this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
63 points (95.7% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5257 readers
843 users here now

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

If no immediate action is taken to counter the harm, desalination, in combination with climate change, will increase the Gulf’s coastal waters temperature by at least five degrees Fahrenheit across more than 50 percent of the area by 2050, according to a 2021 study published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin on ScienceDirect, a site for peer-reviewed papers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Interesting. We’re going to have to figure out something. The middle eastern desert isn’t the only place running out of fresh water.

I will note that evaporation pools are nothing new and don’t require a lot of energy. If you can extract the minerals that are worth something, the process could pay for itself.

https://youtu.be/YMDJA4UvXLA

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Perhaps, but this is going to radicaly alter both how current desalinization plants operate and the supply chain of salt.

It doesn't seem to be insurmountable, but it is going to be a big deal going forward. At least the main users of desalinization technology are in locations with abundant solar energy.