Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[Iamme]

For a lengthy, but quick grade school level read on global warming, google: What is Global Warming|NRDC
Look for that exact title, should come up first or 2nd site.

 

[lobosrul]

That is written as an induced inference.

But you may be meaning something around the induced inference. If that's the case, can you cite any source, even a fun website, where someone selected a random worldwide sample of locations -stratified sampling by bands of latitude- and then processed the 10 day forecasts for them taken from a well known weather website and arrived to the conclusion you are trying to make the reader infer?

My post was a sarcastic joke. I'm not a climate change denier. I just think its very silly that anytime there is unusual weather somewhere the cries of "global warming!! ZOMG!" are heard. We only have accurate weather data for a bit over 100 years. That's a blip, its nothing.

It wasn't a lie though, the forecast is for rather average weather here.

ETA: ahh now I see. I didn't specify my previous post was the local weather forecast.

 

[OCaptain]

I rely on evidence that 10 years ago the warming agenda and politicians were almost successful in getting their way ... carbon trading et al. ... scarry stuff freedom wise and cost wise

Just take a look at what they did manage to squander .... the billions of dollars wasted on solar and other failing ideals.

And those folks want to control all the energy output of the world ??? ... Save the planet ??? .... they cannot even save themselves nor their fully subsidized feel good "renewal ideas"

And you certainly can't be bothered to help...

 

[Trakar]

You are correct. And now we get to the trickier part. Quantifying. Which I would love to get to, but don't seem to be getting past the basics with the deniers constantly obfuscating.

Explaining how to go from A to B is the joy of science, that is the route of discovery. Demonstrating the evidences that led you from A to B is how you provide the road-map for others to follow. More importantly, it allows others, with possibly more experience and knowledge, to demonstrate any missteps in your path. Always test your evidences before you follow them and let the evidences guide you to the destination; don't choose your destination and then try to find evidences that can be supportive of going in that direction. The former is how science works, the latter is pseudoscience (at best). Strong and compelling evidences often lead to places you never imagined (and frequently to places you'd prefer not to be), but that is the only true path when exploring the universe in which we reside.

 

[lobosrul]

The second difference is where the events fir relative to the trend. A heat wave that is a 1/1000 year event without warming but a 1/40 year event with warming can't plausibly be called "just a normal weather event" and can in fact be attributed to global warming. Conversely a cold winter that would have been normal 3 decades ago doesn't by itself hold any significance, because such an event is still within a reasonable range of probability.

But how accurately do we know that a severe heat wave should be a 1/1000 year event, rather than we just got lucky for the past century or so, the length that accurate weather records have been kept? We have a good idea of how warm the earth was on average going back thousands of years, but how accurate is the data for a locality?

 

[OCaptain]

Nice try .... I said "scientists like me" .... want to see Dec 21st temp infrared's for every Dec 21 st for the past 500 years.

As opposed to "scientist like you" who post one day of temps and claim it as evidence.

You DO know that weather is NOT climate, correct?

 

[Trakar]

@ Macdoc,

I guess you missed this:


Which is why I posted it. Because while stored biomass is larger in forests, the net carbon cycle is nearly neutral. While on the other hand, a functioning grassland biome sequesters an order of magnitude more carbon in the soil than in its biomass. This makes it a net carbon sink. It is the missing key passed over by many in the past.

Problem is by the time we figured it out, most the productive grassland biome was already gone. Most of it can't even be restored actually. But in agriculture, we don't necessarily have to restore a pristine biome. Simply understand how it functions and use that knowledge to our advantage.

Actually most farmers using this are not doing it out of some kind of altruistic quest to save the world from global warming, it is just a side effect. A beneficial one. They do it because sequestering carbon in the soil improves yields and profits and makes the land more drought resistant. That goes for crop farmers just as much as ranchers.

Here is what the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service East National Technology Support Center (USDA NRCS ENTSC) has to say about it. I hope that is mainstream enough for you.
Under Cover Farmers - Feature Length

"dry woodlands" is a specific term with specific meaning. In general, it refers to what the people I grew up around refer to as "scrub brush" in a semiarid environment, generally adjacent to desert regions. So tall grasslands (which is also a specific term and not anything similar to grazing fields) may have slightly more biomass than either dry woodlands or a desert, but it does not compare favorably with more robust biomass biomes such as the boreal forests which can have up to 18kg/m^2 above ground, and as much as 30kg/m^2 below ground for a net approaching 50kg/m^2 of biome biomass.
(http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1468542?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103186751047)

 

[macdoc]

Anyone here going to deny these South Pole temperatures ?

