I think you'll find if you read beyond the first paragraph, that the argument is pretty compelling in favor of a feedback effect involving CO2-induced global warming. What initiates the warming is a side-issue beloved of those seeking to avoid the main problem - which is that once warming starts (as it indisputably has once more) the CO2 greenhouse effect provides positive reinforcement. And given that because of human activity, the CO2 levels are already at unprecedented levels, this time around the results could be catastrophic.
@Heater - some very clever things going on in Europe.
Last year someone sent me this photo.
It looks so cool. Solar panels that follow the contours. Grass growing in between so it still works as a farm. Sheep can graze the grass (in my case, kangaroos). Trackers are more efficient, but if you do the maths, it is cheaper to put up more panels than install a tracker.
Back of an envelope calculation based on price per pallet of panels. $110 for 195W. Average per day production allowing for winter/summer/clouds at lattitude 35 degrees, is 5x the watts. So each panel makes 5x195 = 0.975Kwh. There are lots of different prices, but the real price I pay for electricity during the day is 35c. However the price I get back for solar energy is only 25c so let's use the lower price and see if it still works. That panel makes 0.975x0.25 = around 24c a day. Multiply by 365 days gives $88.9. Cost of the panel was $110. Inverters run best at around 300V and the panels are in groups of 12 and the shared cost of the inverter for that panel is $40 and then another $20 for the frame and another $10 for the wiring. So the total cost for that panel/accessories was $170. It makes $177 in two years.
After that, the energy is making a profit.
I don't own a coal mine. I am not allowed to own a reactor. I don't know if there is any oil or gas below my house and I doubt I'd be allowed to drill or frack it.
Regardless of global cooling, global warming etc, here is a way to make money out of energy.
Actually, I thought I was pretty clever when I got this working last month, I went to work, told the receptionist all about it and then she says that she has panels and has been getting checks from the electricity company for the last three years. Oh well...
Loopy, you mention Fukishima but what about Challenger and Columbia. Not our greatest moments.
In the working world most things are driven by schedule especially when some big cheese says tells the world it will be released on such and such a date.
And then there is this infamous line, "We will fix it in the next revision.".
Loopy, you mention Fukishima but what about Challenger and Columbia. Not our greatest moments.
In the working world most things are driven by schedule especially when some big cheese says tells the world it will be released on such and such a date.
And then there is this infamous line, "We will fix it in the next revision.".
Don't get me started, the thread will be locked. I have a mighty high soapbox.
This is a quote from Dr. Dallas Dance, the Superintendent of Baltimore County Schools in regards to his admittedly disastrous implementation of the Common Core educational program. Funny thing is, the guy is still in office. Still flying, I guess. And building, I suppose. Makes you wonder what kind of glue he's using to build. And whether or not maybe he's getting a little bit too much of the vapors from it in that ivory tower in which he's playing air traffic controller.
The thing about education is that you only have one chance to get it right, without leaving an entire block of the student population with a quality gap. Having now been a bit player in the local educational system since last October, I am continually impressed by the dedication and huge effort put forth by teaching and administrative staff alike to make whatever process they're saddled with by law work for the students.
Teaching elementry, middle, and high school is certainly demanding and requires dedication and effort far beyond what most people think the pay scale is worth.
The remarkable thing is that there are still supurb teachers that do it well and want to continue.
Why so? Well, life isn't just about the money. Nurturing, growing and helping minds mature in a good way is quite wonderful. And so is having the respect of people that don't admire what money can buy.
It certainly isn't about fast-tracking career paths or making Bozo into a genius. It is about serving a whole community with a great deal of patience and gentle leading by example. Very very serious dedication and commitment. Tons of homework to correct after 3:30 and then there might be some calls to parents as well, ad infinitum.
I think sadly that its too late. So quit your jobs and sail around the world as I do. Life is short - your retirement may be liquidated before you know it.
I think sadly that its too late. So quit your jobs and sail around the world as I do. Life is short - your retirement may be liquidated before you know it.
I practically idolized Joshua Slocum and Robin Lee Graham when I was younger. I bought the sailboat, the self-steering gear, new sails, communication equipment, earned a ham license, and was just waiting for the Pacific high pressure center to move north so that I could catch trade winds from Baja to Hawaii. Just then I was introduced to a sister of a friend of a sister (got that?). Six months later we were married. We spent the honeymoon on the boat and then sold it. Bought a house. Had a family.
