tree longevity is a key trait for global syntheses of life history strategies, especially in connection with disturbance regimes and their possible future modifications."
Piovesan and Biondi, On tree longevity, New Phytologist, November 25, 2020.
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/nph.17148

Davis 2019 -- Forests Exceed Climate Change Regeneration Threshold Leading to Non-forested States
The take-away, "In areas that have crossed climatic thresholds for regeneration, stand-replacing fires may result in abrupt ecosystem transitions to nonforest states." The authors "examine[d] the relationship between annual climate and postfire tree regeneration of two dominant, low-elevation conifers (ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir) using annually resolved establishment dates from 2,935 destructively sampled trees from 33 wildfires across four regions in the western United States... [They] demonstrate[d] that ... forests of the western United States have crossed a critical climate threshold for postfire tree regeneration. [They] found abrupt declines in modeled annual recruitment probability in the 1990s for both species and across all regions. Annual rates of tree regeneration exhibited strongly nonlinear relationships with annual climate conditions, with distinct threshold responses to summer VPD [humidity], soil moisture, and maximum surface temperatures. Across the study region, seasonal to annual climate conditions from the early 1990s through 2015 have crossed these climate thresholds at the majority of sites. [Their] findings suggest that many low elevation mixed conifer forests in the western United States have already crossed climatic thresholds beyond which the climate is unsuitable for regeneration. The nonlinear relationships between annual climate and regeneration observed in this study are likely not unique to these two species."
Davis et al., Wildfires and climate change push low-elevation forests across a critical climate threshold for tree regeneration, PNAS, March 26, 2019.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/13/6193

One third of burned forests are not regenerating at all… Conclusion, "Significantly less tree regeneration is occurring after wildfires in the start of 21st century compared to the end of the 20th century, and key drivers of this change were warmer and drier mean climatic conditions. Our findings demonstrate the increased vulnerability of both dry and moist forests to climate-induced regeneration failures following wildfires. The lack of regeneration indicates either substantially longer periods of forest recovery to pre-fire tree densities, or potential shifts to lower density forests or non-forest cover types after 21st-century wildfires… Our results suggest that predicted shifts from forest to non-forested vegetation may be underway, expedited by fire disturbances [and] that short post-fire periods of wetter climate that have favoured tree regeneration in the past may not occur frequently enough to facilitate tree regeneration in the future, across a broad region and multiple forest types in the Rocky Mountains… Our results suggest a high likelihood that future wildfires will facilitate shifts to lower density forest or non-forested states under a warming climate."

Data, "For sites burned at the end of the 20th century vs. the first decade of the 21st century, the proportion of sites meeting or exceeding pre-fire tree densities (e.g. recruitment threshold of 100%) decreased by nearly half (from 70 to 46%) and the percentage of sites experiencing no post-fire tree regeneration nearly doubled (from 19 to 32%)… This negative relationship demonstrates the potential increased vulnerability and lack of resilience on hotter and drier sites, or of dry forest species, to climate warming… Tree seedlings may establish in response to short-term anomalous wetter periods in the future, but our results highlight that such conditions have become significantly less common since 2000, and they are expected to be less likely in the future…  Further, persistent or long-lasting vegetation changes following wildfires have been observed worldwide." … Sevenens-Rumann 2017 found a significant decrease in tree regeneration in post fire landscapes in the last 15 years (since 2015) vs. the previous 15 years.  For fires that burned in the early 21st century, regeneration tree density decreased by nearly half, and sites experiencing no post-fire regeneration nearly doubled, over fires that burned at the end of the 20th century.

From the abstract, "Forest resilience to climate change is a global concern given the potential effects of increased disturbance activity, warming temperatures and increased moisture stress on plants. We used a multi-regional dataset of 1485 sites across 52 wildfires from the US Rocky Mountains to ask if and how changing climate over the last several decades impacted post-fire tree regeneration, a key indicator of forest resilience. Results highlight significant decreases in tree regeneration in the 21^st century. Annual moisture deficits were significantly greater from 2000 to 2015 as compared to 1985–1999, suggesting increasingly unfavourable post-fire growing conditions, corresponding to significantly lower seedling densities and increased regeneration failure. Dry forests that already occur at the edge of their climatic tolerance are most prone to conversion to non-forests after wildfires. Major climate-induced reduction in forest density and extent has important consequences for a myriad of ecosystem services now and in the future."

