Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[macdoc]

Mea Culpa

Originally Posted by macdoc
Yeah seems there was a 1967 physics degree touted hereabouts.....and then the sad case of Feynman as well....genetic predisposition to blinkered to reality perhaps?

Uhm, are you referring to Feynman's famous Cargo Cult Speech? He never mentioned global warming in it, and that speech was mainly angled towards psychology and similar things.

As far as I know, Feynman never made any statements about global warming, and considering he died in 1988, that's not very strange.

I know he's often used by "climate change deniers", but that's just because everyone wants to have Feynman on their side.

Meant Dyson....

Dyson, Feynman, & Climate Change

By Andy Pershing on March 30, 2009 2:19 AM | No Comments

Interesting article in last weekend's NYT Magazine on Freeman Dyson. Dyson is a member of physics "greatest generation" that emerged from WWII. While he didn't invent the vacuum, he did unify several theories, hung out with Richard Feynman, and provided the scientific rationale for a Star Trek episode. The declared purpose of the article was to describe how such an eminent scientists became an outspoken climate change skeptic, but the article was mostly just an interesting biography of a notable scientist. My interpretation, based on the few snippets about Dyson's views on climate change, is that he is not objecting to much of the scientific rationale behind global warming, but rather is uncomfortable with some of the hyperbole from folks like Al Gore. I have to say, I agree. I think that the scientific basis behind climate change is very strong. There is definitely uncertainty over some of the details, for example, how ecosystems will respond and whether certain ecosystems will become sources or sinks, but the basic idea that CO2 in the atmosphere is contributing to general warming is supported by multiple lines of evidence. A much thornier issue is what to do about it? In the article, Dyson is quoted as saying that industrialization in China has been a good thing, lifting millions out of poverty but at the cost of additional CO2. While China is particularly dramatic, both in terms of the CO2 costs and the benefit to their society, you could make similar cases about any country. Many of these decisions come down to rationale considerations, for example, comparing the costs of coping with rising sea level versus the costs of reducing CO2 emissions. Science, for example, improved regional predictions of climate change impacts, could help with these calculations. However, as Dyson points out, many of the decisions are moral: is it fair for the developed world, who became the "developed world" by accessing cheap fossil fuels, to ask underdeveloped countries to sacrifice economic growth? Thornier still, when do you declare a country "developed" and ask it to pay an increased share of CO2 reductions? My point is that most of the climate change debate has little to do with science. It's up to us and the people we elect to figure out how we will respond. Our ability to make rationale and even moral decisions is not helped by unscientific appeals to emotion from the left or pseudoscientific arguments against climate change from the right.

senior moment

http://www.seascapemodeling.org/seascape_projects/2009/03/dyson-feynman-climate-change.html

 

[Trakar]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=19879

The article in the link above has the full text of a letter written by Harold Lewis, an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and sent to the President of the American Physical Society in which he denounces global warming as a scam. He claims that trillions of dollars in research funding has corrupted scientists into supporting the global warming scam.

I have not studied global warming well enough to refute Professor Lewis. However, if opposition to global warming is being suppressed, that needs to change right away.

How ironic that Mr Lewis would assert disingenuity on the part of science corrupting itself in the pursuit of money as he corrupted science, the truth and himself in the pursuit of money.

That said, I'll step away from this thread now until it comes back to issues of the science or the actual adaptation/mitigation strategies needed to deal with the changes that are already upon us and headed our way.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Yes, about a dozen cabins and refugees on the skirts is a good evidence of drier times ... quosque tandem?

Being uncovered by retreating glaciers is evidence of a warmer past. However if you can show rainfall was the dominant factor you are free to do so.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Giwer


Just what don't you understand about thermal equivalents .......
To melt 100 cuKM of ice a year requires enormous energies....- even Gavin was surprised at the scale of the energies required when put in terms people can understand.

It is an elementary calculation in physics. Large numbers means large numbers out. It is no different than making the same measurement on 1cc of ice. How could he possibly have been surprised?

