CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN HOUSE,OCEAN FALLING PH etc

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Message 852141 - Posted: 11 Jan 2009, 9:34:15 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jan 2009, 9:40:33 UTC

Thread transfered from DARK SHADOWS science seti on request.

Acidifying oceans



Eventually, of course, the ocean of 55.5 million years ago recovered. Rain falling on the land slowly weathered rock into acid-buffering compounds, which washed into rivers that emptied into the seas. The rebound is visually apparent, Zachos says, projecting a slide that shows the sedimentary sequence. And there it is, the color change -- from red to beige -- that marks the end of one disturbing chapter in our planet's history

But the ocean also lies on rocks and can do the same even with out rain helping it.
We choose to go to the moon and to do other things, we choose to go to the moon not because its easy but because its hard. kennedy
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Message 852380 - Posted: 11 Jan 2009, 19:23:18 UTC

Population explosion is probably partly to blame.
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Message 852503 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 0:37:57 UTC - in response to Message 852380.  

Population explosion is probably partly to blame.

That and "consumerism".

How successful has China been at population control?

Would that be accepted by the rest of the world? Especially in such as Arab lands and Africa?


Whichever way you look at things, a continuing exponential increase (now on the scale of an explosion) in population and resource use is impossible to sustain. The question is merely what breaks first and when, and then how soon for the ensuing deep cataclysm.

If climate change is not to wipe (most of) us out, what else is there to moderate Mankind? And quickly enough?

Regards,
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Message 852515 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 1:02:59 UTC - in response to Message 852503.  
Last modified: 12 Jan 2009, 1:03:29 UTC

moderate Mankind? And quickly enough?


Our own stupidity (who said this was a world populated by an intellicent species?), greed and wars are usually the route to human culling.

As a species we are as thick as turds!
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Message 852540 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 2:10:22 UTC

Transferred from the DARK SHADOWS thread in Science SETI

... Quote from the references above (which are all based on the same NOAA study)

"Since 1800, ice core measures show the ocean's average pH level has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1, making it 30% more corrosive, Feely says. Expected emissions will likely drop it to a pH of 7.9 this century, a 150% increase in acidity since 1800"

What a load of codswallop !!!!
Simple High School chemistry will tell you that a reduction of pH from 8.2 to 8.1 means seawater is becoming more NEUTRAL and therefore LESS corrosive. ...
Perhaps a little more "High School" science is required to appreciate that the journalist is talking relative pH.

The claim that the ocean "is 30% more corrosive" is an unmitigated LIE !! No liquid, acid or alkaline can become "more corrosive" if it's pH moves closer to neutral.
Please take the trouble to read the articles.

The emphasis is that many billions of tons (a phenomenal amount) of CO2 have been absorbed by the oceans and that has measurably changed the pH of the oceans. That change causes ever more carbonate dependant creatures to lose their shells and die.


My point is that the pH of the oceans will have to fall MUCH lower than the predicted 7.9 before shell fish are put at risk. All over the world there are crustaceans that live and breed quite successfully in fresh water. Fresh water in general has a lower pH than sea water because because it also absorbs CO2 from the air but does not contain the counter balancing alkaline salts present in sea water.

Try an experiment, put a known weight of sea shells into a container of distilled water. Leave the container open to the atmosphere so the distilled water can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. This will make it acidic, from information I've found on the net it will probably have a pH of around 6. Regularly stir and change the water occasionally to remove any calcium salts produced by the acidic water attacking the shells and keep the "acid" fresh. Measure the time it takes for the weight of the the sea shells to be reduced by 1%.

Simultaneously, run the same experiment but add some baking soda to the distilled water to give it a pH of about 7.5, monitor the pH of this container and add extra baking soda as required to keep it constant. Use the same method as above and compare the times between the two experiments to achieve the 1% weight loss.

In both cases I think you'll find that the experiment will have to be completed by your grand-children and that the time taken will far exceed the normal lifespan of most seawater shellfish.

I would try this experiment myself but I live 1,500kM from the coast and sea shells are in very short supply :-)

My problem is not so much with the figures themselves but the "Shock, Horror, We're All Going To Die" way in which they are presented and the overuse of "FUD". The figures are also quite often "cooked" to make them seem more dramatic than what they really are, e.g. using a very limited vertical scale on a graph to produce the "hockey stick" in ocean pH mentioned in previous posts.

