Author
|
Topic: The Flipping Point (Read 95032 times) |
|
the.bricoleur
Archon
Posts: 341
Reputation: 8.45
Rate the.bricoleur
making sense of change
 
 
|
 |
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #150 on: 2008-02-16 09:53:42 » |
 |
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-02-16 07:24:49
[Hermit] Data cherry picking can be such fun. |
Source for my data: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
Moving onto the last article posted by yourself.
Quote:| “Although this raises the possibility that the current global warming trend might trigger a similar release of methane from the ocean floor, that would not happen any time soon. It would take several centuries for the warming to reach the deeper parts of the ocean where the methane hydrate deposits are, Zachos said.” |
Unbelievable!
The sun’s energy has been beating down on the tropical ocean surface for millions of years and the heat has only penetrated a few hundred meters. Does Zachos not know that the overturning of the ocean is largely cold saline water over polar regions sinking to form Bottom Water with compensating slow ascent of cold water elsewhere. How does Zachos propose that a few additional W/m2 of infrared radiation are going to penetrate into the deep ocean floor where solar radiation has failed in the past?
Also, in his rush to scare the ignorant, Zachos has clearly never heard of the carbonate compensation depth. Even today, beyond this depth, carbonates dissolve in the deep ocean water. Above this depth marine organisms prosper and carbonate material deposited on the sea floor is accumulating. Added CO2 will raise the carbonate compensation depth and monitoring will readily determine to what extent this is happening and whether it is becoming dangerous. There is no evidence of dangerous rise to date, just scaremongering hypotheses.
On the PETM and the millions of years adjacent there is no correlation between either CO2 or methane with temperature. What is of interest, though, is that there is some evidence that the non-greenhouse gas oxygen was at a minor maxima about 55 MYA. O2 concentration had risen from about 15% in the late Permian to about 30% in the late Cretaceous before falling to present levels. Why is this significant? With more mass (O2) in the atmosphere the effective emission layer from which radiation emanates to space is raised thus increasing the product of the effective emission height and the moist adiabatic lapse rate (the lapse rate in the atmosphere regulated by convection) is increased.
Today the Earth’s effective emission temperature is about -19C, the effective emission height is about 5 km and the MALR is about 6.5 K/km. The average surface temperature is approximately given by:
ST = -19C + (5*6.5), or 14C
An increase in the effective emission height by 1 km due to increased O2 concentration will increase the surface temperature by about 6.5C to 20C. The Cretaceous was a period of particular warmth although CO2 concentrations seem to have been falling steadily from 200 MYA.
There does seem to have been a small increase in CO2 during the PETM but hardly qualified as a massive release!
-iolo
|
|
|
|
|
Blunderov
Archon
Gender: 
Posts: 3160
Reputation: 8.91
Rate Blunderov
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #151 on: 2008-03-01 00:01:19 » |
|
[Blunderov] "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."
http://www.bartleby.com/59/1/ecclesiastes.html
"Ecclesiastes
(i-klee-zee-AS-teez) A book in the Old Testament containing the reflections of a philosopher known as “the Preacher.” “Vanity of vanity saith the Preacher,… all is vanity,” where the word “vanity” indicates that striving is in vain, because death comes to all, and “there is no new thing under the sun.” He believes that our character and achievements do not affect our fate. “The race is not to the swift nor to the strong.” He concludes that one should enjoy the good things found in life until death brings oblivion. The argument and tone of this book are very unlike those of the other books of the Bible."
www.guardian.co.uk climate change?
'Enjoy life while you can'
Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do? By Decca Aitkenhead
Decca Aitkenhead The Guardian, Saturday March 1 2008
In 1965 executives at Shell wanted to know what the world would look like in the year 2000. They consulted a range of experts, who speculated about fusion-powered hovercrafts and "all sorts of fanciful technological stuff". When the oil company asked the scientist James Lovelock, he predicted that the main problem in 2000 would be the environment. "It will be worsening then to such an extent that it will seriously affect their business," he said.
"And of course," Lovelock says, with a smile 43 years later, "that's almost exactly what's happened."
Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.
