My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[Flying Binghi]

You have not provided enough information to obtain an answer to this question, for example, how much atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane are present (among countless other variables, like the heat capacity of the oceans and the dominance of the albedo effect, etc.)

 

InfiniteNow, I'm happy if you use today as the base line. I've only gone to zero C as an aid to remove some of those fine measured finnicky variables

[InfiniteNow]

I've seen denialist mention this deal about no warming since '98, but it's always just mentioned as an aside in some other argument about climate change. I've never seen any presentation showing this to be indicated by the data (although there is lots of controversy over the data).

 

I'd like to see some links to presentations about this "no warming" thing. It'd be nice to know what this "new finding" is all about when it gets brought up in the blogosphere.

 

Essay,

 

The issue here is that they are arbitrarily setting the start point in 1998. When measuring climate, one needs to use at least 30-40 years worth of data in their selection to get a clear picture. One decade is hardly enough to use for accurate study.

 

But, here's the real issue with 1998.

 

 

It was one of the warmest years on record for the entire millenium. Because it was so warm, temperatures in the years which follow seem lower, but only when taken relative to that warmest year. It's a false baseline, and hence any "negative" numbers miss the larger picture.

 

It's a bit like playing your stereo on full blast in a small apartment and then trying to argue with your neighbor that it's really quiet relative to a Metallica concert.

 

The denialists are cherry-picking data from only the last 10 years, with the warmest year on record as their starting point so they can claim that things have been "cooling." It's a completely bogus argument, and lacks academic integrity and plausibility. Choosing 1998 as your starting data point skews the analysis because it was a fluctuation, a fluctuation this time that was upward. We are not focussed on fluctuations, but on trends, and it's not been "cooling," it's just "slightly cooler" when one uses the 1998 fluctuation as their start value. The overall climatic trend, though, is still warming, as evidenced in the temperature graph I shared above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

InfiniteNow, I'm happy if you use today as the base line. I've only gone to zero C as an aid to remove some of those fine measured finnicky variables

 

Do you want me to tie your shoelaces and cut your meat for you, too? Maybe trim the crust away from your toast?

[Flying Binghi]

Do you want me to tie your shoelaces and cut your meat for you, too? Maybe trim the crust away from your toast?

 

I understood the science was all done... havnt you got todays 'base line' figures?

 

You have not provided enough information to obtain an answer to this question, for example, how much atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane are present (among countless other variables, like the heat capacity of the oceans and the dominance of the albedo effect, etc.)

[Eclipse Now]

It's a bit like playing your stereo on full blast in a small apartment and then trying to argue with your neighbor that it's really quiet relative to a Metallica concert.

 

iNow, I wonder why both our analogies involve head-banging? :doh::hyper::doh:

 

Oh, that's why. :)

 

Don't feed the trolls iNow — they like it and we all get dirty. FB wants to divert this conversation away from the established science of global warming because, well, he couldn't find any peer reviewed critiques and is a bit miffed about it. So he's trying to take it way off topic to obfuscate that fact, and is now getting pedantic even when his off-topic question has been thoroughly answered. Troll through and through.

[Essay]

I understood the science was all done... havnt you got todays 'base line' figures?

I thought this thing about the sun going out was a rhetorical question.

 

It does make one wonder a little about all the different heat reservoirs that the planet must contain.

 

...but not right now?

 

~ :)

[Eclipse Now]

Essay, that's the whole point! FB wants us to talk about the sun going out —*right now!!!! It will stop us discussing more important elements of the global warming crisis, like what to do about it. (However, I've already outlined the radical R's of solving global warming and peak oil... Rezoning, Rail, Renewables, Redesigning industry, Replenishing the soil with biochar, Restoring local ecosystem services, and Reducing the global population through a worldwide humanitarian effort to improve living standards —*all of which will encourage a global demographic transition).

[Moontanman]

If the sun "turned off" the average temps would fall over time in a pretty well understood curve. the oceans are the primary heat source that would resist the temperature fall but it would be a losing battle. as far as inland areas are concerned the temps would fall below freezing with in a few days at most, some areas would be frozen with in 24 hours. by the time the oceans froze over there would be places far inland that would make today Antarctic temps seem balmy. What are you trying to figure with the idea of the sun turning off?

[Essay]

Essay, the argument about temperatures goes something like "1998 was the hottest year and every year since has been cooler". It's data cherrypicking. It ignores other factors. It's 'technically' true, but does NOTHING to debunk the theory of global warming.

