Speaking of Global Warming (Gorebasim Alert)

Power Line ^ | Feburary 8, 2007 | John Hinderaker

[yoe]

The return of arctic conditions to much of the U.S. has many people sympathizing with this (cartoon by Sam Ryskind:)

Unlike most cartoonists, Rysind writes, too:

"You don’t hear much about the ozone hole any more. Has it gone away? Nope. NOAA and NASA say in 2006 it was bigger and deeper than ever.

But wait, you say, we implemented the Montreal Protocols in 1989, eliminating ozone depleting CFCs. Kofi Annan called the Protocol, “Perhaps the most successful international agreement to date.” CFC concentrations have been falling since 1995. How can the ozone hole be worse?

It’s not worse, says NOAA, it’s better. It’s just that you can’t see how great the Protocol is working because colder than average temperatures in the Antarctic mask the benefit. Cold weather “result[s] in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer weather leads to smaller ones.”

Colder in Antarctica? Al Gore told me it was melting! Al Gore told me there was consensus. Consensus!"

[ancient_geezer]

But even if we accept that 90-95% is the actual certainty that continuing current trends of human activity will add 2-8 degrees to global climate averages over the next 100-200 years:

The direct radiative effects of doubling CO2 provides only about 0.2^oC change in temperature at earth's surface for a doubling of CO2.

 

"the direct radiative effects of doubled CO2 can cause a maximum surface warming [at the equator] of about 0.2 K, and hence roughly 90% of the 2.0-2.5 K surface warming obtained by the GCM is caused by atmospheric feedback processes described above."
--- "Increased Atmospheric CO2: Zonal and Seasonal Estimates of the Effect on the Radiation Energy Balance and Surface Temperature" (V. Ramanathan and M. S. Lian), J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 84, p. 4949, 1979.

See also:

A Lukewarm Greenhouse
"The average warming predicted by the six methods for a doubling of CO2, is only +0.2 degC."

 

All else is speculative hypothesis regarding potential of atmospheric feedbacks that even the most recent ensemble of climate models selected by the IPCC don't agree on and researchers have been unable to quantify in the real world for being far below the range of noise in the measurments. The most empirical studies have been able to deterimine is the sign of any feedback might be positive.

The latest reports on global climate models evaluated by teh UN/IPCC in there reports find CO2's radiative effects ranging over 400% in the spread from their minimum to maximum estimates of CO2 to downwelling IR heating the surface. That is one of the reasons why the very large spread of modeled estimates exists.

The actual science is not settled even among the people doing the work for the UN/IPCC.

[facedown]

You do a yoeman's job, Sir.

[ancient_geezer]

graph also indicates that there is a relationship between CO2 and temperature....

 

CO2-Temperature Correlations

Summary

• "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
  
  ***
  
  Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years.  Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2.  In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm.  Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

• "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

• "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature.  Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

[ancient_geezer]

graph also indicates that there is a relationship between CO2 and temperature....

Hmmm, wonder how well this graph indicates there is a relationship between the sun and temperature:

 

 

Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming

Sunspot Activity at 8,000-Year High

Sun's Activity Increased in Past Century, Study Confirms

New Scientist - Hyperactive sun comes out in spots

 

The interesting test will be on whether or not ocean and tropospheric temperatures drop as this 8000 year high in solar activity reverses as it is predicted for coming decades.

 

NASA - Long Range Solar Forecast

 

And may already be showing up in falling ocean temperatures since ~2003

Sea Change in Global Warming

[KeepUSfree]

No, what I would prefer is for the government to NOT MAKE THINGS WORSE, by trying to stop a naturally occuring cycle.

Trying to stop global warming is akin to trying to stop winter from coming.

You can't do it - and any effort to do so would be worse than the original problem.

Sheesh, It's been MUCH warmer before. It's been much colder before now.

We survived both.

And, a few degrees warmer is a hell of a lot better than a one-mile thick ice sheet covering all of Canada and down into Central Illinois.

THAT would be a problem!! Wouldn't be a damn thing we could do about that either except adapt. But it sure would suck alot worse than losing a little coastline and a small island or 2....

[Monti Cello]

dramatic changes

Are we not talking about shifting the energy basis for nearly the entire global economy? That is what's required to stabilize the climate - cutting emissions to near zero, right? Trimming around the edges and extracting marginal efficiency improvements doesn't get it done - not even close when there is considerable inertia in the existing technology (see coal-fired plants in China and India, not to mention the entire global transportation infrastructure).

