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Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships may be causing rising sea temperatures
- dmbche 3y agoRelated article from 2018 if anyone wants to read more :https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/01/22/67402/were-about-to-kill-a-massive-accidental-experiment-in-halting-global-warming/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/01/22/67402/were-about...
- taftster 3y agoThank you. I honestly had no context for the discussion, the linked tweet didn't really much help. This article helped clear up the concept and I appreciate the link.
- delecti 3y agoThe first tweet has a picture (graph) that shows the North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly data over the past few decades, and the data for so far in 2023 is significantly higher than any previous year. That's the context. The linked tweet was also the first in a thread which went on to establish the rest of what people are discussing. Twitter only shows the first tweet if you're not logged in though, so you may have reasonably thought it didn't continue beyond that.
- taftster 3y agoYup, I reasonably don't log into twitter anymore.
- Marcan 3y agoThere is also this video from Hank Green discussing this topic a little more: https://youtu.be/dk8pwE3IByg https://youtu.be/dk8pwE3IByg
- calderknight 3y agoRoko has been talking about this for a while. Definitely super interesting.
- barbazoo 3y agoX's threads make even less sense now unless you think everyone you want to reach is on X. Also, just what a dumb name.
- guessmyname 3y agoI will continue calling them Twitter threads, since the domain is still twitter[dot]com.
- klhutchins 3y agoYeah, it still needs to be called twitter, even if it makes you seem out of the loop.
- akomtu 3y agoYou don't have to call it X.
- PradeetPatel 3y agoI'm a bit out of the loop here, but is the letter "X" a part of Elon's company branding? Since that's not the first time he used the letter "X" in that manner. The single letter "X" is brimming with symbolism and implications. Without further explanation we may never know why the rebranding was necessary.
- dangrossman 3y agoHe made his fortune with x.com. That was the online bank he founded then merged with Confinity to become PayPal in 2000, and it was the PayPal IPO that allowed him to invest in Tesla and SpaceX. He's fond enough of his old company name that he bought the domain back years ago, and is now repurposing it.
- atkailash 3y ago[dead]
- brutusborn 3y agoNot a bad thread but misses a critical point. If the Sulfur emissions policies were known for >5 years and discussed for >10 years why aren’t they part of mainstream climate models? The best answer I could find was essentially that models use a proxy for aerosols and so including the new policy might cause “double counting” of this forcing. This ‘conservatism’ caused this effect to be left out of the models. So the story is basically that current mainstream models underestimated warming due to them ignoring this effect. But if they are missing this forcing, what other “insignificant” forcings are missing? Are they positive or negative? Are there other observations that don’t match the models? This has really shaken my faith in the climate science community. I’m starting to think ClimateGate wasn’t the nothingburger the media made it out to be.
- MattGaiser 3y agoClimateGate alleged a conspiracy. This is a difference of assumptions.
- brutusborn 3y agoI’m saying I used to think climategate was all conspiracy theory nonsense. Now I think there was likely an attempt to hide unhelpful data.
- hotdogscout 3y agoClimategate was definitely real even if it obviously does not disprove or relate to human-driven climate change. Scientists are sometimes politically motivated and will resort to lying to push their point. This romanticization of scientists and scientific institutions as inherently above lying and fraud is mythological. I see it happening on engineering research that has zero political relevance, imagine research that does.
- brutusborn 3y agoThe way I see it is the media conflated “ClimateGate deniers think global warming is false” with “ClimateGate deniers think global warming models aren’t scientific.” Any politicised science should be treated with extreme. skepticism
- stephen_g 3y agoI can’t remember who (maybe he’s quoted further in the thread than I quickly scrolled) but there’s a scientist who has been talking about this on Twitter for a long time (when I used to use it). Pretty scary these things can happen, but he was warning basically we are further along with global heating than we thought and this pollution was just masking some of the effect in the Northern Hemsiphere of CO2 we’d already released. We were always going to have to stop sulfur emissions, might have just been better perhaps to have a bit more gradual phase out to soften the shock…
- ChatGTP 3y agoSorry if it's a naive question but if it was actually helping the situation, why do we need to stop? So it seems the sulfur was removed for the obvious season that it's not good for respiratory health, but it may be a necessary evil for sometime ?