Despite all the problems in the world, and all of Heater's certainty that we are running out of resources, life is great! Family life is great! Allocation of scarce resources through market forces has been working pretty well for a long time. We will continue to find solutions for living as long as a few know-it-all's don't bollix up the system with mandated solutions and their comical-if-they-weren't-so-tragic unintended consequences.
I actually did read it… but in reading it very carefully, I didn't find the argument compelling at all. They got away from the data… quite a ways.
The argument goes like this… Global warming started, all by itself and this rise in temperature then lead to an increase in C02 levels. Higher CO2 levels followed the initial temperature increase by about 800 years later… I don't see anything to argue with this.
Global warming in the Southern hemisphere preceded global warming in the Northern Hemisphere by about 800 years. This seems pretty solid. For a long time, the C02 increases lagged behind the temperature rises. Eventually we saw increasing CO2 before increasing temperatures… but so what? This doesn't mean that CO2 levels caused a temperature rise. We can conclude that CO2 levels and temperature are related, but that is all the data shows.
One huge relationship between CO2 and temperature… is the effect that temperatures have on living populations. Life and ice really don't mix very well. When there are warmer temperatures and less ice, there is more habitat for CO2 producing animals.
When global warming started… it created new habitats for life… that life came along and brought increased CO2 with it. That is the only conclusion anyone can reach regarding the early days of global warming. That data doesn't seem to be in dispute.
Temperature and CO2 could be treated as co-variables for simple modeling purposes. These authors chose not to do that… I don't understand why, but that is what they did.
What the data seems to indicate is that there is a non-linearity between C02 and temperature in the later data… but populations of any living things rarely follow linear statistics.
I don't know if it is actually possible to measure the total biomass of CO2 producing species or figure out what it was at any particular moment.
From the data available I certainly can't tell if there is an effect of CO2 on temperature… and I don't see how anyone else could either. You can argue that increased temperature causes an increase in CO2 and not be contradicted by any of the data.
We know that this is not the first cycle going from an ice age to … a non-ice age. It has happened before… without us.
If we didn't cause it before… what makes us believe that we are causing or contributing to it now?
The logic is somewhat circular… if you look at the CO2 data and assume that it is causing global warming and then you ask: "how could this be?" You can generate several different kinds of physical models to explain it…the "greenhouse" effect. But that doesn't make it true.
I found this article..https://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm which says that human production of C02 is about 3 percent of total global production of CO2 by otherwise natural processes.
It argues that the 3 percent we are producing that is causing the global increase in CO2. If you take a system that is tending toward equilibrium… that system can sometimes be driven away from equilibrium by even small perturbations. I think we should look at the whole situation (including crop yields) and have a target CO2 level that makes sense, and then look to see how we can get there… but in my thinking, that might be a higher CO2 level than we have right now.
Do we really know that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas?" The climate record doesn't tell us.
I am fond of saying that everything I really wanted to do in life, I have done… but you reminded me: at one point, a single handed sail around the world was definitely on my bucket list.
We are in a stepwise process of moving the extended family to Las Vegas. It is taking forever:( If Las Vegas had access to the ocean, I wouldn't get an RV to hold my hobby Smile… I'd get a
boat. Unfortunately, sailing on an extended lake just doesn't do "it" for me.
Again, you seem to have failed to read far enough. In all these articles, the first paragraph is always the "myth", and the next few paragraphs are trying to explain the background you will need to understand why it's a myth, so you need to read all the way to the end.
In this case:
While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2. The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.
I am going to have to go back and see where the discussion about hockey sticks came from.
Someone basically decried the obsession with "sports" and in response I grafted in a "hockey stick" remark which went over some heads.
The "hockey stick", and it surprises me that this context is unknown, is explained by the subsequent link supplied in Reply #61 - which it seems at least two people now have missed.
Nice link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
I think it is very interesting that anyone who works for the energy business is tainted by association. While anyone that works for private foundations or the government is presumed pure. What this link documents is a heated debate about how to statistically analyze instrumented temperature measurements. Obviously, the time frame starts when the instruments became available.