Stevens-Rumann et al., Evidence for declining forest resilience to wildfires under climate, Ecology Letters, December 12, 2017.
(Paywall) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ele.12889
Full (Researchgate free account required)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Monica_Rother/publication/321753770_Evidence_for_declining_forest_resilience_to_wildfires_under_climate_change/links/5a315ae90f7e9b2a284cea8f/Evidence-for-declining-forest-resilience-to-wildfires-under-climate-change.pdf
Press Release, University of Montana -
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/tuom-sfr121317.php

Ecological Drought, shifting ecosystems – New Climate Change Drought Category…
“Ecological drought has recently been proposed as a fifth drought metric classification. In contrast to other drought classifications, ecological drought metrics attempt to describe abnormal departures from moisture conditions when accounting for local ecosystems without a human-specific viewpoint of drought effects. Ecological drought metrics identify droughts on longer time and larger spatial scales that have the potential to shift ecosystems—as well as human systems—past their adaptive capacity (Crausbay et al. 2017). Addressing the prevalence of ecologically significant droughts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries requires a metric suited to addressing long-term ecosystem trends.”
Crockett and Westerling, Greater Temperature and Precipitation Extremes Intensify Western US Drought, Wildfire Severity, and Sierra Nevada Tree Mortality, Journal of Climate, January 2018.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0254.1

 

Anticipated transition from forested to shrubland ecosystems...
"Droughts of the 21st century are characterized by hotter temperatures, longer duration and greater spatial extent, and are increasingly exacerbated by human demands for water. This situation increases the vulnerability of ecosystems to drought, including a rise in drought-driven tree mortality globally (Allen et al. 2015) and anticipated ecosystem transformations from one state to another, e.g., forest to a shrubland (Jiang et al. 2013)."
Crausbay et al., Defining ecological drought for the 21 st century, BAMS, July 27, 2017.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0292.1

Poor Ponderosa Regeneration because of climate warming and moisture limitation… "Regeneration density varied among fires but analysis of regeneration in aggregated edge and core plots showed that abundance of seed availability was not the sole factor that limited ponderosa pine regeneration, probably because of surviving tree refugia within high-severity burn patches.  furthermore, our findings emphasize that ponderosa pine regeneration in our study area was significantly impacted by xeric topographic environments and vegetation competition. Continued warm and dry conditions and increased wildfire activity may delay the natural recovery of  ponderosa pine forests, underscoring the importance of restoration efforts in large, high-severity burn patches."
Singleton, Moisture and vegetation cover limit ponderosa pine regeneration in high-severity burn patches in the southwestern US, Fire Ecology, May 7, 2021.
https://fireecology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s42408-021-00095-3

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[Tom Goreau]

While some phytoplankton can use bicarbonate, most are limited in bicarbonate use by the kinetically slow carbonic acid dehydration reaction that carbonic anhydrase accelerates. Carbonic anhydrase is so essential for carbon metabolism and pH homeostasis in cells that is thought to be the most common enzyme in the world.

 

From: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 2:12 PM
To: Clive Elsworth <cl...@endorphinsoftware.co.uk>, 'Kevin Wolf' <kevin...@gmail.com>, 'Charles H. Greene' <ch...@cornell.edu>, 'Stephen Salter' <s.sa...@ed.ac.uk>, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Cc: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>, 'Dan Miller' <d...@rodagroup.com>, 'Jim Baird' <jim....@gwmitigation.com>, 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>, 'via NOAC Meetings' <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>, 'Planetary Restoration' <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, 'Healthy Climate Alliance' <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [prag] RE: [CDR] Re: Cause of surface acidification

Clive states: "The absorption of CO2 in the Calvin cycle by chloroplasts appears well established. However, we find it odd that life chose that difficult pathway, rather than absorbing dissolved bicarbonate anions directly from the ocean, which is always abundant."

 

In fact most phytoplankton do consume very abundance SW bicarbonate, externally or internally dehydrating it to make CO2 that is ultimately used in their photosynthesis, eg:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-3646.1997.00625.x

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/14/7413

https://morel.princeton.edu/research/inorganic-carbon-acquisition-phytoplankton

 

Thus, given the high concentration of  SW bicarbonate, it is unlikely that natural marine phyto communities ever become carbon limited, though it has been reported in nutrient-replete marine aquaculture settings.

Greg

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/BY3PR13MB4994DBBFCBEC262B51F5D662DDADA%40BY3PR13MB4994.namprd13.prod.outlook.com.

