Coal being phased out

Well, I'll leave all this stuff to the scientists who are experts in the field. And 96 per cent of them agree that manmade global warming is a problem. (And that percentage has been confirmed by numerous studies, beyond a doubt.)

The way internet armchair experts and politicians think they know more about science than actual scientists do is laughable. Then the first time they or a family member get seriously ill, they are straight off to the doctor/hospital for the latest in scientific life-saving treatment. No arguing about the validity of science then.

Edited By Hopper on 22/02/2020 06:15:06

The well established temperatures and gas concentrations are derived from all sorts of scientific investigations, so*’ll leave those as gospel (the figures from the real experts).

The notion that one even needs a “blanket” of CO2 to “insulate” the Earth from loss of heat is farcical.

The way this works is that the incoming insolation from our star mostly reaches the lower atmosphere and strikes the ground. Some is reflected (some back to space) and this is caused by the angle of the incident rays and the material the sunlight strikes - low angles and snow are the main causes of rays returning to space by reflection. When snow melts, the filth that was washed out of the sky by the clouds remains on the surface, markedly ‘greying’ the surface and affecting the reflective properties of the surface. While volcanoes add a lot of trash to the atmosphere at times, so does human activity. That sorts the reflection losses.

Now to the infrared radiation. When the sunlight strikes the surface much (most?) is absorbed as heat energy. All bodies emit infra-red rays if warmer tha Absolute zero (-273 Celsius), the Earth is no different and this radiation is clearly directed towards space.

Now the catch. All and every molecule of greenhouse gas can absorb this infra ray energy and then re-transmit it in all directions. This is the important part because half those random directions are back towards the suface and half out to space at lower altitudes. Clearly the more infrared rays that are absorbed by these molecules, the more infrared is redirected back to the surface, to be re-absorbed once more. So we have a situation where all nearly all sunlight reaches the surface and warms it but a greater amount of the heat emitted by the surface is collected and ‘thrown back’ towards the surface. The historical equilibrium is changed.

Main greenhouse gases are water (yes, clouds), methane and carbon dioxide. Ozone would be a greenhouse gas as it is not a regular shaped moecule, but as it is generated from oxygen by incoming high energy radiation from the Sun. The ‘layer’ of upper atmosphere ozone only occurs near the boundary of our atmosphere with space where it is useful to prevent those high energy rays reaching us. Less ozone layer means more UV rays at the Earth’s surface.

The ozone formed at low levels - mostly by human activity - causes pollution at low altitudes. Lightning produces some ozone, apart from the human pollution. The ozone at the boundary of our atmosphere will, by virtue of altitude, emit more infrared to space than will actually strike the ground.

Methane, is yet another strong greenhouse gas and may be connected to human activity, but perhaps (I don’t know) is not an important humanity-caused problem. Methane is produced by animals and bacteria which break down organic compounds - lots by farts from herbivores. Wealth of humans is often measured in how many cattle are owned; we are omnivores and raise cattle for food - both increase the methane emitted as ‘farts’. But set against that are the diminished wild-life herbivores that roam the planet.

The big problem will arise if the methane hydrate, currently trapped at the bottom of the oceans, is released to the atmosphere - by rising temperatures. That would very quickly disrupt the ‘feedback loop’ and create a further rapid rise in global surface temperature - possibly beyond that which is tolerable by humans. Not going to happen in the next few years but could end the reign of homo sapiens in the next (few?) millenia. I know, most couldn’t care a jot about anything more distant than next week!

Well said!

Its the same with the armchair engineers that know more than those of us that do engineering professionally....

Jim

What happens to the smoke that is not in "smokeless"coal?

I remember about forty years back these same scientists were telling us that we were heading for another ice age

Roy

Historically, they were completely correct. One only needs to look back in history for the geological and other cycles which indicate regular periods of cooling and warming. But human interference with natural occurrences has only happened in very recent times - basically the last millennium, but at an increasing rate since the Industrial Age took hold.

It will happen, of course, but may be delayed until after the human race has destroyed itself - then back to more ‘natural’ cycles.🙂

The uk is going to cripple itself ,with the various bans on coal and wood burning,i/c engined cars etc and stupid knee jerk reactions from our so called leaders,scienists love it all as it gets them loads of cash for research,yet the rest of the world just carries on ,more power coal generated in asia,rest of the world burning their forests to grow "green crops" billion of wood fires for cooking. The real problem the ongoing world population explosion,consuming vast quantity of food water and material. being brutal it will continue until some natural disaster wipes out vast numbers of inhabitants.the rest of the natural world tends to balance its population,unless mankind interferes, from insects to large mammals.Nature seems to balance itself so perhaps it may eventually balance the human population.

