Is human activity responsible for climate change?

Could it be, they are just wrong? That they cannot change the world?

Is human activity responsible for climate change?

The temperature measured at Klawock Airport in Southeast Alaska hit 71 degrees, which University of Alaska Fairbanks climate researcher Brian Brettschneider said is a record high for the state for the month of March, in any year on record.

Before 2016, Alaska temperatures in March hadn't hit the 70-degree mark for any years on record.

Mankind has an effect on our climate but it is infinitesimal.

Mankind has an effect on our climate but it is infinitesimal.

The science is clear cut on this. To stop the cause of climate change, which is due to the increase of the surface temperature, stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It is really that simple.

Carbon release rates from anthropogenic sources reached a record high of 10 Pg C/y in 2014. Geologic analogues from pasttransient climate changes could provide invaluable constraints on the response of the climate system to such perturbations, butonly if the associated carbon release rates can be reliably reconstructed. The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)is known at present to have the highest carbon release rates of the past 66 million years, but robust estimates of the initialrate and onset duration are hindered by uncertainties in age models. Here we introduce a new method to extract rates ofchange from a sedimentary record based on the relative timing of climate and carbon cycle changes, without the need foran age model. We apply this method to stable carbon and oxygen isotope records from the New Jersey shelf using time-series analysis and carbon cycle–climate modelling. We calculate that the initial carbon release during the onset of the PETMoccurred over at least 4,000 years. This constrains the maximum sustained PETM carbon release rate to less than 1.1 Pg C yr. We conclude that, given currently available records, the present anthropogenic carbon release rate is unprecedented duringthe past 66 million years. We suggest that such a ‘no-analogue’ state represents a fundamental challenge in constraining future climate projections. Also, future ecosystem disruptions are likely to exceed the relatively limited extinctions observed at the PETM.

The initial carbon release during the PETM onset thus occurred over at least 4,000 yr. Using estimates of 2,500-4,500 Pg C for the initial carbon release, the maximum sustained PETM carbon release rate was therefore 0.6-1.1 Pg C yr. Given currently available palaeorecords, we conclude that the present anthropogenic carbon release rate (10 Pg C yr) is unprecedented during the Cenozoic (past 66 Myr).... Regarding impacts on ecosystems, the present/future rate of climate change and ocean acidification is too fast for many species to adapt, which is likely to result in widespread future extinctions in marine and terrestrial environments that will substantially exceed those at the PETM. Given that the current rate of carbon release is unprecedented throughout the Cenozoic, we have effectively entered an era of a no-analogue state, which represents a fundamental challenge to constraining future climate projections.

The science is clear cut on this. To stop the cause of climate change, which is due to the increase of the surface temperature, stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

It is really that simple.

Cutting Co2 emissions is a good idea but, not at the expense of our economic base.

Balance is key.

There will be no economic base unless emissions are cut to the extent that it prevents a long term catastrophic event. You have to decide which is more important, fiddle while Rome burns, or put down your fiddle and put out the fire.

There will be no economic base unless emissions are cut to the extent that it prevents a long term catastrophic event. You have to decide which is more important, fiddle while Rome burns, or put down your fiddle and put out the fire.

Ricky

climber
Sometimes LA

Apr 1, 2016 - 01:19pm PT

Stainless only, or are galvies OK?

Eat now or suffer a little (for the rest of our lives) to (possibly) help those living 100 years from now. Hmm?

And that, right there, is apathy that prevents any action on this issue.

Feast away EdwardT while the futures of your kids and grandkids grows increasingly bleak. At least you will have spared yourself the prospect of suffering "a little".

"There are people who say 'we can change the world.'.. Could it be, they are just wrong? That they cannot change the world?"

"It will all work itself out. Act now, act later, whatever. That oil is going to get consumed."

it would be quite painless to add $2 per gallon to USA gas taxes, thru a revenue neutral carbon tax.

EdwardT, my apologies if you were being urbane. It is sometimes hard to tell on threads such as this one.