I remember a similar debate about whether or not certain non-thermal electromagnetic fields cause cancer. An important topic, that doesn't lend itself to very rational debate either. The official government study concluded that there was no effect… based on cluster analysis. Well, it turns out that there was a cluster in Colorado... nine brain tumors in a single neighborhood area, all in close proximity to down transformers. Clusters like this were excluded from the official study on the basis that the tumors were of different types. I don't believe that weak electromagnetic fields cause cancer in the normal case. But something was probably going on with those transformers.
What is missing from the discussion is a model of climate change that begins at the beginning and with high fidelity matches the available data right up to the industrial age.
Without that kind of model, you really aren't really having a scientific debate. It's just a debate. If we are going to have government regulations based upon science, then let's have a little science thrown in. If a debate has gotten stuck on measurement theory(which your link documents)… then we have the wrong scientists looking at the problem.
Our statistical sciences are really very new… and as good as statistical science is, it is really not very well suited to complicated questions.
Statistics is not about physical causality… it is about correlation. The issue of causality requires mechanics…physics, thermodynamics, etc.
RossH…
if you have time, read my comments again. I have no problem with the basic hypothesis that if you have an ecosystem (or any other system for that matter)that is close to equilibrium… in this case, the equilibrium is between CO2 production and natural processes of utilization and re-absorption… and then you drop the industrial revolution
on that system, it would not be surprising if the system is moved farther away from equilibrium. If someone attributes rising CO2 to human activity… fine. No problem, it is perfectly consistent with the observations and our general understanding of how systems behave. That doesn't make it true, but it is certainly worth discussing and seems likely to be true to me.
The question I have is… so what? Until we have an understanding adequate to explain natural sources of global warming, whatever we do is likely to be misinformed.
This is why we have science… to study these kinds of questions. An astrophysicist would never produce a paper that only explained the last 150 years of stellar observations and think that the job was done. And if he told you that he could perfectly explain the last hundred years, but had no interest in what came before, you wouldn't listen.
We are producing only a minute fraction of global CO2… that seems to be an agreed upon fact. I would want rock solid evidence that our tiny fraction is actually causing warming… CO2 levels… and global warming...two slightly different issues, linked by bad science.
The Mayan civilization dissolved into an orgy of human sacrifice, because they believed if they didn't sacrifice human lives… the Sun would not rise in the morning.
This is not the time to be restraining the growth of agriculture. Every step that is taken to restrain industry should be weighed against the eventual cost in terms of human starvation.
I applaud the regulations to limit the emission of particulate carbon and carbon monoxide. We are producing a tiny fraction of the World's total CO2… and we could balance that out by increasing the biomass of CO2 consuming organisms by exactly that same fraction. I don't think it would have any effect on global warming, but it isn't a bad idea.
We are producing only a minute fraction of global CO2… that seems to be an agreed upon fact. I would want rock solid evidence that our tiny fraction is actually causing warming… CO2 levels… and global warming...two slightly different issues, linked by bad science.
You keep saying the same thing over and over again, without appearing to care that the links you post actually contradict your statements. From your inclusion of emotive terms such as "our tiny fraction", "I want rock solid evidence" and "bad science" I can see that you simply don't want to agree with what these links are trying to tell you - in which case I suggest you find links to web sites other than science-based ones.
If you have the patience for it. Let's go through this one point at a time.
Does the accepted data indicate that cycles of global warming and cooling happened long before man was around (or in sufficient numbers to have any effect)?
To try to convince you that it is worth the effort please consider this quote
Rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide in upper level of Earth's atmosphere is expected to gradually result in a cooler, more contracted high-altitude atmospheric layer or thermosphere,
Historically, the Naval Research Laboratory has lead science when it needed to be led. MRI came directly from their research… lots of people take credit for it. MRI came from the Naval Research Laboratory. I know and I am an expert on the subject. Admittedly, MRI had to be leaked… but that's sometimes the way things happen:) This article is about the impact that this cooling will have on space junk…The Navy doesn't like politics. They just sort of state the facts…in the most creative ways sometimes.
We are producing a tiny fraction of the World's total CO2
I'm very skeptical about this whole global warming thing too. So I typed some searches into Google.
global volcano CO2
and
global CO2 sources
I dunno. You get lots of different answers. But the volcano one seems to be that we are making about 100 to 140x what volcanoes make.