For decades, his advocacy of nuclear power appalled fellow environmentalists - but recently increasing numbers of them have come around to his way of thinking. His latest book, The Revenge of Gaia, predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of London will be underwater. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report deploys less dramatic language - but its calculations aren't a million miles away from his.
As with most people, my panic about climate change is equalled only by my confusion over what I ought to do about it. A meeting with Lovelock therefore feels a little like an audience with a prophet. Buried down a winding track through wild woodland, in an office full of books and papers and contraptions involving dials and wires, the 88-year-old presents his thoughts with a quiet, unshakable conviction that can be unnerving. More alarming even than his apocalyptic climate predictions is his utter certainty that almost everything we're trying to do about it is wrong.
On the day we meet, the Daily Mail has launched a campaign to rid Britain of plastic shopping bags. The initiative sits comfortably within the current canon of eco ideas, next to ethical consumption, carbon offsetting, recycling and so on - all of which are premised on the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."
He dismisses eco ideas briskly, one by one. "Carbon offsetting? I wouldn't dream of it. It's just a joke. To pay money to plant trees, to think you're offsetting the carbon? You're probably making matters worse. You're far better off giving to the charity Cool Earth, which gives the money to the native peoples to not take down their forests."
Do he and his wife try to limit the number of flights they take? "No we don't. Because we can't." And recycling, he adds, is "almost certainly a waste of time and energy", while having a "green lifestyle" amounts to little more than "ostentatious grand gestures". He distrusts the notion of ethical consumption. "Because always, in the end, it turns out to be a scam ... or if it wasn't one in the beginning, it becomes one."
Somewhat unexpectedly, Lovelock concedes that the Mail's plastic bag campaign seems, "on the face of it, a good thing". But it transpires that this is largely a tactical response; he regards it as merely more rearrangement of Titanic deckchairs, "but I've learnt there's no point in causing a quarrel over everything". He saves his thunder for what he considers the emptiest false promise of all - renewable energy.
"You're never going to get enough energy from wind to run a society such as ours," he says. "Windmills! Oh no. No way of doing it. You can cover the whole country with the blasted things, millions of them. Waste of time."
This is all delivered with an air of benign wonder at the intractable stupidity of people. "I see it with everybody. People just want to go on doing what they're doing. They want business as usual. They say, 'Oh yes, there's going to be a problem up ahead,' but they don't want to change anything."
Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."
Faced with two versions of the future - Kyoto's preventative action and Lovelock's apocalypse - who are we to believe? Some critics have suggested Lovelock's readiness to concede the fight against climate change owes more to old age than science: "People who say that about me haven't reached my age," he says laughing.
But when I ask if he attributes the conflicting predictions to differences in scientific understanding or personality, he says: "Personality."
There's more than a hint of the controversialist in his work, and it seems an unlikely coincidence that Lovelock became convinced of the irreversibility of climate change in 2004, at the very point when the international consensus was coming round to the need for urgent action. Aren't his theories at least partly driven by a fondness for heresy?
"Not a bit! Not a bit! All I want is a quiet life! But I can't help noticing when things happen, when you go out and find something. People don't like it because it upsets their ideas."
But the suspicion seems confirmed when I ask if he's found it rewarding to see many of his climate change warnings endorsed by the IPCC. "Oh no! In fact, I'm writing another book now, I'm about a third of the way into it, to try and take the next steps ahead."
Interviewers often remark upon the discrepancy between Lovelock's predictions of doom, and his good humour. "Well I'm cheerful!" he says, smiling. "I'm an optimist. It's going to happen."
Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when "we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn't know what to do about it". But once the second world war was under way, "everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday ... so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want."
At moments I wonder about Lovelock's credentials as a prophet. Sometimes he seems less clear-eyed with scientific vision than disposed to see the version of the future his prejudices are looking for. A socialist as a young man, he now favours market forces, and it's not clear whether his politics are the child or the father of his science. His hostility to renewable energy, for example, gets expressed in strikingly Eurosceptic terms of irritation with subsidies and bureaucrats. But then, when he talks about the Earth - or Gaia - it is in the purest scientific terms all.