[Tom Goreau]

Carbonic anhydrase requires zinc, while oxido-reductase enzymes use manganese, iron, or other multivalent metals to shuffle electrons between carbon compounds.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/BY3PR13MB4994398C4D9FD1BA4CACF039DDADA%40BY3PR13MB4994.namprd13.prod.outlook.com.

[Greg Rau]

Clive states: "The absorption of CO2 in the Calvin cycle by chloroplasts appears well established. However, we find it odd that life chose that difficult pathway, rather than absorbing dissolved bicarbonate anions directly from the ocean, which is always abundant."

In fact most phytoplankton do consume very abundance SW bicarbonate, externally or internally dehydrating it to make CO2 that is ultimately used in their photosynthesis, eg:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-3646.1997.00625.x

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/14/7413

https://morel.princeton.edu/research/inorganic-carbon-acquisition-phytoplankton

Thus, given the high concentration of  SW bicarbonate, it is unlikely that natural marine phyto communities ever become carbon limited, though it has been reported in nutrient-replete marine aquaculture settings.

Greg

On Saturday, November 11, 2023, 06:10:05 AM PST, Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org> wrote:

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[Jim Baird]

Bruce we know what has happened over the course of the last 250 years. I am puzzled why some think that reversing surface temperature over the course of about the same time frame is also problematic?

 

From: Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas

Sent: November 11, 2023 11:00 AM
To: Peter Eisenberger <peter.ei...@gmail.com>; Jim Baird <jim....@gwmitigation.com>
Cc: Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com>; Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Jim Hansen <jimeh...@gmail.com>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>; via NOAC Meetings <noac-m...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com; Klaus Lackner <Klaus....@asu.edu>; Sasha Mackler <SMac...@bipartisanpolicy.org>; Matt Atwood <ma...@aircapture.co>

[Charles H. Greene]

Kevin:

My message was in response to your flippant remark, "Hundreds of trillions for CDR is not likely going to happen nor is it needed,” and suggestion that CO2 into cement, kelp farming, and ocean iron fertilization (OIF) would solve the CDR problem. It was intended to show you how much we don’t know about scaling up these potential “solutions” to CDR. There are reputable scientists in the ocean research community going through a rigorous process to address the points I raised (https://oceanvisions.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/A-Comprehensive-Program-to-Prove-or-Disprove-Marine-Carbon-Dioxide-Removal-Technologies-by-2030_FINAL.pdf). It is a disservice to them when non-scientists over promote OIF and kelp farming as if we know everything that needs to be known. I am not against OIF and kelp farming research; I am only against over hyping them until we know more. 

Also, you misinterpreted the reason that I was blown away by your comment, "OIF is especially cheap once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms.” It is not because OIF “can be so inexpensive.” It is because the second part of your comment, "once all the research is done and practitioners can accurately predict which phytoplankton species (and resulting zooplankton and fish) will come from the stimulated blooms,” is so incredibly naive. Replicated experiments at modest scales in the open ocean have rarely been conducted, and the ones that have been done attest to how difficult they are to pull off. Basically, you are saying once we achieve the Holy Grail of biological oceanography, we can afford to take OIF to a large enough scale to solve the global CDR problem. That Holy Grail, if achievable at all, will be orders of magnitude more expensive than the cost of OIF. In addition, it is hard to know if we have enough time to achieve the Holy Grail before we are locked into catastrophic and irreversible climate change. Have you ever conducted research at sea?

[Kevin Wolf]

Charles,

Thank you for the clarification.  We. all agree that rising CO2 levels are dire yet there is little support to put money into research ocean iron and mineral fertilization.  Because of carbon credits and tax subsidies, billions will be spent removing CO2 at >$100 per ton.  Yet if a fraction of that was put into a world wide rigorous program of ocean research with field experiments, it shouldn't take long to determine where OIF can be done so that negative impacts are limited and ocean health improves.

There have been 13 experiments and one rogue application. No one has reported negative impacts from those.  If there were ten mesoscale edidie experiments (10,000 sq km) per year at $10-20M an experiment, in five years we would know a great deal more about this alternative. And in the process, a great deal of carbon would be sequestered.

The trick is getting the money to do that research.  One way ocean scientists can help with this is to publicly support legislation that would fund the research. If you know of any who would do that, please let me know.

