Doing Something About Climate Change
Recently, chris_gerrib accused me of not taking a stand on what we should do about anthropogenic climate change, saying in one of the threads from this entry
http://chris-gerrib.livejournal.com/322157.html
9 out of 10 people use the "can't be sure" argument as an excuse to do nothing. Try harder ( Read more... )
http://chris-gerrib.livejournal.com/322157.html
9 out of 10 people use the "can't be sure" argument as an excuse to do nothing. Try harder ( Read more... )
It is obviously difficult to prove the extent to which human deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions change the balance of atmospheric gasses and to which this changed balance alters the climate, because we don't have an alternate Earth to use as a control for an experiment. However, we know that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, we have some quantitative test results from which to extrapolate to the macro-scale, and we can track average atmospheric temperatures over thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of years (with decreasing levels of accuracy) due to core samples. So we're not completely in the dark here.
It's easy to see how human action could cause climate change, and hence it's important over the medium to long run to develop a capability to control such change to our benefit, rather than merely suffer it at random. Such a capability derives from a higher level of wealth, technology, and energy control, which is why a retreat from industrialism would be a very poor strategy.
And if they do manage to prove it, I'd like them then to prove that global warming is a bad thing.
Whether it's good or bad depends on where one is located and the extent and speed of the warming.
Especially as we're heading into another Maunder Minimum and possibly a little ice age (if not a -real- ice age) according to solar scientists.
Yes, in that case, the counterpressure exerted by our alteration of the environment would be a good thing.
We still can't predict solar fluctuations very well: we only recently detected solar neutrinos and for the first time could be sure that the Sun was still fusing at the core (one model of stellar activity involves intermittent rather than continuous fusion). Because the photons from fusion take many millennia to reach the photosphere and hence radiate energy to the Earth, and the Sun has complex convection currents, the physics are not as straightforward as they would be in (say) a human-built nuclear fusion reactor.
A descent to Minimum seems quite possible, even another Little Ice Age is not all that improbable, and an end to the Interglacial is a distinct possibility (though much less probable than a mere Minimum). In any case, this should be a reminder to us that climatological prediction is complex and difficult, and thus that we must adopt a strategically-flexible position, from which we can react to whatever direction in which our climate wanders.
And that statement about '9 out of 10 people use the "can't be sure" argument as an excuse to do nothing. Try harder to differentiate yourself as 1 out of 10' ? Wow, that is just made out of pure stupid.
Well, yes. :)
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1) Deforestation. There are more forests now than there were a hundred years ago. Further the sea is the biggest converter of CO2 to O2. Not the forests.
2) CO2 is as a global warming gas is questionable. Most research shows that CO2 is a trailing indicator, not a cause. Furthermore water vapor is hundreds of times more of a 'global warming' gas than CO2, and exists in larger quantities (several dozen orders of magnitude). So blaming CO2 with no evidence that it has an effect, and a great deal of evidence to the contrary is intellectually dishonest.
3) Ice core samples of CO2 are skewed. CO2 moves through ice.
4) History clearly shows, right back into the fossil record, that all periods of Global warming have benefited life on earth. The two that happened during human civilization are clearly recorded as times of great progress.
5) Again, saying that humans have the ability to effect climate is the height of conceit. Remember when Saddam set the oil fields alight? That was supposed to cause a global winter (another faked study btw is the whole 'nuclear global winter' there was no science in that study at all - just politics by a bunch of frauds). But it didn't affect the climate at all. So yeah, until someone has some real -proof- I call bullshit on the who AGW thing - because it is bullshit. It's Luddite-ism at it's finest.
6) Maunder Minimum. Solar scientists are predicting a harsh solar minimum this cycle (the solar max is passing as we type), many are making the case that we are headed into another Maunder Minimum, based on current observation after comparing it to historical trends (i.e. using science). The last Maunder Minimum lead to a little ice age. Now how long do you think it takes a -real- ice age to start? Most people don't know the answer to that, and they think it takes hundreds of years (or more).
Truth is, an ice age only takes a year to start, and a couple of years to cover most of the land masses. So if one started say this year, by 2020 the glaciers would be covering most of North America. They move -very- fast. I forget the number of inches it takes exactly, but if you keep snow on the ground year round for one year, it progresses almost logarithmically after that.
And while there is no real science yet showing we might be heading into another ice age (little or big) there is more evidence of that then there is of any global warming.
7) I looked at the entry you linked to and yes, there is a lot of stupid over there.
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1) The National Geographic Society begs to differ.
2) No, not really - the seminal work was done in 1896.
3) No, not really.
4) Depending on how warm. The Holocene optimum saw much of the US grain basket as a desert, which is not good for agriculture.
5) Well, that's just an opinion. But by looking at the mix of isotopes of carbon, you can see that the total increase comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which don't have carbon-14 in them.
6) If you'd followed the link in my article, you'd have seen that the Maunder - sunspot link is badly flawed.