 

"....picking data from only the last 10 years, with the warmest year on record as their starting point so they can claim that things have been "cooling." -I~Now

 

Oh yea, that came up when talking about the mechanism of CO2 heating. I think the argument was that since temperatures were no longer following CO2 increases, therefore they must be unrelated.

 

That overlooks the complex, real-world, non-linear relationship between temperature and total energy. CO2 affects the total energy and not the temperature directly, so other parts of the system will be adjusting to the increase in total energy (from incr. CO2) without necessarily affecting the temperature. For instance, during a period where lots of ice absorbs energy (during its non-linear melting process), air temperatures may not increase (or even cool).

 

Ever hear someone who lives in a valley? "The coldest day of the year was in Spring, the day after the lake thawed."

(...and the warmest day was in the Fall, right after the lake froze....)

[...of course they don't mean warmest/coldest absolutely, just relative to the nearby, similar days] ...okay?

~Thanks, Mr. Nelson (HS Chem).

 

Hence... with the Arctic doing as it is, Falls tend to be a bit warmer, and Springs cooler.

...or if the summer ice stayed frozen, Falls would have fewer warm spells....

...and then whether it's wetter or drier is a whole 'nother level ...of complexity. :)

===

 

But yes, that really is a blatent example of "cherry picking," the very thing that denialists used to accuse us alarmists of doing, back in the 80's and 90's, when the indications and limited data began accumulating.

 

Thanks for the background.

~

 

p.s. Binghi, ...Hence the constant, 5.35.

[Flying Binghi]

Yes, I see my ommission - I'll blame it on one to many glasses of red :)

 

From the link I provided before -the ISA of about 15C covers air temp at ground level, (though not the ground itself) reduceing in temp with altitude.

 

0 Troposphere, base height 0 Km +15.0C 101,325 Pa up to the Tropopause, base height 11.000 Km −56.5C 22,632Pa, etc...

 

International Standard Atmosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Whilst ground/ocean temp is relavent to a cooling situation, I put zero C as a cut-off point to remove some of the 'finer' feedback from this source.

[Flying Binghi]

It will stop us discussing more important elements of the global warming crisis, like what to do about it.

 

...and the thread title is ? :)

[Eclipse Now]

The thread is about anthropogenic global warming, not "What if the sun went out? :):hyper: "

 

 

:hyper:

[Essay]

Essay, that's the whole point! FB wants us to talk about the sun going out —*right now!!!! It will stop us discussing more important elements of the global warming crisis, like what to do about it. (However, I've already outlined the radical R's of solving global warming and peak oil... Rezoning, Rail, Renewables, Redesigning industry, Replenishing the soil with biochar, Restoring local ecosystem services, and Reducing the global population through a worldwide humanitarian effort to improve living standards —*all of which will encourage a global demographic transition).

Your radical R's sounds like a good plan, to say the least.

I missed a lot this summer. Do you have a link to a fuller explanation of this RR plan? I see comprehensive plans as also addressing the Millennium Development Goals. I think yours sound very compatible.

 

Thanks,

~ :)

[Eclipse Now]

The "Radical R's" are my summary pages for solving peak oil and climate change, where as an activist (not qualified expert) I've collected the most workable plans that we can institute the quickest. The qualified experts I quote in my "Solutions Summary" pages present quite an attractive future, if we can just hang on through the turbulent decades ahead. (There will be pain I'm afraid... I've briefed politicians on the oil thing but they just smile, patronise, and move on to the next business. I've had beers with one State politician that takes it very, very seriously, but sadly he's cynical about his colleagues ever taking it seriously before it's too late).

 

The main point is to move society in a generally more sustainable direction which can be achieved quite quickly, but the specifics will be adaptable to the local situation. EG: Generally speaking, nations must move off oil, gas, and coal, but locally in nations such as Australia that use SO MUCH COAL moving to natural gas might represent a greenhouse saving if it allows us to decommission an old coal plant. Generally speaking cities must start to rezone around New Urbanism, with trams, trains and trolley buses supplying vital transport to the newly centralized mini-CBD's scattered throughout suburbia... but specifically how this plays out will probably involve a lot of painful choices as America especially has invested so much money in the suburban town plan that has no future. (It's car dependent, and nothing can replace oil in the quantities we need as fast as we need it. The vast majority of renewable energy sources produce electricity, not liquid fuels which is the first of many energy resource issues we face.)

