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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Getting away from the idea that humans had dinosaurs for pets, I found this easy to understand video explaining some of our winter weather anomalies this year. Things can't get any more straight forward than this. It features Dr. Jennifer Francis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4spEuh8vswE
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Well Ed, i don't have your ease of access and read nothing more than the abstracts on both papers. That's why i asked you and others to read and evaluate these, i can't attest to their value. Is there a free link on the net for either? Anyway i thank you for your evaluation of the first paper and eagerly await your assessment of the second.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-006-9101-y.pdf
Based on papers like this one it appears to be a given that aerosols are counteracting AGW effects of CO2. This is an interesting comment from the paper Pg 6;
Nevertheless, again I must stress here that the albedo enhancement scheme
should only be deployed when there are proven net advantages and in particular
when rapid climate warming is developing, paradoxically, in part due to improvements
in worldwide air quality.
In the references;
Andreae, M. O., Jones, C. D., and Cox, P. M.: 2005, ‘Strong present-day aerosol cooling implies a
hot future’, Nature 435, 1187–1190.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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You know Ed, by the time CAGW boys(perhaps decades or more from now)properly identify and account for all forcing agents /regulatory systems and their dynamic interactions in their models, to the point they accurately mimic nature in both short and long term, the trend lines will be insignificant compared to the contemporary problems of that day.The time, talent, and money spent on this effort was a waste of a significant percentage of a generation of the scientific community. This seems like criminal waste. How much better it would and could be if the emphasis was on research, development and deployment of cost effective new technologies that renders this ongoing debate obsolete.We could have been halfway there by now. Thank you for your time.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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The only reasons up to now, Rick, to develope alternative technologies, would be environmental reasons. But there you are, saying environmentalists are Catastrophists, so where is the incentive? You don't look to be too consistent in your thinking, if it can be called thinking.
It will probably turn out that all the modeling skills will be very useful when we have to geo-engineer our way out of this mess.
Sayonara, and don't let the door hit yer ass on the way out.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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First off, now that Ed is coming out of the ideological closet this debate can be waged in the arena of principles of morality versus a course of action based on a vision of apocalypse that is cast by the this still unproven science.Even you Ed are beginning to admit that the science is still in it' infancy and aside from increasing fidelity for regional forecast it is far from ready as the globally accurate short, mid and long timescale science many tout it to be.
So what could be done if rationality and coherence could be instilled in our policy makers?
1. Take CO2 off the pollutant list and put it in a new category like a watch list.
2. Cut funding for climate research by 75%.
3. End all energy and alternative energy related subsidies.
4. Embrace natural gas as the bridge fuel (much less polluting across the spectrum and releases up to 50% less CO2 than coal and some transportation bio fuels if all sources are considered) to the next generation of cleaner more "sustainable" and cost effective alternative energies. Our fossil fuel industry has identified and developed the technology to extract an increasing reserve of natural gas currently estimated to satisfy demand (power generation, home and business heating, transportation fuel) for a 100 years. However, extraction is mainly on private and state land as the Feds are slow to develop regulations.
5. Institute a national across the board consumption tax on everything including internet commerce. This will have somewhat of the same effect as a carbon tax less the headache. Reduce income and corporate tax rates to partially offset the consumption tax.
6. Use some of the savings from climate research funding and elimination of subsidies,and the proceeds from increased fossil fuel industry leasing and royalties,the consumption tax, increased income tax receipts from increased energy sector employment to fund the following.
7. Put a single entity and person in charge of a scaled back climate research community. This has an advantage of coherent direction to avoid duplication and off topic detours. This entity will solicit proposals and award grants. A "rationalist" like Judith Curry at Georgia Tech comes to mind.
8. Retrain (at government expense) the displaced scientists engaged in climate research from emphasis on studies to emphasis on development and application.
9. Lavishly fund a new Manhattan scale project to research, develop, apply the yet unforseen cleaner and more sustainable energy sources of tomorrow.
10. Fund R&D for increased efficiency of usage of fossil fuels-i.e. the 60 mile a gallon engine, home and office space heating and cooling, etc.
This will work on a national scale. Once proven cost effective technology is in place the rest of the world will naturally follow.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Some of your ideas are good Rick (very few actually). I get a bit tired of the insults you hurl at Climate Science though. Scientists are open about their imperfections and your clan is all over it like you are cancer.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Put a single entity and person in charge of a scaled back climate research community.