Is it OK if I believe them ?

you don't specify a source but the South Pole is governed by a different set of climate parameters given it is nearly all glacier which controls the air temperate above it and is the location of the ozone hole.

That does not mean melting is not going on in the more vulnerable Western section

In fact glad you brought that up as the latest satellite data is in....not good news for your premise....

The rate of ice loss from the West Antarctic appears to have accelerated sharply in the last four years, European scientists say.

LONDON, 20 December – Ice is being lost over the West Antarctic ice sheet at a faster rate. The European Space Agency’s Cryosat – a satellite with a radar altimeter that can peer through the clouds and see in the dark – has confirmed that 150 cubic kilometres of ice are drifting into the Southern Ocean each year: a much faster rate than the calculation for 2010.

After observations between 2005 and 2010, gathered by 10 different satellite missions, Antarctic scientists and oceanographers calculated that the melting of ice from the West Antarctic peninsula was causing global sea levels to rise by 0.28mm a year. The latest survey suggests this rate is 15% higher.

The figures were revealed at the autumn meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Most of the ice loss comes from glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea.

“We find that ice thinning continues to be most pronounced along fast-flowing ice streams of this sector and their tributaries, with thinning rates of between four to eight metres per year near the grounding lines – where the ice streams lift up off the land and begin to float out over the ocean – of the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith glaciers”, said Malcolm McMillan of the University of Leeds in the UK.

http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2013/12/west-antarctic-ice-loss-speeds-up/

so are you going to cherry pick NASA data or take both as accurate.??

and before you bring up the stupidity of increased sea ice in Antarctica....

Most of the ice loss comes from glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea.

I assume you do know how glaciers flow into the sea....
it was quite interesting to see and hear....and incidently creates more sea ice....fancy that.

 

[macdoc]

RBF posted

An appropriate modern comparison is between grassland and woodland vegetation of similar climatic belts. Grasslands have only about one sixth the biomass of woodlands, but the biomass is dwarfed by an order of magnitude more C in grassland soils. Globally averaged, tall grasslands store 16.0 kg C m2 organic matter underground and 0.7 kg C m2 aboveground, compared with 11.1 kg C m2 underground and 4.5 kg C m2 aboveground for dry woodlands, for a net C storage of 16.7 kg C m2 for tall grasslands compared with 15.6 kg C m2 for woodlands.

No I did not miss it....the point YOU miss is you cannot manage soils formation in a way to "heal the planet".
You are stating an observation..not a method which you claim to have.

You are talking about already stored carbon from the beginning of the ice age not active management and sequestration of carbon NOW and I can do the research if needed to show melting of permafrost release will outweigh any amount of active soil management.

What are you going to do?? Replant the taiga and boreal forest.?
With what?

Step by step show mitigation that can be achive on a "heal the planet" scale.

I'll even accept offsetting say vehicle emissions.

Start small ...after all the planet is very large.

 

[Trakar]

.
Anyone here going to deny these South Pole temperatures ?

Is it OK if I believe them ?

,

Your beliefs are irrelevant to the determination of science, they merely represent what you have chosen to hold as accurate with faith.

As for your graph, please link to the NASA satellite data from which it is purportedly derived. The only long term NASA satellite information of the Antarctic that I am aware of presents a different picture:

This image illustrates long-term changes in yearly surface temperature in and around Antarctica between 1981 and 2007.
(http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239)

Of course, there are undoubtedly areas where the average temperatures have not changed over the last half century, and there are probably a few areas where the average temperature has decreased over the last fifty years, these are irrelevant, however, to the fact that most areas of the planet, and the planet as a whole, have increased average temperatures over the last 50 years.

 

[aleCcowaN]

I just think its very silly that anytime there is unusual weather somewhere the cries of "global warming!! ZOMG!" are heard.

Why "global warming!" and not "global cooling!"?

 

[DC]

Many Global Warmists still deny these facts:
I do not


(snip) ... The IPCC’s goal today — certainly the explicit goal of many of its 195-member countries who have bought into its climate alarmism — is not to study climate.
It’s to re-distribute global wealth, as senior IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer confirmed in 2010 when he emphasized, “One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

This explains the IPCC/UN push to impose carbon taxes on the developed world, even though they’ve proven ineffective in places where they’ve been tried, like Norway.

It explains its push for cap-and-trade markets, even though they’re awash in fraud, as is Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme.