Computer modelling is also dodgy, with this you can obtain any result you like by "adjusting" the input data to suit. In the last couple of years we have seen predictions of sea level rises ranging from 1 metre to 100 metres. Which ones are we supposed to believe ?? (and I presume you know the meaning of GIGO)

There is also the fact that the Earth's climate has always been a dynamic system and in the past has been both much hotter and colder than it is now. There have been major climate shifts as little as 1,000 years ago (look up why Greenland is called Greenland)and the tree line in northern Canada was once 300kM further north than what it is now.

Do you honestly think that humans can have more effect on the earth's climate than that big ball of fusing hydrogen located only nine light minutes away ?

"Is that the sort of language you can follow?" :-)

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Brodo
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Message 852648 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 12:56:52 UTC - in response to Message 852540.  
Last modified: 12 Jan 2009, 13:01:53 UTC

My point is that the pH of the oceans will have to fall MUCH lower than the predicted 7.9 before shell fish are put at risk...

Not so.

Don't be hung up over the "pH 7 = 'neutral'" scale. Given an existing equilibrium of whatever (any) pH, moving to a lower number means "more acidic".

Similarly so for temperature. There is no arbitrary 21.5 deg C where above that means "hot" and below that means "cold". Go ask an Eskimo or a Bantu tribesman! An increase in temperature is described as hotter. A decrease in temperature is described as colder.


Try an experiment, put a known weight of sea shells into a container of distilled water. ...

And that will show or prove what exactly? Consider carefully what is actually being done...

The problem is the chemical equilibrium balance in the ocean that allows sea creatures to extract dissolved minerals to then build and maintain their shells and skeletons. Changing the pH changes that equilibrium. Change it too quickly and there is no time for adaptation...

Taking the temperature example, it is like taking a shirt-sleeves office environment and ramping the thermostat up by 10 deg C per hour. And there is no escaping to "home". You die.


I would try this experiment myself but I live 1,500kM from the coast and sea shells are in very short supply :-)

Please research further and do your homework.


My problem is not so much with the figures themselves but the "Shock, Horror, We're All Going To Die" way in which they are presented and the overuse of "FUD"...

There is indeed an awful lot of FUD. Much of that has been sponsored by the coal and oil companies, and the power utilities, to procrastinate the inevitable. Similar tricks were perpetrated by the tobacco industry that also killed people. The stakes this time around are much more global...

There is a worry that people will just go into "fatalism mode", bury their heads, and die.

The shock-horror is from people slowly waking up to the idea that we do not have a 1000 years to sort this all out. Such is the perniciousness of an exponential curve.


There is also the fact that the Earth's climate has always been a dynamic system and in the past has been both much hotter and colder than it is now...

Indeed so, but never this remarkably fast.


Do you honestly think that humans can have more effect on the earth's climate than that big ball of fusing hydrogen located only nine light minutes away ?

That depends on how you mean that.

The forces and quantities concerned are vast and beyond imagination. However, there is a dangerously fine balance to keep life on earth. A little like balancing elephants on either end of a see-saw.

The sun's effect on Earth is constant within a very small (known and measured) variation. Man has already caused a greater change than that natural variation by changing the Earth's albedo by the industrial changing of land use. The effects of the additional warming due to increased CO2 is worse still in addition to that.

Man's direct actions account for only a few percent of all the influences that are balanced for the heat input from the sun versus the heat radiated back out into space. All the non-anthropogenic effects have had the last few million years undisturbed to reach equilibrium (a natural balance). Man has been industrially pushing new effects ever harder for which there is no balance. The balance point is changing ever faster. That means drastic changes.


"Is that the sort of language you can follow?" :-)

A few more lightweight links to read just in case you can't believe me:

Unexpected rise in carbon-fuelled ocean acidity threatens shellfish

Slowdown of coral growth extremely worrying

Climate change may make Humboldt squid easy prey

Sea absorbing less CO2

Climate change 'making seas more salty'


Regards,
Martin
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Message 852708 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 17:17:27 UTC - in response to Message 852648.  

My point is that the pH of the oceans will have to fall MUCH lower than the predicted 7.9 before shell fish are put at risk...