 

I'm also approaching it from a long-term sustainability viewpoint as well, maximising on as many efficiency gains as I can conceive of. So energy efficient cities are also efficient with materials as well, given that some are arguing we're approaching 'peak metals'. (Even Iron Ore in the lifetime of babies born today!)

 

So just head over to my blog, check out the Solutions Summary (under the Peak Oil Summary and Peak Everything Summary) and then browse through it to see some of the authorities I've quoted.

Eclipse Now

 

You have to understand that I'm a generalist and idealist. I have not costed these plans but understand that, generally speaking, green energy systems create more jobs and energy security at the national level. I also understand that supplying the basic needs of human life, which New Urbanism does really well in a psychologically and socially enriching manner to boot, will not only make people happier in the 3rd world, with less material and energy use, but will generally make them more secure, and less likely to have a larger family. So my Solutions Summary or "Radical R's" does not necessarily replace the Millennium Goals but works well with them and a multitude of other activist projects. They all enhance each other.

 

I'm convinced we can get through this, but am cynical about politicians ever LEADING us through this but only reacting to the chain of disastrous events as they unfold.

[Michaelangelica]

Global warming could "cool' for a few years

SCIENTISTS PREDICT SOLAR DOWNTURN, GLOBAL COOLING

SCIENTISTS PREDICT SOLAR DOWNTURN, GLOBAL COOLING

 

New Scientist magazine, 16 September 2006

HYPERLINK "http://www.newscientist.com/unpwlogin.ns" t "linkWin" Log in - New Scientist

 

It is known as the Little Ice Age. Bitter winters blighted much of the northern hemisphere for decades in the second half of the 17th century. The French army used frozen rivers as thoroughfares to invade the Netherlands. New Yorkers walked from Manhattan to Staten Island across the frozen harbour.

Sea ice surrounded Iceland for miles and the island's population halved. It wasn't the first time temperatures had plunged: a couple of hundred years earlier, between 1420 and 1570, a climatic downturn claimed the Viking colonies on Greenland, turning them from fertile farmlands into arctic wastelands.

 

Could the sun have been to blame? We now know that, curiously, both these mini ice ages coincided with prolonged lulls in the sun's activity - the sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field.

Now some astronomers are predicting that the sun is about to enter another quiet period. With climate scientists warning that global warming is approaching a tipping point, beyond which rapid and possibly irreversible damage to our environment will be unavoidable, a calm sun and a resultant cold snap might be exactly what we need to give us breathing space to agree and enact pollution controls. "It would certainly buy us some time," says Joanna Haigh, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College London.

 

Global average temperatures have risen by about 0.6 °C in the past century, and until recently almost all of this has been put down to human activity.

But that may not be the only factor at work. A growing number of scientists believe that there are clear links between the sun's activity and the temperature on Earth.

While solar magnetic activity cannot explain away global warming completely, it does seem to have a significant impact. "A couple of years ago, I would not have said that there was any evidence for solar activity driving temperatures on Earth," says Paula Reimer, a palaeoclimate expert at Queen's University, Belfast, in the UK. "Now I think there is fairly convincing evidence."

 

What has won round Reimer and others is evidence linking climate to sunspots.

These blemishes on the sun's surface appear and fade over days, weeks or months, depending on their size. More than a mere curiosity, they are windows on the sun's mood. They are created by contortions in the sun's magnetic field and their appearance foretells massive solar eruptions that fling billions of tonnes of gas into space. Fewer sunspots pop up when the sun is calm, and historically these periods have coincided with mini ice ages.

 

The number of sunspots and solar magnetic activity in general normally wax and wane in cycles lasting around 11 years, but every 200 years or so, the sunspots all but disappear as solar activity slumps (see "Field feedback").

For the past 50 years, on the other hand, the sun has been particularly restless.

"If you look back into the sun's past, you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity," says Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the University of Cambridge.

 

Fortunately, an indirect record of the sun's moods stretching back thousands of years has been preserved on Earth in the concentrations of rare isotopes locked into tree rings and ice cores. The story begins way out beyond the orbit of Pluto, at the boundary of the sun's magnetic field. While the sun is magnetically calm, its field extends around 12 billion kilometres into space, but the field puffs up to 15 billion kilometres when the sun is active.