"There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism."
What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."
|
|
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #152 on: 2008-03-13 21:14:25 » |
|
Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say
Sources: Washington Post
Authors: Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post Staff Writer)
Dated: 2008-03-10
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.
Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.
Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.
"The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" asked Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system than people are thinking about."
Although many nations have been pledging steps to curb emissions for nearly a decade, the world's output of carbon from human activities totals about 10 billion tons a year and has been steadily rising.
For now, at least, a goal of zero emissions appears well beyond the reach of politicians here and abroad. U.S. leaders are just beginning to grapple with setting any mandatory limit on greenhouse gases. The Senate is poised to vote in June on legislation that would reduce U.S. emissions by 70 percent by 2050; the two Democratic senators running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), back an 80 percent cut. The Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), supports a 60 percent reduction by mid-century.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is shepherding climate legislation through the Senate as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new findings "make it clear we must act now to address global warming."
"It won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is compelling," she said. "It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can duck this issue and live with themselves."
James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, offered a more guarded reaction, saying the idea that "ultimately you need to get to net-zero emissions" is "something we've heard before." When it comes to tackling such a daunting environmental and technological problem, he added: "We've done this kind of thing before. We will do it again. It will just take a sufficient amount of time."
Until now, scientists and policymakers have generally described the problem in terms of halting the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. The United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change framed the question that way two decades ago, and many experts talk of limiting CO2concentrations to 450 parts per million (ppm).
But Caldeira and Oregon State University professor Andreas Schmittner now argue that it makes more sense to focus on a temperature threshold as a better marker of when the planet will experience severe climate disruptions. The Earth has already warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences.
Schmittner, lead author of a Feb. 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said his modeling indicates that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. If emissions do not drop to zero until 2300, he calculated, the temperature rise at that point would be more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
letheomaniac
Archon
Gender: 
Posts: 267
Reputation: 8.42
Rate letheomaniac
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #153 on: 2008-03-17 08:50:36 » |
|
Water in Dams, Reservoirs Preventing Sea-Level Rise
Source:National Geographic News
Author:Mason Inman
Dated:March 13, 2008
Dams and reservoirs have stored so much water over the past several decades that they have masked surging sea levels, a new study says.
But dam building has slowed, meaning sea levels could rise more quickly than researchers predicted in a 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Sea levels have been rising for decades, due mostly to global warming caused by greenhouse gases.
The oceans are on average about 6.3 inches (16 centimeters) higher now than in 1930, when they started a noticeable upward climb. Melting glaciers and ice caps, along with ocean warming—water expands as it heats up—are the main culprits behind the increase.
But the new study shows that reservoirs are also an important factor. Rather than adding to sea-level rise, however, they have counteracted it by storing more water on land.
Since 1930 the storage of water has prevented a total of about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) of sea-level rise.
Without dams, sea levels would have risen 30 percent more than they already have, according to research led by Benjamin Chao of National Central University in Taiwan.
Chao and colleagues report their findings in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
Better Estimate
The latest IPCC report on climate change did not factor in the water stored in reservoirs when examining the causes of sea-level rise, Chao said.
"The reason [this was left out] is the big uncertainty and incompleteness of earlier estimates," he said. So Chao and colleagues set out to make a better estimate.
The researchers tallied up the water stored behind nearly 30,000 dams built worldwide since 1900. Dam building took off in the 1950s and reached a peak in the 1970s. Today few dams are being built and the amount of water being stored in reservoirs is leveling off.
However some megadams, such as China's Three Gorges Dam and Malaysia's Bakun Dam, have been recently built.
The study estimates that human-made reservoirs worldwide store about 2,600 cubic miles (10,800 cubic kilometers) of water—nearly as much as is found in Lake Superior, one of the world's largest lakes.
Water stored in a multitude of smaller reservoirs also adds up, the researchers said. Lots of water also soaks into the ground underneath reservoirs, adding to the amount of water locked up on land.
Fooled?
Vivien Gornitz, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, was not involved in the research.
"The study provides the latest, more accurate estimate of water impoundment by reservoirs," she said.
Dork Sahagian, of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said "we've fooled our own measurements."