The global CO2 sources question is tricky because lots of CO2 goes round and round between forests and the air, and the ocean and the air. Lots more goes round than is added to the system. But what we are adding has to go somewhere.
Maybe CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't cause warming. And maybe, like you say
Does the accepted data indicate that cycles of global warming and cooling happened long before man was around (or in sufficient numbers to have any effect)?
In fact, maybe the earth will keep going through ice ages and warm periods as it always has.
But, having said that, all these fossil fuels are not going to last forever. We have dug up the easy stuff - the coal seams that were visible on the surface, the oil wells where the oil came out under pressure. We have been living the good life on the big oil and gas fields that were discovered decades ago. But we are now having to go for the hard stuff - the stuff you have to frack, the offshore oil fields, the tar sands that take almost as much energy as they produce, the fields in the Arctic.
And we will extract all those fossil fuels too. Fossil fuels will never run out, but as time goes on, they will get more expensive. Sooner or later, there is a transition point where other forms of energy are cheaper. Solar power with government subsidies reached that point maybe a decade ago. But in the last few years, I think we reached another very interesting transition point, where solar power *without* subsidies became cheaper than fossil fuels.
Even if you believe or don't believe in climate change, I think there are other reasons to look at decreasing carbon use. My personal reason is that I think I have a responsibility to at least leave a little of these fuels for my grandkids.
If you have the patience for it. Let's go through this one point at a time.
Does the accepted data indicate that cycles of global warming and cooling happened long before man was around (or in sufficient numbers to have any effect)?
Historically, the Naval Research Laboratory has lead science when it needed to be lead. MRI came directly from their research… lots of people take credit for it. MRI came from the Naval Research Laboratory. I know and I am an expert on the subject. Admittedly, MRI had to be leaked… but that's sometimes the way things happen:) This article is about the impact that this cooling will have on space junk…The Navy doesn't like politics. They just sort of state the facts…in the most creative ways sometimes.
The 'climate changed naturally in the past' argument is a logical fallacy known as non sequitur, in which the conclusion doesn't follow from the arguments. It's equivalent to seeing a dead body with a knife sticking out the back, then arguing the death must be natural because people died naturally in the past. It fails to even consider the available evidence.
We need to be careful… otherwise we are going to needlessly irritate people, which is not the goal, here. There is no question in my mind that global warming is happening,
The impact is real and might be even larger in the near future than we currently fear.
There is also no question that it has happened before… one of the graphs shown in one of the references illustrates 5 previous cycles. Every time there was heating, it was associated with CO2 increases. The increased CO2 was associated with natural processes having nothing to do with our existence. I don't see anyone debating this. The issue isn't whether these cycles happen but why. If we really want to understand global warming, then we have to begin with an understanding of the natural origins.
As far as I can tell, there are varying opinions from equally qualified people about the roles of solar cycles and the possibility of orbital change being causal. Both make sense
to me… but how causality is actually there seems to be an open question.
I looked again at the link that RossH provided. I don't see any discussion or even a reference to the fact that higher CO2 levels in the thermosphere are going to cool off the thermosphere on a time scale sufficiently short so that we can discuss the change in terms of the impact it will have on the amount of space junk floating around. If the Naval Research Lab is correct we are also going to see a relatively rapid contraction of our atmosphere. And I don't see how that fact could possibly be irrelevant to this discussion. The Navy article only addresses space junk… it doesn't say anything about what that contraction might imply for life on Earth.
As far as I can tell, there are varying opinions from equally qualified people about the roles of solar cycles and the possibility of orbital change being causal. Both make sense
to me… but how causality is actually there seems to be an open question.
But there is general consensus amongst climate scientists that the question of causality is irrelevant to the question of whether global warming is currently occurring, whether this warming is influenced by increased CO2 levels, and whether those increased CO2 levels are caused by human activity (and there is general consensus among climate scientists that the answer to the last three questions is Yes, by the way).
I looked again at the link that RossH provided. I don't see any discussion or even a reference to the fact that higher CO2 levels in the thermosphere are going to cool off the thermosphere on a time scale sufficiently short so that we can discuss the change in terms of the impact it will have on the amount of space junk floating around. If the Naval Research Lab is correct we are also going to see a relatively rapid contraction of our atmosphere. And I don't see how that fact could possibly be irrelevant to this discussion. The article only address space junk… it doesn't say anything about what that contraction might imply for life on Earth.