Kevin

******

Kevin Wolf, co-chair

Ocean Iron Fertilization Alliance

kevin...@gmail.com

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******

kevin...@gmail.com

+1.530.758.4211

[rob...@rtulip.net]

The political line in Professor Johann Rockstrom’s recent TB Macaulay Lecture is cause for dismay and deserves strong challenge.

 

From a perspective of global risks, the political vacuity of Rockstrom’s analysis is simply stunning.  His failure to engage on the main practical climate solution, higher albedo, reflects a delusional misunderstanding of what is possible. Like his colleague Tim Lenton, Rockstrom brilliantly presents all the data on climate tipping points but then fails to join the dots about how to mitigate these dangerous cascading risks.  Taking all measures necessary to slow temperature rise should be the top priority, but Rockstrom completely ignores this urgent problem.

 

His call for world economic transformation in a context of war, tension and economic fragility is completely unrealistic. His assertion that renewable energy could see exponential growth to anything near net zero is farcical in view of the limited available time, resources, funds, support and skills.  If you doubt this, please watch this recent lecture from Simon Michaux to the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland.  I get the impression the whole decarbonisation movement would prefer engineers like Michaux should just shut up and go away.  This recent interview by Nate Hagens with Arthur Berman is another of many examples of a completely conflicting narrative about the feasibility of cutting emissions.

 

The political and economic reality is that governments are not going to cut emissions.  Relying on carbon action is too small, slow, contested and expensive to be a viable primary climate strategy.  Albedo increase has to become the main interim response to stabilise the climate.  It is a scandal that Rockstrom et al do not even deign to mention the cooling power of higher albedo.  Nor do they seem to consider that the political turmoil that would result from concerted efforts to achieve net zero emissions makes it a non-feasible option.  Without cooling technology, all we have to deal with climate change are lip service and the destructive fantasy responses now seen in countries such as Australia.  Decarbonising faces massive economic and technical barriers and inertia, whereas the only thing standing in the way of higher albedo is political will.

 

Scenario planning should include the option of allowing emissions to continue to be driven by market forces while aggressively cutting temperature with higher albedo.  The absence of this direct cooling scenario from public consideration reflects the intensely polarised distortion of climate policy.  Brightening the planet to cut temperature would deliver far better outcomes across a range of fronts than anything carbon policy can offer, for global stability, security, peace, cooperation, biodiversity, extreme weather, prosperity, food, water, equality, etc. Behind all these looming crises stands the systemic collapse threatened by tipping elements.  Net zero heating should replace net zero emissions as the primary climate goal. 

 

The main carbon problems are about temperature, acidification and pollution.  Of these, temperature is by far the most serious, as Rockstrom’s work proves. It will be far easier, quicker, cheaper and safer to mitigate temperature rise by brightening the planet than by any carbon action.  The policy sequence should be reversed from the current IPCC strategy, to instead make albedo increase the most urgent task. Fixing carbon should proceed on a century time scale, and should not continue to obstruct action to stop warming. 

 

Climate funding should be allocated on the basis of cooling return on investment.  David Keith and colleagues have explained that investment of $2 billion in solar geoengineering research could prevent climate damage estimated to cost $10 trillion.  That is a benefit cost ratio of 5000 to 1.  Rockstrom, Lenton and the whole UN policy consensus remain wilfully oblivious to this basic science. They are standing in the way of the only practical climate policy. Their albedo denial amounts to a crime against humanity and against the planet, preventing action that could forestall suffering and collapse on vast scale.

 

Robert Tulip

[Clive Elsworth]

Robert

 

Not only would political turmoil result from doubling down on a net zero only policy, but you could add that 10°C would be in the pipeline by 2400 even if it were achieved, with probably at least 4°C by 2100 – a catastrophic outcome for human civilisation and ecosystems around the planet. That conclusion is not based on climate models, but the historical climate record based on corroborated proxies, as spelt out in Global warming in the pipeline, Hansen et al, 2023.

 

Clive

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[Tom Goreau]

 

This paper uses real world paleoclimatic data to estimate Earth energy imbalance over an entire glacial cycle with both flanking interglacials and so provides real world estimates of responses to solar radiation forcing and internal dynamics that is probably more relevant to stabilizing CO2 and temperature than IPCC models!

 

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Blue Regeneration SL
President, Biorock Technology Inc.

