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Human Activity to Blame For 2003 Heatwave
Dirak writes "The temperatures of the summer of 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years. New research shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and by the middle of this century every other summer could be even hotter than 2003."
Didn't I hear a news report about Mt. Saint Helens just the other day... something about it putting out more C02 than all human civilization? Surely that has no influence on the atmosphere...
If you did it was inaccurate. I don't have the figures any more, but I did work them out for a previous reply on this subject where I had believed the same thing you have been told. It turns out that vulcanism only accounts for about 50% of CO2 emissions in total at the moment. No single source dwarfs human production, as is routinely reported in some sources.
I used to think that.
Then I found out how difficult and expensive it actually is to make frewater from seawater.
The annual rainfall in the UK is quite high, but it is the water USAGE that is the problem.
Too much fresh water is wasted and not enough is done to reduce the loss of fresh water.
I live in Ireland now, and it is not uncommon here to see burst pipes leaking water from inspection covers for a couple of weeks before anything is done about them.
Mind you, the summer of 2003 wasn't too bad here, we go into the low 20's for most of it. (Yaaay)
On the contrary, the official explanation (p. 17) is:
There is more info here.
Also, hydrocarbons come more from transportation than electrical generation, these days.
By drilling in the Antarctic ice they DO have thousands of years of data.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I actually saw that argument used seriously in the Daily Telegraph (right-wing 'serious' UK broadsheet). They were using the figures of CO2 breathed out as when walking as opposed to driving to argue that all the greenhouse gas stuff was left-wing crap as humans "emitted lots of CO2 just breathing"
They even carried on quoting it after some eminent scientist wrote in to point out their idiocy in missing the fact that CO2 production by humans is a closed loop, whereas fossil fuels release stored CO2.
In the article, Myles Allen says "we cannot say which of the heatwaves were man-made and which were natural, but we can apportion blame for the change in risk."
A more appropriate headline would be "Humans Likely Responsible for Increased Heatwave Risk". But no, we have to be sensationalist and scare people by blaming the "hot weather" on SUVs.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
There are many indirect measures that you can get.
Ice core samples from artic/antarctic. Also trees can tell you some things of the temperature centuries back, they grow faster and get bigger year rings warmer years.
It wouldn't surpise me if there are other ways.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Here is the Petagon Climate Report) which was leaked through The Observer.
An interview whith one of its athors (Doug Randall) is here.
The BBC has some reactions from scientists on it.
-- Qu'est-ce que la propriété intellectuelle? It is thought control.
10 000 in France http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3181941.st m
Germany and Spain only counted heat deaths as those directly attributable to heat, rather than as a statistical excess (i.e. in the hundreds). The general figure of 20 000 now widely accepted for Europe summer 2003 must be taken as one of the highest meteorological morbidities of the last 50 years.
Do you really think the assumptions behind GCMs are not scrutinised in obsessive detail? I can cite you 20 papers (at least, from the top of my head) of finely argued mathematical logic, detailing in the minutest detail the ranges of validity of things like the Boussinesq approximation, hydrostatic balance, quasi-geostrophy, eddy-viscosity, many with extensive comparison with experimental and observational data.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Many environmental scientists have suggested that global warming will actually make Norway colder. This is because Norway is relatively warm considering its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. If the world warms up, the gulf stream disappears (or shifts), and Norway gets colder.
Thats the theory anyway...
Also, Norwegain cottages are at a premium due to hytte culture- so dont expect any bargains there!!
Speaking of Science, which like I said is one of the top two science journals and even from U.S. :), has an editorial with the title The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change --- well worth reading.
The original Nature article about summer 2003 blame is reviewed here, reading the article itself requires a subscription either from you personally or from your institution. Possible speculation about juridical consequences is also there.
The North Polar ice cap is floating on the sea. Therefore, the ocean level will stay exactly the same even if the whole lot melted. Try it yourself: half-fill a glass with water, add ice and mark the level. Observe how the level stays stubbornly constant as the ice melts.
The Sciencey Bit: 1 litre of water freezes to give 1kg. of ice. According to Archimedes' Principle, 1kg. of ice floating in water displaces 1kg. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1kg. of water -- in other words, 1 litre. Or, for the measurement-challenged: 1 pint of water freezes to give 1lb. 4oz. of ice. 1lb. 4oz. of ice floating in water displaces 1lb. 4oz. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1lb. 4oz. of water -- in other words, 1 pint.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
while this is true, the glaciers on Greenland, Iceland, and the northern continents have enough water stored in them to raise sea level some 20 feet (or more). Add to that the increase in sea level due to thermal expansion of the warmer water; and... I need to move.
