I just posted this in another thread, but I will post it here as well. Human contributions to the CO2 in the environment are minimal compared to natural sources like bogs, volcanoes, etc.

Really? Can you still state to a scientific certainty that we don't have an effect on our planets climate?



The European (that's right, not even including America) aviation industry emits TWICE as much as that Icelandic volcano does per day!

Imagine... possibly 15 volcanoes constantly spewing out Carbon Dioxide every day for over 100 years! And it will only continue!

Surely, one would have to at least explore the possibility that we are dramatically changing the Earth's climate in a way that will one day devastate the planet.

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- Luke.

That's one volcano. There are hundreds of volcanos on this planet that are active to some degree.

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And many-many cows (more than people), which breathing back co2, puking Methane and eating precious grass :-)

That's one volcano. There are hundreds of volcanos on this planet that are active to some degree.

You deflected, and didn't answer the question.

Can you state to a scientific certainty that we don't have an effect on our planets climate?

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- Luke.

I can't deny that we throw out many CO2. How many - is the question. But global wormaing is a fake. In fact, we now at the start of small global colding. Like Europe was before in 1640-s.

In fact, global warming (even if it exists) is not a threat. Much more people died from cold, straight or indirectly (hunger, for example).
And no need here example of Africa. UN and it's humanitary help kill them by its own hand. Because now it's no profit to grow up food by themselves. Much more simple take it with ak-47 and be a king.

Gentlemen: The polutant of concern here that is from the Icelandic volcano is not CO-2. It is Ash. CO-2 is not a pollutant. I remember when Mt. St Helens blew up back in the early 1980's. I lived in Champaign Illinois--probably 2000 miles from mt St Helens. There was grey ash more than 2 inches thick all over everything there in Illinois. Now here was a genuine atmospheric pollutant,

I also believe we are heading for another cooling cyle. But, for those of you whom like to worry about things like the Swine Flu, Y-2K computer problems, and UFO's; you should calculate the Water Vapor contribution to the upper atmosphere by high flying Jet Aircraft and see if it is significant to global warming vis-a-vis natural weather effects such as thunder storms.

The total CO-2 in the atmosphere is 3 x 10^15 kilograms or roughly 3 x 10^12 tons. Is daily jet contribution significant compared to this figure? Sure we have an effect on climate; but is it extremely small and damped out by things that we can't control.

Assuming the numbers in Luke's post are correct in 1000 days (say- 3 years) European Aviation adds roughly 3 x 10^8 tons of CO-2. or .0001 or .01% of the total CO-2. These numbers look higher than I would have guessed ( so I suspect that the numbers may be off to start with -maybe mixing pounds with tons or days with years.)If we assume the numbers are correct and my late night calculations are accurate, then a goodly percentage of these emissions would be absorbed by plants and the oceans in any event.

I think that I would rather worry about getting hit by a meteorite, stuck by lightning or winning the National lottery.

Gentlemen: ... CO-2 is not a pollutant. ...

I also believe we are heading for another cooling cyle.

... Sure we have an effect on climate; but is it extremely small and damped out by things that we can't control.

... I think that I would rather worry about getting hit by a meteorite, stuck by lightning or winning the National lottery.

How do those thoughts compare with the real and peer reviewed answers here?:

Water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and amplifies...

Is global warming still happening?

How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions?


There's some rather interesting recent articles:

Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?

Most participants in climate debates can agree that the atmosphere's capacity to interact with thermal radiation helps maintain the Earth's surface temperature at a livable level. The Earth's surface is about 33 degrees Celsius warmer than required to radiate back all the absorbed energy from the Sun. This is possible only because most of this radiation is absorbed in the atmosphere, and what actually escapes out into space is mostly emitted from colder atmosphere. ...


The significance of the CO2 lag

When we examine past climate change using ice cores, we observe that CO2 lags temperature. In other words, a change in temperature causes changes in atmospheric CO2. ...


Ocean heat content increases update

There is a new paper in Nature this week on recent trends in ocean heat content from a large group of oceanographers led by John Lyman at PMEL. Their target is the uncertainty surrounding the various efforts to create a homogenised ocean heat content data set ...