I don't think you are reading the posts I give you carefully enough. I have highlighted the relevant part, which explains why I claim that your post is irrelevant:
When looking for evidence of global warming, there are many different indicators that we should look for. Whilst it's natural to start with air temperatures, a more thorough examination should be as inclusive as possible; snow cover, ice melt, air temperatures over land and sea, even the sea temperatures themselves.
But don't take my word for it - if you want to know much more about the effects CO2 will have on the behavior of the atmosphere, a little poking around will get you this, which explains how it is quite likely that some parts of the atmosphere will cool as CO2 levels rise.
No it doesn't. It comes (distorted along the way) via a chain of websites that lead back one published by Joseph Postma, who published a famously debunked article on the Greenhouse effect. See here for details.
And just to save everyone having to read all the way to the bottom of that article, I will summarize what it concludes about Joseph Postma and his paper:
... it is a sham, intended only to confuse casual readers and provide a citation on blogs. The author should be ashamed.
I think sadly that its too late. So quit your jobs and sail around the world as I do. Life is short - your retirement may be liquidated before you know it.
Please, please, please consider this...
While preventing Global Warming might be a lost cause,
Living well and enjoying life is never a lost cause. Never give up the 'good fight' to do so.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ALL require some effort. And there certainly are ups and downs along the way.
Comments
I think you'll find if you read beyond the first paragraph, that the argument is pretty compelling in favor of a feedback effect involving CO2-induced global warming. What initiates the warming is a side-issue beloved of those seeking to avoid the main problem - which is that once warming starts (as it indisputably has once more) the CO2 greenhouse effect provides positive reinforcement. And given that because of human activity, the CO2 levels are already at unprecedented levels, this time around the results could be catastrophic.
Ross.
Hockey sticks are nothing but an illusion...
...until they knock your teeth out.
Last year someone sent me this photo.
It looks so cool. Solar panels that follow the contours. Grass growing in between so it still works as a farm. Sheep can graze the grass (in my case, kangaroos). Trackers are more efficient, but if you do the maths, it is cheaper to put up more panels than install a tracker.
Back of an envelope calculation based on price per pallet of panels. $110 for 195W. Average per day production allowing for winter/summer/clouds at lattitude 35 degrees, is 5x the watts. So each panel makes 5x195 = 0.975Kwh. There are lots of different prices, but the real price I pay for electricity during the day is 35c. However the price I get back for solar energy is only 25c so let's use the lower price and see if it still works. That panel makes 0.975x0.25 = around 24c a day. Multiply by 365 days gives $88.9. Cost of the panel was $110. Inverters run best at around 300V and the panels are in groups of 12 and the shared cost of the inverter for that panel is $40 and then another $20 for the frame and another $10 for the wiring. So the total cost for that panel/accessories was $170. It makes $177 in two years.
After that, the energy is making a profit.
I don't own a coal mine. I am not allowed to own a reactor. I don't know if there is any oil or gas below my house and I doubt I'd be allowed to drill or frack it.
Regardless of global cooling, global warming etc, here is a way to make money out of energy.
Actually, I thought I was pretty clever when I got this working last month, I went to work, told the receptionist all about it and then she says that she has panels and has been getting checks from the electricity company for the last three years. Oh well...
In the working world most things are driven by schedule especially when some big cheese says tells the world it will be released on such and such a date.
And then there is this infamous line, "We will fix it in the next revision.".
Don't get me started, the thread will be locked. I have a mighty high soapbox.
Oh, but how about this little gem: "We are building the plane as we fly it. But let's be clear our passengers are safe."
[url] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-co-common-core-20130918,0,7745868.story#ixzz2yAej65TF [/url]
This is a quote from Dr. Dallas Dance, the Superintendent of Baltimore County Schools in regards to his admittedly disastrous implementation of the Common Core educational program. Funny thing is, the guy is still in office. Still flying, I guess. And building, I suppose. Makes you wonder what kind of glue he's using to build. And whether or not maybe he's getting a little bit too much of the vapors from it in that ivory tower in which he's playing air traffic controller.
-Phil
The remarkable thing is that there are still supurb teachers that do it well and want to continue.
Why so? Well, life isn't just about the money. Nurturing, growing and helping minds mature in a good way is quite wonderful. And so is having the respect of people that don't admire what money can buy.