Not so.

Don't be hung up over the "pH 7 = 'neutral'" scale. Given an existing equilibrium of whatever (any) pH, moving to a lower number means "more acidic".


I admit my mis-understanding on that point and plead an attack of "old timers disease". It's a long time since I studied chemistry. I have been doing my research too and if you had not beaten me to the punch I would have admitted in this post anyway. I do try to be accurate when I make a point.


Try an experiment, put a known weight of sea shells into a container of distilled water. ...

And that will show or prove what exactly? Consider carefully what is actually being done...


From your post #850466 in the Dark Shadows thread
So much so that the oceans are already saturated with so much of our CO2 that the oceans now cannot absorb much more. The water is also now a strong enough solution of carbonic acid that shell-making sea creatures are suffering their shells getting dissolved away. Obviously, they soon die.


You state in the above quote that shells are being dissolved as we speak. This was the aim of the experiment, to prove that this statement is a fallacy, the ocean is NOT acid enough to dissolve the calcium carbonate shells. It is very unlikely, that at any time in the foreseeable future, the ocean floor will be covered by a grey mass of naked snails and polyps wondering where in the devil their homes have gotten to. I don't blame you for this, your sources were pretty dodgy

The problem is the chemical equilibrium balance in the ocean that allows sea creatures to extract dissolved minerals to then build and maintain their shells and skeletons. Changing the pH changes that equilibrium. Change it too quickly and there is no time for adaptation...


Changing your tack now ay ? I could agree with you on this one but we'd need to agree on what is "too quickly" and I don't think the current rate of change is fast enough to be significant, even on the scare mongering figures you reference.

Taking the temperature example, it is like taking a shirt-sleeves office environment and ramping the thermostat up by 10 deg C per hour. And there is no escaping to "home". You die.


And if the oceans were warming at a rate of even 10 deg per hundred years that would be a valid point but as the average annual sea temperature rise is only 0.014 deg per year I don't think you've made your point.


I would try this experiment myself but I live 1,500kM from the coast and sea shells are in very short supply :-)
Please research further and do your homework.


As soon as I can get some shells freighted in


My problem is not so much with the figures themselves but the "Shock, Horror, We're All Going To Die" way in which they are presented and the overuse of "FUD"...

There is indeed an awful lot of FUD. Much of that has been sponsored by the coal and oil companies, and the power utilities, to procrastinate the inevitable. Similar tricks were perpetrated by the tobacco industry that also killed people. The stakes this time around are much more global...


What makes you think that the researchers that are funded by "Big Green" are any purer and less likely to produce "desired results" than those funded by the energy industries ? They have to eat and have mortgages to pay just like those working for "Big Energy", so will be just as aware of their sponsors attitude.

Just an opinion, but I think that those sponsored by the energy companies would tend to be more careful in their research as they know their results will come under much tighter scrutiny.

It's an old trick to try and discredit research on the grounds of who's funding it but it's a two edged sword that can be swung both ways.

There is a worry that people will just go into "fatalism mode", bury their heads, and die.

Maybe that's because they are given no hope ? We are told that even if we went to zero carbon emissions tomorrow the warming process will continue for another 100 to 200 years and we're all going to cook, dissolve, starve, die of thirst or sun stroke anyway. So why bother ? The green lobby is just to good at screeching bad news


There is also the fact that the Earth's climate has always been a dynamic system and in the past has been both much hotter and colder than it is now...

Indeed so, but never this remarkably fast.


At the end of the last ice age sea levels rose 16 to 24 metres in 500 years, this points to a "remarkably fast" temperature rise in my book. and there was no industrial civilisation to blame for it. Maybe the current rate of warming isn't that remarkable after all ? See here and this should interst you too.


The sun's effect on Earth is constant within a very small (known and measured) variation.....


And that "very small (known and measured) variation" has produced ice ages and heat waves since day one of the Earth's existance

All the non-anthropogenic effects have had the last few million years undisturbed to reach equilibrium (a natural balance).


Hmmm "equilibrium", opposing forces in balance, stability, unchanging.... Be very careful what you say and how you say it, that statement could be taken that you mean that the Earth's climate was stable with no changes for millions of years until man came along. We both know that's totally wrong and I will give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you to correct it in your next post.