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2) And its still not proven.
3)Yes, actually it does. What do you get when you mix CO2 and water? Why does it get used in certain procedures? Cause it migrates out.
4) Before settlers moved here, the california central valley was a desert. So I'm not so sure this really means that much.
5) No, it's not an opinion. It is fact. You say man can affect the global climate? You must prove it. So far, no one has.
7) I read the study, but I have no interest in going to discovery.com, an unabashedly left wing enviro-nazi organization. They do politics, not science.
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But once more into the breach:
1) So, NASA's in on the conspiracy?
2) Actually, experimental proof exists.
3) You don't think that the scientists know about soda pop?
4) The reason Central CA isn't a desert is because of irrigation, not rainfall. How exactly are you planning to irrigate Iowa?
5) No, I just keep throwing facts at you and you keep throwing conspiracy theories back.
6) So you concede that CO2 increases is due to fossil fuel burning?
7) The sun is cooling but climate is warming.
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2)rather interesting that water vapor doesn't appear on that chart. Also, given the amount of data that gets 'adjusted' by AGW people, I'd like to see what the real scientists say. You know, the ones who haven't been caught faking data.
3)I don't consider most of the AGW people to be scientists. After all, when I went to college, if you got caught faking data you were stripped of your degree. Also I wasn't talking about the use of CO2 in soda, but about other fields, like in medical usage.
4) Same way they irrigate California obviously. Of course your assumption that Iowa would turn to desert is based on what happened during one of the many global warming periods in the past. The only reason it isn't a desert now (which after the dust bowl it probably should have become) was because people worked to keep it from becoming one.
5) You throw up cute things you find on the web. I don't think you've ever done science in your life. Hell your response to this number originally really had nothing to do with my statement. I was talking about the nuclear winter model. Do you even know what percentage of the atmosphere is made up of co2? or how much is h2o?
6) the system is a lot more complex that you seem to realize.
7) Climate doesn't seem to be warming to me. I hope it is, but I haven't seen any proof of it.
And no, it's not so much a conspiracy theory as just asshats like yourself who create nothing in their life and try to make themselves feel bigger and better about themselves by running around crying 'wolf' and trying to tear down society.
We saw it with DDT, the Ozone hole, second hand smoke, and many other things. All bullshit, not a drop of science behind them, and we are all expected to make great sacrifices so people like you can feel good about yourself. Well you know what? I'm not falling for it anymore, if you can NOT prove it clearly and decisively without relying on faked data, and other frauds, you're just full of shit and every time you open your mouth only brown stuff comes out.
There has been so much active fraud by ALL of the 'big names' on the AGW team that at this point, you have a lot of stuff to overcome to even begin to be taken seriously. After all, if there was any TRUTH to the whole AGW thing, why are all of the people leading it LYING and FAKING all of their evidence?
If ten years from now we're in the heart of another ice age I'm sure you'll still be prattling on about global warming from your igloo. You have lost this argument because your side lies. Constantly. So every time you put up anything of course I'm going to dismiss it out of hand. You're all proven liars and I'm tired of doing the research as the last twenty times I did it, I found your side was lying. So now I'm supposed to believe you?
Right, pull the other one.
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Which leaves me in a quandry - do I believe a group of experts who have been researching and experimenting for decades, or some guy on the Internet who blogs with one name?
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I remember being appalled at learning about that “Earth as featureless billiard ball” computer model Comrade Carl cooked up… but not at all surprised. He'd always struck me as the worst sort of ivory-tower goat-milk-and-granola ponytail liberal, but over time I'd realized that he was more than that: He was a hypocritical limousine-liberal clown. He, who popularized and glorified science, was a bad scientist. For the Greater Good, the collectivist agenda was what mattered, not science.
[Back at the time, Richard Hoagland - who made a brief but profitable career from the “Face on Mars” - found him infuriating. Hoagland did have, or seemed to have, some interesting data that suggested possible correlations that ought to be investigated. Saint Carl of Cornell dismissed him with the ex cathedra pronouncement that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and yours is insufficiently extraordinary” - like the Church archbishop who refused to look through Galileo's telescope because there was no need, because he couldn't be right, because what he was saying was wrong… Just so, Carl condescendingly made it known to Hoagland that if he were right Carl (who knew everything about Mars, who wrote the book on Mars) would already know it. He didn't, so Hoagland was wrong. This was bad science.]
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To be fair to Sagan, computer modelling techniques were in their infancy in 1982, which was when TTAPS unveiled the model. And his team deserves considerable credit for developing the "dust winter" model, which had previously been proposed for volcanism but whose relevance to asteroidal impacts and nuclear wars had not previously been realized. Finally, Sagan was almost certainly right that some degree of nuclear warfare could induce the described "nuclear winter" -- he was simply off regarding the required magnitude of dust emission.