It certainly isn't about fast-tracking career paths or making Bozo into a genius. It is about serving a whole community with a great deal of patience and gentle leading by example. Very very serious dedication and commitment. Tons of homework to correct after 3:30 and then there might be some calls to parents as well, ad infinitum.
Before that there was worry of a ice age.
And before that Erlich's doom by over population.
And a few volcanic eruptions could easily undue all the work of the global warmers in a matter of days. And you can't cap a volcano or fine it.
Lets not forget the sun's role in this as well.
In essence the control freaks who constitute the GW movement cannot control nature who has the final say in whether we live or die..
I practically idolized Joshua Slocum and Robin Lee Graham when I was younger. I bought the sailboat, the self-steering gear, new sails, communication equipment, earned a ham license, and was just waiting for the Pacific high pressure center to move north so that I could catch trade winds from Baja to Hawaii. Just then I was introduced to a sister of a friend of a sister (got that?). Six months later we were married. We spent the honeymoon on the boat and then sold it. Bought a house. Had a family.
Despite all the problems in the world, and all of Heater's certainty that we are running out of resources, life is great! Family life is great! Allocation of scarce resources through market forces has been working pretty well for a long time. We will continue to find solutions for living as long as a few know-it-all's don't bollix up the system with mandated solutions and their comical-if-they-weren't-so-tragic unintended consequences.
I actually did read it… but in reading it very carefully, I didn't find the argument compelling at all. They got away from the data… quite a ways.
The argument goes like this… Global warming started, all by itself and this rise in temperature then lead to an increase in C02 levels. Higher CO2 levels followed the initial temperature increase by about 800 years later… I don't see anything to argue with this.
Global warming in the Southern hemisphere preceded global warming in the Northern Hemisphere by about 800 years. This seems pretty solid. For a long time, the C02 increases lagged behind the temperature rises. Eventually we saw increasing CO2 before increasing temperatures… but so what? This doesn't mean that CO2 levels caused a temperature rise. We can conclude that CO2 levels and temperature are related, but that is all the data shows.
One huge relationship between CO2 and temperature… is the effect that temperatures have on living populations. Life and ice really don't mix very well. When there are warmer temperatures and less ice, there is more habitat for CO2 producing animals.
When global warming started… it created new habitats for life… that life came along and brought increased CO2 with it. That is the only conclusion anyone can reach regarding the early days of global warming. That data doesn't seem to be in dispute.
Temperature and CO2 could be treated as co-variables for simple modeling purposes. These authors chose not to do that… I don't understand why, but that is what they did.
What the data seems to indicate is that there is a non-linearity between C02 and temperature in the later data… but populations of any living things rarely follow linear statistics.
I don't know if it is actually possible to measure the total biomass of CO2 producing species or figure out what it was at any particular moment.
From the data available I certainly can't tell if there is an effect of CO2 on temperature… and I don't see how anyone else could either. You can argue that increased temperature causes an increase in CO2 and not be contradicted by any of the data.
We know that this is not the first cycle going from an ice age to … a non-ice age. It has happened before… without us.
If we didn't cause it before… what makes us believe that we are causing or contributing to it now?
The logic is somewhat circular… if you look at the CO2 data and assume that it is causing global warming and then you ask: "how could this be?" You can generate several different kinds of physical models to explain it…the "greenhouse" effect. But that doesn't make it true.
I found this article..https://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm which says that human production of C02 is about 3 percent of total global production of CO2 by otherwise natural processes.
It argues that the 3 percent we are producing that is causing the global increase in CO2. If you take a system that is tending toward equilibrium… that system can sometimes be driven away from equilibrium by even small perturbations. I think we should look at the whole situation (including crop yields) and have a target CO2 level that makes sense, and then look to see how we can get there… but in my thinking, that might be a higher CO2 level than we have right now.
Do we really know that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas?" The climate record doesn't tell us.
I am fond of saying that everything I really wanted to do in life, I have done… but you reminded me: at one point, a single handed sail around the world was definitely on my bucket list.
We are in a stepwise process of moving the extended family to Las Vegas. It is taking forever:( If Las Vegas had access to the ocean, I wouldn't get an RV to hold my hobby Smile… I'd get a
boat. Unfortunately, sailing on an extended lake just doesn't do "it" for me.