A spate of dam building began at about the same time scientists began accurately measuring sea-level rise, he pointed out.
Sahagian also said that the new study may underestimate the effect of reservoirs. It's hard to gauge the amount of water stored in and underneath innumerable small reservoirs, but these figures could be larger than the estimates used in the new study, he said.
"It looks like we will not continue building dams at the same rate, so we will not mask [sea-level rise] anymore," Sahagian said.
In that case "the rate of sea-level rise could double just on account of our stopping building dams."
|
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #154 on: 2008-03-17 10:54:39 » |
|
And on the other hand... one of the major problems throughout the globe is that electric and diesel pumps have made it all too easy for us to mine fossil water from aquifers at an unsustainable rate. Vast number of humans are totally dependent on these water resources. Unfortunately aquifers have been depleted at rates many times higher than they can replenish which has lead to them drying up as well as those nearer oceans having dropped low enough to allow salt water incursions, making them unfit to drink.
In combination with changing rainfall patterns, the effect is a massive threat not only to 3rd world countries, but also to developed and developing nations. Examples include India (at least 1/3 of the country no longer has aquifers), China, Palestine/Israel (which after half a century stealing Palestinian and Lebanese water, in the late 1990s exceeded the recommendations of Israeli Hydrologists causing salination of all the aquifers in that region), and much of the USA west of the Mississippi (which is depleting its reserves at over 16% per year).
In addition, droughts have emptied many dams, particularly in the USA, and hydrologists are dubious that they will ever be refilled as it seems that many of the water use agreements were established during much wetter periods, so there simply does not appear to be sufficient water flow to satisfy current agricultural and domestic use as well as fill up the dams. This is becoming particularly visible in Colorado, Nevada and California - and is impacting Mexico too.
An additional threat is that our massive use of nitrate fertilizers - which is already massively impacting lakes and oceans has now been happening for long enough for nitrate "enhanced" (and worse, insecticide and tail dam enhanced) water to enter the aquifers. This is likely to present serious challenges to the potability of the remaining ground water even with expensive treatments.
In all of this there is no good news (though I am working on it).
Kind Regards
Hermit
PS We know from orbital measurements that the ice mass at the North Pole and over Greenland acts as a gravitational attractor, and as the ice melts, so the attraction is lessened, so lowering sea levels as measured from the land mass. This process more or less balances.
PPS Sea ice melting, as is happening at the North Pole, does not directly add to sea levels as that ice is already displacing water.
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #155 on: 2008-06-10 23:18:08 » |
|
The Science of Denial on Global Warming
Source: NY Times
Authors: NY Times Editorial
Dated: 2008-06-04
Refer Also: [ Investigative Summary Regarding Allegations that NASA Suppressed Climate Change Science and Denied Media Access to Dr. James E. Hansen, a NASA Scientist, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Inspector General, 2008-06-02 (PDF)]
The Bush administration has worked overtime to manipulate or conceal scientific evidence — and muzzled at least one prominent scientist — to justify its failure to address climate change.
Its motives were transparent: the less people understood about the causes and consequences of global warming, the less they were likely to demand action from their leaders. And its strategy has been far too successful. Seven years later, Congress is only beginning to confront the challenge of global warming.
The last week has brought further confirmation of the administration’s cynicism. An internal investigation by NASA’s inspector general concluded that political appointees in the agency’s public affairs office had tried to restrict reporters’ access to its leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen. He has warned about climate change for 20 years and has openly criticized the administration’s refusal to tackle the issue head-on.
More broadly, the investigation said that politics played a heavy role in the office and that it had presented information about global warming “in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate-change science made available to the general public.”
Meanwhile, the administration finally agreed, under duress, to release a Congressionally mandated report on the effects of climate change on various regions of the United States. Some of the report’s predictions, like the inevitable loss of coastal areas to rising seas, were not new. Others were, including warnings of a potential increase in various food- and water-borne viruses..