Cosmic rays - the high-energy particles from deep space that are constantly hurtling towards us - are deflected by the field, so at active times far fewer of them reach the Earth.

more at site

[Flying Binghi]

The thread is about anthropogenic global warming, not "What if the sun went out?

 

Very funny :) I'm slowely getting to it Eclipse Now. Seems nobody minds thread drift in this particular thread, so lets have a look at what you've bought along -

 

I have not costed these plans but...

 

 

Generally speaking cities must start to rezone around New Urbanism, with trams, trains and trolley buses supplying vital transport to the newly centralized mini-CBD's scattered throughout suburbia... but specifically how this plays out will probably involve a lot of painful choices

 

Why do we need to have this 'victorian era' concept of moving people around like cattle ?

 

IMHO we need the citys filled with small self drive electric cars - thats cars that drive themselves with no human imputs - actually ban people from driving, and ban all buses.

 

Imagine no traffic lights, no sitting in traffic jams and the like. Fleets of 'public use' cars for those that carnt afford, or prefer not, to own a car, and so-on.

 

From what I've read over the years - the technoligies nearly all there.

[Michaelangelica]

You have reached the end of the internet.

Please turn off the lights before you leave.

 

http://mdesmond.com/end-of-the-internet/

[Eclipse Now]

I've read a few extensive papers on the subject but even the most ardent fans of this say it's about 20 years away. EG: Check this paper which made it onto Slashdot.

Where Robot Cars (Robocars) Will Really Take Us

 

They drop you off then drive off to find a retrofitted car park to charge for a bit, then eventually either accept a new passenger or come back to get you. Think "Minority report" or "iRobot".

 

But while the computing systems are slowly coming along, the problem is the sheer resources it will take to do all this... and even the latest batteries still need to prove themselves. Honestly, a dark part of me would love a "iRobot" world where we'd solved global warming, moved off oil, each nation was energy independent and secure in their own local renewable energy sources, and 'oil wars' were a thing of the past.

 

But we've forgotten the sheer quantities of energy it takes to manufacture cars, that many 'rare earths' we need for some electronics are just about to RUN OUT (not peak and begin to decline gently, but flat run out!) Now I'm trying to be honest here and not let some broader agenda blind me to new information, but I just don't think nano-technology is ready to replace all the materials we are about to run out of let alone the fact of the sheer scale of 3% oil decline per annum GLOBALLY, which could quickly translate into oil shortages in oil importing nations due to the Export Land Model. (Rather than thinking about $8 a gallon gas, think about RATIONING!)

 

So why not solve global warming, peak oil, pollution, social isolation, and the SHEER UGLY BLANDNESS of suburbia all in one hit? Why are we so attached to the hours wasted in traffic jams each day when we could be living more locally? Surely it's better to try and live near work, school, church, the shops, and the "local buzz" of the town than build in the requirement to drive to all these things, and build in blandness as well? (So that you can't have everything "cool" outside your door, but have to drive 15 minutes to half an hour to find a "Mall" and sit in that tacky environment with a bunch of strangers rather than a real community shopping centre). Why stuck in traffic instead of walking past one's favourite shopping centre? Why not deal with congestion once and for all by REMOVING cars from our lives? They cost money, cost the environment, destroy sensible town planning, pollute and kill. If a disease killed as many people as cars there would be a foundation to get rid of the bastard!

 

New Urbanism is kind of the Seinfeld life, and recent surveys have found that while a third of American's LOVE suburbia, another 3rd are "stuck" there because there is not enough alternative housing. This is starting to change.

 

There are many benefits to New Urbanism other than saving the cost of maintaining thousands of extra miles of roads, pavements, wiring, plumbing etc that suburbia requires.

 

We are about to enter an age of severe resource depletion known as "peak everything".

 

If we just REZONED our cities and let natural attrition of normal rates of demolition take over, most of the job would be done in 50 years. Imagine it. Vast areas of suburban sprawl could slowly collapse in on vital town centres, suburban homes are torn down & recycled, and the land restored with Biochar and Organic farming, and before too long we'd have a largely walkable, bike-able city plan with food security, water efficiency, and energy independence.

 

Unless something truly miraculous happens with energy supplies and electric vehicles, I'm not confident that some suburbs (and cities even) might be abandoned after peak oil just as New Orleans was after Katrina!

 

San Francisco is starting to look at this stuff!

 

It's simple really. Where would you rather raise your kids...

 

This...

 

or after a little work, this...