Oh, and Hoagland was wrong about the Face. Either that, or it's a heck of a lot more eroded than Hoagland imagined.
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CO2 is both a leader and a trailer of global warming, because it directly increases atmospheric heat retention and higher temperatures lead to more CO2 release. I would assume that climatologists take into account gas movement through ice. Furthermore, the presence of dissolved gases in ice core samples are not the only sort of evidence of CO2 presence and of average temperatures across geological time. Finally, CO2 is more important to climate change than is H2O because water vapor cycles in and out of the system faster than does CO2 and the water vapor cycle isn't out of balance: despite the smaller magnitude of the CO2 the CO2 thus gets to exert a bigger cumulative effect at the margin than does the H2O.
Yes, most climatic optimums have been (as the name suggests) good periods for life on Earth. But the transition could be terribly unpleasant and inconvenient for our civilization -- among other things, we've built most of our homes and cities in land which would be flooded if we suffered a reversion to the Paleocene maximum. The transition period would also include numerous powerful tropical storms and other violent weather. Finally, we would probably not enjoy living in savannahs, tropical rain forests and swamps, and hot deserts, which would become the majority terrestrial biomes following such a maximum global warming. Fortunately, such a maximum global warming is unlikely to occur.
Of course we can affect global climates, given enough energy pumped into the system in key ways. There's nothing special and sacred about the Earth in physical terms: even granted the Gaia hypothesis, it's just a big living organism. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere pumps energy into the system in a key way over time.
No one is actually sure how long it takes an ice age to start. Your hypothesis of nine years for glaciers to expand to cover most of North America strikes me as impossible, barring some sort of "dust winter" (whether nuclear, volcanic or asteroidal). Glaciers normally advance very slowly, hence the adjective "glacial" to describe their movements. Yes, snow and ice increase albedo and hence have a positive feedback in the system, but they are not the only input. Climatology is complex, and big climatic trends have inertia, which works both ways: hard to stop when started, but also hard to get moving.
My fear of a real ice age is based on the core sample studies to which I previously referred coupled with the known astronomical cycles which seem to cause Ice Ages. What this means is that the Earth has been primed for an Ice Age for the last few millennia, and a Little Ice Age caused by a protracted Solar Minimum could push us over the edge. However, the Ice Age which resulted would take decades to manifest and centuries to fully grip the Earth: believe me, that would be catastrophic enough.
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Water vapor is at least 2 to 3 percent or .02 - .03 parts of the atmosphere. Three quarters of the ocean is always covered in clouds (Ocean Scud).
CO2 cycles as quickly now as it ever has, there are carbon sinks all over the planet, and not just plants. How long a particular molecule stays in the atmosphere, be it carbon or water, doesn't matter. It's only the percentage that matters.
Also no one can reliably predict the weather a week out, in many cases not even a day out. Making claims long term have been shown to be about as accurate as the farmer's almanac. In short, not at all.
As for the movement of glaciers during the onset of an ice age? Several geologists I have talked to say it takes years, not decades. Glaciers move slow now, because they're not really spreading, they're just moving back and forth. Apparently when an ice age comes, it moves extremely fast.
As for gas migration through ice? The climatologists may know this, but so far nearly all of the Global Warming crowd and the AGW crowd have been shown to be charlatans and lairs. Their data is often faked, made up, specially adjusted, and they work in collusion to prevent any reports pointing out their fraud as we saw with the released (hacked) emails.
So at this point, short of very obvious and extreme evidence, I can only declare that all of this AGW stuff is pure bullshit. Because the ones backing it have blatantly been doing it only for money, power, and fame, and every one of their claims to date have been shown to be false.
So like the boy who cried 'wolf' I'm not listening anymore until I see some wolves.
As for humans changing the climate? We don't even know what controls the climate, so how can we change it? Furthermore while there may be billions of us, we are still insignificant to the planet in our impact. Maybe if we put all of our effort as a species into it we could make a real change, but to date we have only been able to make very small, very limited, very temporary affects.
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CO2 is highly-effective at warming the atmosphere per unit of atmospheric composition because it is (1) just the right size to intercept waves of infra-red light and (2) atmospherically persistent, especially if total green-plant biomass declines.
Water vapor is at least 2 to 3 percent or .02 - .03 parts of the atmosphere. Three quarters of the ocean is always covered in clouds (Ocean Scud).
You've just pointed out one of the reasons why water vapor is less effective at warming the Earth, because cloud cover increases albedo. Those clouds reflect away visible light which would otherwise have reached the surface and been absorbed as heat.
By contrast, carbon dioxide only produces global warming, not cooling, effects -- unless a planet is very cold (in which case the CO2 turns into reflective dry ice). No parts of the Earth are cold enough for this to be a significant issue.
As for humans changing the climate? We don't even know what controls the climate, so how can we change it?
That does not follow: it is quite possible to affect something in ignorance that one does not know how to purposefully change.
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