- shinryuu 3y agoAlso contributes to ocean acidification which isn't great.
- developer93 3y agoSpecifically because it kills sea life which reduces the amount of carbon the sea can hold. And for a lot more reasons.
- cubefox 3y agoThere are people saying we should not just not stop, but even increase sulfur injection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio... The thing is, this is not a one time solution. We would have to do it continuously, or else the temperature would quickly rise again. And we would have to increase sulphur injection if the CO2 level keeps rising. It could be a temporary solution though, e.g. until all countries switch to nuclear energy eventually and reduce CO2 emissions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rplst8 3y agoThe fact that the loss of particulate matter in the atmosphere increases warming has been known for at least two decades. This is not surprising to me. It started years ago when scrubbers began to be installed on coal power plants and continued with low sulphur diesel requirements that started 15 years ago.
- developer93 3y agoDepends on the size of the particle, no? Some sizes can have the opposite effect afaik.
- BenFranklin100 3y agoEither the world accepts that nuclear energy along with wind and solar is part of the solution to climate change, or we will be forced into geoengineering solutions. We may have already reached that point.
- jonathankoren 3y agoWe’re past the point that nuclear can help. We broke the planet. But hey. “Needs more study.” and academics are living large, unlike the poor billionaires.
- RandomLensman 3y ago[flagged]
- nequo 3y agoIt came broken in the mail?
- RandomLensman 3y agoIt broke many times throughout its history. There is just zero evidence that we cannot adjust, mitigate, prevent etc. - otherwise we might as well do nothing because we are all doomed anyway.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoYou say zero evidence. Would you like to review a graph of global CO2 emissions over the last 30 years?
- RandomLensman 3y agoIrrelevant to what humans can do. If anything speaks to human geoengineering ability.
- 38 3y agoNon crap link http://farside.link/twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1687535525169930241 http://farside.link/twitter.com/hankgreen/status/16875355251...
- hnuser0000 3y agoThis lacks scientific models or sources that quantify the magnitude of the reduction in ship tracks and the resulting impact on sea temperatures. They are not in the science.org article[1] he links either. Usually posts with little evidence and the use of the phrase "may be causing" result in flagged posts, but not when it fits a certain narrative? [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unforeseen-test-geoengineering-fueling-record-ocean-warmth https://www.science.org/content/article/changing-clouds-unfo...
- nosefurhairdo 3y agoTowards the end of that article were links to a few studies. Here's the first linked study I found: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0
- hnuser0000 3y agoThat study says little about fewer ship tracks causing sea warming and nothing about the magnitude of any possible sea warming.
- nosefurhairdo 3y agoIf you'd made it through the abstract you would have read how ship tracks cause cooling.
- ankit219 3y agoSee this thread: https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1633566568528375811 https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1633566568528375811 It still lacks scientific models, though it is too recent a phenomenon for us to have an accurate modelling. Even then, in the last three years we had La Nina which kept the temperatures cold, while this year it's el Nino which is increasing the effect. Leon Simons presented his findings in front of aerosol society. I also wanted to ask, what is the certain narrative it fits?
- uxamanda 3y agoFor anyone interested in a near-future sci-fi look at how sulfur as a form of geoengineering might play out, check out out Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson[0]. The title[1] refers to what happens when you suddenly stop an effort like that... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering#Maintenance_and_termination_shock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering#Maintenan...
- siwatanejo 3y agoI'm still kinda surprised that no novel from Neal have become films or TV shows yet.
- zwily 3y agoThere’s been talk of a Seveneves movie or mini series for years….
- adzm 3y agoSnow Crash has passed hands a few times as well.