A few more lightweight links to read just in case you can't believe me:


Purleeze: If you are going to start quoting "The Guardian" as a scientific reference then I'm going to start quoting the The Australian and as you probably recoil in horror at the thought of nuclear power (a subject we haven't even touched on yet) read this.Funny that both papers are owned by the same bloke yet are poles apart politically

"Is that the sort of language you can follow?" :-)

Regards
Brodo
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Message 852709 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 17:28:59 UTC

I'd attribute some of the change to Man, but not all of It, The Magnetic Poles(The North Pole) is on the move and soon will be somewhere in Russia and also from what I've read the Earths Magnetic field has moved in the past and has done flips with resultant swings in temperature, sea levels and such. Maybe It's simplistic, But until We know more than We do now, All We can do is insist on less CO2 being put out and to have more CO2 sequestering technologies come out and be actively used, It can't hurt, More Trees near Large CO2 emitters is a good idea as Trees love CO2.
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Message 852752 - Posted: 12 Jan 2009, 20:59:20 UTC - in response to Message 852708.  


[quote]There is also the fact that the Earth's climate has always been a dynamic system and in the past has been both much hotter and colder than it is now...

Indeed so, but never this remarkably fast.


At the end of the last ice age sea levels rose 16 to 24 metres in 500 years, this points to a "remarkably fast" temperature rise in my book. and there was no industrial civilisation to blame for it...

We're seeing effects that are even faster than that... Now... And the mix of CO2 in the atmosphere causing that is clearly traced to Mankind.

Please show your evidence that we are all innocent and blameless.

The "Mankind" bit means that we should have the power to undo the "Mankind bit" and save ourselves and the planet.



The sun's effect on Earth is constant within a very small (known and measured) variation.....


And that "very small (known and measured) variation" has produced ice ages and heat waves since day one of the Earth's existance

Look again at the conditions...

There is indeed a (small) natural variation. There is also variation due to the different land conditions on earth... We are changing both land and atmosphere for the worst (for us).

All the non-anthropogenic effects have had the last few million years undisturbed to reach equilibrium (a natural balance).


Hmmm "equilibrium", opposing forces in balance, stability, unchanging.... Be very careful what you say and how you say it, that statement could be taken that you mean that the Earth's climate was stable with no changes for millions of years until man came along. We both know that's totally wrong and I will give you the benefit of the doubt and allow you to correct it in your next post.

Please explain further with regard to the carbon cycle. We are talking climate (heating) change here. Please give your evidence.



A few more lightweight links to read just in case you can't believe me:


Purleeze: If you are going to start quoting "The Guardian" as a scientific reference...

"Is that the sort of language you can follow?" :-)

Just an attempt at something 'readable' and with a good enough reputation to be respected.


Your view is that Mankind is innocent of all pollution?

Or that Mankind is too insignificant to be noticed?

Regards,
Martin


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Message 852887 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 3:34:05 UTC - in response to Message 852752.  
Last modified: 13 Jan 2009, 3:48:07 UTC

Hi Martin
You and I probably agree on more points than we differ, I agree with you that pollution is bad, that for too long we have ignored the environment and that mankind needs to clean up it's act.

Where we differ is that, on the evidence available, I just cannot believe that mankind is the sole cause or even a major contributor to whatever mechanism is causing warming to take place. The current focus on carbon-dioxide is totally unrealistic and the gas is being given much more prominance than it deserves.

Some facts, at 3.2% of the atmosphere water vapour is the major "greenhouse" gas. CO2 = 0.038%, up from 0.028% in the year 1000 and methane, that other AGW target, equals a "massive" 0.00017%.

Do you really believe that the Earth's climate system is so fragile that it cannot handle a 0.01% increase of an inert gas, which is a minor constituent of the atmosphere to begin with, without falling apart ? It's not even one half of one half of a percent !! Such a small varieation is well within the range that could occur naturally. Hasn't the climate successfully recovered from major disasters such as volcanic explosions and meteor strikes such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs ?

