More Climate change

[wdyasq]

Can't they make up their minds:

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080103/94768732.html

Ron

[richhagen]

"For instance, heat is not so much radiated in space as carried by air currents--an entirely different mechanism, which cannot cause global warming."

Once upon a time, I paid big bucks towards an education to have some educated folks tell me that heat transfer can occur by one of three mechanisms, convection, conduction, and radiation.  To this day I am not aware of any other way to transfer heat.  Now since space is pretty near a vacuum, heat energy can't escape too much by convection - the movement of material, or conduction - transfering through the material.  That leaves radiation to do away with all that extra energy that ends up as heat on our planet.  The rocket scientist that wrote that Russian article you cited states that we can discount radiation, so all of that energy that our planet absorbs, by his account, ought to be accruing.  If that were true, then at a thousand Watts per square meter of surface area for about 12 hours a day, we ought to have been well cooked a long, long time ago.  

I don't know all of the answers regarding climate change, but I have been getting a bit better at recognizing bull waste in articles regarding it.  Rich

[RP]

I saw that too but I discounted it to the translation from Russian to English.

Also, I wonder how much energy the earth radiates to the space on the dark side each night.

[richhagen]

Overall it must radiate the same amount that it takes in, otherwise we'd be cooked, but that includes both the sunny side and the dark side.  Rich

[joestue]

Notice the instability in recent history

[southpaw]

I'm thinking the instability probably has a lot to do with the invention of the thermometer.

Southpaw

[DamonHD]

Testing causes cancer in lab rats...

[TomW]

Life is a sexually transmitted, terminal disease.

[wooferhound]

Time Flys Like the Wind

but

Fruit Flys Like Bananas

[finnsawyer]

All I can add to this is personal experience.  When bailing hay in the evening in July I have to stop when the sun goes down, as the hay begins to take up moisture.  This water, in turn is condensing from the atmosphere.  And that, presumably, occurs because the atmosphere is radiating rather effectively the heat that it received during the day.  There has been no apparent creation of a delay in this process.  The only exception I have seen is when a strong wind is blowing.  Moving air doesn't radiate heat?  Well, it probably has something to do with the upper layers of the atmosphere during those conditions.  But when the air is still, that heat radiates most effectively.

[asheets]

I have always questioned the effacy of graphs like this.  Up until the last 100 years, you really can't accurately measure atmospheric CO2.  You can guess with tree rings, ice and soil cores, and c14 dating, but you can't compensate for some things like changing absorption rates.

However, based on my training as a climatologist and the last century's worth of collected data with a consistent methodology, I'll offer a couple of weak hypotheses:

1. The amount of atmospheric CO2 seems to be increasing.
   
2. The absorption of atmospheric CO2 seems to be decreasing.
   
3. This might be doing something to the climate.
   

[asheets]

There is a way to check this, but it is a little time consuming.  You can test for atmospheric drag on satellites at various altitudes.  That is a good indicator of atmospheric expansion, which is a good indicator of how much heat is within the system.

The problem is, we've only been flying space vehicles for 50 years.  That's only about 4 or 5 sunspot cycles, which will goof up the drag measurements big time over such a small interval.  We'd need about 10-15 more cycles before we can account for the degree of expansion caused by solar cycles.

[richhagen]

I'm about where you're at on this.  It just makes sense to me that we are burning carbon based fuels faster than they are being produced, and that corresponds well with increasing carbon dioxide levels.  Now I'm not sure what changing the composition of our atmosphere will do to the weather, but I would not be in the least bit surprised if it has a rather large effect.  I am still not in favor of using my only home as a lab experiment.  Rich

[TomW]

Ron;

I thought I asked you [nicely] to stop posting these trolling Diaries?

Friendship only goes so far.

T

[asheets]

My gut feeling is that there is some sort of terminal threshold (either CO2 content or temperature), which if crossed will cause a runaway effect.  I think we are a bit far off from that threshold, but if it is crossed there won't be a damn thing we can do about it.

[Volvo farmer]

Aw come on Tom, have a heart.

Let him post one climate change diary per year, with this being the one for 2008. :-)

[TomW]

Volvo;

Fair enough.

[hvirtane]

to stop posting these trolling Diaries?

It might be that on the continent, where you are living this issue, 'climate change' is quite sensitive, because of the politics involved. But in any case many people involved in RE development are quite interested in this 'climate change' talk. Why should Ron be prevented to talk about this issue in his diary? Do you think that the differing opinions would cause too much quarreling?

