Climate Change

[robfisher]

Here's my question? And it's honest. Why do we see climate change on Mars? Those who would have us believe earth's climate change is all about fossel fuels and hydrocarbons must have an answer about Mars. I just haven't heard one that makes sense.

Looks like changes in albedo. Basically the surface of Mars is getting darker so more light is being absorbed than before.
http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/~fenton/pdf ... e05718.pdf
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070402/ ... 402-5.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070402/ ... 402-7.html

Thank you for info but it seems to ignor my question. Climate change on Earth is blamed on humans. Are these articles telling me that humans have re-distributed the dust particles on Mars? We are so amazingly powerful! And how again did we do that?

[robfisher]

Is it common knowledge in the US that it is the only developed country of the world in which climate change deniers are taken seriously at government level? As far as I can see all other countries' governments listened to their relevant scientists who said there wasn't a question any more.

Who decides who qualifies as a relevant scientist? There are scientists on both sides of the issue. And don't give me that concensus argument. By scientific concensus we once lived on a flat world. By scientific consensus the sun once revolved around that world. And by scientific concensus smoking was once good for us. I have the printed ads where 4 out of 5 doctors tell s which brand does the most good.

[eamarquardt]

More questions than answers. We do need to clean up our act. -Gus-

[jstrubberg]

If we caused global climate change, why has the current rise in global temperature been going on since the late Middle Ages? As in almost 300 years before the industrial revolution and well over 400 years before the invention of the automobile?

Because that is soon after when we started using coal for heating and cooking in large amounts. Coal has been in use by man as a fuel for thousands of years. A reasonable brief and very incomplete history of it's use is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Early_uses_as_fuel

So now you want to take the position that two very small specks on the global map burning coal in (basically) indoor campfires caused global warming? See, this is why it's so hard to have a conversation about our climate. That kind of claim is silly beyond belief.

Mt. St Helens produced more CO2 in two days than every vehicle on the planet makes in 400 years. Change to the climate? Zip. Environmental impact, you betcha, but not from CO2.

[legojenn]

Is it common knowledge in the US that it is the only developed country of the world in which climate change deniers are taken seriously at government level? As far as I can see all other countries' governments listened to their relevant scientists who said there wasn't a question any more.

Canada has a Parliament filled with climate change deniers (at least on the government side of the House of Commons). It must be something in the water in Alberta (maybe oil sands tailings?) that reduces the ability to think about the consequences of all that dirty oil extraction.

[eamarquardt]

Slow, you gotta get out of Wyoming once in a while. Things appear to be changing elsewhere. The scientists, though, aren't sure if it's totally man made, nature taking its course, or a combination of the two.

Gus

[robfisher]

The scientists, though, aren't sure if it's totally man made, nature taking its course, or a combination of the two.

Gus

Apparently the "RELEVANT" scientists are sure. The following list of scientists represent only a small handfull of the non-relevant. What a waste of a good education.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences]
Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa]
Chris de Freitas, associate professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland
David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester
Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University
William M. Gray, professor emeritus and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
William Happer, physicist specializing in optics and spectroscopy, Princeton University
William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology
David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware
Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and professor of geology at Carleton University in Canada.
Ian Plimer, professor emeritus of Mining Geology, the University of Adelaide.
Nicola Scafetta, research scientist in the physics department at Duke University
Tom Segalstad, head of the Geology Museum at the University of Oslo
Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia
Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center
Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, professor emeritus from University of Ottawa

[jstrubberg]

The takeaway from these kinds of discussions shouldn't be about hwo is right and wrng. If you get one thing out of these debates, let it be that we don't KNOW. Taking action without knowledge is a dangerous thing.

We are trying to predict global cycles based on less than 100 years of very shaky data, most of it contaminated by heat-islanding.

[eamarquardt]

The scientists, though, aren't sure if it's totally man made, nature taking its course, or a combination of the two.

Gus

Apparently the "RELEVANT" scientists are sure. The following list of scientists represent only a small handful of the non-relevant. What a waste of a good education.

You gotta read/view the stuff at: http://oism.org/

Why was Greenland green just a few centuries ago. Why, according to the OISM, did the current warming trend start before the widespread use of "fossil" fuels (that I don't think are fossil fuels at all http://www.economywatch.com/fossil-fuels/theory.html ). Why does "climate change" track exactly with solar activity? If the scientists truly understood what is happening then they'd be able to create computer models that account for exactly what we're experiencing. Right now they can't because they don't understand what's happening well enough.

The more I learn, the more questions I have and the fewer absolute answers there seem to be.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't clean up our act. Geoengineering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering) could be dangerous.

That's my point.

Cheers,

Gus

[Bogo]

If we caused global climate change, why has the current rise in global temperature been going on since the late Middle Ages? As in almost 300 years before the industrial revolution and well over 400 years before the invention of the automobile?

Because that is soon after when we started using coal for heating and cooking in large amounts. Coal has been in use by man as a fuel for thousands of years. A reasonable brief and very incomplete history of it's use is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Early_uses_as_fuel

USGS: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php Cites same study as above.

Actual study: http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

So now you want to take the position that two very small specks on the global map burning coal in (basically) indoor campfires caused global warming? See, this is why it's so hard to have a conversation about our climate. That kind of claim is silly beyond belief.

Mt. St Helens produced more CO2 in two days than every vehicle on the planet makes in 400 years. Change to the climate? Zip. Environmental impact, you betcha, but not from CO2.

