A Wall Street Journal article notes how scientists are refining their ability to isolate human-caused climate change and why many think “natural variations” in climate — a frequent explanation used by warming skeptics — aren’t enough to account for present global warming patterns.
Said atmospheric physicist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University: “We have never seen natural variability on a global scale like we’ve had in the last 100 years.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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70 Comments
I think brother Stephen should ‘put you on notice’ for being part of the ‘blame America first’ crowd.
It would be interesting to see just how much the climate has changed since the Industrial Revolution. How much our factories and industries have affected the climate.
My question on Climate Change. Will it kill us? Will it destory the earth?
There are still problems with believing humans are the cause of global warming. While warming is happening, I have doubts about green house gasses causing it. There are too many unknown variables associated with the earth to blame man.
That said, the “Walker Circulation,” as stated in the article, could indeed have a warming effect as I am definitely one hot dude:=)
Walker,Not only are you “one hot dude” you’re also full of hot air!tee hee hee(you opened yourself and I had to take the shot darlin’)
Brava, Julie! :)
(Sorry, one hot dude. She’s right. You did ask for that one.)
We need to identify the real culprits in global warming: Californians. Back at the turn of the last century, when most Americans were satisfied to have horse-drawn carriages, Californians were demanding cars. Then, after WWII, they thought it was their right to have two family cars. Then in the ’60’s they decided that the kids needed their own cars. Riiight.
Greenhouse gases and global warming? A theory invented by California oceanographer Roger Revelle nearly a half-century ago. He got his Ph.D. at Berzerkeley and then worked at the Scripps Oceanographic Insitutition. Did anyone notice this: TWO of the three Wall Street Journal quoted scientists were Californians. One from Berkeley and one from Scripps.
I rest my case.
The greenhouse-gas theory predicts warming primarily in winter. If the oceans warm up, more atmospheric moisture is produced, which should result in more precipitation. These things might not be bad for Kansas. This winter was pretty pleasant, wasn’t it? We’ve had some much-needed spring rains that have nicely greened things up.
Of course, the theory isn’t favorable to the Gulf Coast and Florida. But OKC enjoyed a windfall as the Hornets relocated. Maybe with our new arena, we can land the Miami Heat. Eventually, maybe Shaq can be our mayor, then governor.
Here’s one everybody should read:
http://www.youareatree.com/?p=3361
:-)
Heart-That is too funny!!! Thanks for sharing!
Joe – yes for many of us to your first question. No to your second question. It might make the earth much less habitable but the ol’ rock will still be here.
For a further discussion go to
http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=hurricane&page=1&offset=1&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3Da608406acb593783%26clickedItemRank%3D6%26userQuery%3Dhurricane%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.wunderground.com%252Ftropical%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPTop%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wunderground.com%2Ftropical%2F
Heartlander – while there might be some increase in global precipitation that will be more than offset by increased terrestrial evapotranspiration. Also the increase is likely to be more concentrated in severe events which doesn’t help much.
Add to that the migration of the Ferrel-Hadley convergence (tropical high) to higher latitudes and net moisture availibility in much of the mid-latitudes (30-50 degrees NS) will decrease.
What kind of cars were being driven by the cavemen when the last ice age receded, 15-20,000 years ago?
I bet it was tough to find a qualified mechanic.
Why did earth’s tempatrue drop during the 1940s, when we were pumping out a butt load of carbon into the atmospher?
John, a guy like you who can invent a perpetual motion machine ought to have those answers for us.Are you keeping them secret?
Ben,Wouldn’t a warming on a glabal scale make the temperature differences between the poles and the rest of the world less than they are now? And wouldn’t that make severe storms, such as Katrina, less likely, due to the fact that it is the warmer, moist air, meeting the colder air that generates the energy necessary for the severe storms?
I’m not a scientist and I do not play one on TV.
That said, I’d like to bring simple common sense.
If my child “seems” sick, and a large number of people including Doctors are telling me that something I am doing is somehow making my child sick, my tendency is going to be on the side of giving them my attention as opposed to simply denying that the boy is ill.
Scientist have demonstrated and are basically unanimous that the Earths climate is changing. If humans are a part of that in even the smallest way I think we’d better know.