- epivosism 3y agoThe final 1/3 of the book would be an amazing role-playing scenario. When you think about it, it's almost designed that way. The underground area, the floaters, the various "classes" of people we meet, their interesting combinations...
- junofan 3y agoIt does sound like a relatively small change yielded an outsized impact on the climate. This gives me hope for future climate solutions.
- forgetfreeman 3y agoIt probably shouldn't. Unless those solutions happen to be an unintended byproduct of some other global-scale profit making activity.
- montalbano 3y agoA better wording for the title: Reduction of sulfur emissions from ships has reduced masking of global warming The word 'cause' in current title seems wrong.
- HardlyCurious 3y agoIn terms of total global heat content sure. In terms of surface ocean temp, I'm not so sure you have a point. It's a pretty indirect path for greenhouse gasses to heat the ocean, and they can't push the water above the temp of their air. Less shade however can cause solar heating well above air temperatures.
- ericjmorey 3y agoI don't know that you've considered the effects of more vs less ice covering the ocean.
- NhanH 3y agoYour suggested title is both vaguer and probably more wrong too: the thread claimed that cloud literally reflected the sunlight, causing less heat to go to the sea surface, there is no "masking" involved. The current title is precise, the tweet chain is about sea surface temperature and the cause-effect of sulfur emission on the temperature. While it is related to global warming, and there might be other causes to sea surface warming as well, that is not what was discussed.
- teawrecks 3y agoYour rewording is inaccurate. There is no masking, it was actually reflecting energy away from earth, reducing warming. This is important because, turns out, we unintentionally ran an ethically dubious climate engineering experiment, the results of which can now be used to inform future possible climate engineering efforts.
- moultano 3y agoThis article suggests it probably isn't the main cause: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin... There was also an underwater volcano that put a lot of water vapor in the upper atmosphere that could be a culprit. (On top of the ongoing trend of warming of course.) https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-risk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-im...
- joecool1029 3y agohttps://nitter.net/hankgreen/status/1687535525169930241 https://nitter.net/hankgreen/status/1687535525169930241 (working link for those without account) It's an interesting observation but I would want to know if bunker emissions from ships matched coal emissions from high sulfur coal or diesel emissions prior to the around year 2007 transition from low sulfur diesel to ultra low sulfur diesel had as much of an impact. Remember there was a huge concern for acid rain in the 1980's and 1990's and cutting atmospheric SO2 pretty much eliminated it. Not discounting that coal is terrible for lots of reasons but there's a ton of variability on types of coal. One of the core reasons the coal industry pulled out of Appalachia is there were lower-sulfur deposits out in Wyoming... Some gov data: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37752 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37752 EDIT: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/emissions-of-sulfur-dioxyde-so2-by-sector-and-scenario-2015-and-2040 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/emissions-of-... Transportation is a small % of emissions compared to energy generation. There's been a regional shift though as North America moved to sulfur controls earlier for energy generation (1990) than Europe, and Asia has begun to climb as these regions went into decline.
- nologic01 3y agoThe enthusiasm with geoengineering among the HN community is worrisome. Not sure which computing analogy would drive home the complete recklessness of this mentality but the Earth is not something you can reboot to the last working state once you harebrained patch implodes. It is true that we have been slowly geoengineering for ages (initially unwittingly, recently with eyes wide open) and it is also true that our modeling abilities increase but this is quite far from making us experts in geoengineering. For the short term future (decades) the only strategy that seems to make sense on the face of epistemic uncertainty is to refrain from aggravating the situation while studying ever more deeply the system we are now perturbing so much. Our biggest mental deficiency when handling complexity is that we cant think holistically in practical ways. Isolating individual factors and applying linear thinking has worked wonders in isolated problems but it is not cutting it here.
- defrost 3y ago> which computing analogy Ooops... bricked it :(
- junofan 3y agoYeah but I think natural experiments like low-sulfur marine fuel adoption can point to areas where we can find reversible interim solutions.
