A Big Hole in Global Warming?

[johnc]

http://technologyreview.com/articles/04/10/wo_muller101504.asp

[Sean73]

That's no surprise to me. Flaws in the global warming argument are everywhere and have been for a long time. It's not politically correct (even within the ranks of "objective" scientists) to publicly question the validity of global warming.

 

I thing most scientists privately know global warming is bogus, but fear backlash from liberal university departments, loss of funding, or loss of tenure if they express any doubt in global warming theory. The politicians that make the laws based on this false pretense simply hear what they want to hear, and use global warming as leverage for personal agenda.

 

As a geologist, I have always doubted the comparison of 100 years of direct measurments, with 1000's of years of indirect measurements (that are very difficult to validate). Add to this the fact that the earth heats and cools on 1000-10000+ year cycles independant of human activity, and the recent 100-year "blip" on the temperature scale loses significance. Global warming also does not account for urban heat islands. Cities are hotter than surrounding undeveloped areas because of all the concrete and asphalt. You can appreciate this in Phoenix when it's 100 degree at midnight, but if you drive 20 miles into the desert, it's much cooler.

 

 

Sean

[blueovalz]

From a viewpoint that the jury is still out on global warming, my big concern is, "what if it's true". Yes, over thousands of years there were heat cycles, but human development and (and what I believe as significant impact) upon a closed loop environment is only 100 years old. The two must be carefully compared. I would hate to know that 100 years from now our offspring might look at human development as a "cancer" that consumed every resource accessible simply for economic growth, leaving a home much less appealing than previous generations had. This can be seen in nature all the time. An organism finds a favorable environment, prospers until it grows beyond the local environment's ability to sustain the organism, and then it either dwindles down to a sustainable size or it kills its environment (or host) and thus the organism dies out as well. Is it not better to side with caution, whether than wait until we indeed see the damage done and find out it's too late to fix it? The human impact upon the earth and it's life are unquestionable, so why are we so naive to think that the air and water are immune to our "insults'. Siding with caution is the ONLY wise choice, but unfortunately if does nothing for the bottom line, and after all, isn't that the only thing that matters?

 

Why exactly did we walk away from the Kyoto accord? Did we feel "mistreated" because we were asked to do our fair share? What is our fair share as a "leader" and a primary consumer, and as a country who has already done what other countries are now trying to do (to develop).

[johnc]

Kyoto was a really, really bad treaty from legal, administrative, scientific, and execution standpoints.

 

http://www.techcentralstation.com/112000A.html

[SHO-Z]

The First Law of Thermodynamics “Energy cannot be destroyed; it Travels for an area of high concentration to low concentration." Space is a vacuum and is thus a great insulator. The earth has to be the heat sink.

 

This is not to say that this warming trend did not start before the industrial revolution. I was just at Exit Glacier in AK a month ago. There are signs going up to it showing where face was over the last 300 years. The natural geologic proceess of the Earth has a lot to do with it. A major geologic event could cause another Ice Age.

 

But with all of the energy that is being consumed on earth now, we are a cause of some of the warming that is taking place.

[JMortensen]

Yes, over thousands of years there were heat cycles, but human development and (and what I believe as significant impact) upon a closed loop environment is only 100 years old.

 

Kinda funny you should use 100 years as the benchmark. I had a sociology class (I think - 10 years ago now, was either sociology or anthropology) where we examined global warming. We watched a film where scientists were using one of these programs to predict global warming. One of the experiments they did with the program was to start the program from the year 1750 with guesstimates on early industrial pollution, to see what the effect would be. According to their computer simulation we were basically dead by the mid 1900's. Of course this little bit was at the VERY END of the film and was kind of a last minute fine print exculpatory clause like: Oh, and by the way the program which was the basis for this film doesn't work... I can only assume that the computer systems and programs have improved, but I was not impressed at the time.

 

I think astronomy has a lot to tell us about global warming too. I heard an interesting bit about Interstellar Matter and it's effect on the Earth's climate, unfortunately I didn't hear it from a climatologist.

[johnc]

I have a more fundamental question regarding global warming: What's bad about it?

 

We lived fine through a two year global cooling of about 1.5 degree C as a result of the aerosols thrown into the upper atmosphere from the Mt. Pinatubo erruption in 1991 (which, incidentally, totally disproved the whole "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis - another example of bad science).

[Pop N Wood]

Why exactly did we walk away from the Kyoto accord?

 

I have not looked at John's link at Kyoto, but PBS did an excellent show on global warming. If you look at the numbers involved Kyoto was going to accomplish nothing in reducing CO2 levels. The reductions agreed to in Kyoto were absolutely insignificant in comparison to the amount of CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere, let alone the rate at which it is increasing. The people backing Kyoto were doing so from the viewpoint that doing something was better than doing nothing. This was simply a means for the Al Gores of the world to say “look what I am doingâ€. But the PBS special had some very real numbers concerning the economic impact. The fact is there is not much we can do to reduce CO2 levels.