Extinction Overview

If you’re too busy to read the evidence presented below, here’s the bottom line: On a planet 4 C hotter than baseline, all we can prepare for is human extinction (from Oliver Tickell’s 2008 synthesis in the Guardian). Tickell is taking a conservative approach, considering humans have not been present at 3.3 C or more above baseline (i.e., the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, commonly accepted as 1750). I cannot imagine a scenario involving a rapid rise in global-average temperature and also habitat for humans. Neither can Australian climate scholar Clive Hamilton, based on his 17 June 2014 response to Andrew Revkin’s fantasy-based hopium. According to the World Bank’s 2012 report, “Turn down the heat: why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided” and an informed assessment of “BP Energy Outlook 2030” put together by Barry Saxifrage for the Vancouver Observer, our path leads directly to the 4 C mark. The conservative International Energy Agency throws in the towel on avoiding 4 C in this video from June 2014 (check the 25-minute mark). The 19th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19), held in November 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, was warned by professor of climatology Mark Maslin: “We are already planning for a 4°C world because that is where we are heading. I do not know of any scientists who do not believe that.” Among well-regarded climate scientists who think a 4 C world is unavoidable, based solely on atmospheric carbon dioxide, is Cambridge University’s Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics, Dr. Peter Wadhams (check the 51-second mark in this 8 August 2014 video), who says: “…the carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere, which now exceeded 400 parts per million, is sufficient, if you don’t add any more, to actually raise global temperatures in the end by about four degrees.” Adding to planetary misery is a paper in the 16 December 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluding that 4 C terminates the ability of Earth’s vegetation to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to a story in the 6 December 2015 issue of the Washington Post: “With no government action, Exxon experts … [said] average temperatures are likely to rise by a catastrophic (my word, not theirs) 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6, 7 or even more quite possible.”

Flying anywhere is the quickest way to eff up your carbon footprint.

We use biodiesel (B99) in our 2004 VW Jetta (5 speed manual, $18G new, 200,000 miles so far). See local farmers and restaurants drop off oil for production.

Unfortunately, the OP's question is beyond the majority's capacity or willingness to contemplate much less make personal or collective sacrifice to mitigate.

Yeah, having kids has the biggest impact.

Here is a Carbon Footprint Calculator from the Nature Conservancy. There are a lot out there to check out.

http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/

There is Only One answer
We have to vote out all Republicans

I don't know about that. You could fly a lot of miles before you would equal the impact of having kids.

Population is the core problem, period.

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is an inability to understand the exponential function

Great Challenge:

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"

Population is the core problem, period.

What displaces the "market economy?"

Global Footprint Network data shows that humanity uses the equivalent of 1.6 planet Earths to provide the renewable resources we use and absorb our waste. If all 7+ billion of us were to enjoy a European standard of living - which is about half the consumption of the average American - the Earth could sustainably support only about 2 billion people.

According to researchers quoted in the 22 September 2015 issue of The Siberian Times, the rare media outlet that is willing to address abrupt climate change in a meaningful manner, those massive craters on the Yamal Peninsula are, in fact, created by the release of methane. Furthermore, more craters are expected due to eruptions as permafrost continues to melt.

It turns out those giant, methane-emitting craters in the Yamal region of Siberia have subsea counterparts. A paper in the 7 August 2015 issue of Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Science connects the craters on land with those in the adjacent, shallow South Kara Sea. According a write-up in The Siberian Times: “Large mounds — described as pingos — have been identified on the seabed off the Yamal Peninsula, and their formation is seen as due to the thawing of subsea permafrost, causing a ‘high accumulation’ of methane gas.”

The importance of methane cannot be overstated. Increasingly, evidence points to a methane burst underlying the Great Dying associated with the end-Permian extinction event, as pointed out in the 31 March 2014 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As Malcolm Light reported on 14 July 2014: “There are such massive reserves of methane in the subsea Arctic methane hydrates, that if only a few percent of them are released, they will lead to a jump in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere of 10 degrees C and produce a ‘Permian’ style major extinction event which will kill us all. Apparently a 5 C rise in global-average temperature was responsible for the Great Dying, according to Michael Benton’s book on the topic. In that case, the rise is temperature requires tens of thousands of years.

