Anybody want to argue global warming?

[BlackCat]

Just to clear things - I may have been pretty rude in the last posts, but considering that I've been called a liar and a manipulator, I think that I have been pretty modest in my answers

[ricketyclik]

Certainly not, we absolutely live in a world filled with positive and negative feedbacks, but what are these ?

Some "deniers" say that due to sun "whatever", cosmic radiation fluctuations etc., the amount of water wapor goes up and add to heating. In these cases AGW proponents says that because of the short life of water wapor it's negilible.

When the cause of the rise in water wapor is due to CO2, then it isn't.

Cloud coverage - the same.

Current science is busy with seeking evidence for GW wich is pretty stupid since there already are plenty of that. Instead they should look into what causes climate change wich happened way before humans had any chance to have any impact. That, unfortunatedly isn't good for careers, so only few enter that path.

About funding - well, "deniers" are usually blamed that they are paid obscene amounts of $ by the oil industry - wonder if they can match this : $2.56 billion - how many researchers will say that this is a waste of money ?

Show me one, just one, climate scientist who denies that there are other influences on climate besides humans.

As for the injection into climate change research: it's about time. Adaptation investment will need more accurate forecasts of future climate than are available to date if it's to be well-directed.

[chequita guevara]

What happened to the ice age that was coming?

If you're referring to what the media was claiming in 1976, it was a particularly cold year. In fact, climatologists have been measuring a slow warming of the Earth, at the very least, since the 1960s. I recently had in my hot little hands a an issue of Scientific American with an article from 1961, discussing human caused global warming. There was a few years where all the soot from WWII, + open air atomic testings, + industrialism caused the global climate to drop, but once we stopped doing things like burning cities and blowing city sized masses of dust into the air dozens of times a year and cleaning our industrial air waste, that turned around.

Actually, until recently, all the models were off, because they forgot to account for airline traffic, which actually reflects a small amount of light back into space. So it was, in the last few years, discovered we're actually worse off.

The good news is, we can fix it. We're close to being able to grow our own oil using algae, which will suck CO2 out of the air (and when we burn it, put it back in), so at the very least, we can stop adding to the problem. Then we can start removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere.

[giblets]

Finally, proof that global warming is a communist conspiracy

[Theben]

Yes, because communists are to blame for capitalism.

[Theben]

And I don't feel the need to get into this again, since I went through this a few years ago with half-lotus. Still, I'll tell you the quickest way to become a AGW 'believer' is to read some of the documentation put out by deniers.

Blackcat: When the pentagon says that the biggest threat to the U.S. in the coming years is climate change, $2.56 billion seems like small potatoes. And yeah, if they wanted to the oil companies, et al. could match that easily.

ricketyclik: Did you even look at BC's link? It wasn't partisan at all.

[ricketyclik]

ricketyclik: Did you even look at BC's link? It wasn't partisan at all.

Which one? The one about investment by the US Government in weather forecasting? I know it wasn't, but BC's comment about it was.

[BlackCat]

Nice to see you again Thibum - long time no see

And I don't feel the need to get into this again, since I went through this a few years ago with half-lotus. Still, I'll tell you the quickest way to become a AGW 'believer' is to read some of the documentation put out by deniers.

Honestly, I have the same feeling reading alarmist documentation - turns me instantly into anti AGW.

Joke aside, I really don't care much about pro/contra AGW - all that interest me is what can be verified, and there the "alarmists" have problems.

Blackcat: When the pentagon says that the biggest threat to the U.S. in the coming years is climate change, $2.56 billion seems like small potatoes. And yeah, if they wanted to the oil companies, et al. could match that easily.

True, it's relevant to figure out what effects GW have, but we do in fact know that already. What we don't know with certainty is what causes GW, and that isn't researched very much.

You are of course rtigth - the oil companies could easily offer the same amount of money, but that doesn't worry me as much as public money. Public money has a tendency to attract politicians and administrators. When have you last seen admins saying they were obsolete ?

[ricketyclik]

True, it's relevant to figure out what effects GW have, but we do in fact know that already. What we don't know with certainty is what causes GW, and that isn't researched very much.