What was most noteworthy about the latter report was that it made it to the light of day. A 1990 law requires the president to give Congress every four years its best assessment of the likely effects of climate change. The last such assessment was undertaken by President Clinton and published in 2000. Mr. Bush not only missed the 2004 deadline but allowed the entire information-gathering process to wither. Only a court order handed down last August in response to a lawsuit by public interest groups forced him to deliver this month.
This administration long ago secured a special place in history for bending science to its political ends. One costly result is that this nation has lost seven years in a struggle in which time is not on anyone’s side. [ Hermit : And many of the misguided idiots in the rapidly collapsing, thoroughly Divided States, will vote for another brain dead, already senile successor to the current noxious monkey, earning further karmic retribution for themselves. ]
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
the.bricoleur
Archon
Posts: 341
Reputation: 8.45
Rate the.bricoleur
making sense of change
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #156 on: 2008-07-07 06:55:50 » |
|
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-06-10 23:18:08
The Science of Denial on Global Warming |
Wonderful sleight of hand here, but, who denies that the globe is warming? No, to be clear, what is being refuted is the hypothesis that the warming is anthropogenic in cause. And the present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW hypothesis is wrong.
-iolo
|
|
|
|
|
Blunderov
Archon
Gender:
Posts: 3160
Reputation: 8.91
Rate Blunderov
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #157 on: 2008-07-07 08:35:54 » |
|
Quote from: Iolo Morganwg on 2008-07-07 06:55:50
<snip>the present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW hypothesis is wrong.</snip>
|
[Blunderov] Perhaps this is redundant now in any case? From what I can gather, the acidification of the oceans is clearly anthropogenic and is sufficient reason in its own right to reduce carbon emissions because it will undercut the entire food chain with catastrophic effects. Any thoughts? (Iolo in particular - but of course anyone else too!)
Best Regards.
|
|
|
|
|
the.bricoleur
Archon
Posts: 341
Reputation: 8.45
Rate the.bricoleur
making sense of change
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #158 on: 2008-07-08 05:47:17 » |
|
Quote from: Blunderov on 2008-07-07 08:35:54
Quote from: Iolo Morganwg on 2008-07-07 06:55:50
<snip>the present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW hypothesis is wrong.</snip>
|
[Blunderov] Perhaps this is redundant now in any case? From what I can gather, the acidification of the oceans is clearly anthropogenic and is sufficient reason in its own right to reduce carbon emissions because it will undercut the entire food chain with catastrophic effects. Any thoughts? (Iolo in particular - but of course anyone else too!)
Best Regards.
|
The first thought that comes to mind is that the world's great limestone deposits were laid down in the oceans at a time when the atmosphere had several multiples of the current concentration of CO2. If acidification was not a problem then, why would it be now?
The next thought that comes to me is the concept of the carbonate compensation level (CCL) in the ocean, which already exists preventing formation of carbonates at depth. Addition of CO2 will raise the CCL of the ocean somewhat but I am not aware that it will shoal anytime soon (it being at a depth of several thousand feet).
-iolo
|
|
|
|
|
the.bricoleur
Archon
Posts: 341
Reputation: 8.45
Rate the.bricoleur
making sense of change
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #159 on: 2008-07-08 05:52:07 » |
|
And now for some comic relief:
Quote:In the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital note:
We describe a patient with climate change delusion, a previously unreported phenomenon. A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an 8 month history of depressed mood… He also …had visions of apocalyptic events…
The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of 'millions of people' through exhaustion of water supplies. He quoted 'internet research' to substantiate this. The patient described that 'I feel guilty about it', had attempted to stop drinking… He was unable to acknowledge that the belief was unreasonable when challenged. |
continued at Anorak News
I think this poor kid was just unlucky ... with the right guidance he could have had a Nobel prize ...
|
|
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #160 on: 2008-07-09 10:28:28 » |
|
Hadn't noticed that this thread had woken up again :-(
Please notice that:- an assertion about evidence is not the same as evidence,
- An alternate ad-hoc hypothesis not supported by evidence and analysis not only does not form a refutation it doesn't even cast doubt on a supported hypothesis,
- Allegorical tales casting fun at a theory do not speak to the theory (and on this score it is worth remembering that Semmelweis was detained in an asylum for the insane by his fellow doctors; for insisting, based on evidence and analysis, that they were killing their patients by not practicing aseptic hygiene).