And just recently for the UK, we've gone in a matter of just a few days from unseasonal overnight frosts and a rather chilly daytime jumping to now a few days of Mediterranean heat. Not quite a heatwave but the sudden jump makes it feel like it! Phew! It's killed off mi cucumber plants :-(

It's our only world.

Regards,
Martin


ps: Don't confuse (daily) weather and climate (range of weather and average weather conditions). One prediction of Global Warming is that although we may not necessarily get more of whatever weather, we are likely to get greater extremes of whatever existing weather.

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That's one volcano. There are hundreds of volcanos on this planet that are active to some degree.

You deflected, and didn't answer the question.

Can you state to a scientific certainty that we don't have an effect on our planets climate?

I didn't deflect, I'm just busy and didn't really have time to give you a properly thorough answer. Please note that I said our emissions are minimal, not that they are nonexistant. It's simply the magnitude of our contribution to the total CO2 cycle of this planet that I believe to be exaggerated.

If you are asking for my personal assurance that our activities have no impact on the climate, I can't give that to you. I'm not a climatologist for one, so it's not my job. Maybe the people whose job it IS should worry less about politics and more about facts.

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I would like to put in my two cents. The runaway greenhouse effect on Venus is a valuable reminder that we must take the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth seriously.

The runaway greenhouse effect on Venus is a valuable reminder that we must take the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth seriously.

More Atmospheric CO2 today than in the past 2.1 Millions



Researchers have been able to determine the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet by analyzing the shells of single–celled plankton. Their findings shed new light on CO2's role in the earth's cycles of cooling and warming, confirming many researchers' suspicions that higher carbon dioxide levels coincided with warmer intervals during the study period. But it also rules out a drop in CO2 as the cause for earth's ice ages growing longer and more intense some 850,000 years ago.



Barbel Honisch ... with a mass spectrometer used to measure boron isotopes to reconstruct past CO2. Credit: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

The study, published in the June 9 issue of the journal Science shows that peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million; but today, CO2 is at 385 parts per million, or 38% higher. This finding means that researchers will need to look back further in time for an analog to modern day climate change.

In the study, Bärbel Hönisch, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and her colleagues reconstructed CO2 levels by analyzing the shells of single-celled plankton buried under the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa. By dating the shells and measuring their ratio of boron isotopes, they were able to estimate how much CO2 was in the air when the plankton were alive. This method allowed them to see further back than the precision records preserved in cores of polar ice, which go back only 800,000 years.

Around 850,000 years ago, the climate cycles on Earth switched from being dominated by 40,000 year cycles, to the stronger 100,000 year cycles of the more recent times. The time period from 800 – 1,000 kyr ago is called the mid-Pleistocene transition, and since the rhythms of the Earth’s orbit didn’t change, some scientists have attributed that shift to falling CO2 levels. But the study found that CO2 was flat during this transition and unlikely to have triggered the change.

"Previous studies indicated that CO2 did not change much over the past 20 million years, but the resolution wasn't high enough to be definitive," said Hönisch. "This study tells us that CO2 was not the main trigger, though our data continues to suggest that greenhouse gases and global climate are intimately linked."

The timing of the ice ages is believed to be controlled mainly by the earth's orbit and tilt, which determines how much sunlight falls on each hemisphere. Two million years ago, the earth underwent an ice age every 41,000 years. But some time around 850,000 years ago, the cycle grew to 100,000 years, and ice sheets reached greater extents than they had in several million years—a change too great to be explained by orbital variation alone.

A global drawdown in CO2 is just one theory proposed for the transition. A second theory suggests that advancing glaciers in North America stripped away soil in Canada, causing thicker, longer lasting ice to build up on the remaining bedrock. A third theory challenges how the cycles are counted, and questions whether a transition happened at all.

The low carbon dioxide levels outlined by the study through the last 2.1 million years make modern day levels, caused by industrialization, seem even more anomalous, says Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the research.