[BlackCat]

Quite an interesting reaction from someone that wasn't aware of how CO2 works

[ricketyclik]

Quite an interesting reaction from someone that wasn't aware of how CO2 works

I presume you are referring to my description of how it works in the actual world, rather than in isolation in a laboratory, the latter being the way you used to justify your argument?

[Theben]

Nice to see you again Thibum - long time no see

Thanks.

Joke aside, I really don't care much about pro/contra AGW - all that interest me is what can be verified, and there the "alarmists" have problems.

It's a matter of degree. Sure, you can find pro-AGW alarmists without too much effort, but the vast majority of research and documentation is peer-reviewed. I haven't seen anything yet wrt anti-AGW that wasn't either attempts at finding weak points in AGW research or pure speculation.

For my part, I just want correct answers, and soon. If the "deniers" are right, hey, more power to 'em. Let's do what needs be done. I'm just not seeing it from that crowd.

What we don't know with certainty is what causes GW, and that isn't researched very much.

Which goes back to the point that any scientist worth his/her salt rarely is going to declare their research a fait accompli. They will say, and have said, the majority of evidence points to [X]. And yeah, it has been researched... a lot.

You are of course rtigth - the oil companies could easily offer the same amount of money, but that doesn't worry me as much as public money. Public money has a tendency to attract politicians and administrators. When have you last seen admins saying they were obsolete ?

I guess I'd like to visit Denmark someday, where politicians are so upstanding that private money sways them not and corporations willingly fade into the sunset when a better product comes along.

[Aeson]

Although I agree with your point about preserving and investing in more sinks, it's worth bearing in mind that we currently consume (emit) more than 3 million years of photosynthesis/fossilisation per year. Focussing on limiting emissions has to be done.

It seems you missed the point of my post. How much buffering capacity the earth has, as well as the source of the emissions, are just as important as overall emissions of CO2. Simply looking at emissions in a vacuum will lead to the conclusion that all CO2 emissions are similarly detrimental to the environment, which is definitely not the case. Burning oil or coal which may very well have kept it's carbon sequestered for thousands or even millions of years is much more harmful than burning organic waste matter which would have sequestered (some of) the carbon for only days or weeks otherwise. Neither is a great option though, as directly burning organic waste matter unnecessarily emits other pollutants and decreases soil fertility (harming the buffering capacity of the planet).

Burning methane from the digestion of waste organic matter (in a sustainable manner) adds essentially nothing to AGW even though it is emitting CO2. You are simply taking carbon that would have been emitted anyways, and slightly altering the timing of it's emission (one way or another depending on the exact circumstance). There are other arguments for burning methane as well, given that it burns much cleaner (in regards to both organic waste matter and oil/coal... a point which also favors natural gas), and doesn't waste important compounds that are necessary for soil fertility (important in regards to organic matter directly, and use of oil indirectly through fertilizers/transport).

Of course if you are harvesting healthy organic matter that would not otherwise be burning/decomposing (yet), you are harming the buffering capacity even by producing methane. In the extreme cases you are damaging the sustainability of the operation (deforestation/desertification). So simply burning methane isn't the answer in and of itself either.

Any plan to correct the problems that would not differentiate in regards to these sorts of issues is terribly flawed, and may even promote the more damaging options due to economic issues. Methane production is not a real money maker relative to fossil fuels, increasing it's costs could make it uneconomical altogether even for operations which already have economic incentive to do it (such as dairy farms) ... whereas oil/coal still have much more wiggle room in that regard.

[ricketyclik]

No, I'm not missing the point of your post at all, I'm simply pointing out that emissions far outstrip effective emissions due to the destruction of sinks (clearing forests primarily, to date). All of the examples of "buffering" you raised are actually displacement of fossil fuel emission, albeit also being short term sinks.

Mind you, destruction of existing sinks stand to become competitive with or even dwarf fossil fuel emissions in terms of contribution to GG concentration, e.g. melting methane-containing tundra, and acidification (due to carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans) and subsequent mobilisation of calcium carbonate deposits on the ocean floor.

[Aeson]

Fossil fuel reserves are sinks. The best we have in fact.