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Skype: tomgoreau
Tel: (1) 617-864-4226 (leave message)

 

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392

 

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466557734

 

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

 

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

 

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

 

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

 

“When you run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting, when you run to the sea, the sea will be boiling”, Peter Tosh, Jamaica’s greatest song writer

 

 

 

 

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[John Nissen]

Hi all,

How do we persuade people?  How do we explain the truth about climate change and what has to be done?  I talked to a number of intellegent, well-informed people about climate change at a gathering last Tuesday (on the subject: "Is the world becoming a better place") to sound out their reactions.

The seriousness of climate change

Older people have experienced that climate change has been getting worse over the past 40-50 years, and is getting worse faster.  Global warming is accelerating.  (We haven't just moved into a new Anthropocene norm as Johan Rockstrom seems to imply at the beginning of his lecture.)  The true situation is that we are accelerating away from the Holocene norms of the past 6 thousand years or so.  I found that people are now accepting this acceleration as a fact of life, as weather extremes grow stronger and records are being broken by greater margins: higher temperatures, longer droughts, greater floods, etc.  The future looks bleak unless prompt action is taken.  But what action?

Emissions reduction not enough

The global warming and climate change were initially driven by the CO2 put in the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels.  Emissions reduction is not going to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere quickly because the CO2 has a long lifetime.  Something else has to be done to cool the planet while our emissions are being reduced.  CO2 removal is possible but would take decades to scale up sufficiently  So our last resort is direct cooling intervention, also known as SRM or solar geoengineering.  Geoengineering has a bad name but this is undeserved: we can imitate volcanoes such as Pinatubo in 1991 and inject a large amount of SO2 to cool the planet. Pinatubo cooled the planet by half a degree. 

Oh, no, not geoengineering

At this point, someone blurted out that geoengineering was mad.  People started arguing about renewable energy, as if finding really cheap renewable energy was a  technical solution to climate change.  As soon as people realise that "albedo enhancement" is solar geoengineering, we are likely to get the same reaction.  Some serious education is needed, to point out that transition to renewables has the effect of emissions reduction - and emissions reduction is not enough to cool the planet on any sensible timescale.

The next step

The next step would have been to expain that the acceleration of climate change we observe is largely due to a sticking jet stream.  When it gets stuck, the heat, dryness or wetness gets amplified to produce heat domes, droughts or floods respectively.  The jet stream wave gets its energy from a temperature differential between poles and tropics.  This energy has reduced in the Northern Hemisphere since 1980 as the Arctic has been warming about 4x faster than the global average since then.  So the simple solution to reducing weather extremes, at least in the NH, is to reduce the temperature in the Arctic: start refreezing the Arctic.

Which technique or techniques

Here it gets too technical for most people.  The calculation of Arctic warming (I did for Climate) suggests that somewhere in the region of 0.5 to 1.0 petawatts cooling power will be needed.  Sratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) could do the heavy lifting and blanket coverage, with Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) providing some fine tuning.  We should start trials and preparations immediately, with a view to deployment at scale to get the Arctic temperature coming down ASAP.

Cheers, John

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[Dan Miller]

Hi John:

I would start by rebranding SRM as Sunlight Reflections Methods. It’s accurate, understandable by the public, and sounds like something you would want to do for fun on a Sunday afternoon!

Also, follow Jim Hansen’s lead and describe CDR and SRM as things we do to reduce the geo-engineering we are doing to the planet!

I also emphasize that SRM is the only possible way to avoid the expected AMOC collapse around mid-century. Emissions reduction and CDR do not operate on time scales that can prevent an AMOC shutdown.

Dan

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[John Nissen]

Hi Dan,

1. SRM = Sunlight Reflection (singular) Methods.  Yes!   The general term I use is "direct cooling intervention" to include Cirrus Cloud Removal, but exclude CDR.  Note that "climate intervention" carries a lot of baggage by way of assumptions; and strictly speaking it doesn't cover sea level rise

2.  I couldn't find Hansen talking about CDR and SRM "reducing the geo-engineering we're doing  to the planet".  But he does refer to a paper which recommends research on geoengineering; see quote from his pipeline paper [1].  He recognises that people dislike the idea of intervening in the climate system; but we have to explain that it has now become essential if we are to return the planet to a decent Holocene-like state, with "Holocene-level global temperature" [2].  I would put cooling at top priority (especially to refreeze the Arctic, which Hansen doesn't mention), but Hansen puts emissions reduction at top priority - no doubt for political reasons: to reassure those committed to the green agenda.