That person would be Rick Sumner of course.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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It's May 4th, it is snowing here at 62 degree latitude at sea level. I'm going cross country skiing at 1500' elevation where there is still a deep snow pack with new snow still accumulating and partially off setting the melt. By the time the climate scientists "really" nail down the extent of human impact there might well be calls for a carbon market to pay for increased emissions.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Seems wherever i go this year this "global cooling Phase" manifests itself directly overhead. Here in Reno 39.51 degree latitude, thundershowers and unseasonably cool. Yes Ed, i realize the difference between the unworkable carbon tax you propose and a carbon market, the likes of which your wonderful state is going to initiate shortly with an auction for credits in Sacramento. I guess you missed my attempt at humor-i meant after the more pronounced effects of the solar driven cooling phase we are possibly entering their will be cries for increased emmisions of GHG's to be paid for by the government, with our increased tax dollars of course.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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31 year veteran Ed. I've seen the winters go from the longer, cooler period during the eighties (more severe in the 70's) to the shorter, warmer period of the 90's back to the longer cooler period of the past 10-12 years, this year's winter extending abnormally (even as measure against the 70's) long.
I wasn't referencing the paper you commented on. My point is the models are based on the variation of the typical 11 year cycle. There is historical indication that our sun is a bit more variable than that inputted as it's 11 year cycle in the models. Other scientists say their are other cycles, short, mid and long term that produces a much more variable value. Apparently we could be entering into a period of quiescense comparable to the maunder minimum in which case the current models more dire predictions would have to be thrown out the window.The climate variations might have to be averaged over a much longer time set than decades, in which case the recent decadal rise would seem less significant.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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if you want to reduce CO2 emission, the best way is to tax it, directly...
I had a student who lived and breathed by what the Cato Institute said... "dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace"
He agrees 100%.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Well Ed, as you well know their has only been a direct and accurate record of total solar irradiance for 30 years by satelite. Although we have learned much the measurements have served to highlight the fact that our understanding of our sun and its effects on Earths climate is still in the early stages of complete knowledge. What is the suns estimated range of value in blocking of cosmic rays and the extent of cosmic rays in cloud formation,what is the effect of the high degree of variability in certain spectrums and their as yet unexplained effects on our biosphere, why is a value of .01 the given for total solar variation when their is still contention about the extent of comparatively recent climate swings? What is the explanation for the warming of the early 20th century absent the larger content of atmospheric co2 seen later in the century?Solar varibility has its largest effects in the polar regions because of extremes of seasonal exposure. Its certainly interesting that the 20th century warming, and particularly its most rapid warming, corresponded with a solar maximum of activity. Its also interesting that now that we've been in a period of decreased activity (and forecast to decrease much more)that the higher latitudes are cooling.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Anothernickname- we have hundreds of years of conventional gas available thanks to the evolving technology of the conventional energy industry without even having to touch methane hydrates. If the CAGW crowd would embrace this as the much cleaner burning and much less CO2 releasing fuel it is instead of being the non sensical obstructionists they are, we would have the breathing room and increased funds to really fund alternative energy to an extant that new technologies could be developed that are competitive or even more competitive to fossil fuel costs. Alas CO2 reduction is not their true goal, but rather just a tool they intend to use for dismantling the present industrial age and replacing it with their hideous vision of utopia.It is an ideological battle not rational science and application.
Ed, seriously brother i'm not going to sift through thousands of posts looking for answers to questions that were made to your satisfaction.I know their are reams of papers out there purportedly dismissing questions of the opposition and they are part of the so called "scientific consensus", but that consensus is consensus by minority as increasing numbers of scientists worldwide find their voice to express different opinions. This discussion, this science needs to go back to page 1 for serious review while scientists look at more of the thousands of poorly understood factors that can have an impact on climate . Solar insolation and its many unknown effects are just one item, although probably the most important.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
honeoye falls,ny.greeneck alleghenys
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http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
http://dirtyenergymoney.org/view.php?searchvalue=30011&com=&can=&zip=30011&search
Rick you are a weekend libertarian,if you and your "non obstructionists" friends are truly for free markets and not for oil/gas socialisim ,subsides and greasing would have stopped years ago.