"We know from looking at much older climate records that large and rapid increase in C02 in the past, (about 55 million years ago) caused large extinction in bottom-dwelling ocean creatures, and dissolved a lot of shells as the ocean became acidic," he said. "We're heading in that direction now."

The idea to approximate past carbon dioxide levels using boron, an element released by erupting volcanoes and used in household soap, was pioneered over the last decade by the paper's coauthor Gary Hemming, a researcher at Lamont-Doherty and Queens College. The study's other authors are Jerry McManus, also at Lamont; David Archer at the University of Chicago; and Mark Siddall, at the University of Bristol, UK

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/06/18/more-atmospheric-co2-today-than-in-the-past-2-1-millions-years/
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/06/18/more-atmospheric-co2-today-than-in-the-past-2-1-millions-years/

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That is a beautiful picture to show just how very thin a layer our atmosphere is around our planet. Good link also, thanks.


It's our only planet!

Regards,
Martin

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And now, is this something for the Climate Change Deniers to jump onto?


Glaciers' wane not all down to humans


That is a nicely significant piece of careful research published in the major scientific journal Nature.

So, no surprise, Mankind is not the only influence on the demise of glaciers. However, note from that article:

... Beniston adds that recognizing the role of natural climate shifts doesn't diminish the problem. "Even if greenhouse gases contribute just 50% to glacier retreat, this is anything but negligible." Although Himalayan glaciers may not be as vulnerable as the IPCC report originally suggested, the European Alps, where most glaciers are already in decline, could lose up to 90% of their glaciers by the end of the century, says Kaser.

The authors of the latest study cautiously suggest that a phase shift in the AMO might give a reprieve to Great Aletsch and other Alpine glaciers in the next decades, but Beniston is doubtful. "We may see a temporary slowdown, but I fear in the long run the still fairly modest greenhouse effect will outweigh any Atlantic relief."


It's our only planet!

Regards,
Martin

---

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http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=128881907132045

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www.canada.com/technology/Wacky+spring+weather+warmest+record+Canada/3136667/story.html

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://www.canada.com/technology/Wacky+spring+weather+warmest+record+Canada/3136667/story.html

The spring of 2010 not only unleashed some of the wackiest weather ever -- from record rains to May flurries -- but it was also the warmest on record, Environment Canada climatologists say.

The national average temperature was 4.1 C above normal for a three-month period, ending in May, it was reported. And that record-breaking spring came on the heels of the warmest winter since the agency began keeping records in 1948.

"I thought we'd never see a season like the winter, which was the warmest and driest," said David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

Spring temperatures were so high -- especially in the North -- that he expects to see a record retreat of Arctic ice this summer: "I would bet my pension that the Arctic ice will be the lowest ever this summer," Phillips said in an interview with Canwest News Service.

Temperature records were shattered across the Canadian North, with temperatures more than six degrees higher in some Arctic areas in the past three months, says a climate bulletin posted on Environment Canada's website this week.

Northern Ontario and Central Canada also set new spring records for temperature, while "all of Canada was above normal."

Water -- either too much, or too little -- was also a big concern. ...

Thanks for that.


OK, so 4 deg C above normal for that part of the world for a few months. Overall for the rest of the world, that only adds up to less than a 0.1 deg C increase over normal for the year...

Is this where the Global Deniers claim that Canada shouldn't be worried?

Unfortunately, the various deals on emissions are looking to add up to over 4 deg C rise for the average for the entire planet.

How do we convert the 'religiously' disbelievers?...


Not looking good until we get a lot more serious about all this, and soon.

It's our only planet.
Martin

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It is our only planet and to paraphrase Bill Maher (the first of the two links I posted) this is a science issue and therefore non-scientists don't get a vote.

I've been in the group that believes we should err on the side of caution.
If the science is correct in their warnings, we have to do what we can to lessen the impacts of our activities.
If the science is wrong, we still end up with a cleaner environment by cutting emmissions and seeking other methods of producing energy.