J M – no. It has been shown from the geologic record that tropical storms during the last glacial were much weaker than at present. The dynamic of tropical storm formation is dependent on warm surface water – the warmer the better for storm development.
John – the amount of carbon being produced in the 40s was MUCH less than at present.
J R – I AM a scientist. Your common sense is right on the money.
Ben,I understand the dynamics of tropical storms. I am also in agreement that the earth is warming. There is no argument there. Whether it is cause by man is another story.
But back to the storms: True, the warmer the ocean, the bigger the storm, if other factors are there. If the atmosphere is warmer, less energy will be generated. The energy is a direct result of the warmer, moisture laden air, meeting the cooler upper atmosphere. If the temperature difference between the two is not wide enough, tropical storms shouldn’t be able to build the energy necessary to turn into hurricanes. The same is true of tornadoes. It takes a wide enough temperature variance to generate the killer energy needed for a Katrina. This is what is happening during the current hurricane seasons: The warmer ocean is leading to more moisture laden clouds and that is meeting the artic upper level winds, ergo, bigger storms. As ice melts at the poles, that artic wind will blow warmer.
It seems to me that as the world gets warmer, the temperature difference between the upper and lower atmospheres will become less and less, leading to fewer severe storms. While it may mean more rain due to more cloud cover, I think we would see a more stable storm system.
I don’t know if humans are responsible; personally, I doubt it. My suspicion is that the earth’s cycles and patterns are far larger than we puny humans’ ability to effect them – we think we are more important than we really are. Those are just suspicions, however, I’m not a climatologist. And because scientists say so carries little weight – science has been wrong far more often than they’ve been right.
BUT – there are lots of good reasons to ACT as if we are responsible. If I’m wrong, the disaster will be huge. If I’m right, and we ACT anyway to reduce greenhouse gasses through reducing use of fossil fuels, etc., there are enormous long-term benefits (pollution reduction, less reliance on unstable regions for energy) aside from the global warming concerns.
Thus – it behooves us to act as if the chicken littles are right. In the long run, we’re better off either way.
JM – in that case the storms should have been MORE intense during glacial times. The opposite is true. Climatologists disagree with you.
Also, virtually 100% of climatologists attribute warming to anthropogenic causes.
CO2 levels today are about 370 ppmv, typical interglacial (warm_ periods about 280 ppmv; typical glacial about 200 ppmv. The reason for the glacial-interglacial cycles are attributed to Milankovitch cycles. We have superimposed our own effect on top of that; and at a pace far faster that Milankovitch.
Today’s CO2 levels are as much higher than interglacial as interglacial is higher than glacial.
As W.S. Broecker (British geophysicist)said 2 decades ago:
“The inhabitants of planet earth are quietly conducting a gigantic environmental experiment. So vast and so sweeping will be the impacts of this experiment that, were it brought before any responsible council for approval, it would be firmly rejected as having potentially dangerous consequences. Yet. the experiment goes on … ”
Of course, what do WE know? We are just lowly scientists. I am sure junior-college flunk-out Rush knows MUCH more than we do!
Ben,”in that case the storms should have been MORE intense during glacial times. The opposite is true. Climatologists disagree with you.”
Not if the ocean was also cooler. There will be NO energy generated for a storm if the net difference between the upper and lower is zero. Heat rises, and the contact with the cooler upper atmosphere is what generates the energy. Hence, if the upper atmosphere is warmer, less energy will be expended. What you are alluding to is like trying to start a fire without one of the three necessary ingredients present.
So if storms were less during cooler periods, they will also be less during warmer periods, if the difference is less. That is a scientific fact.
If man is the cause of global warming, then the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive is a very bad idea: Ethonal lowers the energy available per gallon by as much as 25%. Its energy pattern is 50% less than gasoline. Ethonal is also more volatile than Gasoline, hence its VOC raises that of gasoline. It also reqiures more gsa to be useed to go the same distance as non-ethonal gas would. So more co2 could be produced using ethonal.