Can't remember where it started?
Welcome to the Concussion Club.
With my schedule and the goings on over in the P2 forums, I have fallen behind on my own thread.
drat… and it is going to have to stay that way til morning… I'm off to baby sit.
Thanks guys
Again, you seem to have failed to read far enough. In all these articles, the first paragraph is always the "myth", and the next few paragraphs are trying to explain the background you will need to understand why it's a myth, so you need to read all the way to the end.
In this case:
The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating.
Ross.
Someone basically decried the obsession with "sports" and in response I grafted in a "hockey stick" remark which went over some heads.
The "hockey stick", and it surprises me that this context is unknown, is explained by the subsequent link supplied in Reply #61 - which it seems at least two people now have missed.
Nice link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
I think it is very interesting that anyone who works for the energy business is tainted by association. While anyone that works for private foundations or the government is presumed pure. What this link documents is a heated debate about how to statistically analyze instrumented temperature measurements. Obviously, the time frame starts when the instruments became available.
I remember a similar debate about whether or not certain non-thermal electromagnetic fields cause cancer. An important topic, that doesn't lend itself to very rational debate either. The official government study concluded that there was no effect… based on cluster analysis. Well, it turns out that there was a cluster in Colorado... nine brain tumors in a single neighborhood area, all in close proximity to down transformers. Clusters like this were excluded from the official study on the basis that the tumors were of different types. I don't believe that weak electromagnetic fields cause cancer in the normal case. But something was probably going on with those transformers.
What is missing from the discussion is a model of climate change that begins at the beginning and with high fidelity matches the available data right up to the industrial age.
Without that kind of model, you really aren't really having a scientific debate. It's just a debate. If we are going to have government regulations based upon science, then let's have a little science thrown in. If a debate has gotten stuck on measurement theory(which your link documents)… then we have the wrong scientists looking at the problem.
Our statistical sciences are really very new… and as good as statistical science is, it is really not very well suited to complicated questions.
Statistics is not about physical causality… it is about correlation. The issue of causality requires mechanics…physics, thermodynamics, etc.
RossH…
if you have time, read my comments again. I have no problem with the basic hypothesis that if you have an ecosystem (or any other system for that matter)that is close to equilibrium… in this case, the equilibrium is between CO2 production and natural processes of utilization and re-absorption… and then you drop the industrial revolution
on that system, it would not be surprising if the system is moved farther away from equilibrium. If someone attributes rising CO2 to human activity… fine. No problem, it is perfectly consistent with the observations and our general understanding of how systems behave. That doesn't make it true, but it is certainly worth discussing and seems likely to be true to me.
The question I have is… so what? Until we have an understanding adequate to explain natural sources of global warming, whatever we do is likely to be misinformed.
This is why we have science… to study these kinds of questions. An astrophysicist would never produce a paper that only explained the last 150 years of stellar observations and think that the job was done. And if he told you that he could perfectly explain the last hundred years, but had no interest in what came before, you wouldn't listen.
We are producing only a minute fraction of global CO2… that seems to be an agreed upon fact. I would want rock solid evidence that our tiny fraction is actually causing warming… CO2 levels… and global warming...two slightly different issues, linked by bad science.
The Mayan civilization dissolved into an orgy of human sacrifice, because they believed if they didn't sacrifice human lives… the Sun would not rise in the morning.
This is not the time to be restraining the growth of agriculture. Every step that is taken to restrain industry should be weighed against the eventual cost in terms of human starvation.
I applaud the regulations to limit the emission of particulate carbon and carbon monoxide. We are producing a tiny fraction of the World's total CO2… and we could balance that out by increasing the biomass of CO2 consuming organisms by exactly that same fraction. I don't think it would have any effect on global warming, but it isn't a bad idea.
You keep saying the same thing over and over again, without appearing to care that the links you post actually contradict your statements. From your inclusion of emotive terms such as "our tiny fraction", "I want rock solid evidence" and "bad science" I can see that you simply don't want to agree with what these links are trying to tell you - in which case I suggest you find links to web sites other than science-based ones.
Ross.
If you have the patience for it. Let's go through this one point at a time.
Does the accepted data indicate that cycles of global warming and cooling happened long before man was around (or in sufficient numbers to have any effect)?