- rgmerk 3y agoGeoengineering is bad. The problem is that the alternatives may be even worse.
- nostrebored 3y agoThe more radical geoengineering ideas, like deflecting sunlight from space, are truly potential extinction level events that should be regulated out of existence. This should not be some VC funded endeavor.
- defrost 3y agoI'm no great fan of geoengineering, however ... The idea to inflate space foam reflective bubbles to reduce incoming sunlight is one of the saner geoengineering proposals: * It can start small and grow to measure incremental effect, * It's orthogonal to any unintended effects as it happens in isolation and isn't deeply coupled to things unknown in the same sense as aerosols and atmospheric chemistry is. * It's reversable as bubbles can be popped and no longer exist to reflect and have an effect. > This should not be some VC funded endeavor. Yeah, on this we can agree- a high degree of global nation state consensus is what's called for with most climate action .. like the 1970s UN agreements that got effectively sunk by unending Koch et al oil bro's negative media campaigning and lobbying. 'Lone' capitalists do seem to have undue sway in matters that impact billions.
- keepamovin 3y ago[flagged]
- iamflimflam1 3y agoI’ve unfortunately come to the conclusion that we are buggered. Watching politics in the U.K. and the rest of the world I’m seeing politicians realise that they can tap into the populist idea that anything green is “the elites trying to control and tax you”. All they care about us short term election prospects.
- avgcorrection 3y agoA weird but predictable thing to fixate on, just like people blame their aunt Peggy for things that were set in motion decades prior. Populism is basically a slur for an impotent and chaotic democracy, but the media that planted this idea in your brain never take things to their logical conclusion and critique the so-called democracies themselves for some reason.
- concordDance 3y agoA lot of "green" policies are holier than thou people trying to impose their lifestyle preferences in ways that don't actually help. Good examples are the anti-nuclear power movement and the nonsense that is plastic "recycling".
- notacoward 3y agoAlso "new urbanism" that's just people who want more bike(-only) paths for recreation. Yes, there is such a thing as better urban design that reduces car dependency. There are real bike commuters. I totally respect and tangibly support both, due to environmental and other concerns. But I'm not interested in hearing from people who oppose mass transit, abuse pedestrians, and regularly drive their bikes (as aggressively as they ride) to the rally point for their recreational large-group rides. That's not advocacy for anything but oneself.
- psychphysic 3y agoWhoopsie daisy. Cold acidic oceans, or warm sulphur free ones?
- zith 3y agoClimate models take this into account [0], contrary to what some people here seem to imply. It is also very likely that this is part of, but not the major factor of recent warming. [1] I would like to point out that this is not something we're just figuring out "this week" as Hank Green seems to want to frame it. There's no need to sensationalize. There is no conspiracy here. This is well known. It's good to educate people, but it sucks that even good educators have to crawl in the click-bait mud to reach people. [0] https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1444679408573419520 https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1444679408573419520 [1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
- jjallen 3y agoyeah unfortunately if some people are click-baity it makes it where basically everyone has to be if they want to maximize their views/revenue on YouTube.
- shawnz 3y agoWe all have a responsibility to be the strongest possible advocates of our own opinions
- adamesque 3y agoWe absolutely do not. We have a responsibility to seek out the truth and act in the interest of the common good. Quite often this means NOT strongly or blindly advocating our own opinions when our knowledge is incomplete or motivated by self-interest. Many times our responsibility is to advocate someone else’s opinion or present multiple options. I have many many opinions and very few of them would benefit from my strongest advocacy.
- shawnz 3y agoWhy would you hold opinions that you don't think would benefit from your strongest advocacy? Why believe things yourself that you don't think other people should believe? To be clear, I'm not saying that you should strongly advocate for other people to strongly believe things that you only weakly believe. But you should strongly advocate for other people to weakly believe those things. Furthermore, I don't think strong advocacy implies closing your mind to differing opinions. You can be a strong advocate for your current viewpoint while also being willing to change your mind.