Tax incentives for 'renewables' is not going to make a dent, because the technologies that are politically acceptable are simply not effective.

Perhaps you could cut your own oxygen consumption and CO2 emissions by 10% if forced, but you aren't going to cut them by 100% unless you have a new plan for living.

The ONLY possible 'solution' is rapid and massive conversion to nuclear power across the board. Otherwise we are simply talking about a huge waste of tax money for marginal, perhaps even unmeasureable changes in CO2 emissions.

It's not much different from urban traffic policy. Government can subsidize metro rail til it's virtually free, and make driving more burdensome for everyone - but if metro rail doesn't go where you need it to, and your only way of getting to work is by car, then you pay out the ass and you suffer huge inconvenience and you become victim to an absurd government plan that is effective only in the utopian minds of the planners.

Attempting to implement an inadequate 'cure' at some cost, simply resuts in net welfare losses. You act as though the situation is readily changed, when it most certainly is not, and as though tax incentives work like magic, when they do not.

[Cindy]

JIHAD WATCH.org: "JIHAD UNSPUN PUBLISHES AL GORE" (February 8, 2007)

[Theo]

Other than methane, no, you don't. Apparently you don't understand basic chemistry at all do you?

It was my understanding that inhaled air contains about 0.04% CO2, whereas exhaled air contains about 4% CO2. Is that not correct?

Similarly, exhaled air contains more water vapor than inhaled air.

How did I get these wrong?

[pfony1]

Tsk! Tsk!

If you really do think that exhaled breath does not contain more CO2 and H20 than inhaled breath, then I'd say it is YOU who needs to re-study the basic chemistry involved in the oxidation of glucose.

1 C6H12O6 + 6 O2 ==> 6 CO2 + 6H2O

Or you so "green" nowadays that you are able to practice photosynthesis and exhale O2?

[Iconoclast2]

I don't know what you mean by "mail" but I read the thread.

No one disputes that more carbon dioxide in the air will tend to absorb more infrared energy; the quarrel is whether the human-caused increases in the percentage will have any temperature effect of significance. Other than a batch of incompletely-specified or outright fraudulent computer models that have no validity (i.e., cannot be validated by employing them to make predictions that test as true), there is no evidence of which I am aware that the human-caused component of global warming is significant.

From that evidence-based perspective, to fret about placing red or black bets on the planet (an apocalyptic metaphor) does not seem to be "looking at this scientifically and rationally".

[qam1]

No one disputes that more carbon dioxide in the air will tend to absorb more infrared energy;

I would

You can see looking at the total atmosphere compared to where CO2 absorbs, where ever there's a CO2 peak the atmosphere is at or pretty close to having 100% absorbance at those wavelengths. There's only a finite amount of infrared radiation to absorb, and what that's showing is the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere we have right now is pretty much saturated in its ability to absorb the finite infrared radiation and adding more CO2 won't have much of an effect.

It's like if you are wearing a blindfold that totally blocks out (absorbs) all visible light and you can't see anything, at that point it wouldn't matter if you added a 2nd or 3rd or any number of blindfolds because the 1st is already blocking all the light that's there to block.

[Iconoclast2]

Casual inspection of the vertical alignment of the spectra (accuracy not really possible at this resolution) suggests to me that there is at least some incremental absorption room for carbon dioxide to contribute. The additional argument is that the carbon dioxide's absorption peaks saturate themselves, so to speak, at reasonably low concentrations, but there are re-scattering issues that confound that determination as well. I certainly agree the effect is too small to be of significance, like nearly every other modern enviro phobia, but I have seen no competent literature asserting that any incremental effect is nonexistent.

Nice reference, though . . .

[geopyg]

Methane — a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — is being released from the permafrost at a rate five times faster than thought, according to a study being published today in the journal Nature. The findings are based on new, more accurate measuring techniques.

“The effects can be huge,” said lead author Katey Walter of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks said. “It’s coming out a lot and there’s a lot more to come out.”

Scientists worry about a global warming vicious cycle that was not part of their already gloomy climate forecast: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that has been continuously frozen for thousands of years. Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost and so on.