On the other hand, one limitation I've got is with the language. What do you mean with 'trolling'?

- Hannu

[strider3700]

It should actually be radiating more then incoming since the surface is still be warmed  by the molten core as it cools down.  how much this internal heat makes a difference in measurements I don't know  but I know it is there.

[DanG]

From Websters

troll --(noun) : a troll is a person who posts inflammatory messages on the internet, such as on online discussion forums, to disrupt discussion or to upset its participants. The word, or its derivative, "trolling", is also used to describe such messages or the act of posting them. EXAMPLE: Please do not feed the troll.

trolling -- (noun) : an exaggerated condemnation usually made for provocation in an online forum. EXAMPLE: "Liberals don't support our troops."

[Volvo farmer]

I think the fact that he posted a very similar diary, less than two weeks ago, precipitated Tom's comment. The last one got over fifty responses and I personally considered the subject mostly played out.

There have been some interesting comments in this thread as well, so maybe the subject is not played out yet. Though I made a little joke with our editor-at-large, I personally believe there should be an area of the website where we can blow off steam without being asked to shut up. Diaries would seem to fit that category best with what we have to work with here. Other forums often have a section called "completely off topic" where we can talk about whiskey or women or politics without fear of censorship, as long as we are civil to each other.  

That being said, I can see the annoyance of the general community if the same controversial topic is harped upon with great regularity by a particular poster. I do think this is an important debate and maybe we should revisit it every few months, or once or twice a year, but every two weeks? Yeah, that might be considered trolling.

[BT Humble]

Other forums often have a section called "completely off topic" where we can talk about whiskey or women or politics without fear of censorship, as long as we are civil to each other.  

So how about that whiskey we've been having, eh? ;-)

BTH

[hiker]

clear back in 1964  MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED had a short quote saying the earth

was in a long term warming periode....................!!!!

guess it takes awhile for news to get around  :}

true story---april 1964.....

[disaray1]

 I wonder if that damn Democrat Hillary Clinton starts looking better after a pint of Old Crow....

[finnsawyer]

Boy, it really is getting tough around here.  Used to be you could post a Rant and they'd leave it alone.  Now they disable comments if they feel you are talking about yourself, saying put it in a diary even though the scam in the case mentioned is still out there (according to reports).  Now you have to limit your number of diaries.  I think our esteemed editors need a reality check as to how much bandwidth text actually uses.  And let's not forget this so called thread high jacking bit.

[DanB]

This topic seems to keep coming up...  interesting article Ron, in the 'opinion & analysis' section of a Russian website.  As you said last time, anybody can find any article to bolster any opinion on this (and just about any other) stuff.  I totally agree with you about the BS factor of 'carbon offsets' - politicians - 'green washing' etc.  But this climate change stuff was not created by politicians, everything Al Gore said was basically old news and, Ill admit there is a lot of 'speculation' and a lot of theorizing going on.

I posted this before, I'll post it again for folks who are interested in reading a good article that discusses the issues in some detail.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

[Volvo farmer]

Have you read the comments attached to those articles? I just spent thirty minutes or so looking over that site and it seems like many of the respondents share Ron's point of view.

Here's a comment attached to the "It's all a conspiracy" article. I found it so compelling, I am going to paste it here.

-------------------------------------------

Anyway, the right question to ask yourself is not whether scientists (on both sides) are right or wrong, but what are the dangers of letting an elite of politicians (possibly corrupted) to promote (and/or enforce) some solution for the alleged man-made global warming. Think about it: we finally accept global warming and scientists propose some solutions, but the final decisions about actions and their promotion and enforcement will be made by politicians. For policies on a global scale, right and wrong are relative, e.g. Wealthy countries may not have a problem moving towards alternative (to fossil fuel) power sources, but that's not the case for poor and/or developing countries.

I'm just afraid of what the 'ultimate' solution is going to be. I'm scared for sacrifices I'm going to be asked to make. I'm afraid that my sacrifices will be in vain.

What the solution will be? Taxes? Oil consumption reduction? Transportation (freedom) limitation? Population reduction!?...

Just ask yourself what you are willing to sacrifice to 'save the planet' and there you have it.

Also, just use you common sense and think about this: it's quite a coincidence that the 'man-made global warming' problem is going side-by-side with the oil price / oil production problem (see peak-oil) with CO2 being the convenient link.