That's because of all the microscopic particles they put into the atmosphere that reflect light back into space.
Have you read the article?
Probably not, because you need a (rather expensive) subscription to Nature to read the full article. I am able to read the article from here, so I can comment on your "analysis".
The findings are basically a statistical analysis of the probability of a summer like the one in 2003 to occur in different scenario's. It was concluded that there is a >90% confidence level that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave of this magnitude. Chances of rising global temperatures in the future were also investigated, as is mentioned in the abstract. Simulations and measurements were utilized that run from 1900 to 2100.I get sick and tired of people that tell me to draw my own conclusions, pointing from one media-hyped article to the next. If you want to draw your own conclusions, do your own research. I can give you this prediction, though: that your model will also give human-induced global warming as a fact, because they virtually all do
Furthermore, if you're talking about mediahypes, please don't pay attention to isolated scientists that storm in and bring atmosphere-devastating vulcanoes to the stage, or give very pretty graphs of relations of solar flares to rising temperatures. I could probably find a correlation with shoe sales in India as well! It doesn't mean there is a causal connection. Most of these people really have nothing to lose, and love the attention!
Not that I think this will convince anyone. It's much more fun if everybody just sticks to his own viewpoints and then we can have a nice discussion/flamewar about it. It's a lot easier that actually doing something about it.
Are you being intentionally stupid?
The human breathing cycle:
1) plant + sun + CO2 -> Biomass(food) + O2
2) Biomass + O2 -> (Human) Energy + CO2
where the amounts of CO2 in equations 1 and 2 are the same and these reactions occur over a similar time scale. The total amount of biomass in food plants is reasonably constant over time, or it would run out. So, however much running I do I can't have a net effect on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The fossil fuel cycle is the same basic equations. Equation 2 happens in engines etc.
But by burning fossil fuels you are releasing CO2 that has been locked out of the atmosphere for millions of years at a rate that equation 1 can't hope to compete with. Plants can absorb the CO2 from fossil fuels, but the rate at which they do it is fixed by the amount of plant life available . The amount of CO2 locked back up by fossil fuel formation is effectively zero over the timescale considered (decades/centuries). The total amount of plant life on the planet is much lower than it was in even the recent past.
Well, that's hard to say. Peer reviewed journals from that period do not publish their tables of contents that far back on the Web (Nature, for example, goes back to 1980), so someone would have to go hit a physical library to get you that citation. Perhaps you know of an online index of such documents that I don't... I rarely need documents older than 20 years in my line of work.
HOWEVER, we can be fairly certain that such articles do exist. Phrenology was a very popular theory, and the scientific community would have welcomed papers on the subject.
The real topic was that peer review does not guarantee correctness, only mainstream scientific respect. That's a decent generic baseline, but saying, "this guy on slashdot made a typo, so he can't have seen a flaw in this research," doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The current environment (no pun intended) in the scientific community surrounding global warming is hostile to any information (not even theories, but raw data) which suggests that humans may not play a significant role in said warming. In that environment, you are going to see some junk science published in respected journals. This happens every time there is a major political topic dominating a field.
Global warming may well be human induced, I have no idea, but I can tell you with certainty that we're going to have to dig ourselves out of at least 20 years of heavily biased research before we understand how. One example: scientists discovered that forest fires that burn hotter now due to fire prevention efforts over the last 100 years are able to burn permafrost and release HUGE amounts of carbon dioxide and water vapor (greenhouse gasses). Upon discovering this, the immediate reaction was, "well, this is probably reponsible for more greenhouse emmisions than humans, but we can't know what would tip the balance." There is no objectivity in this field and all data comes with a set of preconceptions that are going to be very hard to break through.
The researh was reported in Nature, one of the most well respected scientific journals.
No insult to you, but I'll take the word of the scientists in a peer reviewed journal over yours.
If, like Bush, you seem to think everything is fine with the world or maybe just a little less than fine you need to get out more.
