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The astonishing amount of gas being flared off from US shale production can be seen from space. Nobody is actually reducing emissions as far as I can tell, we a

The astonishing amount of gas being flared off from US shale production can be seen from space. Nobody is actually reducing emissions as far as I can tell, we are running the experiment of far more that 2°C increases in temperature. What should we expect to happen at say 3.5°C?

hanniabu 3y ago
> What should we expect to happen at say 3.5°C? More meetings and deliberations
simonhorlick 3y ago
Anything about 2C is extremely risky for civilised society. It’s likely that we’ve already surpassed the tipping point for the West Antarctic ice sheet which over time will lead to meters of sea level rise. Changing weather patterns and simultaneous breadbasket failures will mean food becomes a lot more expensive - if you’re lucky enough to have access to it at all. At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable. People aren’t able to work outside for much of the year due to wet bulb temperatures. Regular storm surge causes a large percentage of the planets population to migrate. Salination of ground water and water for crop irrigation becomes a serious problem. Mountain glaciers that provide clean drinking water for millions of people dry up. In all, it’s hard to see a situation where we’d be able to maintain a reasonable quality of life under the conditions of >2C of warming.
- logicchains 3y ago
  >At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable Which places in particular? Here in the middle east temperatures regularly get up to 45-50 degrees celsius in the summer and people get by okay. Most places have average temperatures much lower than that, so how would a rise of just 3-4 degress make then uninhabitable?
  - heavyset_go 3y ago
    Humidity is a big factor in whether heat is bearable or not, and 3.5C is an average over the entire globe. Some places will get much hotter than just 3.5C, some places won't.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    There is also humidity. The desert is dry, so you can still perspire and cool down that way; but in a humid place like, say, India it is possible that temperatures will rise high enough that the human body cannot perspire to cool down via evaporation, at which point it would be dangerous to be outside.
    - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
      Indeed "Wet-bulb temperature" is likely to be the thing that will make several densely populated places in Asia uninhabitable. Bangladesh alone is +170M people. Dispacing these people will be a refugee crisis on an unseen scale.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    +3.5C mean global temperatures means swings of, say, +- 10C in various places at various times.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    A 3.5 degree global average increase is much more pronounced on land.
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    It used to confuse me too..now I think I get it. The issue isn't all thermometers going up by 3.5 degC. The issue is that it also brings a host of other changes, and it's those things that kill you. They include: - higher variability of temperatures. So your +3.5 degC actually makes heatwaves of +10/+15 more likely - changing rainfall patterns, taking rain away from some places that rely on it. - rising sea level, where the small average temperature changes are sufficient for a significant increase. I actually think the focus on global average temperature increase is a major failure of public science communication, precisely because everyone mentally adds the increase to their local climate and thinks "meh".
  - D_Alex 3y ago
    >temperatures regularly get up to 45-50 degrees celsius in the summer and people get by okay Largely because the 45-50 degree temperature do not last very long. And partly because AC loss due to prolonged blackouts has not happened during such heat - yet. A 3-4 degree increase in average temperature means that 45-50 degree temperature periods may go from lasting 1-3 days to 2-3 weeks. And that's a whole new ball game.
  - Alpha3031 3y ago
    A quick summary of the takeaways of Vecellio et al.'s recent (October 2023) paper (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120) indicate that at +3.5 °C GMST we should expect high exposure to uncompensable heat stress every year primary around the Indus River Valley (India and surrounding countries) and the highly populated cities in eastern China. In North America, there is some exposure starting at +3°C but until +4 °C those exposures do not become substantial in the typical year. Another thing noted is that urban features such as green spaces, water features, and increased shade may work where exceedance is typically nonhumid (i.e., North America, Middle East, Australia), these factors may not be as effective or even actively detrimental in more humid environments due to the added humidity.
chrisco255 3y ago
We're nowhere near any such levels. Temperature trends are roughly 0.13C per decade and have not accelerated in spite of the bigger issue of nations like China and India expanding global coal demand.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Climate scientists disagree, see for example the IPCC reports. Or here https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    The IPCC has continually overestimated warming for the last 3 decades [5]. 23 years ago, climate scientists were predicting that, "snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event" and that "Children just aren't going to know what snow is" [1], in Britain. In 2008, James Hansen, an influential climate scientist at Columbia predicted the Arctic would be ice free in the summer by 2018 [3]. Instead, the sea ice trend reversed in 2012 and since rebounded to higher levels than when Hansen made the prediction [4]. Furthermore, the predictions of dire consequences as a result of CO2 increase or mild warming have not materialized. Instead global biomass has dramatically increased and crop yields continue to achieve record highs, which is what you would predict as a result of increased plant growth from CO2 fertilization [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150912124604/http:/www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150912124604/http:/www.indepen... [2] https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/ https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization... [3] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=... [4] https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-cover https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-... [5] https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projecti...
ekianjo 3y ago
> astonishing amount of gas being flared off from US shale production can be seen from space Everything can be seen from space...
- badpun 3y ago
  Except for things covered with e.g. tree canopy.
- rocqua 3y ago
  Diffraction limits truly prevent seeing an ant from space.
  - dotancohen 3y ago
    At visible wavelengths. Far ultraviolet may help, and of course inference techniques such as image stacking are commonplace in reconnaissance satellites.
    - adrianN 3y ago
      Far UV won’t make it through the atmosphere.
      - dotancohen 3y ago
        Minor detail ))
- andy_ppp 3y ago
  Okay, if you want to be pedantic, 1.3% of all CO2 emissions come from gas flaring (500 Million Tonnes annually on roughly 37.15 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted). Seems like a lot to me at a time when we are meant to be reducing all greenhouse gasses. It might be better to build power stations near these shale deposits to reduce coal and use this resource rather than pollution for no gain.
iraqmtpizza 3y ago
First you claim to care about CO2 emissions, then you're mad when natural gas emits a bit of light pollution while eliminating coal and wood burning
- uxp8u61q 3y ago
  I'm confused, GP didn't say anything about CO2 emissions specifically. GP said "emissions". Methane emissions are bad too.
- andy_ppp 3y ago
  The gas from shale oil production is just pure pollution, it's not being used for anything so they burn it off into the atmosphere.
  - once_inc 3y ago
    At 90% efficiency
- once_inc 3y ago
  Natural gas flaring requires you to consider two things: 1. Flaring isn't efficient. You only burn about 90% of the gas, the rest leaks into the atmosphere. 2. Gas includes Methane. Methane is a 10x more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, though it lasts considerably less long (about 10y i believe). This means that a single well flaring methane is emitting just as much as 10 wells just releasing co2 into the air. To combat this, we need to install an internal combustion engine attached to something to bleed the energy generated by the engine into something else. Traditionally, this is not something affordable. There is a significant upfront cost, and very few solutions to use the energy, as most of these installations are far removed from the grid. Luckily, there is a new solution that can make this a profitable situation for everyone. It is rapidly seeing more interest, and it is even powering a system that can benefit everyone in the world: Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining requires cheap, dependable energy. It doesn't require a grid connection, and adding a satellite connection is enough to start mining. You can drive a single container full of mining ASICs onsite, and maintenance is mostly possible off-site.