- paganel 3y agoMeanwhile, in Tonga: "Tonga experiences unusual cold during El Nino alert" [1] > Tonga's Meteorology Department said on Friday that the Pacific island country is experiencing unusually cold weather, with cool days and cooler nights, and climate is leaning towards El Nino conditions. > According to the Matangi Tonga news website, a low of 9.3 degrees Celsius, recorded at the end of July in Tongatapu island where the capital Nuku'alofa is located, was the lowest on record for the island country of this year. But because it goes against the hysteria of the "world is boiling!" this didn't get posted in here, nor was it taken by the major Western news sources (I cannot find it on the BBC website, for example). It's the COVID hysteria all over again. [1] https://english.news.cn/20230804/c739b0bc8f684fe9991e5c026109dfdd/c.html https://english.news.cn/20230804/c739b0bc8f684fe9991e5c02610...
- brabel 3y agoDo you intentionally ignore advice that's constantly posted here and elsewhere to NEVER take local events that go against the trends as evidence against the trends, or you're just new here and on any discussion of this topic and just didn't know that? Even parts of Antartica are currently cooling down, that's very well known and even expected according to climate models. But no, that's not evidence against global warming.
- paganel 3y ago> NEVER take local events No-one was commenting that when the news piece about record high temps in the Andes was posted in here recently, I could ask myself rethorically why did that happen but we both know the answer. Either way, I’m sure going to copy-paste your suggestion on all such future discussions related to “local events” that will only help fuel the hysteria. It won’t do any help, as the recent pandemic has shown that there’s no real remedy against localized hysteria, but I can try.
- victorbstan 3y agoSounds like some excuse from shipping companies to avoid cleaning up their act.
- leke 3y agoIf you feel bad about this, perhaps go and find some Just stop oil protesters and take out your frustration on them. Perhaps drag them around by their hair, or kick them in the heads. It's easy, they're sitting on the floor, so it's low hanging fruit.
- visarga 3y ago<offtopic>Does this Twitter link open for you in Chrome? Lately I have had less than 50% success rate opening Twitter. I just see a blank page with an X in the middle.</>
- dosenbrot 3y agoIt’s off topic, but am I the only one who wanted to press the x button in the top left corner to close the window?
- skymast 3y ago[dead]
- stainablesteel 3y agointeresting thread, so the multitudinal effects of gas output came back with more nuance than anyone expected. the oversimplified explanations of "this gas bad" are finally worth collapsing because nothing only ever does just one thing. on the bright side, if this cloud seeding business helps keep everything cooled, i suppose that's a good takeaway.
- AJRF 3y agoI'd wager a lot of money we've not seen that last of humanity screwing around with the climate in well-intentioned but bad-outcome ways. Is there a name for this phenomenon of harmful actions because by an "increase" of understanding of the underlying system? I imagine there are similar outcomes in many areas, politics, economics, code bases. Kind of like requiring helmets (protect personal health) for cycling leading to less cyclists (poorer health outcomes for a population)
- csense 3y agoOverconfidence? Hubris? "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
- Kikawala 3y agoReminds me of something similar in Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel)
- another_bear 3y agoDoes he do that thing where 1/2 or 3/4 of the way though he resets the story completely leaving you with absolutely no emotional attachment to the resolution of the plot? *Cough*seveneves, fall or dodge....those are the only ones I could stand more than a few pages. Sorry I just cannot bear to read anymore of his novels. The first few pages of Anathem I can hear him building a house in his own anal cavity. We get it, Niel, you know some big words. We all do.
- based-nerd 3y agoLOL. Right.
- notmypenguin 3y agoWhat a misleading headline. “Exacerbating” ocean heating, perhaps, but THE primary cause is anthropogenic combustion of fossil fuels.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoSo we were accidentally cooling by polluting? I don't think that is good argument to start polluting again. Sulfur does have downsides, like acid rain.