You don't need to be a scientist to see the drastic effects. The glaciers on many well known mountains have receeded. I'm not talking about a few feet, I'm talking hundreds of yards to miles (the Everest base camp used to be snow covered, now the snowline is five miles upslope). Kilamanjaro's ice cap has drastically shrunk (just look at pictures now versus pictures taken 20 years ago).
Warm water creatures are appearing in areas that they've never been in before (off the coast of Alaska, fish nets have been pulling up squids that usually only appear off the California coast). In several places, the arctic tundra has warmed so much that the permafrost is gone (leading to some buildings falling apart). Grasslands and trees are moving more northward.
These are not isolated incidents. They're happening all over the world. I'm sure anyone living in the colder climates on here will tell you that they're noticing some changes.
I'm even noticing changes where I live. White christmas's are becoming more of an exception than the rule. The winters start later and end earlier.
It's December and ski-slopes are completly bare, not just because of lack of snowfall but because the temps have been too high to have the snow machines run.
It's amazing and freaky all at the same time.
~X~
~X~
But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
I'm an American. I drive a VW Golf TDi (diesel) which gets 45mpg. Since moving into my house, I have upgraded the old AC to a very high-efficiency heat-pump with a computerized "set-back" thermostat. The water heater that I recently installed is very well insulated and is microprocessor controlled to minimize energy usage by analyzing demand and adjusting temperature accordingly. I use compact flourescent lights in most ceiling fixtures and lamps throughout the house. I have motion sensors on outdoor lights and my driveway light comes on only at night.
Not all Americans are like the ignorant buffoons on Slashdot who deny the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming. Many of us are capable of rational thought and recognize that global warming is real and that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that it is largely due to man-made greenhouse gases. Remember that, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush and that Al Gore was a staunch supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and environmental legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Denial implies that the condition you're denying actually exists.
It does. That's why the majority of the world's scientists who have studied the issue agree that global warming is real and that man's contribution to it is substantial.
So the gut reaction to anything global warming related is disbelief or disinterest, but not denial.
That "gut reaction" is only from the ignorant among us.
" . . . you've just accused me of being a dishonest charlatan."
/. recently that showed that the Solar output has been on a spike for the past few centuries. I wonder if the fact that a giant fusion ball nearby wouldn't contribute to Earth getting hotter?
Individuals are intelligent, but people are stupid. Or, something to that effect. You're accusing the parent of personally accusing you, and you become emotional. He was not attacking you, but a profession. Within a group of people, you may have individuals who are of quality amongst a sea of others. To take my leading sentence into context, individuals are credible, the science community is dubious.
The parent is right to a certain extent. There are some who do what it takes to make themselves look more important than they are. Typical human nature--to think of ourselves higher than we ought. You would think that Science with its emphasis on how trival man is in contrast to our Universe would have made man more humble. Yet, the reverse seems more true.
There are so many studys out that show that environmental conditions are attributed to the Earth itself and its environs (i.e. Sol). IIRC, there was a study on
Anyway, don't take personally when somebody attacks your profession. Hell, I'm in law school now. If I took personal offense everytime somebody attacked that profession, then I'd be a seething ball of hatred looking for ambulances to chase.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
I guess it's very hard to get continued funding for a study that says "Everything's fine, situation normal" That must be why, no matter what the scientific endeavor, there's always some cataclysmic disaster looming on the horizon.
The astronomers who report, "No, that asteroid is not going to hit us" still get funding. Since there are a lot of countries and businesses that will be incurring big costs from the measures that will be required to control global warming, I'm sure that there is plenty of funding for scientists who want to challenge the prevailing scientific opinion on the matter. And climate forecasting would be important enough to attract funding even if global warming were not a concern.
It's an important and clever study. One big question on the observational side of climate change studies is how much the direct observation of warming is due to local rather than global heating. Thermometers tend to be clustered near where people are, and there are local heating effects around cities that, while pretty trivial on a global scale, might be showing up.
The cited paper addresses this question and shows that this bias in the estimate is small. It does this by showing very similar trends in nighttime temperature on windy days as on calm days, though (for compelling and obvious reasons) the local heating effect is (and can be shown to be) much larger on calm days.
The strident denial camp, (many of them paid in the style of 'tobacco scientists') of course, loves the "urban heat island" hypothesis and often parades it around so as to deny one part of the science.
This paper goes a long way toward demolishing that argument. That's one reason why it's very important. The linked breathless journalism article is pretty unclear about that, unfortunately.
