There was an interesting article by David Andelman in global media suggesting that President Donald Trump should consider recent hurricane victims as a wake-up call on climate change.
He also suggested that President Trump should get back on board with the Paris Accord. In this respect, I would like to indicate how I see Paris Accord going to put the entire mankind’s future in jeopardy. The day somebody shows me how Paris Accord would direct mankind to handle water-related disasters – there are enough and more reports by international agencies to depict their magnitudes and hurricanes happen to be a continuous reminder – I would support it wholeheartedly. What I see today is exactly the opposite; Paris Accord will bring us more hurricanes and enormous misery to mankind. There would be too many Puerto Ricos than others could handle.
Andelman has, of course, quoted from an article by MIT’s Prof. Kerry Emanuel in the Nature magazine which says that “climate change potentially affects the frequency, intensity and tracks of tropical cyclones”.
Nobody would challenge this generic statement about climate change; but what is not clear is how Paris Accord would reduce (i) climate change and (ii) more water vapour getting into the atmosphere.
In the Paris Accord, there are a few statements about global temperature increasing and greenhouse gases contributing towards this. So Paris Accord wants us to reduce emitting greenhouse gases and in that process, it wants us to generate more immediate rain.
In order to ensure my own bearings are right, I quote from two interesting articles about these. One is Prof. Emanuel’s recent article in the Nature magazine on “Will Global warming make hurricane forecasting more difficult?” and the other is a document about the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project called CMIP5 by climate scientists and researchers. First, I will talk about CMIP5 as Prof. Emanuel’s article also refers to this.
CMIP5
These models are simple in appearance when expressed as the platform, but once you identify the model, the detailed workings, whether with CMIP5 or previous versions CMIP3 etc., using computer software packages etc. are complicated and sophisticated. What I want to emphasize is that there seems to be an issue with the basic platforms shown below. Let us look at platform C which deals with interactions of carbon and CO2 system with the physical models on the right side of the sketch and how the whole set up is influenced by natural and anthropogenic perturbations. The major issue with this platform is the anthropogenic perturbations considered.
As to be expected, CO2 emissions are included in the anthropogenic perturbations; but the other gases considered appear to be incomplete. Biogeochemistry models look at Carbon and CO2 interactions and how different interactions would take place in association with the physical models. When it comes to the other greenhouse gases, the related section 3.6 talks about CH4, N2O, fluorinated gases, etc. But water vapour is not included. This is most probably due to the fact that generation of Newly Formed Water (NFW as I call it),in much larger quantities than N2O, CH4, etc., from combustion of hydrocarbons in oil and gas to obtain energy for anthropogenic activities has been overlooked. The impact of this NFW on the biogeochemistry models as well as on the physical models is enormous for the following reasons.
Four Platforms a,b,c,d of CMIP 5 Model
Please note that whenever you generate energy by the combustion of oil or gas you always generate NFW along with CO2 and in that sense they are inseparable or they are born together.
How this NFW influences the Biogeochemistry Models (BM) and Physical Models are given below.
(i) It could have a significant impact on BM because unlike in the case of carbon and CO2 processes, there are no hydrogen/oxygen and H2O processes and oxygen in the atmosphere been depleted will not be regenerated at a reasonable rate and oxygen depletion in the atmosphere continues influencing all BM processes.
(ii) Due to its significant greenhouse gas effect – when you talk about a 2.80C rise in temperature for doubling of CO2 concentration, only 1.20C out of that 2.80C is due to 2094 Gt of CO2 and the balance 1.60C is due to 1302Gt of H2O – atmospheric temperature goes up and its impact will be felt in respect of both draughts, etc. and precipitation as well. It will also influence the physical models as well.
(iii) NFW (a) increases temperature and (b) brings water vapour to maintain constant relative humidity in atmosphere at a rate 33% more than CO2 for the same amount of energy provided.
(iv) All current computations of temperature increase and precipitation are underestimated at least by 50%.