I believe the science is correct. Petroleum and nuclear are not options that should remain on the table.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is our only planet and to paraphrase Bill Maher (the first of the two links I posted) this is a science issue and therefore non-scientists don't get a vote.

I've been in the group that believes we should err on the side of caution.
If the science is correct in their warnings, we have to do what we can to lessen the impacts of our activities.
If the science is wrong, we still end up with a cleaner environment by cutting emmissions and seeking other methods of producing energy.

I believe the science is correct. Petroleum and nuclear are not options that should remain on the table.

Taking that view can only be a good win-win situation. Meanwhile, big old industry and the climate deniers stubbornly and blindly wish to burn us all and our planet to hell. Which of the two is the better way?


Hopefully we'll clean up our pollution in time before the worst of the disasters take hold.

It's our only planet!

Regards,
Martin

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A nicely unexpected part of the ocean ecology that keeps the oceans more productive to keep us all alive:

Saving Endangered Feces

... We need their shit. They don’t need ours!


It's our only planet!
Martin

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Extreme measures already:


Can painting a mountain restore a glacier?

Slowly but surely an extinct glacier in a remote corner of the Peruvian Andes is being returned to its former colour, not by falling snow or regenerated ice sheets, but by whitewash.

It is the first experimental step in an innovative plan to recuperate Peru's disappearing Andean glaciers.

But there is debate between those who dismiss the idea as just plain daft and those who think it could be a simple but brilliant solution, or at least one which should be put to the test. ...

... Changing the albedo (a measure of how strongly an object reflects light) of the rock surface, would bring about a cooling of the peak's surface, ...

... The 900-strong population of Licapa, the village which depends on Chalon Sombrero for its water supply, did not think twice about accepting Mr Gold's proposal and the funding it would bring. ...

... A report by the UK's Royal Society in 2009 said the technology of "geo-engineering" projects was still "barely formed" and governments should continue to focus on cutting carbon emissions.

But if Mr Gold's pilot project proves successful in pushing down the temperature, he envisages expanding it to Peru's most threatened glacial regions on a large scale.

"I'd rather try and fail to find a solution than start working out how we are going to survive without the glaciers, as if the situation was irreversible," he says.


Globally, we also need to reduce emissions of soot. Farming can have a great impact on albedo due to the land management and due to what crops are grown...

However, to try to balance powerful warming 'climate forcings' with equally strong "geo-engineering" 'climate forcing' is bound to prove to be an extremely dangerous 'game'...


It's our only planet!
Martin

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you know.. when I was growing up.. The artic was frozen, period. The ice shelves on antartica.. had been there as long as time remembered. Glaciers and snow capped peaks were just there, and normal.

Now... the questions of how much of the artic is frozen is the subject of argument. But I can tell you this.. there are times now it can be sailed through.. not submarined under. This is new as far as mankind is concerned.

The dontworrybehappy gang will humph and say that will not raise the sea level that much. And that is true.

But do we honestly believe the melting of the south pole is going to stop with the shelves? Do we honestly believe greenland is the only place that will lose land ice?(I do not think anyone can deny that is happening) Do they honestly believe that CO2 being a greenhouse gas is just a "guess"? Do they ignore the oxygen % content over the last century or so has declined by double digits?

They might point out while these giant formations collapse, that the surrounding sea actually gets cooler.. And yes I am sure it does. much like a slushy will be colder for a short time than large cubes of ice in a liquid. But it will not last as long.

And as the carbon sink warms... even more CO2 is released. No one wants to even think what will happen if the south pole melts. The north pole is fair warning that not only it can, but eventually if nothing changes it will.

holland, new orleans should already by rights be under water. We can follow that with most of southern florida, the amazon basin, central california, and many other places if water rises a few meters. And the amount of land ice is more than enough to accomplish that.

And then I can hear, once again, why we have to subsidize big oil because electric is "too expensive". That wind(btw, the absolute cheapest form of energy to add to the grid TODAY) and solar are impractical.

As long as no one stops them from killing off the planet... the SUV's must go on.

I suspect mother earth will rid herself of this failed experminet, and shake off this failed species known as man. I would love to be wrong.