The main promoted global warming solution is to reduce CO2 emissions, that means reduce fossil fuel consumption - hmm, that means peak-oil is solved too!!! Lucky us! One solution, two problems solved: that's great! Or not?

What if the actual problem is just one, that's peak-oil? What if 'man-made global warming' is just used to scare the $#|+ out of me to accept any great sacrifice that peak-oil solution demands?

Terrorism (whether it actually exists or not) is used this way too.

Hey! Wait a minute: not to far ago some guys tried to convince the whole world that there was a 'global terrorism' problem: it didn't work quite as they wanted to, but who knows maybe 'global warming' will do the trick

[DanB]

I honestly think that humans are likely having an impact on the climate, and 'peak oil' is probably something that will be a bigger problem for us sooner and perhaps it's come too late.  "peak oil' suggests that at some point in time well hit the peak of production and  - really, that, and climate change is fairly unrelated.  Odds are peak oil production(from what I've read) will happen soon, but that's only really talking about 'crude oil' - not coal or other fossil fuels.  (coal is probably our biggest problem)

What if humans are having a significant impact on climate?  Should governments get involved to control our behavior - or will 'corporations'/free capitolism solve the problem?

Yes, I do think our current lifestyle is unsustainable =- free market capitolism by itself will not solve the problem.  I think energy is expensive and people in the US and some other places are living beyond their means.  Responsible government should step in and 'tweak' things a bit (or a lot) because it won't happen by itself.  I know this is optimistic thinking on my part (the bit about responsible government).

[elvin1949]

 Everything looks good after a pint of Old Crow,

accept her_ Takes a fifth.

later

Elvin

[Volvo farmer]

DanB wrote:

What if humans are having a significant impact on climate?  Should governments get involved to control our behavior - or will 'corporations'/free capitolism solve the problem?

Good point. In fact it seems that government actions have had some success in cleaning up our environment in the past. Automobile emissions in this country are way down from 40 years ago. Rivers and other bodies of water are generally cleaner too. China and India? another story altogether.

If in fact, CO2 emissions are having a significant impact on climate, perhaps more laws could reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere. However, I think that this lifestyle we are living is entirely dependent on burning things and I don't think that RE can ever possibly step up and fulfill the energy appetite that 6.6 billion souls have grown accustomed to. I don't even think that RE, if fully implemented could supply a quarter of the energy we use today. If you want to make steel, you gotta burn some coal. I like steel.

Here's what I'm trying to say: If, in fact CO2 emissions are leading to a disastrous future for humankind, I don't think there's any way to reduce them enough, on a worldwide scale to make any difference in the long run.  

Ever since I watched that Zeitgeist movie someone posted in here, I have been more and more of the opinion of that guy whose comment I posted in the last thread. I ask myself these questions:

Why is global warming stated as fact in the media so often? I listen to NPR on a regular basis and have heard three or four stories a week for months now. Media is supposed to tell both sides of the story, yet I almost never hear a contrary viewpoint on the news. Why is that? There certainly is a contrary viewpoint. Look at this thread. look at the comments on that site you posted.

So here's my argument in a nutshell. If CO2 is going to ruin the earth, there are too many people burning too much stuff to ever get it under control, no matter what governments do. I think smart, wealthy people know this fact and are hoping to use this big scare of global warming to increase their wealth and influence. Smart, wealthy people own the media and are trying to convince me to give up something that I have, so that they can have more. I could never put my finger on it until I read the comment I posted, but I now truly believe this has EVERYTHING to do with peak oil, and nothing to do with saving the planet from climate change.

I like the fact that you are an optimist. This world needs more optimists. I feel bad being the pessimist all the time but from this side of the keyboard, I think I'm just being a realist, but maybe I'm just paranoid too. Maybe, John Lennon was right all along, and global warming and conspiracy theories don't have nearly as much to do with our future as does love

[fungus]

Funny how everyone concentrates on CO2.

Aerosols, soot , NOX , SO2 , Methane etc etc etc have a huge effect too...

[TAH]

Soot would have a cooling effect and some of the others are mixed and the biggest producers of methane are the politicians so that is safe.

[Gordy]

Remember a couple years ago when that volcano blew in the Philippines? Some scientists calculated the pollutants emitted by it to be more in one day, than mankind has created in the last one thousand years. Which to me means there should have been a noticeably large jump in global warming. Especially since it was blowing hot and heavy for a lot more than one day.

So I remain skeptical, but I am doing what I can to reduce my own pollution. Because even if we aren't making it worse we aren't making it better either.

Gordy