(v) When oil is combusted and exhaust gets cooled to room temperature and NFW is condensed, the enthalpy released to the atmosphere by NFW is more than 7 times that released by CO2.
(vi) NFW has a dynamic viscosity which is much less than those of N2, O2 and CO2 and hence could influence airflow/wind related disasters.
As such, it is imperative that we identify way forward in respect of climate change only after we incorporate NFW and related changes to CMIP5 platform and only then our mitigation actions in respect of climate change would yield positive outcomes.
Prof. Kerry Emanuel’s article
I also studied the article written by Prof. Kerry Emanual and found it extremely interesting. In this article, Prof. Emanuel has attempted to address different parameters of cyclones and explained how these parameters would be impacted by changes arising from climate change.
Prof. Emanuel is concerned about CMIP5 not capturing spatial and temporal variability of upper ocean thermal structure properly and what we mentioned about NFW will only aggravate that concern as the Gulf of Mexico is full of gas and oil wells, processing plants, etc which will throw out NFW much in excess over the normal situation.
Then Prof. Emanual addresses the issue of intensity increases of 60knots or greater just prior to landfall and indicates the locations which has seen this in actual practice. The top 15 events with the highest increases in intensity in 24hours prior to land fall has been identified and they have happened at Houston, New Orleans, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Miami. If one looks at these, you will notice that these are the areas where they burn most of the oil and gas in that vicinity for road transportation. Recently it was mentioned that in Houston, 94% of households do have vehicles. So when road transportation uses more oil and gas, there will be much more NFW in the atmosphere and hurricane intensity increases significantly.
Effect of climate change on rapid intensification
Coming back to the article by Prof. Emanuel, he has used the following formula to calculate rate of change in intensity of cyclones where is the surface exchange coefficient of enthalpy and is potential intensity.
One could see that NFW would influence both the surface exchange coefficient of enthalpy as well as the potential intensity.
If one looks at Prof. Emanuel’s earlier writings on Surface Exchange Coefficients, it could be seen that it is defined based on flux of enthalpy from the surface and the difference between the saturation enthalpy at the surface and the enthalpy of air.
If we consider (a) a situation where there is a lot of gasoline driven road vehicular transportation, and (b) the amount of NFW vapour been generated to give the same amount of energy as CO2 we would see that there would be a 33% increase in enthalpy transfer due to this water vpour been formed to generate energy for vehicular transportation.
As such, when a hurricane enters an area like Houston, with a lot of vehicular transportation, the tendency for increases in intensity will be much larger than in an area where only coal is been used to generate energy. We need to remember that water vapour and waste heat from a vehicle is generated at a level of about 1-2 feet from the earth’s surface and it would be moving vertically up after leaving the exhaust pipe in the horizontal direction. As such it is very similar to what happens at the sea surface.
On the other hand, when an impending hurricane is announced, all the vehicles in the area get onto the road to move away to safer locations, they may get stuck in severe traffic jams – specially near gas stations and all what we mentionedin the previous paragraph only gets aggravated.
At the same time, NFW will also lead to a higher potential intensity due to the dynamic viscosity of NFW being the lowest amongst the four major components in the atmosphere – nitrogen, oxygen, CO2 and water vapour.
Furthermore, if we decide to use more gas as envisaged by Paris Accord at least till 2035, this would lead to much larger intensity increases during the last 24 hours before land fall.
Extent of downpour
Another aspect – in addition to frequency, intensity and tracks – that need to be considered in respect of a hurricane is the total volume of water that would be delivered by the hurricanes. Andelman has mentioned about the 7% more additional water vapour that need to enter the atmosphere to maintain constant relative humidity per degree centigrade increase due to greenhouse gas effect of CO2.
But what bothers me is the fact that when somebody burns 1 litre of gasoline, 1.08kg of NFW is also generated and the corresponding increase in temperature due to this and 2.64kg of CO2 generated will make another 3.08kg of water enter the atmosphere to maintain constant relative humidity.
