Earth on Track to Heat Up to Devastating Levels by 2100, Says New Research Posted by: News Nov 20, 2016 in Science Climate Change Isn’t as Bad as We Think, It’s Worse Than We Thought. "It is well-established in the scientific community that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels result in global warming, but the magnitude of the effect may vary depending on average global temperature. A new study, published this week in Science Advances and led by Tobias Friedrich from the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, concludes that warm climates are more sensitive to changes in CO2 levels than cold climates. "Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause an imbalance in the Earth’s heat budget: more heat is retained than expelled, which in turn generates global surface warming. Climate sensitivity is a term used to describe the amount of warming expected to result after an increase in the concentration of CO2. This number is traditionally calculated using complex computer models of the climate system, but despite decades of progress, the number is still subject to uncertainty. A new method for finding climate sensitivity "The new study, which included scientists from the University of Washington, University at Albany and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, took a different approach in calculating climate sensitivity—using data from the history of Earth. The researchers examined various reconstructions of past temperatures and CO2 levels to determine how the climate system has responded to previous changes in its energy balance. “The first step was to reconstruct the history of global mean temperatures for the last 784,000 years, using combined data from marine sediment cores, ice cores and computer simulations covering the last eight glacial cycles,” said Friedrich, a postdoctoral researcher at IPRC. "The second step involved calculating the Earth’s energy balance for this time period, using estimates of greenhouse gas concentrations extracted from air bubbles in ice cores, and incorporating astronomical factors, known as Milankovitch Cycles, that effect the planetary heat budget. “Our results imply that the Earth’s sensitivity to variations in atmospheric CO2 increases as the climate warms,” explained Friedrich. “Currently, our planet is in a warm phase—an interglacial period—and the associated increased climate sensitivity needs to be taken into account for future projections of warming induced by human activities.” Earth’s past helps to inform about its future "Using these estimates based on Earth’s paleoclimate sensitivity, the authors computed the warming over the next 85 years that could result from a human-induced, business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission scenario. The researchers project that by the year 2100, global temperatures will rise 5.9°C (~10.5°F) above pre-industrial values. This magnitude of warming overlaps with the upper range of estimates presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Our study also allows us to put our 21st century temperatures into the context of Earth’s history. Paleoclimate data can actually teach us a lot about our future,” said Axel Timmermann, co-author of the study and professor at UH Mānoa. "The results of the study demonstrate that unabated human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are likely to push Earth’s climate out of the envelope of temperature conditions that have prevailed for the last 784,000 years. “The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” concluded Friedrich." Agencies/Canadajournal http://canadajournal.net/science/ea...ing-levels-2100-says-new-research-53190-2016/
The point Einstein makes is indeed it would only take one single scientific observation , and not one has yet shown either (Relativity or AGW) to be wrong.
To Save Coal, Trump Has To Raise Your Gas Bill 3 / 25 Forbes Get the app Jeff McMahon, Contributor 8 hrs ago © Provided by Forbes Media LLC Republicans and Democrats both have reasons for perpetuating the idea of a ”war on coal,” energy experts said this week, but the decline in coal’s fortunes stems largely from competition with natural gas. “Both sides have a vested interest in the storyline for their constituencies: one, that the government is putting them out of work, and on the other side, that they’re reducing emissions,” said Steve Cicala, an expert on the economics of regulation and professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. “And their respective constituencies love that story whether it’s true or not.” The story’s not true, Cicala contends, so there’s little a President Donald Trump could do to improve coal’s prospects or to save the jobs of coal miners by ending a government war on coal. To keep his campaign promise to revive the coal industry, he has to find a way raise the price of natural gas. “The only thing that’s going to help these coal-fired power plants stay open and keep operating is if the price of natural gas goes up,” Cicala said in a released Friday by the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. “That’s the only thing that’s going to make it economical to be firing up these plants.” The president has limited power to affect gas prices, especially with most of America’s gas flowing from fracked domestic wells on private property. But the government could promote natural-gas exports, which would bring the domestic price into closer balance with the price in Europe, where gas costs twice as much, and in Japan, where it costs four times as much. That would raise prices for Americans who use gas to heat their homes, and it might help the coal industry. But it also might not, because renewables, also suppressed by low gas prices, are likely to seize much of the opportunity. “In that sense,” added environmental economist and EPIC executive director Sam Ori, “it doesn’t really seem like there’s much a President Trump can do to bring back those coal jobs.” During the campaign, focused on removing bureaucratic and political barriers to oil and gas development in the U.S., citing North Dakota’s fracking revolution as its primary example of American energy potential. But he also promised a coal revival, to “get ready because you’re going to be working your asses off.”... http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...-to-raise-your-gas-bill/ar-AAkwcnz?li=BBnb7Kz
This article is completely off in regards to coal. A large portion of mined coal in the U.S. is traditionally used to power electric plants. The majority of electricity in many states, including North Carolina, still comes from coal fired power plants. The article attempts to make a case that the demise of coal is not due to government policy but simply due to cheap natural gas. This is incorrect. The closing of coal power plants in our state and many others is directly related to the policies of the Obama administration -- which has been forcing the power companies to close the plants rather than attempt to continue their operation. The most obscene of these policies being one which required the power plants remove hard particle scrubbers installed over the recent decade and replace them with CO2 scrubbers to fight "global warming" which put out even more hard particle pollution -- which of course would ensure the plants violate state/regional hard particle guidelines & would be forced to close down (ignoring that the Obama administration was pushing a pollution policy to increase hard particle pollution in our air to make people sick). Let's be very clear -- if Trump rolls back the Obama's administration "war on coal" then the mining jobs will be resurrected. The power companies have a huge sunk cost into existing coal-fired power plants over decades, and the the cost of operating these plants under pre-Obama regulations is much less than building new natural gas-fired power plants. It should also be noted that an abundant supply of coal is much closer to North Carolina (in West Virginia) than an abundant supply of natural gas. It is a farce to claim that the price of natural gas is the sole cause of the demise of the coal industry. Most of the demise of coal in our region was primarily driven by the regulations imposed by the Obama administration.