This work is also interesting as a lovely demonstration of how science works. I'd teach this one in high school science if I were teaching high school science.
mt
Temperatures broke 100 a few times in France during the heat wave
As many as half the deaths were at nursing homes, which were short-staffed because many aides and doctors were on vacation and were overcrowded because many families had checked in elderly relatives and also headed off to beaches and mountains.
Most nursing homes and hospitals lack air conditioning because of health laws. French authorities have long believed air-conditioning systems do more harm, by spreading germs, than good
About 20% of the victims died at home, alone. Most homes and apartments in France also lack air conditioning.
the number of deaths in France was much higher, even on per capita basis, than anywhere else in Europe. (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-08-26-f rance-death_x.htm)
It's funny because the foibles of the French was mocked in the press ad nauseum. Those who were paying attention then know that, like Chicago in 95, the heat didn't cause the deaths. Those who werent paying attention then most certainly arent now.
Wow, your comment is completely unbiased!
Meanwhile Mt. St. Helens is getting ready to produce more CO2 than the US has produced in 100 years.
There seems to be some debate as to the CO2 emissions from volcanoes vis-a-vis human CO2 emissions.
It is already dumping between 50 and 250 tons of Sulfer Dioxide into the air EVERY DAY. (Note a common updated coal fired power plant produces some 20ish tons a day).
Not sure what your point is here.. we shouldn't control SOx emissions? With your figure, it only takes 12 power plants to equal MSH SOx/day. How many coal power plants do you think there are in the US? I couldn't find a solid figure, but it seems to be at least 500. Based on that, we're dwarfing MSH.
The US has a problem with the Kyoto protocol because it is specifically designed to hurt the US. The US has extremely strict requirements, but a number of other countries have effectively none. The US was pushing for a more equitable agreement where everyone had to comply to stricter requirements.
It would be similar to saying the NY Yankees are so much better than other teams, so they can only play with 6 players on the field while the other team gets 9.
I've tried to get details on the models used for global warming. The problem is, all the papers that seem to go into detail require me to pay more than I can affort to read them. I don't want to read the stupid analysis done by beurocrats, I want to read the real studies.
Given I can't read them, can someone elighten me as to wether or not my conception of model development is correct.
1. See that temperatures have raised ~.8C in the last 100 years from mostly terrestrial weather measurments, with satellite
2. Hypothesize why this is happeneing. One hypothesis, increase in some gases my cause heat to be trapped.
3. No good way to test hypothesis on a large enough scale prove hypothesis as it relates to the whole earth.
4. Create model instead of direct experiment. Measure amount of greenhouse gases in air for some period of time.
5. Make a mathmatical model that gives the correct temperature for past measurments of greenhouse gases.
6. If there are times where temperature decreases when greenhouse gases increased, add other causes, such as solar variations, or volcanic activity. Use satellites to measure solar irradience, make educated guess at solar irradience pre-1978.
7. With addition of solar variations, volcanic activity and possibly other factor, the model matches history closely.
8. Keep other factor constant in model, increase greenhouse gases, see increase in temperature.
9. Proof that increased greenhouse gases causes increased temperatures.
I would hope the models are more complete than this, but I don't know, I can't afford to know. Do they take into account all the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases? How well do they account for sources and sinks? Is it really known what causes the earth's cold/warm cycles? If not, how can the models seperate natural long term cooling/warming trends from those caused by greenhouse gases? Is there some poorly understood warming trend in the background, so the actual warming preduced by greenhouse gases is small?
Does a good physical model exist for the trapping of thermal energy by greenhouse gases? I know certain wavelengths of visible energy are absorbed and retransmitted as thermal energy by certain molecules, such as water. We have to account for it when doing radiometry measurements from spacecraft. What wavelengths of energy are absorbed by greenhouse gases, and what wavelenghts are retransmitted? Would most of that energy just be reflected and not converted to thermal wavelengths if the gases were not there?
Does the increased amount of these gases increase Rayleigh or Mei scattering? Does that have any impact on temperature? I guess the sulfates put in the air by volcanoes cause cooling because of scatering, but I can only guess.
I've tried to search for information, but I always end up sifting through politicized crap with no real numbers or methods.
Given all the questions I have, and not really enough time or money to dig through all the crap, to possible get answers, people might be able to undestand my sceptisicm with regards to global warming. Just too many unknowns for me to make a good decision, so I'll just stick with the status quo.