The main problem with Ethonal is getting reliable data on exactly what it does for gas and milage. The corn growers say one thing. Many scientists say something different, as do oli producers. Who to believe? Two articles:
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/apr2006/bw20060427_493909.htm?campaign_id=topStories_ssi_5
http://www.ethanol.org/
Who you going to believe?
Ben,By the way, I haven’t listened to rush in over ten years. I can only guess what he’s saying now, and That tends to make me seasick:-)
JM – wrong again. The polar and sub-polar oceans were quite a bit colder; the tropical ocens cooler but less so. Therefore, according to your climatological theories the fact that the equator-polar difference was larger during glacial periods than today then storms should have been stronger. The opposite is what has been observed from the geologic record. The climatologists I have talked to agre with that record and with the interpretation I have described.
As for ethanol – there are a number of issues to be examined. From a CO2 perspective you must keep in mind that the production of the feedstock should CONSUME CO2 and thus the cycle should be ‘net zero’ with respect to CO2.
There are, however, many other issues with ethanol to be considered, not the least of which are water and fertilyzer use.
Perhaps, instead of using Rush as my counter-example, I could have referred to an oil industry lawyer as science advisor. Or Sen. Inhofe’s “expert”, fiction novelist Crighton (sp?)
Ben,You’re misinterpreting my post.It takes a wide variance between the upper and lower levels to make a storm. If the tropical is warm, but still cooler than it is today, then the storms would have been lesser. It is the heat of the moisture laden clouds that generate enormous energy when it comes in contact with the cold upper atmosphere. If the heat in the clouds is lower, the energy will be lower, so I agree with the ice age climatologists; I never said I didn’t. Maybe it was my explanation. My bad.
What I do disagree with is more severe storms if both the upper and lower atmospheres heat up. It is the temperature difference that makes the severity of the storm, not the temperature. Unless the temperatures are low enough in both upper and lower, as in the ice age.
I will consider it possible for major storms to develope if both upper and lower are warmer, provided the temperature difference is wide enough. That, in my opinion, is the key.
As for ethanol, the cycle does not equal net zero because of outside factors. As we both said, there are many factors to consider.
I am really not interested who you use as a counter example as chicken little would be as good as any.
Question, for those of you better versed than I on this subject:
I have read (somewhere) that the use of corn to make ethanol as fuel blend is in fact a net energy drain, because the oil used to produce the corn and process the ethanol is greater than the oil saved using the ethanol as a fuel blend. Thus subsidizing corn for ethanol as an oil conservation measure actually consumes more oil.
Is this true? Is there any reliable was to know?
GMC – very possibly you might be correct. I like the idea of turning organic ‘crud’ (turkey guts, kudzu, etc) into biofuels. I have problems with dedicated crops for that purpose.
JM – the fact is that climatoligists agree that warming increases the fuel for storms as is observed. You had indicated latitudes before; now it seems to be altitudes. Global warming is more pronounced at lower altitudes. Thus a greater vertical variation.
My favored scenario for energy is a mix of increased efficiency, conservation, solar, nuclear, bio, etc.
Ben, I never said anything about latitude; it has always been the temp difference. Certainly warming will increase the fuel, but if the upper atmos warms, then the storms need not be stronger; there has to be other things present besides fuel to generate energy.
I do agree on the “crud” being converted. Kudzu is a plague, and could be put to good use. Here in Missouri, poultry guts are being turned into bio-fuels. After they got rid of the smell, it seems to be working well.
Efficiency in gas engines is possible, the Scuderi engine being one example. But conservation is something we are going to have to learn. Nuclear should be opened back up as advances in safety make another 3 mile island impossible now. The main aspect of slowing global warming is making sure energy sources are not polluters and preferably renewable.
“Wouldn’t a warming on a glabal scale make the temperature differences between the poles and the rest of the world less than they are now?”
That is latitude.
By the way, summer-winter is bigger at the poles than at the equator. Therefore, each year the temperature difference pole-equator is larger in the winter than summer. However, hurricane season is summer, not winter. In BOTH hemispheres.
A fairly easy read is “Contemporary Climatology” by Peter Robinson and Ann Henderson-Sellers. Also you might try Paleoclimatology by Crowley and North or “Earth’s Climate, past present and future” by WF Ruddiman.