There is evidence that an increase of CO2 is the result of increased temperature and not the cause. See here. This one backs up the New Scientist article and gives a much better rebuttal of the AGW argument than I ever could

As I posted earlier there is just too much FUD about on this subject. Every time an ant breaks wind someone will claim that either ant farts are contributing to "Global Warming" or ants are farting more because of it. In the media we are bombarded with exaggerated claims and half truths. Any naturally occurring event is claimed to be either a cause or an effect of "Man made climate change". The general population's inbuilt bullsh*t filter is starting cut in and treat these claims like advertising for toilet paper or "Anti-aging" creams. Any meaningful data is being lost in the noise.

You said earlier the climate is/was in equilibrium. There is a scientific principle that says "If any change is imposed on a system in equilibrium, the system will change in such a way as to counteract the imposed change." The climate has both long term and short term cycles. Even the "short" term ones take many human lifetimes to complete and I feel it's just the human ego, wanting to believe we are more significant than we really are, cutting in to take credit for them. Then we go trawling through data, much of it meaningless, to find a random sequence that happens to coincide with what we are observing in order to prove our importance. Your impression of a sine wave will vary depending on which part of the waveform you are looking at, the "stable" slow changing peaks or the "unstable" rapidly changing zero crossing. Maybe we are just at the zero crossing of one of those cycles.

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Brodo
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Message 853028 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 14:49:41 UTC - in response to Message 852887.  
Last modified: 13 Jan 2009, 14:54:38 UTC

... Where we differ is that, on the evidence available, I just cannot believe that mankind is the sole cause or even a major contributor to whatever mechanism is causing warming to take place. The current focus on carbon-dioxide is totally unrealistic and the gas is being given much more prominance than it deserves.

Unfortunately, too many people are happy to take the "Can't possibly be so" stance...

Some facts, at 3.2% of the atmosphere water vapour is the major "greenhouse" gas. CO2 = 0.038%, up from 0.028% in the year 1000 and methane, that other AGW target, equals a "massive" 0.00017%.

Do you really believe that the Earth's climate system is so fragile that it cannot handle a 0.01% increase of an inert gas, which is a minor constituent of the atmosphere to begin with, without falling apart ? It's not even one half of one half of a percent !!

CO2 is relatively chemically inert. It still has a very significant physical effect. It is what allows life a nice cosy warm environment here on earth in the first place. Without that and water vapour, we'd be a frigid ice-ball at perhaps minus 60 deg C.

Water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas. However, on average it only stays in the atmosphere for at most a few days.

CO2 stays in the atmosphere on average for over a century...

Also, the amount of water vapour pushed into the atmosphere is temperature dependant. In contrast, we are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere regardless.

Due to the thermal feedback and lifetime in the atmosphere, the concentration of CO2 in effect regulates the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. More CO2 indirectly causes more water vapour causing an amplified warming effect.


Such a small varieation is well within the range that could occur naturally. Hasn't the climate successfully recovered from major disasters such as volcanic explosions and meteor strikes such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs ?

The last time earth saw these levels of CO2 and associated warming, most of all life on earth was wiped out. There was then a long recovery period.

No worries about the earth and life on earth surviving. It's just that all mammals will be quickly wiped out.

There is evidence that an increase of CO2 is the result of increased temperature and not the cause...

Don't confuse cause and effect. There are various mechanisms at play in concert due to different causes. The main issue is that there is a direct association between global average temperature and the level of CO2.

It just so happens that for our example now, we are driving the causes by controlling CO2 and land use on an industrial scale, for the worse.

As I posted earlier there is just too much FUD about on this subject. ... Any meaningful data is being lost in the noise.

There is indeed enough fine detail in there to hype up anything you want to hear in any way you wish to hear it.

Regardless, the original measurements and story remains clear, unchanging and unambiguous since first noticed in the 1960's. The delay to the news making news now is a story of politics and industrial obfuscation. It may be that democracy and capitalism are too unsuited to cope with the type of long term slow disaster that is Global Warming.


You said earlier the climate is/was in equilibrium. There is a scientific principle that says "If any change is imposed on a system in equilibrium, the system will change in such a way as to counteract the imposed change."...

That is only the case if you have strong negative feedback.

We have that for the temperature that the earth maintains in space. Earth absorbs solar energy depending on albedo, and reradiates that energy back into space. The balance maintained determines the average temperature. There is some inertia to seeing a temperature change from any change in albedo.