In Canada, Ontarians wondering why their electricity prices are skyrocketing should understand their Liberal government foolishly bought into the climate of hysteria generated by IPCC reports that come out every five or six years.

Why hysteria? As German Green Party politician Hermann Ott frankly admitted to Spiegel Online leading up to today’s IPCC report, “Climate policy needs the element of fear. Otherwise, no politician would take on this topic.”

A major controversy this year has been a 15-year pause in global warming the IPCC’s climate models failed to predict. (snip)

more here http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/26/time-to-end-the-climate-of-fear

funny, you the denier made a claim that is contradicted by researchers that actually do research the climate.....

how come you dare not adress this?

why are deniers so scared to answer questions? why are they merely interested in parroting long debunked myths from the denier bloggs but refuse to partake in a debate?

what are you so afraid of?

 

[DC]

.
Anyone here going to deny these South Pole temperatures ?

Is it OK if I believe them ?

,

well the graph includes a lie. 35 years and no global warming? that is simply a lie.
and the graph does not belong there. why are they making claims about GLOBAL warming and only show a tiny past of the world ?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

No I did not miss it....the point YOU miss is you cannot manage soils formation in a way to "heal the planet".
You are stating an observation..not a method which you claim to have.

You are talking about already stored carbon from the beginning of the ice age not active management and sequestration of carbon NOW and I can do the research if needed to show melting of permafrost release will outweigh any amount of active soil management.

What are you going to do?? Replant the taiga and boreal forest.?
With what?

Step by step show mitigation that can be achive on a "heal the planet" scale.

I'll even accept offsetting say vehicle emissions.

Start small ...after all the planet is very large.

I just posted for cropland. Lets see what the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service says about rangeland.

Environmental Impacts and Conservation of Rangeland

In addition to promoting native vegetation, rangelands also help sequester carbon in their soils. Specific management programs have been created to help this continue effectively. They do not allow significant amounts of soil to remain undisturbed and vulnerable to emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Similar management programs have shown a significant increase in carbon storage annually in rangeland soils. source

That's 2 , croplands (in my previous post) and rangelands, both if managed properly sequestering significant amounts of carbon. But currently an emissions source because it mostly isn't managed in a way that sequesters carbon.

How much is all the arable land and rangelands combined? Well about 1/2 the total land surface is considered "rangeland" but much of it isn't or can't be used. But a good estimate of USED cropland and pasture is ~ 13,000,000 km2 of cropland and 34,000,000 km2 of pastureland or roughly 5 billion hectares +/-

You say it can't be managed in a way to build soil, but currently, taken as a whole, it is being managed in a way that is a carbon emissions source. Just under 1/2 the planet. The biomes that were a carbon sink are currently, as it stands now, being managed in a way that has turned a net carbon sink into a net carbon emissions source. No wonder the other carbon sinks are overloaded. And it is being managed, so it can be managed differently if only the managers are shown how.

But you have to actually do it, instead of joining the denialist camp and saying it can't be done and that's not why we have AGW anyway. I call woo on you for that. But don't feel bad. You are in good company. Many of the worlds scientists are in just as great a degree of denial.

 

[Trakar]

I just posted for cropland. Lets see what the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service says about rangeland.

That's 2 , croplands (in my previous post) and rangelands, both if managed properly sequestering significant amounts of carbon. But currently an emissions source because it mostly isn't managed in a way that sequesters carbon.

How much is all the arable land and rangelands combined? Well about 1/2 the total land surface is considered "rangeland" but much of it isn't or can't be used. But a good estimate of USED cropland and pasture is ~ 13,000,000 km2 of cropland and 34,000,000 km2 of pastureland or roughly 5 billion hectares +/-

You say it can't be managed in a way to build soil, but currently, taken as a whole, it is being managed in a way that is a carbon emissions source. Just under 1/2 the planet. The biomes that were a carbon sink are currently, as it stands now, being managed in a way that has turned a net carbon sink into a net carbon emissions source. No wonder the other carbon sinks are overloaded. And it is being managed, so it can be managed differently if only the managers are shown how...

I don't recall seeing your numbers for croplands and rangelands but these biomes are very different from what are typical "tall grasslands" and are generally quickly depleted and destroyed by any agricultural (crop or range) usage. The primary problem for such wild prairies moving forward, is that climate change is already shifting the rainfall patterns depriving such regions of the copious early spring water supplies they need to support tall grassland biomes. South central Canada is actually more suited to developing this biome than anywhere in the US, and I doubt you will get farmers anywhere to quit farming their lands without some form of compensation.