The amount of carbon trapped in some types of permafrost — called yedoma — is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels


“The higher the temperature gets, the more permafrost we melt, the more tendency it is to become a more vicious cycle,” said Chris Field, director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, who was not part of the study. “That’s the thing that is scary about this whole thing. There are lots of mechanisms that tend to be self-perpetuating and relatively few that tend to shut it off.”

Some scientists say this vicious cycle is already under way, but others disagree.

Most of the methane-releasing permafrost is in Siberia. Another study earlier this summer in the journal Science found that the amount of carbon trapped in this type of permafrost — called yedoma — is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels.

It won’t all come out at once or even over several decades, but if temperatures increase, then the methane and carbon dioxide will escape the soil, scientists say.

The permafrost issue has caused a quiet buzz of concern among climate scientists and geologists. Specialists in Arctic climate are coming up with research plans to study the permafrost effect, which is not well understood or observed, said Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a study group of 300 scientists.

“It’s kind of like a slow-motion time bomb,” said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the study in Science.

Most of the yedoma is in little-studied areas of northern and eastern Siberia. What makes that permafrost special is that much of it lies under lakes; the carbon below gets released as methane. Carbon beneath dry permafrost is released as carbon dioxide.

Using special underwater bubble traps, Walter and her colleagues found giant hot spots of bubbling methane that were never measured before because they were hard to reach.

“I don’t think it can be easily stopped; we’d really have to have major cooling for it to stop,” Walter said.

Scientists aren’t quite sure whether methane or carbon dioxide is worse. Methane is far more powerful in trapping heat, but only lasts about a decade before it dissipates into carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Carbon dioxide traps heat for about a century.

“The bottom line is it’s better if it stays frozen in the ground,” Schuur said. “But we’re getting to the point where it’s going more and more into the atmosphere.”

Vladimir Romanovsky, geophysics professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said he thinks the big methane or carbon dioxide release hasn’t started yet, but it’s coming. In Alaska and Canada — which have far less permafrost than Siberia — it’s closer to happening, he said. Already, the Alaskan permafrost is reaching the thawing point in many areas.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

The ONLY possible 'solution' is rapid and massive conversion to nuclear power across the board.

I agree. It is also what I think is going to happen. It is also why I recommend investing in Cameco.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

You have to register to see it, but here is an article that explains step by step what needs to be done and how much it costs to do it without "dramatic" changes in lifestyle of planet:

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_abstract_visitor.aspx?ar=1911&L2=7

It contradicts a lot of your assumptions.

[Jhensy]

The coming Ice Age
Acid rain
Killer bees
Heterosexual AIDS
Gypsy moths
Alar
Ebola
World starvation
The population bomb
Bird flu
The China Syndrome
The ozone hole
Paraquat
Saccharine...

and now Al Gore's global warming.

We'll live.

[Paloma_55]

Good stuff.

As an electrical engineer specializing in communications theory, I learned early in my education that every possible waveform can be broken down into a summation of exponential (sinusoidal) components of various frequencies.

A square wave is a summation of a sine wave, its 3rd harmonic, 5th, 7th, etc.

If you imagine Milankovitch forcing as one component, sunspot activity as another, ocean convection currents as another, volcanic eruptions as another, and so on, you end up with something that looks just like what has been observed. Large swings with smaller swings embedded upon them, with smaller swings embedded upon them, and occasional odd variations.

I think we can argue that human caused activity will also affect global temperatures, but based on the data, I suspect it will not have a significant effect.

We should figure out how to reduce carbon emissions, but not because of global warming, but rather because it is a pollutant and its nice not to pollute our air.

Unfortunately, the alarmists like Al Gore don't mind flying in private jets, busses, etc (dumping tons of CO2) to get their message out. They should be promoting nuclear energy and hydroelectric dams, but they usually oppose such energy providers.

[Matchett-PI]

"I don’t think it can be easily stopped; we’d really have to have major cooling for it to stop,” Walter said."

:)

Cyclical Ice age gets hold of the earth – how severe will it be by 2012?
India Daily ^ | Dec. 29, 2005
Posted on 01/10/2006 1:42:52 PM EST by Lorianne
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1555444/posts

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The earth is entering a period of cooling.

The NOAA has already reported a 26 year cooling in the oceans. Air temperature will soon follow the downward trend.

[ThanhPhero]

You got yours from the religious left, obviously. You don't ask a tithe as the Christian churches do, though. You want it all.