It only takes three days of human produced CO2 emissions to equal all the CO2 emissions from all the volcanoes in the world for a year.

While there is uncertainty in the measurements--researchers estimate between 0.13 and 0.44 billion metric tons per year, with their best estimates between 0.15 and 0.26 billion tons--even the highest end of the range is dwarfed by anthropogenic emissions of 35 billion metric tons in 2010.

Gerlach noted that human land-use changes alone, which include deforestation, release 3.5 billion metric tons per year. Cars and light-duty trucks produce 2 billion metric tons; even cement production produces 1.5 billion tons. Any of these by itself is still several times higher than the annual emissions of all of the world's volcanoes .

From: http://news.discovery.com/earth/volcano ... 10627.html

In yet another comparison, Gerlach reported that in order for volcanic emissions to match those made by humans, the May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens eruption would need to happen every 2.5 hours. The June 15, 1991, Mount Pinatubo eruption would need to occur every 12.5 hours.

Actual study: http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

[robfisher]

It's difficult to get good science in a system where thinking is so constricted by the two main factors the governs almost all of life: Funding and Prestige. We are all susceptible to these two influences but the scienctific community is even more so.

[eamarquardt]

It's difficult to get good science in a system where thinking is so constricted by the two main factors the governs almost all of life: Funding and Prestige. We are all susceptible to these two influences but the scienctific community is even more so.

Ya mean like these:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. ... s-of-2011/

How about the Salt Lake City "Cold Fusion" claims.

-Gus-

[Corwin C]

I'm not a believer in the climate change issue. I also get frustrated when supposedly educated people start calling carbon dioxide a "toxic" gas. You have significant amounts of carbon dioxide in every breath and as long as there is adequate oxygen available, you can breathe it with no ill effects whatsoever. If you're in a closed space without adequate ventilation, it's not the carbon dioxide that gets you, it's the lack of oxygen. Now, carbon monoxide ... that's a different story. This is the gas that kills people when they have a faulty furnace or burn fuels without adequate ventilation. Furthermore, I think that it's pretty conceited of man to believe that he can single handedly alter climate on a planetary scale ... and by accident nonetheless. At the same time, however, I am a proponent of alternative energies. My belief is that hydrogen will be the major fuel of the future.

1. Fossil fuels do pollute. There is no question that they do, however, in my opinion, the degree that they pollute is relatively minor compared to the hysteria that I hear from the environmental extremists. Eliminating current energy sources before replacement sources are abundant will cause severe shortages and extreme economic consequences. Hydrogen produces heat and pure water when it is used as fuel and existing equipment can currently be easily altered to use hydrogen. Most other forms of alternative energy are years (if not decades) from being truly practical.

2. Hydrogen can be handled as safely as natural gas or propane ... in many cases safer. When many people hear hydrogen, they seem to think Hindenburg, which was caused by much more than the hydrogen on board.

3. Large scale electrical power using batteries will be nothing more than a fad. The simple fact is that there is no way that society in general will give up filling a tank in favor of a long or even relatively short charge cycle. Electric cars can be powered using "power cells" which use hydrogen (or any other gaseous hydrocarbon) to produce heat, water, and electricity. This is current technology that was used every day on the Space Shuttles and is currently being used on the International Space Station. This retains the "fill the tank" quickness of refueling. Also, a car with a power cell could be plugged into your home and produce the power that you need just like a generator. Every garage could have it's own "portable power plant," making widespread electrical outages a thing of the past.

4. Realistically, electricity that is generated has to be used immediately. The wind quite frankly can't be relied upon to blow at convenient times. Even solar can be foiled by a cloud. Storage of electrical energy in batteries or capacitors is very inefficient. Also, the transfer of electricity using power lines is filled with inefficiencies and losses. Furthermore, most people don't want to live next to the power plant that is generating the power that they use. Hydrogen can be easily stored, transported by pipeline with little or no loss, and it doesn't go bad or disappear (when properly contained) over time like the charge in a battery or some fossil fuels. Existing natural gas lines could be used for hydrogen very easily.

... and the list goes on ad nauseum ...

Real answers need to include retaining the energy availability that we are accustomed to while making everything cleaner and more efficient. This can be done, I have no question in my mind about the ability of intelligent people being able to solve these problems. We just need to encourage the use of alternative energies so that they can eventually become mainstream. When they are ready, the switch will be natural and easy.

[jstrubberg]

It only takes three days of human produced CO2 emissions to equal all the CO2 emissions from all the volcanoes in the world for a year.

I went back and checked my source and...you're right. The numbers I had for My St Helens were completely, massively wrong. They were an aggregation of daily data plus the explosion. My bad.

That doesn't change the fact that the current warming trend extends back long before anthropomorphic CO2 was any kind of issue. Nor does it address the fact that most of our data is horribly tainted. Or the fact that sea level rise is a farce. Or that CO2 is leaving our atmosphere much, MUCH faster than predicted, preventing it from causing the greenhouse effect that most climate change science is predicated on...etc,etc.

[Bear_Rider]

The takeaway from these kinds of discussions shouldn't be about hwo is right and wrng. If you get one thing out of these debates, let it be that we don't KNOW. Taking action without knowledge is a dangerous thing.

We are trying to predict global cycles based on less than 100 years of very shaky data, most of it contaminated by heat-islanding.

Actually, we have thousands of years of date, courtesy of icecaps and glaciers.