Climate change: What can you do to help halt global warming and when will you do it?

Forums › Off topic › Climate change: What can you do to help halt global warming and when will you do it?

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#2832830 15-Dec-2021 13:19

MikeB4:

You should follow the example of the Wellington harbour ferry and go electric 😀 Charge points off shore could be a problem though and extension cords are a bugger in water.

I did actually do some desktop work on that. A typical day's boating has me covering around 50 miles at around 25 mph (minimum tolerable speed in a moderate sea). Basically there is no way to achieve that electrically and still have a boat that floats. The there is the cost and the fact the boat isn't designed to handle the weights for even a 25 mile range. Plate deformation, 'push through' of the internal structure and eventually water ingress would result. A fundamental problem with e-boats, is that there is on mechanisms for energy recovery during deceleration and deceleration is infrequent.

A design that does work is a catamaran with long narrow hulls (low wetted surface drag and low prismatic drag) in an application with light loads. That's exactly what the new ExW electric ferry is. 135 people (~10,000kg) on a vessel that size is a relatively small load. It's a great design for the application but trying to replicate it within the footprint of a trailer boat would be very difficult.

The other design I have seen working is a foiling design which dramatically reduces wetted surface areas and prismatic drag. I've yet to see footage of one of these boats foiling in any sort of sea state. Getting a 6m boat onto its foils in 1m waves would be interesting, let alone keeping it there. They strike me as a billionaires toy with no application outside of sheltered waters.

I'm currently working with an outboard canoe design for a beach launchable boat for short trips in remote areas. Basically tow a lightweight craft to a fishy location with no boat ramp nearby and launch there. It looks like the electric option is twice the mass and twice the price of the petrol.

Another possibility is a adapting an ebike powertrain to work with a pedal-drive for a kayak - like Hobie's mirage drive or Old Town's PDL.

Mike

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frankv

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#2832967 15-Dec-2021 16:27

Rikkitic:

frankv:

When the IPCC says there's no discernible trend, I'll take that as fact over some anecdotal supposition that there must be a trend.

I read the article (and also a number of other sources) and I get something different. The IPCC is not saying there is no trend. It is saying it cannot (yet) discern one from the available data. This is being appropriately conservative. It is not drawing a conclusion.

Agreed. But you have drawn a conclusion. A "trend" that is so ill-defined and obscure that the IPCC and climatologists cannot see it is, IMHO, non-existent. One could equally claim that there is a trend towards fewer tornadoes with climate warming. Whilst this doesn't fit with scientists' expectations, it does fit the data just as well as your proposition. More data may eventually prove you right, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did, but currently there is no factual basis for your statement.

As always, I'm open to reading your other sources to see what they conclude and how.

Dingbatt

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#2832979 15-Dec-2021 16:58

Rikkitic:

So what argument are you making here? That tornadoes are just the same as they have always been? I don’t think the evidence supports that.

It really doesn’t matter what you “think”. The facts don’t back up you using terms like “super tornado”. The latest swarm of tornados, while horrible and devastating, contained no tornados above F3 on a scale that goes to F5. There were much worse outbreaks in 2011 and 1974. And yes, tornados have been just as bad for the last 150 years. Do some historical research rather than assuming someone with a media degree knows what they are talking about.

As previously pointed out, even the IPCC doesn’t back up your assertions. And it’s not valid to dismiss their findings just because they don’t align. Otherwise, how do you believe any of their information?

At least cite some evidence to back up what you “think” because there is nothing cynical about empirical evidence.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Rikkitic

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#2833035 15-Dec-2021 20:43

OK, you guys win. I am not ego-involved in this so am happy to bow to your superior expertise. I still think there is a trend to bigger and better storms but I am willing to wait on the data. @MikeB4 makes an important point, which I suspect may well be true, that it is not so much the ferocity of weather events but the frequency. I think we will know who is right in the not too distant future. I hope you are, because I am really getting tired of the constant wind battering at my trees.

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MikeAqua

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#2833282 16-Dec-2021 10:07

I'm personally convinced the annual climate patterns are changing. Fish are definitely exhibiting different seasonal distribution patterns over the last 5 - 7 years. I can't say that's in response to climate change, but it does seem to align with different sea surface temperature patterns. For example the West Coast tuna season this year was late and long, but there were lots of fish.

Still correlation is not causation. Otherwise we would blame umbrellas for rain.

Mike

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#2833283 16-Dec-2021 10:09

Fish have always had different distribution patterns, they are never where I am.

SJB

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#2833297 16-Dec-2021 10:26

MikeB4:

Fish have always had different distribution patterns, they are never where I am.

Unless you are eating them.

frankv

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#2833316 16-Dec-2021 11:16

I'll posit an explanation of why tornadoes in particular wouldn't increase, and would perhaps even decrease, in frequency or power with global warming...