U.S. has warmest April on recordAssociated PressWASHINGTON – Last month was the warmest April on record for the United States, offering many Americans a pleasant spring month.
For the 48 contiguous states the average temperature was 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for the month, the National Climatic Data Center reported Tuesday.
That made it the nation’s warmest April since record keeping began in 1895.
Angry Sun theory
What’s that Joe? One of dopehead Rush’s latest talking points?
“That made it the nation’s warmest April since record keeping began in 1895.”
How old is the earth?
You are right, CO2 went up in the 1940s, but temperatures went down. That seems tough to reconcile with a notion that CO2 causes global warming.
“This winter was pretty pleasant, wasn’t it? We’ve had some much-needed spring rains that have nicely greened things up.”
Heartlander, it’s pretty clear that you’re not a farmer. Talk to some about how the weather this past year has affected their crops. I’ll do the same this weekend and get back to you on it.
Ben,The real culprit has finally been revealed, and it has nothing to do with global warming: http://www.lalatimes.com/newsfea/ew_24_blower2.php?PHPSESSID=fe9c3608331ff0760d95266b6c9b143e
Ben
Yup Joe Williams is in his three word post basically parroting Rush Limbaugh.
GMC is in a way doing the same when he says “we think we are more important then we are” but I think in his case it is a coincidence since he reaches a more reasonable conclusion in advocating erring on the side of caution.(See GMC we can agree)J M? There is something to be said for not flailing blindly at this. At the meetup you, kfg and I discussed that while ethanol is a viable alternative fuel and helpful in reducing emmissions, it is being used as a political tool in the ag community. Corn is the ethanol of choice (bowing to the corn states) but corn is water wasteful. So there is cause not to jump blindly into answering this problem.
Funny thing. None of the wingnut deniers weighed in here. Not any known ones anyway.
JM I think if you got hammered on enough, you’d agree it is best to err on the side of caution as to this. As you say, looking for alternatives to fossil fuels (if done so rationally) cannot be anything but good in the long run.
Well J M, that makes as much sense as the other anti-science BS being thrown around.
johngalt – I’ll go with the extensive studies done by innumerable fellow scientists of earth’s climate going back several billion years as to mechanism. They seem to be in nearly unanamous agreement on this matter.
You might try talking to a few scientists sometime. The 40s is about when the increase BEGAN in earnest. And there was no significane decrease in global temperatures in the 40s.
I am for common sense development of alternative fuels and common sense reductions in pollutant emissions. Beyond that I do not think that we should spend a lot of resourses in trying to reduce global warming. It is not clear that there is anything that we can do to stop it. And we could use those resources to adapt to the changes. Surely we don’t expect our world to remain unchanged indefinitely.
But is global warming anything to even to be concerned about? Here is a link to an article by a seemingly qualified and informed scientist who notes that global warming stopped in 1998 and that global cooling is far more to be feared. Comments?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html
Out
Well if my house is burning down there may not be a whole lot I can do about it but I sure as hell am gonna TRY!
I’ll look deeper into your link. As its author is so alone in his conclusions, I’d tend to call him “tin hat” but I will look further before I make that call.
RD
You’re right. My grandparents were the last in my lineage to farm. Although I spent 6 summers as a fieldhand.
You can’t win in Kansas. In the first four years of this decade, we suffered severe drought. This year we got precipitation, but a lot of it was in the form of hail, with high winds. You get February/March warmups that cause plants to sprout, followed by sub-freezing Alberta Clippers. Native grasses are well-suited to these conditions. Imported grain crops are not.
Farmwives have to work in town to make family ends meet. More and more husbands are doing this as well. Kids are saying, “I don’t want to do this.”
Consider Wichita. Probably 80% of the people who live here either grew up on Kansas farms, or their parents did. Why did they leave?
How many kinds of businesses can get business-failure insurance? Take away crops insurance and federal subsidies, and Great Plains commodity cereal grain farming disappears. It is not a feasible free-market enterprise.
