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Good News on Global Warming
TheSync writes "OK, CO2 levels are rising, but iAfrica has a report that atmospheric methane concentrations are leveling off. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas, accounting for one fifth of total warming. Researchers don't know why this is."
'nuff said.
Time Capsule From the Future Appears
WASHINGTON - A time capsule appeared today in an astonishing moment directly on the front steps of a federal court house here in the D.C. area. When authorities opened the capsule, a three items were neatly bundled together: a printout of an article from iAfrica.com published in late 2003, a paper describing a scientific study performed an astonishing 50 years from now, and a memo addressed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The memo requests that the Supreme Court re-open environmental laws that attempt to reduce greenhouse emissions around the world. The memo goes on to cite the attached scientific paper which says that eliminating the greenhouse effect caused the earth's atmosphere to thinned out so much that space debris now [50 years from now] reigns down around the planet almost constantly. The memo states that the thinning out of the atmosphere was due to a connection between greenhouse gases and the density of the atmosphere at its highest levels.
A brief review of the scientific paper shows that scientists knew of the connection early on, but environmentallist groups penetrated the scientific study panels and had the notion dismissed as a feeble attempt to thwart progress. Later history showed environmentallist groups stating that they did not knowingly hide such connections, but that were aware that some individual may have done so, and in any case, such action should not place the blame for the failures on their organizations.
Similar capsules appeared in other locations around the world, but mass riots suddenly appeared and the capsules were destroyed before their contents could be examined.
The problem with all this is that scientists are NOT united in accepting that man is responsible for the temperature going up. Small things like volanic emissions and the variability of the sun have MAJOR affect on our environment.
Things just aren't THAT simple!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
That's because global warming is junk science.
Is it happening? We don't know for sure.
Should it be happening? Maybe.
Was it even warmer last millenium? Could be.
If there is global climate change, is it our fault? Perhaps.
So what should be done? Throttle all industrial production for first-world nations, and leave third-world nations exempt.
Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
You are absolutely correct. Global warming has been turned into a big deal because scientists & universities hotly compete for government grants.
In the 1600's, Dutch settlers regularly walked or travelled by sled from Manhattan to Brooklyn. During particularly cold winters, one could walk to Staten Island.
The Hudson & East Rivers have not frozen since the early 1800's... I suppose you cannot blame global warming from 400 years ago on SUVs...
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
...stocks in Beano have jumped 225% on reports of record sales last quarter...
(no, not really)
Quite probable that there's a lack of understanding.
However, here (Switzerland) we've noticed a _massive_ recession of glaciers over the last 50 years. Like as in >100 meters for a few. Several inhabited areas are pretty seriously threatened, because the build-up of melted glacier water is being held back by the masses of rocks and other crap that glaciers tend to accumulate; a lot of geologists think that there's a pretty heavy danger of huge rockslides when water pressure exceeds the buildup's ability to hold it back. We've had several of these in recent years.
There have also been a number of rock avalances in the alps, when the ice that's been holding large chunks of stuff in place for centuries has melted.
Personally, I tend to believe panicky reports that a lot of lower-lying ski resorts won't have snow by 2030; I've noticed a pretty constant reduction in snow each year since as far back as I can recall (~1980) and that's only about 20 years.
Maybe it's not understood, but _something_ is happening, and it's not all those cows farting.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Researchers don't know why this is.
Right. And until they have a solid, convincing theory to account for this 'why', then we've only got (at best) a correlation between the two events - this does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship between them.
Trouble is, this is such a politicized issue that I doubt we'll ever see any scientific evidence that everyone will consider convincing (for one side or the other).
You sound a bit like an automobile tycoon in the 70s saying: "There's no proof that exhaust emissions cause smog! And besides, cutting our cars' fuel consumption or cleaning up emissions is expensive and is going to hurt our competitive edge!"
Riiiiiiight...makes sense to me.
I'm not so concerned with the global warming/cooling. I think that all sane people will agree that it is now cooler than when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, warmer than the mini-ice age.
What I am concerned about, however, are things like mercury in fish, which acts as a neurotoxin in humans that eat it.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Historic volcanic eruptions can't even compete with human emissions of sulfur dioxide. That's how important we are. (If you don't believe me, look at DOE and EPA figures for sulfur emissions vs. recent volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo or El Chicon. If you actually think rather than hold blindly to an ideology, you will find it sobering.)
And you use this as a reason to continue a vast, uncontrolled experiment with possibly dire consequences. Why?An analogy is to claim that you ought to glue yourself into a winter coat because it was cold last month. If it turns out to be hot tomorrow (solar activity continues to increase), the coat (extra greenhouse gases) could kill you from heatstroke. This is the kind of risk we're taking.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Yes, the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor.
The most important _anthropogenic_ greenhouse gases are (in order) CO2, CH4, N2O, then in lesser amounts HFCs, SF6, PFCs, etc. (And tropospheric O3, but we only indirectly produce that...)
Of course, the point is that increases of temperature due to the increased radiative forcing due to the increase in CO2 and CH4 will lead to more evaporation and therefore more water vapor in the air. Mmm, positive feedback loops.
Of course, it is more complicated than that, because more water vapor means more clouds. And more clouds sometimes means more cooling during the day, but more warming during the night. Depending on the altitude of the clouds. People disagree on the magnitude of this feedback (and sometimes even whether it is positive or negative).
And of course, particulate emissions can impact cloud formation. As well as having a direct climate impact through reflection/absorption (depending on whether they are sulfate based or black carbon based).
Complicated enough yet?
"Although we can't be certain why methane concentrations have levelled out, we think it is in response to emissions declining due to better management of the exploration and use of fossil fuels and the increasing recovery of landfill methane.
"If this global decline in methane emissions continues, global atmospheric methane concentrations will start to fall."
The stabilizing of methane concentrations is great news! However, I think that it is overly optimistic to assume they will stay stable.
First, the authors of the article admit they don't understand why concentrations have leveled off. We are not very good at determining methane emission inventories, because they aren't nearly as easy to track as carbon based fuels. Cows emit different amounts of methane if they are grass or corn fed, rice paddies are hard to monitor, there are many poorly understood natural sources like wetlands and warming tundra, etc. And the methane sink is hard to calculate, since it is a chemical reaction depending on temperature and hydroxyl radical concentrations, and we cannot directly measure OH radicals so those are very uncertain. So our estimates of emissions are uncertain by a factor of 2 or more.
So when we see a pause in concentration increase, it is possible that it is due to long term structural changes in our economies (optimistic view).
But I actually think it is due to the collapse of the Russian economy, since leaking Russian pipelines were a major source of methane, and with their disuse of course methane emissions dropped. But this is a one-time drop, I would expect other sources to continue to increase in the absence of major policy actions... (Pessimistic view)
Or it could be some other complicated interaction. So I say, good news but hold on before assuming that the good news will continue...
The half life of methane in the atmosphere is seven years; it has never been a serious problem as far as global warming is concerned because if we produce too much of it, we can stop whatever is causing it and things will return to normal fairly quickly. The same is true for particulates.
The problem with atmospheric CO2 is that its half life is nearly 200 years. Whatever we emit now, we are going to be stuck with for a long time. Once the concentration of atmospheric CO2 causes dangerous increases in global temperature (and we will reach that point sooner or later), there is absolutely nothing we can do: we will have to live with increased temperatures for decades.