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NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Set For Launch Tomorrow
bughunter writes "The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is slated for launch tomorrow, February 24, 2009. OCO is the first earth science observatory that will create a detailed map of atmospheric carbon dioxide sources and sinks around the globe. And not a moment too soon. Popular Mechanics has a concise article on the science that this mission will perform, and how it fits in with the existing 'A-train' of polar-orbiting earth observatories. JPL's page goes into more detail. And NASA's OCO Launch Blog will have continuous updates as liftoff approaches and the spacecraft reports in and checks out from 700km up."
Am i the only one to read Orbital Canon in the title ? I freaked out just before realizing... No more C&C for me.
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
I presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
If by "they" you mean career warming deniers, then they will use it as "evidence" when they go on talk shows and sell their newest book to the ignorant on the internet.
If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Stop and figure out which one is right, just like when the satellite troposphere temperature data disagreed with everything else. But the main point of this mission is to gather new data that can't readily be collected from the ground.
As long as it doesn't collide with another satellite. :)
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
I dunno. What will the climate change critics do when it shows that the theories are spot on?
Not a typewriter
Who will win the battle: the pro-troleum anti-AGW crowd, the creationists who believe that man cannot corrupt the Earth since it was created by a loving God, or the Flat-Earthers who think all satellites are a conspiracy from Big Spheroid?
Whoever wins, we lose.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Very classy there. Oh, sure, go ahead -- lump us in with those two groups of anti-scientific, peer-reviewed-research-denying kooks. But I can assure you, we'll be getting the last laugh when you sail off the edge of the Earth.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
If there is any discrepancy between data sets, those folks are going to use it as proof that Global Warming is a hoax. Like this businessman, well he is in the business of climate, I guess that makes him an "expert" to some people and qualifying him to call Global Warming a hoax.
Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.
I can find people that will vehemently deny the validity of all three of the above. Sometimes you just want to throw your hands up in the air and quit trying.
My favorite one in the right here and now is "Clean Coal" - Well, if you want to convince us that coal is clean energy, then why don't you build a clean coal plant, and let people come in and measure and analyze your work? If they can demonstrate just one "Clean Coal" plant, then that would be worth more than the tens of millions of dollars put into advertising for clean coal. Sorry, but when this OCO gets running its going to be interesting to see the patterns and observations received on the coal plants spewing CO2, NOx, trace Mercury, Sulfur, and other goodies into the air.
But that doesn't mean it will convince some people...
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
presume by "they", you mean atmospheric scientists? Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
Or, they would have just been wrong. Hansen, Gore, etc, wrong. Just like everyone else who gets up on the soap box, makes a statement about the universe, and comes back down smacked down by reality. Wrong.
If you fall into the latter camp, I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Hey, I'm hanging onto my lack of sunspots. 2008 came in cooler, and we'll see how 2009 does.
This is my sig.
What is the carbon footprint of this sensor?
I find it hard to estimate since the launch is probably only a tiny fraction of the total amount that went into its construction....
We've probably made the world a better place for our friends who breathe the stuff.
Can someone please answer this: If we are burning fossil fuels; presumably all this carbon we are burning was part of the carbon cycle 100s of millions of years ago. All this carbon was then free to go from life -> CO2 and back. Assuming all the free carbon in the cycle now was available then; wouldn't the amount of CO2 in the air 100's of millions of years ago been far greater than it is today? Fossilization removed carbon from the cycle VERY slowly. We are adding it back quickly; but bringing it to levels where it previously has been. An we went through ice ages AND heat spells then. Are we really changing anything?
In the past, it was the people who said "the sky is falling", "the world is going to end tomorrow" "etc" that were considered the nuts... Now, those who say, "the sky is NOT falling and the world is NOT coming to an end" are considered the nuts...
Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
Because the models can be made better?? When the models can predict sea level rise to the nearest mm in each region of the globe, the exact quantity of ice during the winter of 2094, or the new ocean currents after a 3 degree rise in average temperature, there will still be improvements that can be made.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
from the summary: "And not a moment too late". Am I missing some hidden meaning, or did they mean not a moment too _soon_?