However, for climate, there are various positive feedback mechanism and tipping points for which you then see a very abrupt change. We've made enough of a change already that various positive feedback mechanisms are starting to gain prominence. Soon, they will overwhelm inertia and the weaker negative feedback mechanisms will then fail to maintain our present blissful conditions...

Sorry, not sure what level you're at... Try:

Climate Feedback video presentation

There is a good illustrative diagram in:
Feedback Crisis in Climate Change
(Shame the rest of the report is in a horrible format online! The paper book is much more readable.)

One extreme:
Of Clarity and Climate Change: A Review of James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia"

And some of the politics:
Climate Censorship


Regards,
Martin
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Message 853035 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 15:03:55 UTC

Here’s a graph of estimated global temperature for the past 425,000 years. This temperature record was computed from analysis of ice cores taken at Vostok, a Russian research base in Antarctica, starting in 1970. The deepest core reached 3,623 m (11,886 ft) into the ice sheet. The ice at the bottom has been undisturbed for about half a million years. During this time there have been four ice ages.



Global temperature variation for the past 425,000 years. The present is at the right. The horizontal 0 line represents the 1961–990 average global temperature. The numbers on the left show the variation from that baseline in °C.

The data were derived from an analysis of ice cores taken at the Vostok station in Antarctica. Find out more about how temperature estimates are made from proxy data.

Image based on data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Could increased sunspot activity have an impact on our climate as well? Many believe the sun has caused climate change in the past, could that still be happening?


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Message 853046 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 15:22:49 UTC

THe deceased temps during the 1600's and other times were considered little ice ages. Some speculation leads to Volcanic eruptions as the culpret of the massive global cooling


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Message 853059 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 16:06:13 UTC - in response to Message 853028.  

You've touched on one of My favorite subjects ML1, The Snowball Earth, It seems a totally Frozen Earth did exist, Of course not everybody is on board, But It is a possible event none the less.
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Message 853064 - Posted: 13 Jan 2009, 16:17:42 UTC - in response to Message 853046.  
Last modified: 13 Jan 2009, 16:18:31 UTC

The deceased temps during the 1600's and other times were considered little ice ages. Some speculation leads to Volcanic eruptions as the culprit of the massive global cooling

Eruptions don't need a whole lot of Volcanoes going off of course, Sometimes a Supervolcano(Yellowstone is one and there is another one in Indonesia too) is all It takes, Yellowstone is just one and It makes Mt St Helens or even Krakatoa look like mere firecrackers by comparison and there are at least 8 known to exist on Earth and 5 of those 8 are within the USA.

If Yellowstone were to erupt today, Prepare to Kiss Your ass goodbye and those in the caldera(most of the park) or nearby are or would be instantly Toast. :o
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Message 853233 - Posted: 14 Jan 2009, 5:36:22 UTC

Here is a link to the BBC on the latest report of Worldwatch Institute on CO2:
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Message 853280 - Posted: 14 Jan 2009, 10:12:26 UTC

... Where we differ is that, on the evidence available, I just cannot believe that mankind is the sole cause or even a major contributor to whatever mechanism is causing warming to take place. The current focus on carbon-dioxide is totally unrealistic and the gas is being given much more prominance than it deserves.

Unfortunately, too many people are happy to take the "Can't possibly be so" stance...


Please note the phrase, on the evidence available and the word sole!! For every point you make there is equal and opposite counter evidence. Unlike some some people I cannot make this decision on faith alone.

Some facts, at 3.2% of the atmosphere water vapour is the major "greenhouse" gas. CO2 = 0.038%, up from 0.028% in the year 1000 and methane, that other AGW target, equals a "massive" 0.00017%.

Do you really believe that the Earth's climate system is so fragile that it cannot handle a 0.01% increase of an inert gas, which is a minor constituent of the atmosphere to begin with, without falling apart ? It's not even one half of one half of a percent !!

CO2 is relatively chemically inert. It still has a very significant physical effect. It is what allows life a nice cosy warm environment here on earth in the first place. Without that and water vapour, we'd be a frigid ice-ball at perhaps minus 60 deg C.


And if we had to depend on just the measely 0.038% of CO2 to keep us warm we'd be a frigid ice ball of perhaps minus 59 deg C

Water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas. However, on average it only stays in the atmosphere for at most a few days.