Discussion about methane release from the Arctic Ocean has been quite heated (pun intended). Paul Beckwith was criticized by the conservative website, Skeptical Science. His response from 9 August 2013 is here.

Robert Scribbler provides a terrifying summary 24 February 2014, and concludes, “two particularly large and troubling ocean to atmosphere methane outbursts were observed” in the Arctic Ocean. Such an event hasn’t occurred during the last 45 million years. Scribbler’s bottom line: “that time of dangerous and explosive reawakening, increasingly, seems to be now.”

Global Footprint Network data shows that humanity uses the equivalent of 1.6 planet Earths to provide the renewable resources we use and absorb our waste. If all 7+ billion of us were to enjoy a European standard of living - which is about half the consumption of the average American - the Earth could sustainably support only about 2 billion people.

It would seem that even a teeny rate of thermal expansion, over very long distances, would lead to massive crust displacements, earthquakes and volcanoes.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee

Has anybody done a thermal expansion analysis of the earth's crust, for a few degrees of warming? It would seem that even a teeny rate of thermal expansion, over very long distances, would lead to massive crust displacements, earthquakes and volcanoes.

To think human's CAUSE climate change, is pretty egotistical.

The effect of climate change is not 100 years in the future, it is happening right now. What will happen then will be much worse if we don't curb the atmospheric carbon emissions.

It's hard for to beieve this subject is still being actively discussed on 4/13/16 on a forum with, for the most part, well informed people.

It's hard for to beieve this subject is still being actively discussed on 4/13/16 on a forum with, for the most part, well informed people.

Reaction with the hydroxyl radical- The major removal mechanism of methane from the atmosphere involves radical chemistry; it reacts with the hydroxyl radical (·OH) in the troposphere or stratosphere to create the CH·3 radical and water vapor. In addition to being the largest known sink for atmospheric methane, this reaction is one of the most important sources of water vapor in the upper atmosphere.

CH
4 + ·OH → ·CH
3 + H
2O

This reaction in the troposphere gives a methane lifetime of 9.6 years. Two more minor sinks are soil sinks (160 year lifetime) and stratospheric loss by reaction with ·OH, ·Cl and ·O1D in the stratosphere (120 year lifetime), giving a net lifetime of 8.4 years.[9] Oxidation of methane is the main source of water vapor in the upper stratosphere (beginning at pressure levels around 10 kPa).

...about how the world’s most powerful industry used science, communications, and consumer psychology to shape the public debate over climate change. And it begins earlier—decades earlier—than anyone suspected.

Explore our documents and discover what they knew, when they knew it, and how they collaborated to confuse the public, promote scientific theories that contradicted their own best information, and block action on the most important challenge of our time.

Sources, abundance, and fate of atmospheric pollutants.

1968 E. Robinson, & R.C. Robbins
In 1968, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) scientists Elmer Robinson and R.C. Robbins produced a Final Report to the American Petroleum Institute (API) on SRI’s research in the sources, abundance, and fate of gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. They reserved their starkest warnings to industry leaders for carbon dioxide. Robinson observed that, among the pollutants reviewed, carbon dioxide “is the only air pollutant which has been proven to be global importance to man's environment on the basis of a long period of scientific investigation." Summarizing the findings of the President’s Science Advisory Council, Robinson noted that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were outstripping the natural CO2 removal processes that keep the atmosphere in equilibrium. He noted that the speed of CO2 accumulation would depend on fossil fuel consumption and projected that, on then-present trends, atmospheric CO2 could reach 400ppm by 2000, and that exploiting all then-recoverable fossil fuel would lead to concentrations of 830ppm. The report warned that rising CO2 would result in increases in temperature at the earth's surface, and that significant temperature increase could lead to melting ice caps, rising seas, and potentially serious environmental damage worldwide. It noted that, even if Antarctic ice caps took 1000 years to melt, this would mean sea level rises of four feet per ten years—"100 times greater than observed changes." Importantly, SRI acknowledged that of the various sources proposed for rising atmospheric CO2, "none seems to fit the presently observed situation as well as the fossil fuel emanation theory." Noting uncertainties about whether particulate pollution would offset some of this warming, SRI warned "…there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe…” The industry's own consulting scientists then confirmed that the most urgent research need was into technologies that could bring CO2 emissions under control.