People need to stop being so parochial and consider the whole world-wide picture. Unsustainable practices will eventually cease - unless we continue headlong towards oblivion. Only thinking about one’s self, and no further distant than next week, is like the proverbial ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

Nope.

The Earth's resources are much like that nice bit of metal in the shed, no matter how little you use, it will run out one day.

Jim

I remember the first time I read about climate change, in New Scientist, it would have been almost exactly 40 years ago.

The article referenced the debate between those who felt aerosols would reflect heat and tip us towards an ice age, and those who felt the greenhouse effect was the threat.

There is still a significant possibility that the melting Greenland ice cap could switch off the north Atlantic conveyor (aka 'Gulf Stream' and give north-west Europe the climate of Labrador, even in a warming world.

We have already seen how a warmer Atlantic actually gives us cloudier, wetter weather much of the time.

We need to listen to economists not ecologists. They have discovered the secret to 'sustainable growth', while the ecologist's growth curves always level off at the end...*

Neil

All they are doing is extending 'smokeless zones' to cover the whole UK.

I live in a "smokeless" zone, yet one of my near neighbours burns ordinary coal after dark - it stinks & I for one will be very happy to see the stuff removed from sale. The houses are late '80s build with gas CH, so the real fire is a "lifestyle" choice & not required to comfortably heat the house.

It makes a change to see other large scale causes of pollutants being addressed at last rather than just harrassing vehicle operators. That said, I would not relish the increased running costs of replacing my 18Kw condensing boiler with an electric equivalant.

Nigel B.

Very good comment, Neil.

I remember my economics lecturer reminding us of Keynes' comment about 'the long run' (i.e., extrapolation into the far future): 'in the long run, we are all dead.'

For me, I have seen the climate change over my lifetime, my mother said much the same thing being brought up in London and rembering the Thames freezing over. And I find human causes more compelling than 'natural' ones (technically, of course, we are part of nature). One way or another, and for whatever reason, we need to change course. I recall an OU course that I did in 1981 that pointed out the finite fuel resources and the growing human population in less developed parts of the world that would expect a western standard of living. Quelle surprise, here we are.

Bill

Typical of the criticism aimed at "deniers", just insults, no facts!

There is one mistake in my diatribe, for "precambrian" read Cambrian. If the above poster would like to challenge me on any more, consider the gauntlett thrown down!

This is a good watch, absolutely fact rich, all graphs, and illustrates quite clearly how the alarmists are able to show constant uphill curves by selecting where they start their graph!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJWnMA3-sQs&t=1877s

Tony Heller is good on you tube too, and is a high,y qualified scientist.

I find it incredible that people who call themselves engineers decry scientists and their theories. Engineering is based on science. Without the fundamental research of scientists much of what we engineers achieve as engineers would not be possible.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. (With apologies to Newton)

Russell

We live in a civilised democratic country where we enjoy freedom of thought and speech, and can hold our own opinions based on what we decide is worthy of our attention, understanding and belief.

That is what sets the UK apart from countries such are China and Nth Korea (to name just two of many)

THis freedom is what makes life interesting and vibrant, please respect this freedom !!

Edited By Steve Neighbour on 22/02/2020 11:39:01

The Greenland ice cap is not melting, and in fact is at a maximum at the moment. it always calves at the edges as the pressure of ice on higher ground pushes it into the sea. Where do you think icebergs come from? Niel is correct about the "science" though, right up until 1988 the scientific concensus was that we were heading for another ice age, and all the media published this as if it were gospel. there is a famous National Geographic cover showing a glacier crushing New York. The recent flooding in the west is caused by a shift in low pressure areas to the west. In the north east UK our winter weather consisted, all through the sixties and seventies of lows forming over northern europe, which sent a bitingly cold noreaster down the east coast of the UK, followed by snow which came in from the Russian steppes, via scandinavia. The same lows now form up over the north atlantic, and sweep over the (always) warmer areas of the gulf stream , and bring rain to the west of the country. Our weather in the east is now much milder in winter. This is a westward shift in weather patterns, NOT a shift in climate.

No it wasn't the scientific consensus at all. Quite the opposite actually.

True Russell, just remember that the steam engine was invented by a blacksnith without any recourse to any form of science, and the science of thermodynamics was based on the study of the already invented steam engine! I am not attempting to decry honest scientists who report their results as they are, and do not apply "ajustments" generated by computer models which constantly fail to produce data matching real world observations. There is a famous quote, can't remember off hand who its by, but it goes along the lines of "it is very hard to get a man to tell the truth when his paycheck depends on him not telling it"