You are just like the rest of your GWD crowd,totally hypocritical.
How bout some links to the crap your defending?
How much do we spend on GW research?It is far less than your gang spends to refute it.Look it up.
So I will say it again,98% of scientists have a consensus,2% do not.You and your 2% get way to much airtime.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
honeoye falls,ny.greeneck alleghenys
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Ok Ron look that up,for everyone of your right wing websites that differ with the 98% number i can show you 10 websites [at the very least] that agree.
Go ahead look it up.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
honeoye falls,ny.greeneck alleghenys
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Well said Ed Hartouni.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Thank you Doctor for this bit of new "sensational news". The claim that the industrial revolution has reduced ocean ph levels by .1 have been out there for years. Our resident shrink "Bruce from communist B.C." is correct that i base some my beliefs on intuition. I had the gut feeling that their would soon be an all out push to ram this CAGW scheme down a gullible public's throat and presto hear it is. A decrease of .1 (i assume this brings the average oceanic level from 7.9-8.2 down to 7.8-8.1) is hardly any big f-ing deal. It would have to decline to 7.1 to be merely neutral.The study itself admits it cannot accurately predict further decline in the following two centuries. It also stops short of making hard predictions of this slight decrease effect on oceanic life, but leave it to a compliant press to sensationalize and insinuate dire consequences.As before in geologic history the biota will rise to the occasion and scrub this small fractional increase. The good news is that the oceans may be doing a better job of absorbing atmospheric CO2 than many assumed.
Good posts Ed. Of course i"ll be checking the veracity of the scientific representations in my slow non-scientific method. I will not go quietly into the night however.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Good one. Ocean acidification is responsible for the deposition of the oil and gas source rock shales that result in oil and gas accumulations.
The oceans are constantly raining carbon, from dead algae and other critters, onto the seafloor. Acidification events create anoxic conditions which preserve the carbon, which would otherwise be gobbled up and recycled by other organisms in the so-called "Carbon Cycle."
Since these specific shales are so important, they have been intensively studied. The environmental conditions that cause acidification events on a global scale, mainly the Devonian and Jurassic, source most of the major oil fields in the world, although there are some local basins which achieved acidification as starved basins with no outflow. The conditions have always been interpreted as being hot house events, and they correlate nicely with other data, such as fossil records. I was at a shale gas technical meeting last month and all of this was discussed. I can provide geology papers that were cited, but the basics of the shale depositional environments has been worked out for at least three decades.
One core was rich in radiolarians tests (a test is a shell, MOL), which provided a lattice that helped preserve larger pore throats through which gas can migrate. I'm talking horizontal shale gas wells here, with fracking and all that jazz.
The taxonomy of the microfossils in the shales tend to show the hothouse conditions, as well as data from paleoflora, such as Gingko leaves and their stomata density. These directly correlate to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and during the mid Mesozoic, as Pangea broke up, there was a huge increase in volcanism leading to a CO2 forced hothouse event. It is also backed up by the general global distribution of plants, with some of them, such as ferns, growing very close to the poles.
Basically, this has happened before, and exploration geologists use this data to understand the depositional environment of the (now) gas shales.
We can even get a good idea of the CO2 and oxygen concentrations of the very distant past using plant fossils.
I've seen some work regarding the Mesozoic anoxic event, which sourced the Middle Eastern oilfields, and the CO2 content rose to about double of what we have today, or 4 times the pre-industrial revolution level of CO2.
There are other factors involved in paleoclimate such as axial tilt of the Earth, CO2 from volcanism, albedo from having large ice caps or not, and other wha wha.
These shales are usually only a few hundred feet thick in the best areas. The ones in the U.S., with the exception of the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana, are all the same age...late Devonian/early Mississippian.
Global oceanic anoxic events are key in the search for oil and gas, and this is one field that has had the snot worked out of, because oil and gas are worth a lot of money.
There are some pretty poor thinkers on this thread. They take a rigid position, mainly based on political information, and the extent of the reading is quite small.
Anyone can go cut and paste a graph. What you need to do is understand that graph, what it means, how the data was gathered, and how does this fit in with the overall picture.
---That is my semi-annual post to this thread.
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