A 15ktTNT bomb is about the same amount of energy that falls five square miles in a day. As I said, ghee whiz talk.

 

[macdoc]

AGW consequences.... a bit of a "out of left field" versions

A warming world could leave cities flattened

• 15 October 2010 by Kate Ravilious
• 
  http://www.newscientist.com/subscribe?promcode=nsarttop
• For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide

EARTH is starting to crumble under the strain of climate change.
Over the last decade, rock avalanches and landslides have become more common in high mountain ranges, apparently coinciding with the increase in exceptionally warm periods (see "Early signs"). The collapses are triggered by melting glaciers and permafrost, which remove the glue that holds steep mountain slopes together.
Worse may be to come. Thinning glaciers on volcanoes could destabilise vast chunks of their summit cones, triggering mega-landslides capable of flattening cities such as Seattle and devastating local infrastructure.
For Earth this phenomenon is nothing new, but the last time it happened, few humans were around to witness it. Several studies have shown that around 10,000 years ago, as the planet came out of the last ice age, vast portions of volcanic summit cones collapsed, leading to enormous landslides

more
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827825.100-a-warming-world-could-leave-cities-flattened.html

 

[macdoc]

Broadening the knowledge base

Studies of Radiative Forcing Components: Reducing Uncertainty About Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2010) — Much is known about factors that have a warming effect on Earth's climate -- but only a limited amount is understood about factors that have a cooling effect. Researchers at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research -- Oslo (CICERO) are working to fill the knowledge gap.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101015090959.htm

no negatives yet - more's the pity...

 

[Pixel42]

You found it helpful you say. Then you can explain how the values for the "anomaly" were determined. Exactly what does it mean?

Full details and references to the sources of the data are given in the link.

BTW: As the thick line represents smoothing by long term averaging only the thick line can be compared. You can't switch from the thick to the thin line in the same context.

You are correct that the main graph has been smoothed and has a resolution of about 300 years so, as the link makes clear, it's theoretically possible that there have been short-lived spike and trough excursons greater than the thick line shows.

Is that really what you're pinning your hopes on? That it's theoretically possible there were spikes in global temperature in the past lasting less than the time interval we can reliably resolve? That whatever hypothetical unknown factor which might have theoretically caused such spikes could also be causing the current precipitous rise in global temperature? That this hypothetical undetectable (despite the best efforts of those who are desperately looking for it) factor could reverse in the next century or so, causing an equally precipitous drop in global temperature? All whilst the equally hypothetical unknown and undetectable short-term cooling factor that must have appeared at exactly the same time that we started putting significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere continues to exactly compensate for the warming basic physics tells us that will inevitably cause?

Let me know how that works out for you.

 

[Dikken]

There is a recent article on the 80 beats blog that suggests that adding tons of iron does create blooms of phytoplankton, it just doen't remove that much carbon dioxide.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...-test-of-a-geoengineering-scheme-which-fails/

 

[CapelDodger]

LOL
Groupthink at its finest.

"I don't agree - I am ignoring you".

Of course, there's nothing substantive in the stolen emails to agree or disagree with. Instead the in-group claims that they reveal nefarious activities and believes itself implicitly. Its members don't require any details or evidence because the self-belief is automatic.

This is what the so-called "debate" has been reduced to after time and confirmation. Speculative science was tried at first, to confirm that AGW wouldn't happen, but the speculations never panned out. Pseudo-science came next (which never gets old, of course) so we have attempts to disprove the greenhouse effect, rewrite thermodynamics and such-like gems. Pop-psychology made its entrance, with phrases such as "group-think", "tribalism" and (best of all, I think) "Post-Normal Science".

Over it all was the cloak of Conspiracy which just got thicker and thicker. It's the ultimate retreat of the group when reality cannot be faced.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Being uncovered by retreating glaciers is evidence of a warmer past.

That is not true for small variations as you cited. Can you list a couple of places where it happened archaeological findings? Indeed there are such places, but it looks like you are just repeating some blog "info" because you can make the saleable inference I'm quoting. Unaware people could buy it.