It seems impossible to have any reasoned discussion about carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from 290 ppm in pre-industrial times to 365 ppm today and that increase is NOT having a significant effect on climate. In the 'global warming' scenario, short wavelength radiation from the sun passes through the atmosphere and warms the earth. The warmed earth then re-radiates long-wavelength infra-red radiation back into space, or at least tries to but is allegedly stopped by carbon dioxide. So...what's wrong with this? CO2 absorbs infra-red radiation in only a narrow wavelength band and it will not absorb any infra-red radiation with a wavelength outside of its absorption band. There is already far more CO2 in the atmosphere than is needed to effectively absorb ALL infra-red radiation in the CO2 absorption band. (A much bigger absorber of infra-red radiation in the atmosphere is...water vapor...but that's another movie.)
The effect of increasing CO2 concentration is therefore only to cause absorption to occur at a slightly lower altitude in the atmosphere and after carbon dioxide absorbs infra-red radiation, it quickly collides with nearby, and far more abundant, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, transferring heat to them. These then re-radiate heat out into space. So...does increasing carbon dioxide concentration increase temperatures at all? Yes, but only to a relatively small extent because a linear increase in temperature requires an exponential increase in carbon dioxide concentration due to the basic physics of absorption. The best estimate is that a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from the pre-industrial value (290 to 580 ppm) would increase global temperatures by 1.2C. Based on our current CO2 output it will take us another 100 years to reach 580 ppm, by which time we will have probably exhausted our fossil fuels anyway, if we believe the gloomy forecasts about petroleum reserves.
So...if carbon dioxide is not changing our climate, what is? Look to the Sun. Based on current information, the sun activity is declining and we can expect cooler weather in the future.
Seeing everything as a dichotomy = your problem. A lot of others suffer from the same disease.
Its interesting that no matter how much knowledge, data, statistics, etc, are gathered, there will always be those that are never convinced. Be the subject, evolution, global warming, or that the earth is round.
What you don't understand, as you triumph evolution or the round earth, is how many times scientists have been WRONG. Before the earth was round, it was flat, it's been shaped like a disk. It's been hollow, filled with magma, it's had a liquid core, a solid core, and now it might have two cores orbiting each other.
First we heard that mega-disasters could not happen and the dinosaurs died of disease because mega-disasters are bible thumping things, and then we find a comet smashed into the earth, and then it is possible that not only did a comet smash into the earth, but the siberian traps exploded at the same time and then maybe there was a big disease after all or maybe just rats ate all the damn dino eggs.
And don't even get me started on diseases... first you bleed people and then you got some guy sticking his finger into Lincoln's brain and then you got a cure for all bacteria and soon viruses and cancer then woops we're nowhere on cancer and viruses and bacteria are going to win after all.
Hot damn.
But, before you go on about how science progresses and is never wrong, let's apply that same standard of excellence to our former President? I mean, George Bush wasn't wrong when he invaded Iraq. He merely learned that Saddam did not have WMD, and the original plans for the invasion needed to be revised to consider an increased number of soldiers. He wasn't wrong... he just learned!
Now, my point is really this. The ratio of right to wrong in science will most definitely approach 0, but, the consequences of each step will also approach 0. Basically, the big stuff smart people figured out long time ago, fire, food, water, and that had big consequences. Then lesser consequences as more was learned, different kinds of fire, food, water... the air... and we keep drilling down and also learn about things that don't matter as much... the earth is flat / round. really, if you are a 10th century farmer, why care? Doesn't matter. Same thing today... the Higgs is X ev or Y ev, is that going to make my dick bigger? It might, down the road, but the dirty secret of science is that the more we know, the less it matters, and, since we know so much, and invalidate so much, scientists are pretty increasing the probability of being wrong.
So, rather than worry about whether or not there's global warming, I'd build a fire, have a drink and a cigar, and don't sweat it. Science has given you enough to have a pretty darned good life, anything else it gives you is nice to know but probably obsolete as soon as you hear it, so why bother with it?
I mean, seriously. You rail on the ignorant, but, look at what science says : the ignorant are everywhere, so obviously, they must be better than you... that's what Darwin says.
This is my sig.
A huge plume of CO2 located off the eastern coast of Florida.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
Particularly apt name.
