The Physical and Economic Reasons for Noticeable Warming of Planet Earth
The Physical and Economic Reasons for Noticeable Warming
There a number of reasons to expect at least moderate warming in the 21st and 22nd Centuries. First, as the warmers will tell us (whether we are listening or not) there are increased levels of CO2, methane, and other of global warming agents.
More importantly, we are in only the second century of upswing from the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The roughly fifteen hundred year cycle moves up on average gradually for six or seven centuries before the shuddering drop, like a roller coaster, into cold weather; therefore, continuation of the natural cycle would be a gradual warming.
Possibly most important, there are ongoing industrial revolutions in what were called the Second World and the Third World in the Twentieth Century. The cliché is BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), but many counties are in a rapidly industrializing phase with economic growth rates of averaging 5% or more each year. That growth makes increases in greenhouse agents inevitable. Because coal-fired energy is a half or a third that of alternate energies, the developing economies will continue using coal first, as well as alternative energies.
We saw it first with China, which started producing more CO2 each year than the United States in about 2005. Barring some calamity, India, Brazil, and other developing countries will follow China in exceeding the U.S. in CO2 emissions because they are growing faster and because coal is presently the cheapest energy source.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) could theoretically allow unlimited coal use without any climate affects, but CCS is still mostly a theoretical concept. Carbon dioxide has been separated out from oil production and put back into permeable strata underground. However, CCS from coal combustion has not been done commercially. The only large-scale use has been pumping CO2 into oil and gas fields to increase production, which of course would contribute to more hydrocarbons for burning.
Even if the world careens into a heavily natural gas economy with one-fifth the CO2 emissions per unit of energy production as compared with a largely coal economy, a tenfold growth in energy use would still double CO2 emissions. History suggests that the world economy will do just that. There was a several-fold economic growth in the Twentieth Century, and energy use increased faster than economic growth.
Think of it in terms of the Rule of 72. Compounding interest or compounding growth can be estimated by dividing the average growth into 72. If the world maintains its historical average, 72 divided by 4 is 24 years for a double; therefore, 48 years is a quadruple, and 72 years is an eightfold increase. A more conservative 2 percent growth would see the eightfold increase in 108 years.
More likely, coal will remain a major part of the expanding energy mix, world growth in CO2 emissions would be more like 5 or 6 percent.
Furthermore, there are other societal inputs that may be small but which make their contributions:
· More intensive agriculture with plowing and grazing to near ground level (as opposed to trees or tall grass) increases absorption of solar radiation.
· Urbanization with rooftops, paved roads, paved parking lots increase absorption of solar radiation.
· Melting of pack ice in the Arctic Ocean replaces reflective ice with radiation-absorbing open water (although the open water would also allow more evaporation of moisture leading to more light-reflecting clouds and light-reflecting snow on surrounding lands—both of which increase reflection.).
· Finally, even though the human energy combustion supplying energy to the Earth’s surface is small, those recurring doublings suggest that the human component will start having a noticeable affect in a few decades.
Conclusion: Get your beach towels ready, Montreal, Trondheim, and Point Barrow!
There a number of reasons to expect at least moderate warming in the 21st and 22nd Centuries. First, as the warmers will tell us (whether we are listening or not) there are increased levels of CO2, methane, and other of global warming agents.
More importantly, we are in only the second century of upswing from the end of the Little Ice Age in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The roughly fifteen hundred year cycle moves up on average gradually for six or seven centuries before the shuddering drop, like a roller coaster, into cold weather; therefore, continuation of the natural cycle would be a gradual warming.
Possibly most important, there are ongoing industrial revolutions in what were called the Second World and the Third World in the Twentieth Century. The cliché is BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), but many counties are in a rapidly industrializing phase with economic growth rates of averaging 5% or more each year. That growth makes increases in greenhouse agents inevitable. Because coal-fired energy is a half or a third that of alternate energies, the developing economies will continue using coal first, as well as alternative energies.
We saw it first with China, which started producing more CO2 each year than the United States in about 2005. Barring some calamity, India, Brazil, and other developing countries will follow China in exceeding the U.S. in CO2 emissions because they are growing faster and because coal is presently the cheapest energy source.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) could theoretically allow unlimited coal use without any climate affects, but CCS is still mostly a theoretical concept. Carbon dioxide has been separated out from oil production and put back into permeable strata underground. However, CCS from coal combustion has not been done commercially. The only large-scale use has been pumping CO2 into oil and gas fields to increase production, which of course would contribute to more hydrocarbons for burning.
Even if the world careens into a heavily natural gas economy with one-fifth the CO2 emissions per unit of energy production as compared with a largely coal economy, a tenfold growth in energy use would still double CO2 emissions. History suggests that the world economy will do just that. There was a several-fold economic growth in the Twentieth Century, and energy use increased faster than economic growth.
Think of it in terms of the Rule of 72. Compounding interest or compounding growth can be estimated by dividing the average growth into 72. If the world maintains its historical average, 72 divided by 4 is 24 years for a double; therefore, 48 years is a quadruple, and 72 years is an eightfold increase. A more conservative 2 percent growth would see the eightfold increase in 108 years.
More likely, coal will remain a major part of the expanding energy mix, world growth in CO2 emissions would be more like 5 or 6 percent.
Furthermore, there are other societal inputs that may be small but which make their contributions:
· More intensive agriculture with plowing and grazing to near ground level (as opposed to trees or tall grass) increases absorption of solar radiation.
· Urbanization with rooftops, paved roads, paved parking lots increase absorption of solar radiation.
· Melting of pack ice in the Arctic Ocean replaces reflective ice with radiation-absorbing open water (although the open water would also allow more evaporation of moisture leading to more light-reflecting clouds and light-reflecting snow on surrounding lands—both of which increase reflection.).
· Finally, even though the human energy combustion supplying energy to the Earth’s surface is small, those recurring doublings suggest that the human component will start having a noticeable affect in a few decades.
Conclusion: Get your beach towels ready, Montreal, Trondheim, and Point Barrow!
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