3. The AMOC is a tipping element which has been rather neglected in the research field, though there's recently been a paper about it, reported here [3].  There's been a weakening of 40% over the past few decades.  I think it is highly unlikely that there would be any kind of sudden collapse (or bifurcation) unless meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet reaches a critical value, estimated at 0.25 Sverdrup - it is nowhere near that yet.  But this latest research is quite alarming.  I'm copying this email to Peter Wadhams who is a world expert on the AMOC (among other things!).  The refreezing of the Arctic might be the best thing (if not the only thing) to restore AMOC''s Holocene state and strength.

Cheers, John

[1] Hansen et al. (November 2023)

Global warming in the pipeline

https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

Third, we must take action to reduce and reverse Earth’s energy imbalance. Highest priority is to phase down emissions, but it is no longer feasible to rapidly restore energy balance via only GHG emission reductions. Additional action is almost surely needed to prevent grievous escalation of climate impacts including lock-in of sea level rise that could destroy coastal cities world-wide. At least several years will be needed to define and gain acceptance of an approach for climate restoration. This effort should not deter action on mitigation of emissions; on the contrary, the concept of human intervention in climate is distasteful to many people, so support for GHG emission reductions will likely increase. Temporary solar radiation management (SRM) will probably be needed, e.g. via purposeful injection of atmospheric aerosols. Risks of such intervention must be defined, as well as risks of no intervention; thus, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommends research on SRM [212]. The Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991 is a natural experiment [213, 214] with a forcing that reached [30] –3 W/m². Pinatubo deserves a coordinated study with current models. The most innocuous aerosols may be fine salty droplets extracted from the ocean and sprayed into the air by autonomous sailboats [215]. This approach has been discussed for potential use on a global scale [216], but it needs research into potential unintended effects [217]. This decade may be our last chance to develop the knowledge, technical capability, and political will for actions needed to save global coastal regions from long-term inundation.

[2] Ibid, Abstract

Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature.

[3] Seanews (July 2023)

Research urges action as new study predicts AMOC collapse sooner than expected

https://seanews.co.uk/people/research-urges-action-as-new-study-predicts-amoc-collapse-to-occur-sooner-than-expected/

According to the most recent study investigating the currents, often referred to as the 'conveyor belt,' responsible for transporting warmer water from the tropics northwards, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is expected to cease functioning at some stage between 2025 and 2095.  The study identifies the 2050s as the most probable period for this shutdown to occur. 

The research paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w

[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

Hello all -

CDR is certainly implementable by mid-century if we are motivated enough and any plan for restoration to stabilize tipping will be one where we have restored our climate by mid-century because of the outsized risks of tipping elements becoming irreversible beyond this time. We spent a global GDP adjusted $43 trillion per year or $301 trillion in seven years during WWII, on mostly heavy industrial expansion. Motivation is the only thing stopping us from restoring our climate by mid-century with atmospheric removal processes in existence and widespread in industry for the last 100 years.

But! Because of the extreme nature of risks of irreversible tipping elements (runaway feedbacks...) it is mandatory that we implement temporary emergency geoengineering in the meanwhile. At the same we need to focus a relatively appropriate (and much larger) amount of effort on restoration by mid-century with removal processes, as risks of the continued long-term implementation of temporary emergency mitigation are high.

Steep trails,

MeltOn

History of Carbon Dioxide Removal

Nobel Prize winner Carl von Linde was the first to remove carbon dioxide from air. His technology was developed from his refrigeration discovery that itself was first used in the 1870s to help the brewing industry overcome limitations on summer season brewing and beer storage that was plagued by bacterial contamination. By 1890 Linde had sold 747 of his “ice machines.” In 1892 Guinness contracted with Linde to build a CO2 liquefaction plant to sell excess CO2 from fermentation. This set in motion the ultra-cold refrigeration technology that Linde later used in cryoseparation to distill the components of air into usable products that included, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and argon. The cryoseparation technology first supercools air to a liquid, then evaporates the liquid in a tall column where the temperature rises upwards in the column, condensing individual components at different temperatures, much like water vapor condenses in clouds.

 

 

Image Caption: The WWII Gato-Balao Class submarines were the first US subs to use the potash process to remove CO2 from submarine air to keep our sailors safe from CO2 poisoning.