- Any assertion that AGW, or less confusingly, AGCC, is not occurring in significant and human lifestyle threatening ways is outside of the consensus established by the International Scientific community, the IPCC.
- The arguments have changed! From the rejection of the idea that change is occurring and can be observed, there is now general passive acknowledgment, even from strident AGCC denialists, that significant, observable change has and is occurring, but their denial is now focussed on the anthropogenic causes, rather than the change itself.
- The strong numeric evidence that humankind has dramatically changed the biosphere (CO2 and CH4 levels as a direct consequence of dependence on cheap fossil fuels and consequent explosive increase in the number of humans, acres tilled and ruminating companions) is ignored. Rather the significance of these changes is poo-pooed.
The above isn't science, but rather politics. Politics that are not dissimilar to the general ignorance and denial of the facts that the days of cheap fossil fuels are coming to an end, along with the availability of aquiferous water supplies and abundant nitrates, and the consequences of these changes for mankind. That the legacy, including AGCC, we have created and will now probably exacerbate by resorting to war to cull our numbers, is also a political rather than a scientific consequence, leaves the question of who our descendants, if any, will blame for the horrid mess. While politicians may have seemed perfectly capable of deflecting anger upon others in the past, widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership suggests that this may, at last, be changing. The concern I have is that it is too little, too late and it doesn't mitigate the question of responsibility in the scientific and fringe of the scientific community for establishing the idea that our current insane situation is sustainable. Which of course it isn't.
Responsibility seems to be what the denialists are hoping they can wish away. Sadly, for them and us, "if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride", remains both proverbial and true.
Kind Regards
Hermit
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
the.bricoleur
Archon
Posts: 341
Reputation: 8.45
Rate the.bricoleur
making sense of change
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #161 on: 2008-07-09 11:49:29 » |
|
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-07-09 10:28:28 Please notice that:- an assertion about evidence is not the same as evidence,
|
....
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-07-09 10:28:28 - Any assertion that AGW, or less confusingly, AGCC, is not occurring in significant and human lifestyle threatening ways is outside of the consensus established by the International Scientific community, the IPCC.
|
As one expert peer reviewer for the IPCC stated:
Quote:1. There is no corelation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature.
2. Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to temperature at all time scales.
3. Recent rise in global temperature has not been induced by rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present (i.e. mid-2008). This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940. But atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a near-constant rate and by more than 30% since 1940.
4. Rise in global temperature has not been induced by increase to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide.
More than 80% of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide since 1940, and tyhe increase to the emissions has been at a compound rate of ~0.4% p.a. throughout that time. But that time has exhibited 40 years of cooling with only 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940.
5. The pattern of atmospheric warming predicted by the AGW hypothesis is absent.
The AGW hypothesis predicts most warming of the atmosphere at altitude distant from polar regions. Radisonde measurements from weather baloons show slight cooling at altitude distant from polar regions.
The above list provides a complete refutation of the AGW-hypothesis according to the normal rules of science.
Nothing the hypothesis predicts is observed in the empirical data, and the opposite of the hypothesis' predictions is observed in the empirical data. |
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-07-09 10:28:28 - The arguments have changed! From the rejection of the idea that change is occurring and can be observed, there is now general passive acknowledgment, even from strident AGCC denialists, that significant, observable change has and is occurring, but their denial is now focussed on the anthropogenic causes, rather than the change itself.
|
As far as I am aware, one of the earliest skeptics arguements was to point out that the globe had been both warmer and colder (i.e. changed) in its history and therefore where is the evidence that the current change is outside natural variability. Thus, it can't be said that the skeptics have denied that the climate changes.
Quote from: Hermit on 2008-07-09 10:28:28 | The above isn't science, but rather politics. |
Indeed. But don't stop there, the entire AGW hypothesis is political and not scientific (see above). Which is why the skeptics of anthropogenic global warming need political arguments to end the scare.