hanniabu 3y ago

> What should we expect to happen at say 3.5°C? More meetings and deliberations

simonhorlick 3y ago

Anything about 2C is extremely risky for civilised society. It’s likely that we’ve already surpassed the tipping point for the West Antarctic ice sheet which over time will lead to meters of sea level rise. Changing weather patterns and simultaneous breadbasket failures will mean food becomes a lot more expensive - if you’re lucky enough to have access to it at all. At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable. People aren’t able to work outside for much of the year due to wet bulb temperatures. Regular storm surge causes a large percentage of the planets population to migrate. Salination of ground water and water for crop irrigation becomes a serious problem. Mountain glaciers that provide clean drinking water for millions of people dry up. In all, it’s hard to see a situation where we’d be able to maintain a reasonable quality of life under the conditions of >2C of warming.

logicchains 3y ago
>At 3.5C many places on the planet become uninhabitable Which places in particular? Here in the middle east temperatures regularly get up to 45-50 degrees celsius in the summer and people get by okay. Most places have average temperatures much lower than that, so how would a rise of just 3-4 degress make then uninhabitable?
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  Humidity is a big factor in whether heat is bearable or not, and 3.5C is an average over the entire globe. Some places will get much hotter than just 3.5C, some places won't.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  There is also humidity. The desert is dry, so you can still perspire and cool down that way; but in a humid place like, say, India it is possible that temperatures will rise high enough that the human body cannot perspire to cool down via evaporation, at which point it would be dangerous to be outside.
  - DoingIsLearning 3y ago
    Indeed "Wet-bulb temperature" is likely to be the thing that will make several densely populated places in Asia uninhabitable. Bangladesh alone is +170M people. Dispacing these people will be a refugee crisis on an unseen scale.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  +3.5C mean global temperatures means swings of, say, +- 10C in various places at various times.
- adrianN 3y ago
  A 3.5 degree global average increase is much more pronounced on land.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  It used to confuse me too..now I think I get it. The issue isn't all thermometers going up by 3.5 degC. The issue is that it also brings a host of other changes, and it's those things that kill you. They include: - higher variability of temperatures. So your +3.5 degC actually makes heatwaves of +10/+15 more likely - changing rainfall patterns, taking rain away from some places that rely on it. - rising sea level, where the small average temperature changes are sufficient for a significant increase. I actually think the focus on global average temperature increase is a major failure of public science communication, precisely because everyone mentally adds the increase to their local climate and thinks "meh".
- D_Alex 3y ago
  >temperatures regularly get up to 45-50 degrees celsius in the summer and people get by okay Largely because the 45-50 degree temperature do not last very long. And partly because AC loss due to prolonged blackouts has not happened during such heat - yet. A 3-4 degree increase in average temperature means that 45-50 degree temperature periods may go from lasting 1-3 days to 2-3 weeks. And that's a whole new ball game.
- Alpha3031 3y ago
  A quick summary of the takeaways of Vecellio et al.'s recent (October 2023) paper (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120) indicate that at +3.5 °C GMST we should expect high exposure to uncompensable heat stress every year primary around the Indus River Valley (India and surrounding countries) and the highly populated cities in eastern China. In North America, there is some exposure starting at +3°C but until +4 °C those exposures do not become substantial in the typical year. Another thing noted is that urban features such as green spaces, water features, and increased shade may work where exceedance is typically nonhumid (i.e., North America, Middle East, Australia), these factors may not be as effective or even actively detrimental in more humid environments due to the added humidity.