If Paris Accord works out a specific plan to rectify this, yes, please sign the Paris Accord and be a flag bearer. If this litre of gasoline is replaced by gas as probably proposed by Paris Accord, the amount of NFW and evaporated water vapour to maintain constant relative humidity will be 5.82 kg of total water - 40% increase above the previously mentioned. This is what Paris Accord will do and who wants to support it.
So the issue is NFW and related water vpour which heats up the atmosphere more, brings about hurricanes in greater numbers, intensities and then delivers unbearable amounts of water to bring about landslides, earth slips etc.
While this NFW and related water vapour remains in the atmosphere, it will heat up the atmosphere, pinch you through a wild fire or a long-drawn drought. All this due to the gasoline and gas you burn to get energy when the sun delivers you an unbelievable millions of TWhrs of energy every day.
So the message Nature has conveyed through the recent hurricanes to Mankind is that you need to (i) drop Paris Accord because it does not provide a solution for this, (ii) amend CMIP5 model and bring NFW into the screen and (iii) start a new civilization based on solar energy; of course only if you don’t want to get washed away. Don’t ever thank that wine-cellars (quite in line with the origin of the Accord) like that of Richard Branson will help you. Noah in comparison, may have been a teetotaler and very kind and concerned about his animals as well.
A probable solution
When I read the IPCC TAR 4 – 2007which won 50% of the Nobel Peace Prize, I was surprised to see the number of options suggested to replace the gasoline driven vehicles. Then I read those PhD theses at MIT on “On the Road in 2035”,etc, and also The World Energy Council’s Transport Scenarios in 2050 which had a very useful Accessibility, Acceptability and Availability analysis on these different alternatives and indicated the battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would be the most preferred.
On February 11, 2011, I wrote to Daily News that BEV would be the ultimate winner and that will be the only way to keep flooding and other water related disasters away. Prof. Henry Lee of Harvard Kennedy School published his paper in July 2011 to say that BEV will be the ultimate winner. When one sees that even after 10 years since the publication of IPCC TAR 4, the oil and gas driven vehicles are still creating this havoc on humanity one tends to wonder whether IPCC has served its purpose. Ph.Ds may have been awarded, research papers may have been published, models may have been developed ; but the problem remains unsolvedor rather getting aggravated by every liter of oil you burn.
Like what we mentioned in that article in February, 2011, there is only one way to solve this problem and that is by converting our transportation to Battery Electric Vehicles and harnessing solar energy to power these using Highway Solarisation which is defined as “a dedicated infrastructure for generating electricity for supply to the main grid and/or powering battery electric vehicles using solar energy collected by PV solar panels installed along and above the highways as a solution for climate change”.
In fact, UN Climate Summit in September, 2014 established three objectives in respect of this as follows: (a) 30% of vehicles sold in cities in 2030 should be battery electric vehicles, (b) these should be powered by renewable energy and (c) deforestation should be reduced to 0% by 2050. As such you could see that Highway Solarisation is the only solution which would meet all three objectives mentioned and it appears that Climate Summit officials had been convinced about the applicability of this solution. We have been writing to them on this solution since January , 2011.
Conclusion
If there is one single fuel which brings all this misery through hurricanes it is hydrocarbons which generates more water vapour in order to reduce CO2 emission. CO2 never precipitates. Water vapour increases temperature more than CO2 per unit of energy provided. Water vapour promotes hurricanes due to its inherent properties like viscosity, latent heat, specific heat, etc. If Paris Accord promotes hydrocarbons – especially gas – instead of coal, drop it like a brick. If it discourages hydrocarbons support it. This is not about who supports it, where it originated, who signed it, who wanted me to sign it,etc; but purely based on facts of science which can be ignored only at your own peril, rather at every human being’s peril.
(The writer is Managing Director of Somaratna Consultants (Pvt.) Ltd.)
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