Tasty pig parts smoked w/pecan and applewood. low and sloooooooow. The plume should be visible from space. Now will just have to see if anyone from NASA shows up for dinner...
And not a moment too late.
Actually, some are saying it may already be too late to do anything about global [climate change|warming].
Maybe OP meant to say, not a moment too soon?
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
The upper layers are colder than the upper layers.
Erm, colder than the *lower* layers.
the lower the absorption of near-IR and visible, the faster energy can transfer from the upper layers to the surface or even straight to the surface
Poorly phrased; most visible and IR energy makes it direct to the surface (~1400W/m^2 arrives, ~1000W/m^2 hits a perpendicular plane on the surface on a clear day). And it's not such a simple correlation of altitude and temperature as I presented it for simplicity. That relationship holds in the troposphere, reverses in the stratosphere, reverses again in the mesosphere, then rises very high in the thermosphere. But that's all beside the point; the fact is that for energy to escape from Earth's surface, it has to be absorbed and reradiated many times. Increasing the CO2 concentration significantly increases the expected number of times to be re-radiated.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
Presumably, they'd follow the scientific method and adjust their theories to fit the new data.
Just like Mann et al did when it turned out some of their tree ring proxies were problematic, and it only took them a decade to replace them with better ones, which produced a conclusion that was similar to but far less sound-bite-worthy than the original.
This is the way science actually works: people generally defend their favoured belief kicking and screaming until they are absolutely forced to give it up. To suggest that people who find the popular press reports of impending doom from anthropogenic global warming less than compelling are in any way anti-scientific is a nice ad hominem that doesn't really belong in a scientific debate.
There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical about climate science: our inability to figure out what is happening to 30% of the CO2 we're polluting the atmosphere with is one of them, and this satellite will hopefully help figure that out.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Just to play devil's advocate, why would a thoughtful atheist consider "drastic effects on living conditions of [progeny]" as relevant desiderata? We ought to make life better for posterity, um, why exactly?
The rest of the world wouldn't mind that either.
Because as more and more evidence piles up, the point on the IQ bell curve at which people are able to deny the facts moves to the left.
Don't worry, we'll get to you eventually.
I hate printers.
Meanwhile, you can browse interactive maps of US antropogenic fossil fuel CO2 emissions based on the data produced by Project Vulcan at Purdue. Google Earth browser plugin is needed, or you can load all data in a KML file in Google Earth directly. There is also a flythrough video explaining the different data views. Full disclosure - I'm the programmer who created the maps. Yes, the page is slow to load, but once a layer is accessed, it'll stay cached.
Whoever modded you Troll is an idiot.
I get tired of polarized arguments as well. It's a shortcut for people who aren't able to do their own critical thinking. In a word, morons.
And you're exactly correct.
If NASA suddenly spotted a large asteroid and told us that there was a 85% chance of it hitting earth, would that make them "nuts"?
This isn't some crazy dude sitting in a basement reading tea leaves... and while the science isn't as solid as using telescopes to predict orbits as in my analogy, the science is getting pretty darned good.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
There are plenty of reasons to be sceptical about climate science
Well, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the exact numbers and timelines that their models come up with, but I don't think that there are any serious detractors in the scientific community to the basic concept of anthropogenic warming... most of the debate revolves around data and the models - will the warming be 2 degrees or 5 degrees in 100 years... not, will there be warming.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Actually the main point of this mission is ... political.
I wonder if it will be able to measure its owe carbon dioxide from its launch...
Being an armchair scientist can be fun, but why in the world do you think that all the scientists have missed something so simple as the effect of the sun on global warming
I would say its pretty simple. There's not actually that many scientists that are building climate simulation engines and the result is so vague that it is easy to experimentally verify. The basic output is that the earth is getting warmer since the industrial revolution coincident with a rise in CO2, and that really means, to people in the field, to look for signs of warming, and to look for CO2, and then also to then try to understand the effects.
My skepticism is with the model. Wall Street models were quite successful too, but they never actually ran them in a regime of falling housing prices to see what would happen. Woops, and I think the same sort of woops is extremely likely in climate software. This to me isn't a failing of the climate scientist community per se, as much as I think it is actually a failure of the software community as it is simply too hard to create complicated models, and scientists are notoriously the worst of all programmers.