To try to convince you that it is worth the effort please consider this quote
This comes directly from the Naval Research Laboratory...http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2012/11/12/rise-of-atmospheric-co2-can-cause-more-space-junk-collisions/
Historically, the Naval Research Laboratory has lead science when it needed to be led. MRI came directly from their research… lots of people take credit for it. MRI came from the Naval Research Laboratory. I know and I am an expert on the subject. Admittedly, MRI had to be leaked… but that's sometimes the way things happen:) This article is about the impact that this cooling will have on space junk…The Navy doesn't like politics. They just sort of state the facts…in the most creative ways sometimes.
I'm very skeptical about this whole global warming thing too. So I typed some searches into Google.
global volcano CO2
and
global CO2 sources
I dunno. You get lots of different answers. But the volcano one seems to be that we are making about 100 to 140x what volcanoes make.
The global CO2 sources question is tricky because lots of CO2 goes round and round between forests and the air, and the ocean and the air. Lots more goes round than is added to the system. But what we are adding has to go somewhere.
Maybe CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't cause warming. And maybe, like you say
In fact, maybe the earth will keep going through ice ages and warm periods as it always has.
But, having said that, all these fossil fuels are not going to last forever. We have dug up the easy stuff - the coal seams that were visible on the surface, the oil wells where the oil came out under pressure. We have been living the good life on the big oil and gas fields that were discovered decades ago. But we are now having to go for the hard stuff - the stuff you have to frack, the offshore oil fields, the tar sands that take almost as much energy as they produce, the fields in the Arctic.
And we will extract all those fossil fuels too. Fossil fuels will never run out, but as time goes on, they will get more expensive. Sooner or later, there is a transition point where other forms of energy are cheaper. Solar power with government subsidies reached that point maybe a decade ago. But in the last few years, I think we reached another very interesting transition point, where solar power *without* subsidies became cheaper than fossil fuels.
Even if you believe or don't believe in climate change, I think there are other reasons to look at decreasing carbon use. My personal reason is that I think I have a responsibility to at least leave a little of these fuels for my grandkids.
Irrelevant. See here.
Ross.
Irrelevant. See here.
Ross.
We need to be careful… otherwise we are going to needlessly irritate people, which is not the goal, here. There is no question in my mind that global warming is happening,
The impact is real and might be even larger in the near future than we currently fear.
There is also no question that it has happened before… one of the graphs shown in one of the references illustrates 5 previous cycles. Every time there was heating, it was associated with CO2 increases. The increased CO2 was associated with natural processes having nothing to do with our existence. I don't see anyone debating this. The issue isn't whether these cycles happen but why. If we really want to understand global warming, then we have to begin with an understanding of the natural origins.
As far as I can tell, there are varying opinions from equally qualified people about the roles of solar cycles and the possibility of orbital change being causal. Both make sense
to me… but how causality is actually there seems to be an open question.
I looked again at the link that RossH provided. I don't see any discussion or even a reference to the fact that higher CO2 levels in the thermosphere are going to cool off the thermosphere on a time scale sufficiently short so that we can discuss the change in terms of the impact it will have on the amount of space junk floating around. If the Naval Research Lab is correct we are also going to see a relatively rapid contraction of our atmosphere. And I don't see how that fact could possibly be irrelevant to this discussion. The Navy article only addresses space junk… it doesn't say anything about what that contraction might imply for life on Earth.
I don't think you are reading the posts I give you carefully enough. I have highlighted the relevant part, which explains why I claim that your post is irrelevant:
When looking for evidence of global warming, there are many different indicators that we should look for. Whilst it's natural to start with air temperatures, a more thorough examination should be as inclusive as possible; snow cover, ice melt, air temperatures over land and sea, even the sea temperatures themselves.
Ross.
No it doesn't. It comes (distorted along the way) via a chain of websites that lead back one published by Joseph Postma, who published a famously debunked article on the Greenhouse effect. See here for details.
And just to save everyone having to read all the way to the bottom of that article, I will summarize what it concludes about Joseph Postma and his paper:
... it is a sham, intended only to confuse casual readers and provide a citation on blogs. The author should be ashamed.
Please, please, please consider this...
While preventing Global Warming might be a lost cause,
Living well and enjoying life is never a lost cause. Never give up the 'good fight' to do so.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ALL require some effort. And there certainly are ups and downs along the way.