Fundamentally, thunder, hail, and tornadoes are caused when an volume of colder air moves over a volume of warmer air. In America, the colder air comes from the Arctic, and warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico. If both increase in temperature by the same amount, then you get more-or-less the same amount of atmospheric instability, and therefore more-or-less the same amount of thunder, hail, and tornadoes.

But, according to the TV1 News last night, the Arctic is warming significantly faster than the rest of the world. So the difference in temperature between the "colder" Arctic air and the "warmer" Gulf air will be significantly less than previously, so I would expect fewer and weaker tornadoes will occur. (Of course, we're not seeing that either... there is no discernible trend).

The above simplistically ignores many other aspects of climate & weather, such as the changing routing of the jetstream, changing tendency towards La Nina or El Nino, absolute temperature effects like dew point, freezing level, and moisture content, and a host of others. Presumably some of these positively affect the frequency and power of tornadoes, which is why (a) some people expect them to get worse, and (b) there is no discernible trend.

MikeB4

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#2833325 16-Dec-2021 11:33

Wouldn't the poles warming destabilise the air over the poles causing that still colder air masses to push down to the warmer continental US airmass. This could create bigger storm cells in greater number that could merge forming more super cells. This unstable air mass could spore more frequent extremes and generate more powerful tornadoes.

KiwiME

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#2834902 17-Dec-2021 11:31

Michael Mann did good short briefing on the US news (CBS?) regarding those tornados. One factor was the current La Nina condition.

My take on what I've learned over the past decade from having a personal interest in the science is that the reason we're seeing issues primarily in the northern hemisphere first is mostly due to the cold mass of Greenland being offset from the north pole vs the less cold mass of the deteriorating polar Arctic sea ice. The result is a shift in the coldness centre towards Greenland.

The jetstreams are influenced both by the cold centre and the spinning Earth. Sometimes the polar jetstream breaks up into two or even three rings and pushes the lower jetstream out and into to lower latitudes. That's the jetstream that creates the typical trough and peaks seen across North America. Around all of the northern hemisphere those "Rossby" waves can sit in one place for a few days either pulling warm equatorial air up or pushing cold arctic air down.

The warm Gulf of Mexico is affected by low-salinity (denser) ice melt water off Greenland which is slowing down the AMOC. The warm Gulf Stream and the Rossby wave situation is what forms the basis for more extreme weather events over N. America.

We are super lucky in NZ that Antarctica is roughly round, centered and partly land ice. But that won't last forever as bits continue to drop off.

PolicyGuy

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#2836473 21-Dec-2021 18:14

My last gas heater was removed yesterday, and replaced by an electric heat pump today.
With NZ grid electricity being >80% renewable, that will make a significant difference to my home's carbon footprint.

The fact that I can keep cool in the summer is pure bonus 😀

Next year, I'll replace the Infinity gas hot water with an electric heat pump system, then I can disconnect the gas, and save ~$1.33/day in gas pipe charge, as well as further reduce my carbon footprint.
Probably I'll put PV panels on the roof at the same time, so I'll have 'free' and carbon-zero hot water

gzt

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#2836475 21-Dec-2021 18:37

PolicyGuy: The fact that I can keep cool in the summer is pure bonus 😀

Not usually a climate bonus in summer with low lakes.. I have the heatpump set to fan only during summer and that's enough to keep a cool house night and day with no cooling at all.

Linuxluver

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#2836477 21-Dec-2021 18:57

Dingbatt:
Rikkitic:

So what argument are you making here? That tornadoes are just the same as they have always been? I don’t think the evidence supports that.

It really doesn’t matter what you “think”. The facts don’t back up you using terms like “super tornado”. The latest swarm of tornados, while horrible and devastating, contained no tornados above F3 on a scale that goes to F5. There were much worse outbreaks in 2011 and 1974. And yes, tornados have been just as bad for the last 150 years. Do some historical research rather than assuming someone with a media degree knows what they are talking about.

As previously pointed out, even the IPCC doesn’t back up your assertions. And it’s not valid to dismiss their findings just because they don’t align. Otherwise, how do you believe any of their information?

At least cite some evidence to back up what you “think” because there is nothing cynical about empirical evidence.

It's hard to attribute any specific weather event to climate change. This is true. It's the pattern over time that tells the story. More storms / droughts and more severe, too, cumulatively. Reading I've done says there is a clear signal there already. But these specific tornados? This year? Too hard to tell.

Though to be fair, waiting for proof of climate change means it's far too late by the time the evidence is there.

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SJB

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#2836587 22-Dec-2021 08:25

PolicyGuy:

The fact that I can keep cool in the summer is pure bonus 😀

That's a complete waste of electricity and not 'green' at all. I never use my heat pumps for cooling.

Open the windows or poke up with it.

1101

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#2836593 22-Dec-2021 08:45

Linuxluver:

Though to be fair, waiting for proof of climate change means it's far too late by the time the evidence is there.

far too late for what ?
We will cope. The earth wont melt .
Humans have lived through major climate changes in the past
The Earth has had periods far far warmer than now , it wasnt a catastrophe , life went on .

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