chrisco255 3y ago

We're nowhere near any such levels. Temperature trends are roughly 0.13C per decade and have not accelerated in spite of the bigger issue of nations like China and India expanding global coal demand.

adrianN 3y ago
Climate scientists disagree, see for example the IPCC reports. Or here https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/ https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisco255 3y ago
  The IPCC has continually overestimated warming for the last 3 decades [5]. 23 years ago, climate scientists were predicting that, "snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event" and that "Children just aren't going to know what snow is" [1], in Britain. In 2008, James Hansen, an influential climate scientist at Columbia predicted the Arctic would be ice free in the summer by 2018 [3]. Instead, the sea ice trend reversed in 2012 and since rebounded to higher levels than when Hansen made the prediction [4]. Furthermore, the predictions of dire consequences as a result of CO2 increase or mild warming have not materialized. Instead global biomass has dramatically increased and crop yields continue to achieve record highs, which is what you would predict as a result of increased plant growth from CO2 fertilization [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150912124604/http:/www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html https://web.archive.org/web/20150912124604/http:/www.indepen... [2] https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-finds/ https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization... [3] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=... [4] https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-cover https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-... [5] https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/ https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projecti...

ekianjo 3y ago

> astonishing amount of gas being flared off from US shale production can be seen from space Everything can be seen from space...

badpun 3y ago
Except for things covered with e.g. tree canopy.
rocqua 3y ago
Diffraction limits truly prevent seeing an ant from space.
- dotancohen 3y ago
  At visible wavelengths. Far ultraviolet may help, and of course inference techniques such as image stacking are commonplace in reconnaissance satellites.
  - adrianN 3y ago
    Far UV won’t make it through the atmosphere.
    - dotancohen 3y ago
      Minor detail ))
andy_ppp 3y ago
Okay, if you want to be pedantic, 1.3% of all CO2 emissions come from gas flaring (500 Million Tonnes annually on roughly 37.15 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted). Seems like a lot to me at a time when we are meant to be reducing all greenhouse gasses. It might be better to build power stations near these shale deposits to reduce coal and use this resource rather than pollution for no gain.

iraqmtpizza 3y ago

First you claim to care about CO2 emissions, then you're mad when natural gas emits a bit of light pollution while eliminating coal and wood burning

uxp8u61q 3y ago
I'm confused, GP didn't say anything about CO2 emissions specifically. GP said "emissions". Methane emissions are bad too.
andy_ppp 3y ago
The gas from shale oil production is just pure pollution, it's not being used for anything so they burn it off into the atmosphere.
- once_inc 3y ago
  At 90% efficiency
once_inc 3y ago
Natural gas flaring requires you to consider two things: 1. Flaring isn't efficient. You only burn about 90% of the gas, the rest leaks into the atmosphere. 2. Gas includes Methane. Methane is a 10x more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, though it lasts considerably less long (about 10y i believe). This means that a single well flaring methane is emitting just as much as 10 wells just releasing co2 into the air. To combat this, we need to install an internal combustion engine attached to something to bleed the energy generated by the engine into something else. Traditionally, this is not something affordable. There is a significant upfront cost, and very few solutions to use the energy, as most of these installations are far removed from the grid. Luckily, there is a new solution that can make this a profitable situation for everyone. It is rapidly seeing more interest, and it is even powering a system that can benefit everyone in the world: Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mining requires cheap, dependable energy. It doesn't require a grid connection, and adding a satellite connection is enough to start mining. You can drive a single container full of mining ASICs onsite, and maintenance is mostly possible off-site.