My bet on sunspots is really well, indicative of some unknown or seemingly benign assumption turning out to be wrong. I'm looking forward to seeing the results from this CO2 satellite as, if the manmade theory is right, we should really see CO2 plumes rising up from, well, the USA, and spreading throughout the world. If they time it right, we should see highways without traffic without CO2, and highways with traffic, with more CO2, and that CO2 should not be consumed by anything on the way. I understand that they've already got a pretty good amount of evidence that says that the CO2 in the air is from human activities largely because of some weird radio thing, but, the graphic evidence of that, and where these concentrations are, is what's interesting. We should expect to see local fluctuations in temperature in CO2 plume areas, I would think. You should be able to take all the temperature data, match it up to all the CO2 plumes, and see anomolies fall off as the concentration of CO2 falls off around where the CO2 is introduced, even if only a small amount. But of course, there could be surprises. It could turn out that there is some massive unknown source of CO2 bubbling up out of the unexplored regions of the earth. It could turn out that the CO2 coming from the USA is getting consumed by the USA due to some new thing that they discover. It could actually turn out that the USA is actually covering up what should be a fairly big and natural sinking of CO2 caused by sunspots, and we should otherwise be in an ice age, if it were not for our SUVs. It could actually be something new, beautiful and unimaginably cool, and that, my friend, is why we give scientists billions of dollars, to make us wonder, more than to answer questions.
This is my sig.
I doubt these models. Computer models predicted that the financial crash would never happen. The derivatives were just too advanced to ever possibly crash, right? Look at the weatherman. He has a hard time predicting rain 48 hours from now. You think you really know anything about the weather 50 years from now? Give me an f'in break.
I doubt these models. Computer models predicted that the financial crash would never happen. The derivatives were just too advanced to ever possibly crash, right?
[citation needed]
Look at the weatherman. He has a hard time predicting rain 48 hours from now. You think you really know anything about the weather 50 years from now? Give me an f'in break.
It is not unreasonable to predict with a high degree of certainty that a person who drives to work will arrive on time and without incident when required. This should be true three years from now, as well as ten years from now. This assumes that the individual is not fired or does not lose their job some other way. However, one can predict that isolated events will occur in ten years, traffic accidents, unusually slow traffic, or their car not starting due to a -35 deg F morning. What you cannot predict as easily is something like an outright bridge collapse, especially when in this case a flawed computer model was used. Granted, the bridge still had serious structural flaws that were only partially taken into account by the previous computer models.
Going back to your financial models, are the models you are referring to a small number of cherry-picked simple simulations that only were done to confirm a bias? Are there financial models that did predict trouble accurately, or are they no longer important? Part of the problem was that too many non-mainstream "economists" and even armchair economic theorists became influential. Most of these types did not develop their theories by using the Scientific Method, attempted to inappropriately apply limited thought experiments from microeconomics to macroeconomics, or did not fully research, distorted the facts to fit their bias, omitted facts contrary to their position, or even outright lied about historical and present day events and data, then used these anecdotes as facts to push their deeply flawed pet theories. The only major figure I have seen to date admit that he was almost totally wrong on the economy was Alan Greenspan. That takes a large amount of testicular fortitude, his announcement not very long after the beginning of the crisis was even more impressive. I would compare this to the Republicans in Congress and in the conservative pundits in the media espousing the same old rhetoric, cut taxes, especially on the rich, and cut spending across the board, especially for the poor.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
I'm referring to net 0 sum financial models which state given enough time (infinite) the system will rebound, never mind the amount of death and destruction in between now and infinity. It's funny you should bring up Alan Greenspan, the creator of these creative financial instruments which are the reason why the system is collapsing right now. One accurate model which predicted the current collapse is Larouche's triple curve function, which basically says as production decreases, financial aggregates and money will increase at an inversely proportional rate. We can't have less production globally and support a growing population. It's just not possible. This crash is a reflection of that fact. Now, it's still quite possible to reform and change our economic models. It remains to be seen if our leaders are ready to confront the parasitic "international" interests and do the right thing.