I’m not stupid about growing things. I’ve successfully home-gardened apples, pears, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, melons, grapes, tomatoes, peppers (bell plus 3 kinds of chiles), summer and winter squash, onions, leeks, garlic, pod peas, snow peas, bush and pole beans, corn, lettuce (4 types), cabbages and herbs. I’ve inherited “plant-cultivation genes”. Believe me, Kansas is a marginal place to try to grow things.
Most of my success has occurred on the West Coast, which is where most of our fresh produce comes from.
Tips: For small plots of corn, if you want near-100% production of full ears, go to the plot early in the morning and carefully cut tassels. Hand shake them over silks. Otherwise your windward plants will have only partially-filled ears.
For many plants, it is highly effective to take a small sable paintbrush to pick pollen off pistols, and hand-transfer it to stamens.
RD, if you try these production-enhancing tricks and they work for you, please post your success.
On global warming. Most things are multifactorial. Things in nature oscillate. (That’s why I want more Kansas kids to learn math, like trig functions and Fourier analysis.) If the combination of factors leads to another Ice Age, a lot of us, or our descendants, are going to follow the Native Americans’ trail into Mexico. Whether or not we have legal documents.
“Things in nature oscillate.”
That has been true over the millenia; however in the past few decades we have excursioned outside of the envelope of those oscillations. That is why the term ’super-interglacial’ is used.
Heartlander, I spent 20+ years as a farm wife. I’ve been through bad times and worse times. (Hard to remember many good ones, as most were mediocre.) But where else in this great nation besides the Wheat Belt aka Bread Basket of the World, would we grow the grain to such extent to warrant those titles? This is the BEST area for it. Always has been, but is it now?
Mother Nature is unpredictable, and farmers are more than aware of it. But even though I’m no longer involved in farming, I haven’t forgotten some of the worst, and this past year seems to have encompassed most of the worst of the worst. Warm winters mean short dormant periods, which are not the best for the type of wheat we grow here. (I’m sure you know this.) Lack of decent moisture at the most needed times stunts both the growth of the seed and the plant AND the head that bears the seed.
I predict the price of wheat will rise this year, but only because the crop size will be diminished.
I blame Global Warming, and I blame US, because we have known there would be problems, we ignored them, and now we’re forced to deal with them.
P.S. An FYI: I can drive a tractor with attached disk and work a field, a wheat truck full of wheat both to and from the elevator or full of fertilizer. I’ve drilled wheat, and I’ve hand-cut rye out of a wheat field throughout a quarter of a section. Add the usual ‘womanly’ jobs of preparing and serving meals to take to eat in the field and the running of multitudes of errands, and I think I’ve had a small bit of experience to speak from. I’m also very glad I no longer have to do it.
RD – I think that in the intermediate term areas in higher latitudes will benefit at the expense of Kansas. Look for winter wheat to be grown further north than in the past. As for Kansas … oh well …
Ben, sadly, I believe you’re right. The area from Texas north into Canada has always been wheat country. In the future, it may be from S. Dakato to farther into Canada. I guess that remains to be seen.
OTOH, have you seen all the cotton fields around here? Sunflowers, too.
Corn, as KFG knows, takes mucho water, meaning irrigation. Soybeans don’t do badly, but I have seen some bad years for them. Some farmers plant an interim crop of milo.
Government subsidies only help the corporate farmers. What little subsidies family farmers get is a drop in the bucket.
RD,This area was desert prior man irrigating it. All the books I’ve read on the westward movement prior to the railroads had the same impression of the area from Texas to Nebraska as useless land. It was the railroads that started the migration to these states by selling land given to them by the Federal Government. When people bought the land, then came west to discover wind blown plains, they started irrigating the land using rivers, then the Ogallala Aquifier.
Farming methods improved after the dust bowl, and we have some of the best farming in the world. However, it can’t last, as the water problem is getting worse every year. We’re using the aguifier at a rate of at least ten times at what it can be replenished.
Ben is probably correct in that the moist air will move further north and leave this whole area a dust bowl again. There won’t be much the government or anybody will be able to do if that happens: there just wont be the water to keep farming viable in the area.
Unless there is a major change in the way farmers grow crops. Israel is doing some extrodinary things with hydroponics, recycling the water in a closed loop system that is very water efficient. There are dry area crops that would do excellent in the area, plus many have the benefit of having useful by-products, such as oils.