In fact we have some glaciers advancing -at least until a few year ago- in these globally warming times, and not only those in a few areas that are cooling.

 

[Trakar]

There is a recent article on the 80 beats blog that suggests that adding tons of iron does create blooms of phytoplankton, it just doen't remove that much carbon dioxide.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/8...-test-of-a-geoengineering-scheme-which-fails/

"Volcanic ash fuels anomalous plankton bloom in subarctic northeast Pacific" -
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL044629.shtml

 

[Matt Giwer]

That is not true for small variations as you cited. Can you list a couple of places where it happened archaeological findings? Indeed there are such places, but it looks like you are just repeating some blog "info" because you can make the saleable inference I'm quoting. Unaware people could buy it.

In fact we have some glaciers advancing -at least until a few year ago- in these globally warming times, and not only those in a few areas that are cooling.

At the risk of being moderated let me suggest you simply trace back the posts and see I was responding to a post about Switzerland.

 

[aleCcowaN]

At the risk of being moderated let me suggest you simply trace back the posts and see I was responding to a post about Switzerland.

An that exactly what I'm asking you about. The post was:

Another fun thing coming out of the ice in Switzerland is homes and buildings long buried under the ice built back when the earth was too hot for human habitation.

Though I suppose that "under the ice built back when the earth was too hot for human habitation" doesn't mean Martians built them, I ask you again about specific places in Switzerland. Once you state a minimal info that allow spotting the archaeological sites we can move on and analyze the climate connexion. I think you are just repeating what some blogs have, but they took real findings and shaped them and built on them to fit their "needs". The same is happening these days about similar findings in another country.

 

[macdoc]

Hydrology issues are leading edge of climate change...

Drought May Threaten Much of Globe Within Decades, Analysis Predicts

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2010) — The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought in coming decades, according to a new study by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai. The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101019121922.htm

 

[macdoc]

ENSO response to a warming climate

Climate Change May Alter Natural Climate Cycles of Pacific

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2010) — While it's still hotly debated among scientists whether climate change causes a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to one known as El Nino Modoki, scientists now say that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North Pacific Ocean.

See Also:
Earth & Climate

• El Nino and La Nina
• Severe Weather
• Geography
• Climate
• Global Warming
• Environmental Issues

Reference

• El Niño-Southern Oscillation
• Atmospheric circulation
• Ocean current
• Mid-ocean ridge

The research is published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.
El Nino is a periodic warming in the eastern tropical Pacific that occurs along the coast of South America. Recently, scientists have noticed that El Nino warming is stronger in the Central Pacific rather than the Eastern Pacific, a phenomenon known as El Nino Modoki (Modoki is a Japanese term for "similar, but different").
Last year, the journal Nature published a paper that found climate change is behind this shift from El Nino to El Nino Modoki. While the findings of that paper are still being debated, this latest paper in Nature Geoscience presents evidence that El Nino Modoki drives a climate pattern known as the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO).

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101017133641.htm

 

[macdoc]

China "gets it".....low carbon energy = "next big thing"

China a surprise leader in clean energy: study

October 19, 2010 by Amy Coopes Enlarge
Wind power turbines are seen in Dali, China's southwestern Yunnan province. The world's top polluter, China, is a surprise leader in clean energy efforts, a study showed Tuesday, outstripping the United States and Japan and leaving Australia lagging far behind.
The world's top polluter, China, is a surprise leader in clean energy efforts, a study showed Tuesday, outstripping the United States and Japan and leaving Australia lagging far behind.