All the quasi-scientists here with their cut and paste acumen are less than convincing in their efforts.
The climate change paranoia is just that.

Almost 16 years after Harvard researcher Naomi Oreskes first documented an overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, a research team confirmed that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening.

The study, published Tuesday [4/13/16], brought together 16 scientists, including seven authors of consensus studies that documented similar conclusions over the years despite varying research approaches. While reaching this so-called “consensus on consensus,” authors concluded that scientific agreement on human-caused climate change is “robust” with a range of 90 to 100 percent, depending on the question and methodology.

...

The study also shows that the higher the level of expertise in climate science, the higher the agreement that global warming is caused by humans.

The latest numbers are 99.99% of climate scientist agree.

Apr 14, 2016 - 07:08am PT
All the quasi-scientists here with their cut and paste acumen are less than convincing in their efforts.
The climate change paranoia is just that.

Almost 16 years after Harvard researcher Naomi Oreskes first documented an overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, a research team confirmed that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening.

I seriously don't understand why y'all even bother with the deniers

Love those statisticians.

It has been mathematically shown that if the Earth's atmosphere did NOT contain its current volume of greenhouse gasses, we would plunge into a deep freeze.

@EdwardT, who exactly are the statisticians to whom you are referring? Certainly not the author of the article about study, right?

Whoever led off the number-laden consensus sprayfest with bad math.

I'd have to agree with k-man - you missed my point. The deniers are not going to change their minds. They've already been brainwashed. So why do those that understand science and logic even bother when there is exactly zero chance in changing a deniers mind.

"The question of whether the cures for AGW are worse than the problem"

I'd have more respect for the puds of the world if they'd simply admit they don't give a sh#t instead of engaging in mental masturbation about the science, which they are ignorant about.

There is a definite political agenda… to make us think we can somehow change the weather by growing government”

Prior to working for Senator Inhofe, Morano was a journalist with Cybercast News Service, which is owned and operated by the Media Research Center (MRC). The MRC is supported in part by right-wing foundations and funding from industry, including over $200,000 from ExxonMobil. From 1992 to 1996, Morano also worked as a producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show and was known as “Limbaugh's man in Washington.”

The question of whether the cures for AGW are worse than the problem. A very complicated question that is much more interesting than the long settled elementary level question of whether AGW is real.

The question of whether the cures for AGW are worse than the problem. A very complicated question that is much more interesting than the long settled elementary level question of whether AGW is real.

The question of whether the cures for AGW are worse than the problem. A very complicated question that is much more interesting than the long settled elementary level question of whether AGW is real.

It has been mathematically shown that if the Earth's atmosphere did NOT contain 200ppm of greenhouse gases, we would plunge into a deep freeze.

What do you know about science?

For the take on sea level rise and Florida google Hal Wanless. He is the head of the Dept of Geology at Univ of Miami. A great guy and a good geologist

The question of whether the cures for AGW are worse than the problem. A very complicated question that is much more interesting than the long settled elementary level question of whether AGW is real.

It should be reasonable to think that removing all that oil should contribute to earthquake frequency?

You've another question for me denier?

Of course all you 'scientists' know that denier is not a word pertaining to Denying.
Of course you do.

Therein lies the problem that everyone wants to ignore. I suspect most "deniers" simply "feel" that the cure is worse than the disease, but don't want to bother with the difficult analysis of really making a decision. And i suspect that most "believers" simply "feel," by the same process, that the disease is worse than the cure.