Early 20th Century Air Capture of CO2

In 1904 the recyclable lime-potash process was discovered to separate CO2 from air as a simple chemical reaction using extremely common potash and lime. In 1930 the first patent was issued for an ammonia-based process that used amines to remove CO2 from air. Notable applications were in submarines in World War II to keep our sailors safe form carbon dioxide poisoning. Also in World War II, the Habor-Bosch Process was developed to synthesize ammonia from hydrocarbons in Germany, mostly for explosives, as the Allies had cut off the German supplies of guano needed to generate the ammonia. This process became an extremely important process globally in synthesizing fertilizers. An important part of this process is removing CO2 to allow the formation of ammonia. This CO2 removal process advanced the state of amine technology for removal of CO2 from air. These three processes are mature today and represent some of the most important industrial processes known to humankind. Their components are widespread in industry making their implementation into a scaled atmospheric CO2 removal infrastructure a challenge of motivation and money, not technology.

NOTES:

Slide Summary:  Below are references to the three major, mature carbon dioxide removal technologies, their discoveries and invention and notable developments in these technologies: Cryoseparation, recyclable lime/potash, and amines.

Cryoseparation of air… Nobel Prize winner Carl von Linde was the first to remove carbon dioxide from air. His technology was developed from his refrigeration discovery that itself was first used in the 1870s to help the brewing industry in Bavaria overcome limitations on summer season brewing and beer storage that was plagued by bacterial contamination that soured the beer, where from 1553 to 1850 summer brewing was literally banned between April 23 and September 29. After 1850, brewers learned to brew over produce in march and April and store their beer in caves where they had stockpiled winter ice. By 1890 Linde had sold 747 of his “ice machines” and summer brewing was flourishing. In 1892 Guinness contracted with Linde to build a CO2 liquefaction plant to sell excess CO2 from fermentation as an industrial chemical. This set in motion the ultra-cold refrigeration technology that Linde used in cryoseparation to distill the components of air into usable products that included not only carbon dioxide but, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. The cryoseparation technology first supercools air to a liquid, then evaporates the liquid in a tall column where the temperature rises upwards in the column, condensing individual components at different temperatures, much like water vapor condenses in clouds to make rain. Carl von Linde was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913 for his development of refrigeration technology.

Potash/Potassium Carbonate… A US patent granted in 1904, described a process for absorbing CO2 in a hot solution of potassium carbonate and then stripping the solution by pressure reduction without additional heating (Behrens, 1904).

Potash/ Lye… Giammarco was the first to patent an activated potash solution in 1955, and there are now a number of such processes - Kohl and Riesenfeld mentions some - they are still widely applied.

Haber-Bosch process… This was an extremely important process developed just before WWI that allowed nitrogen production for use in explosives and fertilizers, with a key part of the process being the CO2 removal. It was a German invention because the Allies controlled all the guano deposits that were the nitrogen source. CO2 is a byproduct of the process and development of removal processes played an important role in advanced amine processes today.

WWII – Lime/Potash and Amines: Keeping our sailors safe from CO2 Poisoning… The history of CO2 removal in submarines begins in World War II… "Air monitoring was by colorimetric tubes, soda lime was used to remove carbon dioxide and oxygen candles provide a source of oxygen replenishment." With the advent of long submerse times with nuclear submarines , amines were used to scrub CO2 from submarine air.

Mazurek, Key developments in submarine air monitoring and purification, SAMAP Proceedings, October 2015.
https://www.sonistics.com/wp-content/uploads/SAMAP-15-Proceedings.pdf

Mention of soda ash and amines…
https://www.sonistics.com/wp-content/uploads/A-Brief-History-of-Submarine-Air-Quality.pdf

Amines… In 1930, Robert Bottoms was awarded a patent for removing CO2 from air with amines. The discovery of amines was first published in 1911 by Kazimierz Funk. Funk was inspired by Christiaan Eijkman work that showed eating brown rice reduced vulnerability to beri-beri, compared to those who at normal milled rice. (Beri-beri is a vitamin B deficiency that causes nerve and heart inflammation.) He was able to isolate the substance and because it contained an amine group he called it "vitamine". It was later to be known as vitamin B3 (niacin), though he thought that it would be thiamine (vitamin B1) and described it as "anti-beri-beri-factor". Amines have gone on to become one of the most important chemical groups in all of industry with processes that include: dyes, nylon, medicines, cooling systems, surfactants, cosmetics, agrochemicals, corrosion inhibitor, machining fluids, powder coatings, polyurethane, and epoxy coatings. Amines are a $32 billion industry in 2023.

(Thanks to Richard Darton, Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford, for information on the importance of potash in the early development of CO2 processes in industry.)

