Senate Report: Gore Lies, Media Biased, Advocates Misrepresent

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
So when is the global cooling predicted in the 70's supposed to happen?

I'm not aware there was scientific consensus on that point back then.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Good point about the limiting factors.

No, I was not so much concerned about the carbon sink factors increasing with vegetation, I was concerned by the vegetation itself. The more it covers the Earth, the longer it covers the Earth in terms of growing season, etc., the cooler the Earth is.

Your initial premise is flawed. Plants are darker than the earth, and so increased plant growth means more light absorption and more heat. In the book, Red Mars using dark colored lichens was a method of terraforming Mars, because the lichens would absorb more light, thus heating Mars.

[Impaler[WrG]]

No, I was not so much concerned about the carbon sink factors increasing with vegetation, I was concerned by the vegetation itself. The more it covers the Earth, the longer it covers the Earth in terms of growing season, etc., the cooler the Earth is. The vegetation itself cools the Earth.

The direct effect of vegitation cover is a bit trickier to determine. We all know that trees make us feel cooler and treed areas in a city like a park are cooler then the suroundings but this is primarily due to shade and the fact that asphalt and buildings trap heat, on a global scale its agriculture which has replaced forests. From what I've read mans alteration of the land from forested to agricultural use has a net warming effect due to changes in Albido, heat absorbtion and other complex things in addition to and independent of carbon release. We would need to know how the total land usage of the Earth is changing and how this all adds up (Climate scientis are of corse working on this). Even granting you a generous net cooling effect from forests you have not established that the amount of vegitated land is closly linked to CO2 levels. Rather I belive its rougly inversely proportional to the human population. Naturaly vegitated land exists only ware we allow it to exist, something like a half or a third of all forest pre-Industrial revolution are gone. By your own admition this should constitute a major warming which could only be corrected by a return to Pre-Industrial levels of forest cover, which is never going to happen at our present population levels.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ned


Sure you have. When you laugh at skeptics, your position seems clear.

No, I laugh at the fact that the most blatant example of the politicisation of science here is the fact that a Senator is commenting on the reliability of a scientific model.

I'm not laughing at skeptics, since I'm a bit of one myself.

[Ned]

Well, from my personal experience, vegetation, particularly trees, cools the environment. Just checking the web, it appears that vegetation, particularly trees, do so by evaporating water into the air.

[Ned]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


No, I laugh at the fact that the most blatant example of the politicisation of science here is the fact that a Senator is commenting on the reliability of a scientific model.

I'm not laughing at skeptics, since I'm a bit of one myself.

Well, it does go both ways. Gore too is a politician.

[KrazyHorse]

What's your point?

If you're looking for someone who went to see An Inconvenient Truth then you've got the wrong man.

[Ned]

Impaler, but the majority of forested land is in the North. We have seen significant increases in forest growth in the North and longer growing seasons. If temperature increase a bit, this should accellerate forest growth in the North, providing a significant direct cooling effect and indirect effect through the carbon sink effect.

[Ned]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
What's your point?

If you're looking for someone who went to see An Inconvenient Truth then you've got the wrong man.

KH, it appears that you are a scientist after all.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'm not aware there was scientific consensus on that point back then.

That's not what Odin said now, is it?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That's not what Odin said now, is it?

Doesn't matter now, really, does it?

[KrazyHorse]

Look, it's obvious to me as a physicist that human beings put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to dramatically alter the level of atmospheric CO2. This is uttely borne out by experimental data. Human beings have caused an unprecedented rise in global CO2 levels. It's also obvious to me what the zeroth order effect on the global climate must be (given the spectroscopic properties of CO2). It's not obvious to me that there can't be counterbalancing effects, and I think it's utterly ridiculous to rely on climatological models to tell us in any detail what the effects of warming will be. And the data on previous global mean temperatures is crappy enough that it can be interpreted any way you like.

So you'll pardon me if I choose to disassociate myself from any politician who thinks he's qualified to comment on this issue.

[Ned]

Another thing we do seem to know is that reducing some types of atmospheric polution can and probably does warm the Earth. Aerosols block sunlight and lower temperatures. But polution adds aerosols to the air.

"Aerosols interact both directly and indirectly with the Earth's radiation budget and climate. As a direct effect, the aerosols scatter sunlight directly back into space. As an indirect effect, aerosols in the lower atmosphere can modify the size of cloud particles, changing how the clouds reflect and absorb sunlight, thereby affecting the Earth's energy budget."

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/Aerosols.html

[KrazyHorse]

We're forcing the global climate in one direction pretty hard. I don't know what it's going to do. Climatology is a young enough science that I don't trust them to tell me what it's going to do either.

I do know that in the absence of data I encourage caution. I think it's a good idea to attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at as low a cost as possible. I don't know if Kyoto is a good way to do it or not. I certainly think that encouraging increased energy efficiency is a good idea.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Doesn't matter now, really, does it?

Why not? I'm just curious when it will happen.