Technologies will have to be perfected, such as salt water conversion, to make up for the lack of water that will happen. Another technology, air to water, http://a2wh.com/desert_land_reclamation.htmlneeds to be expoled more.
The bottom line, though, is large corporate farms may be the only groups that will be able to afford to implement the technologies needed to keep the areas producing.
Global warming, for whatever reason, is going to cause more problems then many are prepared for, and Kansas will be one of the hardest hit areas in terms of disrupting the status quo.
Corn/soybeans – where ya gonna get the water after the Ogalalla goes dry? I think we would be better off getting land into drought-resistant native plants and then go to open grazing. Also, improve habitat and sell game permits to Chicago lawyers.
By the way, did you notice that the typhoon hitting China is the most intense ever recorded in the So. China Sea in May?
And the experiment continues …
JM – this area was not desert; it was savannah. However, with the intensification and northward movement of the Ferrel/Hadley boundary (tropical high) it will become more arid.
Ben,For the sake of argument I will agree that Kansas varies from an humid section, the eastern and southeastern region, to a semi-arid region, the west and southwest.
“Kansas contains three climate types, according to the Köppen climate classification: humid continental, semiarid steppe, and humid subtropical.
The eastern two-thirds of the state has a humid continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer and spring.
The western one-third of the state has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, and often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild in the southwest. The region is semiarid, receiving on average only about 16 inches (40 cm) of precipitation per year. Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 80 degree Fahrenheit (25°C) range.
The far south central and southeastern reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers and short, mild winters and much more precipitation than the rest of the state.
Precipitation ranges from about 46 inches (120 cm) annually in the southeast of the state, to about 16 inches (40 cm) in the southwest. Snowfall ranges from around 5 inches (13 cm) in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches (90 cm) in the far northwest. Frost free days range from more than 200 days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest.”
But I also included Texas, Oklahoma and Nebrasks in my post: “All the books I’ve read on the westward movement prior to the railroads had the same impression of the area from Texas to Nebraska as useless land.” and I stand by that. It was, as you say, the aquafier and rivers that allowed the states to change to agrarian use.
I also noted that the land would be good for desert-type plants when the moisture moves north due to global warming. That is something that should be looked at, and the sooner the better, because even if global warming is contained, which is much in doubt, Kansas, and all states relying on the aquifier, will run out of water when the aquifier dries up. And I believe the aquifier will dry up long before the moisture moves north.
REgardless of what happens with global warming, it will be the corporations that will decide the future of food in this country. They will be the only ones able to afford to implement the technologies necessary to grow food in this country in the future. So we better start electing people with the vision and intelligence to see that the people don’t get a bum deal, because the people in power now are too beholden to the corporate structure.
One huge threat is that massive amounts of freshwater mixed into the oceans will alter ocean currents.
If you look at a globe, you see that Wichita, Kansas is at the same latitude as Greece. Indianapolis is the same latitude as Madrid. And London is up there with Hudson’s Bay.
If Ocean currents changed directions, the world’s weather would be violently disrupted in ways too horrible to contemplate.
The Gulf of Mexico and the Meditterranean could become stinking, stagnant cess pools. It could set in motion massive fish kills, liberating gasses from mounds of rotting sea life. It could start another period of rapid re-glaciation or ice age.
People just don’t get it. This makes the threat of terrorism look like child’s play.
Think it can’t happen.
Something caused a mass extinction a few million years ago that obliterated the dinosaurs.
It might have been a meteor strike. But it might have been global warming from volcanos too . . .
LeftHook,You mean something other than man can cause global warming?
Recently, a new effect has been verified..called “global dimming”, caused by aerosol pollutants high in the atmosphere (from things like diesel exhausts). The amount of radiant energy reaching the surface of the earth has decreased by about 20% since the early 60s. That means, that the temperature rise we have seen has been mitigated by the pollution we have caused.
As we now put controls on particulates, but not on greenhouse gases, we’re likely to see the worst of all scenarios. With no aerosols to “dim” the earth, but more greenhouse gases, the 21st century could experience explosive global warming.