In regards to Global Warming, I think we need to look at the ocean floor. Some seashells contain carbon records that are quite contradictory to the ice core measurements Gore hyped up. My mind isn't made up about global warming. There are astronomical functions that researchers are blowing off. The Earth's axis shift (precession), the earth's elliptical degree of orbit, and the sun's position in galactic space all play roles in the climate cycle. Also, isn't the human contribution to CO2 only a small fraction of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses? This new satellite is great because it will give us more details. We're overdue for an ice age anyway. Maybe this is the only thing saving us from glacial advance. You know, in an ice age, the southern hemisphere is supposed to get quite warm in the summer =) (think Australian wildfires). We'll know soon enough I suppose.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/oco/main/index.html
Ohwell...?
How pious of you. I assume by your tone that you must be in the global warming alarmist camp. The article clearly states that the scientist can only find 40% of the carbon in the atmosphere that they were expecting. Add the lack of sunspots in this cycle and it seems that we are actually headed for a freeze. Are we human beings prepared for that? I genuinely feel that someone is selling global warming like a peddler selling bottled water to me while I hold a water hose in my hand.
That should be sufficient to keep all the other satellites in line lest they lose their funding.
It's the new scientific method...
1. Find popular concept.
2. Craft language to demonize and silence the opposition.
3. Control the discussion without regard to civility.
4. Assume a forgone conclusion.
Has anyone stopped to consider what will happen to politics if we reduce carbon emissions?
I think not.
s
In regards to Global Warming, I think we need to look at the ocean floor. Some seashells contain carbon records that are quite contradictory to the ice core measurements Gore hyped up.
Sign of a climate crackpot: he brings Al Gore into the discussion as if he's relevant to the science.
But go ahead, please explain what ocean cores are inconsistent with the ice core record of the glacial-interglacial cycles. (Also explain why ocean cores are more reliable than ice cores, considering that ice cores actually store trapped atmospheric gas.)
There are astronomical functions that researchers are blowing off. The Earth's axis shift (precession), the earth's elliptical degree of orbit, and the sun's position in galactic space all play roles in the climate cycle.
Researchers aren't blowing off orbital factors. The Milankovitch cycles are far too slow to act appreciably on century timescales. As for the Sun's position in galactic space, you're probably referring to the hypothesis of varying cosmic ray flux, except cosmic ray flux hasn't been varying recently.
Also, isn't the human contribution to CO2 only a small fraction of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses?
Yes, but a few-degree contribution to a 30-degree natural greenhouse effect is still climatically significant.
We're overdue for an ice age anyway.
Probably not.
Did this fail because they wanted it to fail, or because NASA couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a bass fiddle?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Orbital won part of the ISS re-supply contract. But, l-mart, boeing, and atx are suing saying that they had a better plan. In point of fact, NASA said that the alternative had better points, etc. Now, Orbital loses an important sat. This may well lose that contract for Orbital or at least allow that partial contract to be cut in half (half to each). To be honest, I would not mind seeing that happen. We NEED multiple launchers. But if that happens, I would love to see Boeing, L-Mart, or even the US buy a bigelow station and attach it to the ISS. If we buy one at costs, it helps bigelow move forward quickly, while expanding the ISS inexpensively. The important thing is that it would get bigelow moving forward which would allow all 3 launch companies to survive and thrive.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
NASA satellite crashes minutes after launch:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/24/nasa.launch/index.html
The Japanese satellite Ibuki has been in orbit since January.
Launch Failed this morning. Fairing around satellite failed to separate and it went into the ocean down near the Antarctic.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/24/nasa.launch/index.html
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Not that I expect somebody who resorts to ad hominem attacks to even care, but I can cite Beck (2007) Figure 5: First Reconstruction of Trends in CO2 Atmospheric concentration based on actual measurement. The figure is transposed against the Antarctic ice core samples. You can see it here. My link is free. I did not read your article. If you will copy and paste the relevant part or present it for me in a free manner, I will be happy to review it.