CO2 stays in the atmosphere on average for over a century...


Come on Martin be a bit real. An individual molecule of water may only stay in the atmosphere for a few days but the molecules are constantly being replaced, the overall percentage of water vapour stays constant.


Such a small varieation is well within the range that could occur naturally. Hasn't the climate successfully recovered from major disasters such as volcanic explosions and meteor strikes such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs ?

The last time earth saw these levels of CO2 and associated warming, most of all life on earth was wiped out. There was then a long recovery period.


The last time CO2 levels were this high was during the age of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were not wiped out by CO2, they were wiped out by a thumping great meteor landing in the Bay of Mexico and the extended global winter caused by the impact. You are also ignoring the fact that the dinosaurs were the largest creatures ever to walk on land, so the climate must have been pretty lush and condusive to life.

If your going to make a point PLEASE make it a honest one !!

It's that sort of dishonest fact twisting and half truths that does great damage to the AGW case. Every statement they make has to be double checked in order to obtain the all the information and the true meaning.


There is evidence that an increase of CO2 is the result of increased temperature and not the cause...

Don't confuse cause and effect.....


My point exactly. If you study a graph of CO2 levels vs temperature going back over the last couple of hundred thousand years you will see that during the ice ages CO2 was at very low levels. As the main driver for ice ages is changes in the Earth's orbit, an external factor totally disconnected from climate, these graphs,under these circumstances, support the idea that global temperature drives CO2 levels not the other way round.

Regardless, the original measurements and story remains clear, unchanging and unambiguous .......


Unchanging and unambiguous Ay ? Maybe you are not old enough to remember that during the 1970's we were all supposedly doomed because of Global COOLING.
Check out this link (Global Cooling). I find it interesting that the article uses the same tabloid "Shock, Horror" wording as any article written today. Indeed, if you substitute "warming" for "cooling" throughout the article, it could have been written yesterday.


I do not understand the total fetish and fixation the AGW protagonists have with Carbon Dioxide. They concentrate on it to the total exclusion of all other possible factors. If changes in the Earth's orbit can cause Ice Ages, then by default, they must also be able to cause "Heat Ages", if the Sun is having a period of hyper-activity or hypo-activity climate will be effected. If CO2 levels were up in the past, then the climate must have been warm and therefore there would be more water vapour in the air. But these facts are not admitted, like true fetishists they seize on one object, build their lives around it and attack anyone who lacks the same appreciation. Indeed in 10 years time, after finding we haven't all been par boiled, the AGW mob will probably seize on the information Superjoker posted and claim that increasing CO2 is making the super volcanoes more likely to blow.

I have an open mind on this matter. I could be convinced by an honest presentation of honest facts, but stunts like the one above, where you neglected to mention THE crucial factor (the meteor) so you could infer the mass extinction was caused by CO2, along with your earlier claim that the oceans are already so acidic they are dissolving the shells of sea animals are causing me to have severe doubts about your bona fides

"Sorry, not sure what level you're at..."

Regards
Brodo
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Message 853297 - Posted: 14 Jan 2009, 12:02:22 UTC
Last modified: 14 Jan 2009, 12:47:13 UTC

This is the opinion of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
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Tullio
The link to "The discovery of global warming" leads to a fascinating text. Read it.
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Message 853300 - Posted: 14 Jan 2009, 12:37:20 UTC - in response to Message 853280.  

it is nice that we have one climate expert/scientist on board, otherwise we could draw wrong conclusion, and foolishly think that warming is real when it is just illusion.
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Message 853319 - Posted: 14 Jan 2009, 13:41:53 UTC - in response to Message 853300.  

it is nice that we have one climate expert/scientist on board, otherwise we could draw wrong conclusion, and foolishly think that warming is real when it is just illusion.


You are incorrect, the debate is over the cause of global warming not the warming itself.

We have established in this post that in addition to man made causes, there are many natural ones that we have no control over. It is true, the entire global warming problem could be entirely attributed to our actions on earth. But that is still a treory, not fact. Therefore it is still up for debate. You should never personally attack someone for believing something you do not agree with.

Anyway, I hope that discussions like this will lead to more people doing their part to save the planet, which is more important now than ever.

P.S. Buy American!

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