Very correct Brian. In fact, that is part of the phenomenon that lad to the discrepancies between modeled and observed results.
I suppose we could try to mitigate warming by increasing particulate and aerosol pollution …
LH – the “Younger Dryas” effect of stopping the Gulf Stream (fresh water) should be interesting. There are two mechanisms for moving heat from the Carribean and Gulf poleward – the Gulf Stream and hurricanes. Cut off one of them and the other will become even more important.
Record water temperatures in the Gulf/Carribean fueled last year; think about adding some more! Anyone looking forward to a catagory SIX?
Apparently global dimming is caused by particulate matter, http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GlobalWarming/globaldimming.asp , the byproduct of fossil fuels, volcanoes and the like. As the United States started controlling the emissions from fossil fuel and coal burning plants, solar radiation started to increase in the states.
“But then, scientists realized that particulate pollution was almost entirely responsible for deaths related to air pollution — pollution that still causes a staggering 135,000 premature deaths in the United States every year. (That’s 6 percent of all deaths from any cause.) That may seem like a lot, but consider that by 1990, the U.S. EPA found that if Congress hadn’t adopted the Clean Air Act in 1970 and amendments to the act in 1977, particulate matter would have prematurely caused the deaths of 184,000 more Americans per year. Clearly, this type of pollution was (and is) a big problem. So, wisely, the industrialized world began cleaning up its act, curtailing emissions of soot and smoke.
So what about that buffer? As emissions of deadly particulate matter decreased, so did their cooling power. Clouds let the sun shine through and — behold! — the greenhouse effect’s disguise was cast aside. “Because of this double punch [of more solar radiation and more greenhouse gases], the global temperature increased enormously,” Ohmura concludes. Preliminary results of his, based on radiation records from 1992 to present, support this theory. Key monitoring stations show a resurgence of radiation levels during the 1990s — not to pre-1958 levels, but enough to expose the true warming potential of greenhouse gases.”
So global dimming, while masking the effects of global warming to a certain degree, will probably not have much of a real effect on today’s problem.
The really fun phase will be after Greenland melts … think of the impact that will have on planetary albedo.
OK, this isn’t global warming, but interesting:
“Two years later, Dr. Hau’s group, as well as a second team of scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, were able to bring light to a standstill — and then release it with its original properties intact.”
Amazing!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/science/16ligh.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
China is building old-technology coal-burning power plants. Could this significantly increase atmospheric aerosols?
Hmmmm . . . interesting. Maybe they could. I read a very interesting thing today about global dimming. It seems there are scientists who think aircraft contrails are a contributing factor to dimming. Until 9/11 there was no way the check the theory.
Studies of the atmospheric temperature changes during the three days after 9/11 when no flights were allowed showed a gradual increase of 1deg.C. That’s quite a major change if it is tied to contrails.
XXX,I read the same article. They are claiming the light left the chamber prior to entering it: that’s faster than the speed of light. They are also saying the laws of physics were not broken. As claimed, it could have radical implications on communication.
It’s so nice to have you scientific types aboard here. I mean that sincerely, even if I didn’t completely grasp everything. One of these days it will all tie together in my brain.
What about the belief/fact/whatever that the earth has shifted 2 degrees on its axis recently? My family was discussing this the other night. (We may not be scientists, but we do try our best to keep up.)
RD – there are slow shifts in the angle of tilt, the eccentricity of the orbit, and the precession of the tilt. These are the basis of Milankovitch cycles I indicated above and are fully integrated into modeling.
Anthropogenic effects on the composition of the atmosphere are superimposed upon that.
RD, will you marry me :)?
Soybeans take as much irrigation as corn.
Ethanol from non-irrigated crops is better than from corn, but it still takes more energy to make than it produces.
I thought global dimming was what we got when the preznit went overseas.
KFG,I thought you were gonna marry GeoJane but either way can I be the matron of honor?lol;-)~
Here is what I think may happen in the next twenty years. Western and Cental Kansas may receive more precipitation as the Gulf of Mexico warms up, sending humidified air and collides with Arctic cold air masses.
As I said some time back, climate change is going to make Muslim terrorism insignificant. Kansas used to be an aquatic sea.