As you cited an article saying that we are going to experience a longer interglacial (you know, the one I can't even read the abstract on), I'm going to shoot you one that says the opposite. This is why I argue for more research to be done on what exactly is happening here, and I applaud this new orbital observatory. Note that I did not once call for continued pollution, which is insane. I think we need to be prepared for an ice age. The authors of these papers somewhere write to prevent advancing glaciers, lots high temperature nuclear reactors must be deployed with enough energy density to cull back the advancing glaciers if the situation arises. Therefore, this is just one reason that to attempt to abandon nuclear energy is insanity for the survival and prosperity of humanity. Read it here.
I prefer it to only cover the government, all banks, the disease industry, all churches, the oil industry, the media reproduction industry, and all churches and banks (bomb them twice, just to be sure). Did I forget anything? ;)
Yes. I said *only*
Oh, and use the rest of the bombing power to do that for the whole world instead of just the USA. After all, we are not discriminating any country. We hate all those bomb targets is all countries equally. ;)
Project MAYHEM
P.S.: Please ignore all mails from a project GAY-HAM. They are a cheap knock-off, except if you like big man-orgies (a la South Park) instead of big fight clubs.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Beck (2007) Figure 5: First Reconstruction of Trends in CO2 Atmospheric concentration based on actual measurement
I was right. You are a crackpot. Even a halfway intelligent skeptic knows better than to cite Beck or Jaworowski. You don't see, say, Steve McIntyre embarrassing himself like that.
Let me clue you in: Beck's whole "reconstruction" is based on hopelessly flawed and unrepresentative flask samples from a period before anybody learned how to do a controlled experiment. First, those measurements are based on surface fluxes. There are HUGE spatial and temporal variations in surface fluxes based on proximity to e.g. urban sources, vegetative sinks, and atmospheric turbulence in the boundary layer. Furthermore, early practitioners had almost no quality control in place to ensure against sample contamination. There's a reason why Keeling is famous in this area: he spent the 1950s through 1970s carefully demonstrating how flawed previous methods of measurement are. Beck's graph shows ridiculously huge fluctuations in global CO2 which, if they actually existed, would represent physically impossible changes in terrestrial and ocean sinks: the global biosphere and ocean mixed layer literally cannot exchange CO2 that quickly. You'd have to do something like burn down half the planetary biomass in a decade or two.
I wonder why you think that a graph by a random schoolteacher untrained and unpublished in the scientific literature overturns all other work in the field. (P.S. "Energy and Environment" is not a scientific journal, it's a vanity journal and dumping ground for crackpots.) I mean come on, have a little less credulity here. You're supposed to be a "skeptic", right? Then why do you uncritically accept any heterodox claim, no matter how absurd? Simply because you like to feel they're "sticking it to the man"? Or they agree with your political philosophy?
I did not read your article. If you will copy and paste the relevant part or present it for me in a free manner, I will be happy to review it.
That would violate copyright. You can try going to a university library. They will surely have it; Science is one of the top two scientific journals in the world, and pretty much every university subscribes to it.
As you cited an article saying that we are going to experience a longer interglacial (you know, the one I can't even read the abstract on), I'm going to shoot you one that says the opposite.
And, once again, you fail to cite anything from the scientific literature. You do realize the difference between a peer reviewed scientific publication a top scientific journal and a random web essay, don't you? I also note that your article is almost 10 years older than the work which re-evaluated the Milankovitch cycles and found that they favor a long interglacial.
It appears that you get your entire knowledge of climate science from skeptic web sites. Hell, the ice age article you cite is from an all-around crackpot site attacking quantum theory, relativity, biology, etc. Imagine my surprise.
I'm not going to the library for the purpose of this discussion. For now, let us agree to disagree. We'll see the new data from the spacecraft soon enough.
Here is something I found while looking for the sea shell study from the 70s. I couldn't find the one I mentioned earlier. Again, I don't think we should be using fossil fuels. We should be using oil solely for petrochem manufacturing like plastics, fertilizers, etc. My position is that I don't agree that we're going to have as drastic changes as people like you claim, and I don't think the solution is low-tech renewable energy. The solution is fast-breeder high tech nuclear energy (you know, the reactors that produce more fuel than they use). That's renewable, and it being high tech will save and boost all aspects of our industries should we produce them on a wide scale. I can't say the same for windmills. Advanced design nuclear plants should be rolled out while we have a full scale drive to fusion energy. If you impose renewable energy on us it's probably going to drain the last of our resources and doom humanity to a painful die down.