1903, Separation of CO2 from air -
Linde, Patent, Process of producing low temperatures, the liquefaction of gases, and the separation of the constituents of gaseous mixtures
https://patents.google.com/patent/US727650A/en

Carl von Linde,  Carl von Linde’s Breakthrough in the Refrigeration Process, SciHi blog, June 11, 2018
http://scihi.org/carl-von-linde/#:~:text=Von%20Linde%20discovered%20a%20refrigeration,1913%20Nobel%20Prize%20in%20Physics.
Linde Nobel Prize 1913 -
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1913/ceremony-speech/
125 Years of Linde
https://www.linde-healthcare.nl/nl/images/chronicle_e%5B1%5D14_9855_tcm170-233340.pdf

1904, Potash/Lye -
Behrens 1904, Patent, Process for manufacturing carbonic acid…
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ff/69/f6/d02d8bc1768a99/US960788.pdf

1930, Amines -
Bottoms, Patent, Process for separating acidic gases (amines), 1930…
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/21/dc/33/8f7f493bfaae75/US1783901.pdf

1955 Activated Potash (Arsenic) -
Giammarco, 1955, Patent Process for the separation and recovery of carbonic acid from gas mixtures…
https://patents.google.com/patent/DE1000356B/en

Bruce Melton PE
Director, Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3
President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
8103 Kirkham Drive
Austin, Texas 78736
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[Bruce Melton -- Austin, Texas]

On Hansen's referencing our 200 year-long geoengineering experiment...

Hansen's references to our current geoengineering experiment with Earth's climate are in his publications and communications, somewhere... I could have sworn he directly referenced our current 200-year long "geoengineering" experiment somewhere rather recently, but could not find it. He does tend to reference the anthropogenic greenhouse gas experiment, but not as geoengineering. Still, I could have sworn he referenced as "geoengineering" relative to our ongoing inadvertent experiment recently... Ah! And he did, in the first preprint of Global warming in the pipeline in December 2022, but the wording was changed in the final.

This appears to another instance of reticence via the publisher. Hansen's December 2022 review version of Global warming in the pipeline (Researchgate, free account required) stated (in the abstract),
"The enormity of consequences of warming in the pipeline demands a new approach addressing legacy and future emissions. The essential requirement to "save" young people and future generations is return to Holocene-level global temperature. Three urgently required actions are: 1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions, 2) purposeful intervention to rapidly phase down present massive geoengineering of Earth’s climate, and 3) renewed East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs."

This culmination of the abstract in the published version November 2, 2023 of Global warming in the pipeline stated,
"The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth's radiation imbalance to phase down today's massive human-made 'geo-transformation' of Earth's climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation."

I haven't talked to Dr. Hansen about these revisions, but to me the December 2022 version of the abstract sounds more like what he means these days. The final version on Oxford Open Climate Change sounds more like the consensus philosophy that publishers will not stray from in a very meaningful way. Note that, "a new approach to legacy and future emissions" is absent in the published version, plus "abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy" is added in the published version which is pretty classic consensus boilerplate, as well as the switch from "geoengineering" in December 2022, to "geo-transformation" in the published version.

Thanks to Dr. Hansen for what he puts up with... and all you other scholarly publishers out there!

B

Bruce Melton PE
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President, Melton Engineering Services Austin
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[rob...@rtulip.net]

A key issue for mitigation technology is providing data to show what is really happening.  This reveals an albedo crisis, an accelerating darkening of the world, now faster than 1% per decade. The retention of each additional watt per square metre causes significant warming.  This aspect of climate science is not broadly discussed or understood.

Here is a chart that climate scientist Leon Simon made from NASA CERES satellite data to show the accelerating heat retention caused by the albedo crisis.  It shows increase of one watt per square metre over about 14 years from 2003 to 2017. The speed has since more than doubled, with the next watt taking only 6.5 years.  This problem results from loss of snow, ice, aerosols and other reflective planetary surfaces. These accelerating feedback processes can only be mitigated by deploying technology to brighten the planet.

 

Unfortunately, action on carbon is too small and slow to make any difference to these planetary tipping elements, showing the climate policy focus has to shift from carbon to albedo.

 

Robert Tulip

rebrighten.org

[Don Lotter]

Kevin - Your reply to Chuck Greene serves as a really good update on your project and you may want to put it on the OIF website as an update / review / current status of OIF efforts.

Don

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