-iolo
|
|
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #162 on: 2008-07-09 13:56:00 » |
|
[Iolo Morganwg] "As one expert peer reviewer for the IPCC stated:"
[Hermit] Publications? Link? Biography? Affiliations?
[Iolo Morganwg] As far as I am aware, one of the earliest skeptics arguements was to point out that the globe had been both warmer and colder (i.e. changed) in its history and therefore where is the evidence that the current change is outside natural variability. Thus, it can't be said that the skeptics have denied that the climate changes.
[Hermit] If you review your earlier submissions, you will see that you have claimed that arctic ice has remained within similar limits and is not decreasing, that global glacial mass is increasing, not decreasing, that global temperatures are variable to decreasing, and even that extreme weather is no more common than in the past, and indeed in your current missive you repeat some of this, "exhibited 40 years of cooling with only 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940." This is a flat rejection of data, e.g. :
 .
NOAA is also helpful even if their data series seem to end just as Bush took office, while from Oak Ridge
Quote:| Trends in annual mean temperature anomalies for the globe show relatively stable temperatures from the beginning of the record through about 1910, with relatively rapid and steady warming through the early 1940s, followed by another period of relatively stable temperatures through the mid-1970s. From this point onward, another rapid rise similar to that in the earlier part of the century is observed. Nineteen ninety-eight was the warmest year of the global mean temperature series to date (0.58°C above the 1961-1990 reference period mean), followed by 2005 (0.48°C above). [Jones et al. (1999) report the 1961-1990 reference period means for the globe, northern hemisphere, and southern hemisphere as 14.0°C, 14.6°C, and 13.4°C, respectively.] Nine of the ten warmest years in the series have now occurred in the past ten years (1995-2004). The only year in the last ten not among the warmest ten is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The ten warmest years, in descending order, are 1998, 2005, 2003 and 2002 (tie), 2004, 2001, 1997, 1995, 1999, and 1990. A linear regression model applied to the global annual anomalies indicates a warming trend of about 0.69°C since the record began in the mid-nineteenth century. |
[Iolo Morganwg] the entire AGW hypothesis is political and not scientific
[Hermit] And of course, denying the data is scientific?
Regards
Hermit
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
Fritz
Archon
Gender:
Posts: 1746
Reputation: 8.85
Rate Fritz
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #163 on: 2008-07-11 12:39:31 » |
|
Well wouldn't you know we got it all wrong and the heavens above are now on the hook for all our climatic woes 
This meme is getting wide coverage on the MotherShip (CBC) out here in the colonies.
Cheers
Fritz
PS : it is a lengthy article with glossy pictures circles and arrows with paragraphs on the back describing each one, so I got lazy and snipped.
Solar Sun Spot Cycles Impact on Crop Yields, Energy Use and Weather Patterns
Source:[url=ttp://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Topic3.html]Oracle[/ur]
Date: Jun 18, 2008 - 08:00 PM
Author: Joseph_Dancy
<snip>
Last month we listened to Donald Coxe's weekly presentation to institutional investors. Coxe is the Chairman and Chief Strategist of Harris Investment Management. He has been a bull on the commodity markets for some time now and has correctly pointed out numerous investment opportunities in the energy, metals, and grain markets.
We were surprised when he mentioned the historical nature of the solar cycle and its' potential impact on global weather patterns and the agricultural sector. Most of the time Coxe he restricts himself to ‘worldly' indicators of supply and demand. Apparently an article on the subject recently appeared in Investor's Business Dail
Since the performance of so much of our portfolio is driven by the weather – especially companies in the energy and agricultural sectors – and since Coxe notes the current sunspot cycle may point to lower global temperatures, we decided to examine the issue. Other long term forecasters we follow have not raised the issue to date.
Sunspots have been monitored since around 1610, shortly after the invention of the telescope. They provide a long-running direct measurement of the sun's activity. The number of sunspots each year varies significantly, and over the centuries it appears sunspots have an 11-year cycle of activity from peak to trough.
Because accurate weather records extend back only a few centuries scientists must use ‘proxy' records to assess global climate conditions, including ice cores, tree rings, and even records of wine harvests.