 

Also I thought the big impact of Mt Pinatubo was the high levels of dust thrown into the upper atmosphere, not aerosols. Dust in the upper atmosphere would shield/reflect radiant energy causing a lowering of the earth's temperatures. Isn't this what you are saying? Thus doesn’t it tend to support the nuclear winter theory (or end of the dinosaurs theory, whichever way you want to look at it)? As for the heat sink issue, there is such a thing as black body radiation. The earth is not a heat sink that only absorbs energy. It can also re-radiate a significant amount.

 

That brings up another issue I have had. If we created global warming, then why can’t we actively manipulate our environment to counter it? Why can’t we study methods of adjusting the upper atmosphere to counter the effects of excess CO2? Say ozone generators or a Mt Pinatubo type dust generator? Why are our only options to give up living an industrialized life or to drown all of Huston?

 

I think some people are just determined to think the worst of mankind. Truth is much more study needs to be done to even understand the issue let alone examine reasonable options.

[JMortensen]

Pinatubo released CFC's in huge amounts. http://earthbulletin.amnh.org/D/3/3/

[johnc]

Thus doesn’t it tend to support the nuclear winter theory (or end of the dinosaurs theory, whichever way you want to look at it)?

 

No, Pinatubo disproved the Nuclear Winter theory because the amount of dust and aerosols thrown into the atmosphere by its series of eruptions was close to about half the mean of worst case scenarios envisioned by the early proponents of the Nuclear Winter theory. We survived it just fine.

 

20 Megaton thermonuclear weapons are awesome but they ain't squat when compared even to a small volcanic erunption. Pinatubo's big eruption in June 1991 was the second largest in the 20th century and its series of eruption from 1990 to 1993 put cubic miles (that's plural) of dust and 20 million metric tons of sulpher dioxide, unknown metric tons of hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride, and unknown huge quantites of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

[datsunlover]

Really strange that I see this post today, after watching "the day after tomorrow" last night... Yes yes, it's a movie.. but it made me think about this issue a little... I agree that the human race may be hurting the environment slightly.. but really, how long has 'mankind' been around and been able to have this kind of effect on the planet? I mean, the guess is in the millions of years for the age of the earth correct? Makes me think we're just along for the ride, and at this point, I can't see the last 100 or so years of "Man messing with things" destroying a planet that has been around for millions of years! JMO.. which is probly worth less than Jmorts..

[Pop N Wood]

No, Pinatubo disproved the Nuclear Winter theory .....

 

I wasn’t aware that the volcano exceeded the nuclear winter estimates for debris. Learned something new. I was talking more about the cooling effect caused by the dust in the atmosphere. So I guess we can say that we need to build up global warming to offset the possibility of global cooling caused by a massive series of volcanic eruptions or a meteor strike?

 

Also 20 megaton explosions are small when compared to the potential yield of a nuclear exchange at the height of the cold war. 20 megatons is something like 2 MX missiles. The Russians had single warheads that yielded 100 megatons.

[Dan Juday]

"And on the selfish side..."

 

All this hand wringing over G.W. has done wonders for my industry (air conditioning). All the legislation has done nothing but boost prices (and my bottom line! Ka-ching!)

 

FYI, thinking about a new A/C for your home? Buy now. The Dept. of Energy is raising the minimum efficiency standards next year.

 

More Ka-ching ching for me!

[Pop N Wood]

OK now this article seems to imply that Pinatubo supports the nuclear winter theory:

 

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StateOfThePlanet5.pdf

 

Although it does not give any numbers on a nuclear exchange vs. Pinatubo.

 

 

And more interesting yet, this article

 

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm

 

seems to imply the onset of global warming was actually masked for years by pollution. Says modern pollution control measures might be causing a noticable increase in the global temperatures:

 

The "global dimming" trend may have leveled out in the 1990s as many nations imposed pollution controls. That would make for continued sharp termperature rises if, as many aerosol specialists now suspected, they had seriously underestimated how strongly cooling by aerosols had been holding back greenhouse warming.

 

Papers published in 1992 concluded that the smoke from slash-and-burn farming of tropical forests might have been enough all by itself to cancel a large share of the expected warming. (85*) As one expert remarked, "the fact that aerosols have been ignored means that projections may well be grossly in error."(86) Thus efforts to restrict sulfate emissions, however important that might be for reducing acid rain and other unhealthy pollution, might hasten global warming.

 

So by removing my smog equipment, am I actually doing something positive to prevent global warming?

[johnc]

I wasn’t aware that the volcano exceeded the nuclear winter estimates for debris.

 

No it didn't. As I posed above, it put out about half of what some of the Nuclear Winter threories predicted.

 

Ultimately, all this global warming stuff has shown us how little we really know or can predict about the climate. Hell, we don't even understand the El Nino (and La Nina) phenomenons enough to accurately predict their onset or severity.

 

The computer models used to predict and/or prove global warming have such large assumptions regarding pollution numbers pre-1900s that slight variations in those assumptions show no global warming or the planet buring up by 1920.

 

Again, its a classic example of garbage-in, garbage-out. What bothers me is that policy decisions worldwide are being based on such faulty science. I'm not for or against reducing carbon dioxide emissions but I'm totally against this stampede to action caused by a bunch of politically motivated Chicken Littles.