 

[Trakar]

But you have to actually do it, instead of joining the denialist camp and saying it can't be done and that's not why we have AGW anyway. I call woo on you for that. But don't feel bad. You are in good company. Many of the worlds scientists are in just as great a degree of denial.

This is unfounded, unsupported and over-the-top. You are out of line. Disagreeing with you, and your assertions, would only constitute denial, if your statements and assertions were perfectly in accord with mainstream science understandings. This is not the case. It is one thing to advocate for your pet fixation, it is another thing entirely to allow such to become the source of what appear to be verging upon obsessive delusions.

 

[macdoc]

See RF this is your problem.....sloppy use of numbers.

(148,429,000 Sq. Km) is the total land area.

you said

How much is all the arable land and rangelands combined? Well about 1/2 the total land surface is considered "rangeland" but much of it isn't or can't be used. But a good estimate of USED cropland and pasture is ~ 13,000,000 km2 of cropland and 34,000,000 km2 of pastureland or roughly 5 billion hectares +/-

You say it can't be managed in a way to build soil, but currently, taken as a whole, it is being managed in a way that is a carbon emissions source. Just under 1/2 the planet.

do you want to try your math again???

estimates of the proportion of the earth's land area covered by grasslands vary between 20 and 40 percent, depending on the definition.

Those differences are due to a lack of harmonization in the definition of grasslands. Using FAO’s data and definition, it is possible to estimate the world area of Pasture and Fodder Crops at 3.5 billion ha (35 000 000 sq km) in 2000, representing 26% of the world land area and 70% of the world agricultural area (Table 1.1).

http://www.fao.org/ag/agp/agpc/doc/grass_stats/grass-stats.htm

and for certain the marginal grasslands are neither being managed nor are manageable.

Then you have to subtract the actual land under cultivation which is another set of parameters with varying goals not all of which are conducive to being carbon sinks.

You may have useful benefit....you cannot heal the planet nor reverse AGW>

 

[uke2se]

Is that just a "Chopper Pilot" to which you refer - or are those your code words for "Black Helicopters"? Seriously man...you need to get on the Alex Jones Show. From there, maybe Jesse Ventura will do a show with ya'.

Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura are climate deniers.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I don't recall seeing your numbers for croplands and rangelands but these biomes are very different from what are typical "tall grasslands" and are generally quickly depleted and destroyed by any agricultural (crop or range) usage. The primary problem for such wild prairies moving forward, is that climate change is already shifting the rainfall patterns depriving such regions of the copious early spring water supplies they need to support tall grassland biomes. South central Canada is actually more suited to developing this biome than anywhere in the US, and I doubt you will get farmers anywhere to quit farming their lands without some form of compensation.

Yes, that's a good point, if they had to actually quit farming. But they don't. Actually make bigger profits due to increased productivity. Carbon in the soil does that. humus The influence of humic acids derived from earthworm-processed organic wastes on plant growth

The breakthrough comes in where you say, "are generally quickly depleted and destroyed by any agricultural (crop or range) usage".

That may have been true at one time. But science advances.

Range condition scoring
Savory brittleness scale

and crops?

Pasture cropping

The future holds even more promise.

That root system represents something far bigger than itself: Soil health. Perennial plants build soil and protect against erosion in ways annual plants and their skimpy root structures simply cannot. It's why, since large-scale corn farming replaced perennial prairie, Iowa has lost some 8 vertical inches of precious topsoil. Glover's argument: To protect our farming resources for future generations we need to pay more attention to the potential benefits of perennial crops. source

 

[Trakar]

Yes, that's a good point, if they had to actually quit farming. But they don't. Actually make bigger profits due to increased productivity. Carbon in the soil does that. humus The influence of humic acids derived from earthworm-processed organic wastes on plant growth

The breakthrough comes in where you say, "are generally quickly depleted and destroyed by any agricultural (crop or range) usage".

That may have been true at one time. But science advances.

Range condition scoring
Savory brittleness scale

and crops?

Pasture cropping

The future holds even more promise.

The promise of improved agricultural practices and techniques is a worthy and always pursued goal. These links suggest that there are indeed benefits of enhancing the productivity of depleted agricultural lands, something that I do not believe any one here has ever expressed doubt about.

Suggesting, however, that these processes are as, or more, effective at sequestering carbon as the originally undisturbed environments, or capable of restoring productivity from depleted farmlands to the levels of the virgin biome soils, as you seem to be asserting, is unsupported by the references you present.