Scientists can take ice cores from glaciers in Greenland or elsewhere and correlate sunspot activity with weather – at least weather in that part of the globe. Tree ring studies have also been used to correlate weather patterns with sunspot activity.
Solar activity data appears to indicate that over the last century the number of sunspots rose in number and intensity. At the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer. In theory, the more sunspots the more energy should reach the earth. Some experts argue that greenhouse gasses have enhanced the warming effect, others argue greenhouse gasses have had a minor impact. None-the-less
solar activity and temperature appear to correlate.
One solar scientist recently published a paper on the issue of climate and sunspot activity, and found that the most striking feature is that looking at the past 1,150 years the sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.
Although the relationship between causation and correlation is an issue, global temperatures over the last 60 years have been very warm compared to historical norms.
The Maunder & Dalton Minimums
Coxe pointed out that we are at the low-point of the 11 year solar cycle (see chart above) – at the end of solar cycle 23 and at the start of solar cycle 24. Sunspot activity was expected to pick up significantly the last few months, with experts concerned about the impact of the powerful bursts of radiation on satellites, the electrical grid, and telecommunications systems.
But according to Coxe solar activity has been almost nil. He points out this has happened in the past. From 1645 to 1715 very little solar activity occurred after a normal series of cycles. Solar activity also declined from 1790 to 1830.
It is normal for the sun to have quiet periods between solar cycles, but some experts claim we've seen months of next to nothing activity-wise. While the start of solar cycle 24 seems to have materialized it “then abruptly disappeared.”
These historical periods of solar inactivity – dubbed the Maunder Minimum and Dalton Minimum after the astrologists who studied them - coincided with an irregular periods of rapid climate shifts. The climate cycles brought intensely cold winters, although periodically intense summer heat waves would also appear. The Maunder cycle is often referred to as the "Little Ice Age" – but climate experts claim the period is punctuated by both cold weather and rapid climate shifts.
These periods of low solar activity were also periods of sustained weather driven crop failures. Coxe notes that solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the Maunder and Dalton Minimums and the cold weather - but the exact mechanism remains elusive. <snip>
.... more at site with pictures ....
|
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
|
|
|
Hermit
Archon
Posts: 4287
Reputation: 8.94
Rate Hermit
Prime example of a practically perfect person
|
|
Re:The Flipping Point
« Reply #164 on: 2008-07-11 15:04:46 » |
|
Yes the sun affects us. This has been discussed earlier in this thread.
Bear in mind that the Earth is effectively a black body wrapped in a greenhouse. If it were not for the greenhouse, solar variation would have a negligible effect, as the surrounding Universe is cold (a few degrees K). Thus any increase in insolation would merely increase the radiation rate and equilibrium would be maintained. The temperature would behave more narrowly as a Bolton black body and would remain rather cold (see Mars for an example). The Greenhouse effect prevents immediate heat loss, as well as preventing the loss of core heat, and so makes life as we know it possible. Unfortunately, this very protective mechanism means that small changes in Greenhouse characteristics have much more effect on us than even large changes in insolation.
The range of calculations in widely accepted models seem to reflect that solar variation accounts for at most 7% to 14% of surface temperature deviation from steady state models. This doesn't mean that the identified solar cycles - which we know are heading to a simultaneous minimum even as the planet warms - can't act as leading indicators for agricultural prices, satellite failures and communications issues (and for reasons possibly linked to human behavior, on insurance claims). Clearly they can and do. What it does mean is that we can't deflect the blame for ongoing changes in the biosphere on solar variations. Indeed, the only reasonably effective predictors for the the current climate changes have been the anthropogenic models. In my opinion, their largest faults are that they haven't so far taken sufficient notice of the mechanisms leading to pack ice break-up, the volumes of warm upflow threating the Antarctic shelves, and the catastrophic positive feedback that will be triggered by the loss of polar solar reflectivity should permanent ice turn out not to be. This could, as I have been warning, result in much accelerated heating and vastly greater than expected rises in mean sea levels in the near future. With all the associated costs. I don't think any of this will be signaled by solar activity, which points to its limitations as a leading indicator.
Kind Regards
Hermit
|
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
|
|
|
|
Logged