The Vivid Economics report, commissioned by Australia's Climate Institute thinktank, showed China was second only to Britain in the value of its incentives to cut pollution from electricity generation.
Britain's efforts were estimated at 29.30 US dollars per tonne of carbon to China's 14.20 US dollars, with the United States clocking 5.10, Japan 3.10, Australia 1.70 and just 70 US cents for South Korea.
The six countries account for just under half of all global emissions.
"The Chinese leadership have made a strategic decision that they missed out on the last two industrial revolutions and they don't want to miss out on the third one," said Erwin Jackson, director of the Climate Institute, of China's "surprising" dominance.
"They are now commanding the largest market share of clean energy investment at a global level as a result," Jackson told AFP.
China's investment in clean energy topped 35 billion US dollars in 2009 compared with 11 billion in Britain and 18 billion in the United States, and Jackson said it was set to increase tenfold over the next decade.
The main driver of China's performance was its commitment to shutting down more than 100 small coal-fired power plants for cleaner coal stations by 2011, which the report said would reduce emissions by 15 percent.

more
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-china-leader-energy.html

too bad the stumble bums in the western corridors of power, notably, US, Australia and Canada don't......

 

[macdoc]

New Arctic report card out ...the heat goes on

Arctic temperature rising at near record rates, sea ice melting faster: report

Randolph E. Schmid

Washington— The Associated Press

Published Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 3:15PM EDT


The temperature is rising again in the Arctic, with the sea ice extent dropping to one of the lowest levels on record, climate scientists reported Thursday.

The new Arctic Report Card “tells a story of widespread, continued and even dramatic effects of a warming Arctic,” said Jackie Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility.

“This isn't just a climatological effect. It impacts the people that live there,” she added.

Atmospheric scientists concerned about global warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects are expected to be felt first, and that has been the case in recent years.

more
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...e-melting-faster-report/article1767442/print/

Link to the NOAA publication
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/

 

[Trakar]

Has anyone mentioned Gavin Schmidt's recent article "Taking the Measure of the Greenhouse Effect" up over at the GISS site? (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/)

... Thus, the total greenhouse effect after a change in CO2 needs to account for the consequent changes in the other components as well. If, for instance, CO2 concentrations are doubled, then the absorption would increase by 4 W/m2, but once the water vapor and clouds react, the absorption increases by almost 20 W/m2 — demonstrating that (in the GISS climate model, at least) the "feedbacks" are amplifying the effects of the initial radiative forcing from CO2 alone. Past climate data suggests that this is what happens in the real world as well.

What happens when the trace greenhouse gases are removed? Because of the non-linear impacts of CO2 on absorption, the impact of removing the CO2 is approximately seven times as large as doubling it. If such an event were possible, it would lead to dramatic cooling, both directly and indirectly, as the water vapor and clouds would react. In model experiments where all the trace greenhouse gases are removed the planet cools to a near-Snowball Earth, some 35°C cooler than today, as water vapor levels decrease to 10% of current values, and planetary reflectivity increases (because of snow and clouds) to further cool the planet.

Despite being a trace gas, there is nothing trivial about the importance of CO2 for today, nor its role in shaping climate change in the future.

Related Links
Science Brief: CO2: The Thermostat that Controls Earth's Temperature

NASA News Release: Carbon Dioxide Controls Earth's Temperature

AGU News Release: Taking Measure of the Greenhouse Effect
References

Schmidt, G.A., R. Ruedy, R.L. Miller, and A.A. Lacis, 2010: The attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect. J. Geophys. Res., 115, D20106, doi:10.1029/2010JD014287.

Lacis, A.A, G.A. Schmidt, D. Rind and R.A. Ruedy, 2010: Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth's temperature Science, 330, 356-359, doi:10.1126/science.1190653

Contact
Please address all inquiries about this research to Dr. Gavin A. Schmidt.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

more
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-china-leader-energy.html

too bad the stumble bums in the western corridors of power, notably, US, Australia and Canada don't......

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/2010-10/20/content_11435443.htm

In the meantime, reality looks just a little different with China planning

to build 24 large-scale coal mines and eight clusters of coal-fired power plants

Wow, that's a lot isn't it.
24 large-scale coal mines AND eight clusters (how many in a cluster one wonders) of coal fired power plants.

And you want how many closed down in (say) Australia?

 

[macdoc]

Saw that...some thinking is the only way out of a snowball earth ( which may have occurred ) is vulcanism...