I don't really disagree with anything in your latest link (to UMich). But you should note that the paleoclimate data discussed there are still consistent with modern estimates of the climate sensitivity of CO2. The science does not support your position of a weak CO2 influence on climate; paleo and instrumental data as well as physical theory and modeling all agree on a climate sensitivity of 2-5 C (3 C is what's usually used in projections, so it could be about 50% larger or smaller than that).
I agree that we ought to be using oil only for petrochem manufacturing instead of just wasting it in combustion. However, it will take some time to make that transition.
Nuclear energy has its advantages, but it's not nearly a solution to climate change. At best, it's one component. To make a large dent in fossil fuel emissions in the first half of this century would require an infeasibly large rate of construction (like, one plant per week for decades). Eventually we can get there, but it would take long enough that large CO2 increases will still occur along with the resulting significant climate change. Also, it should be noted that breeder nuclear is still not truly renewable. Furthermore, it's more expensive than many renewables like solar. Finally, while I am pro-nuclear, it should still be acknowledged that there are serious unresolved issues with very large scale waste storage and, worse, nuclear proliferation. The latter is particularly important if we want developing countries to use non-fossil power sources, considering that many of them are not necessarily allies. Nuclear power providers haven't been even able to agree on a common, verified set of engineering standards and practices, which is one reason why the U.S. AEC under the Bush administration didn't end up giving out any new construction permits, despite desperately wanting to.
Fusion energy is not even on the table as anything useful this century. It takes a long time for new power sources to become widely deployed, particularly since new power plants don't replace existing plants until the latter are retired (50+ years). That means the sources relevant to this century need to start being deployed now or in the early decades of this century. Fusion may not even be prototype-ready in the first (or second!) half of this century, let alone deployed, let alone widely deployed.
I disagree that a shift to renewable energy is going to "doom humanity". It's not going to produce all our energy needs, but we can make a major shift towards it, coupled with energy efficiency initiatives.
Well, my general point is that this cycle has been going on for quite some time. I have a hard time seeing how these ongoing cycles are going to change. They believe that these CO2 cycles are only interrupted by ice ages, correct? We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can stop glacial advance if we had the motivation. If sea levels really are going to rise any significant amount, engineering projects could keep cities safe, and the waters at bay. Also, if we completely stop using fossil fuels, this cycle will continue, because it is fueled by various factors including astrological forces and gas release from the planet.
I'm glad to hear that there is one more pro-nuclear person in the world. They have a lot of benefits nobody is talking about like being able to produce hydrogen fuels from non-fossil origins, and fresh water for agriculture. These benefits are a lot greater than the benefits I can see from renewables.
You are absolutely right about the current rate for plant production. We're limited by the quantity of casing that Japan Steel can produce (currently enough for 4 plants per year). However, we can start producing them here in the US again if a government corporation would take over surplus steel production. Additionally various types of 4th gen plants can be manufactured in our auto-plants (if retooled). Again, I think a government company should take over the unused portion of our automotive sector to start making these things.
Currently we have approximately 100 plants in the US producing approximately 20% of the power we consume. We could replace the coal portion of our power production by building 250 more. Globally, we need 6000 GW of new power generation to support provide 1.5kw per capita, which would equate to 6000 new 1GW plants. This might seem daunting, but if we made an effort like we did during WW2, and fought this economic collapse like a war it's completely conceivable to make a recovery based on new power and water systems, and new high speed rail lines. It would also undo the net production decreases the world has experienced since it began to practice globalization. 6000 new plants might seem like a large number, but just imagine how many solar arrays or wind farms we'd need to do the same (and that power is only on some of the time, you always need a reliable backup power source).
I agree that disposal could be a problem for that many plants, but we should begin reprocessing again. Carter made a blunder... we should completely burn uranium. Even without reprocessing, if you took all the spent fuel we have ever produced, it will fill a football field 5 meters deep. Not too bad... especially considering that this spent fuel is a resource that we can extract new fuel from. Additionally, the 4% that is not recyclable contains valuable medical isotopes that can be further processed.
If fusion was properly funded the past 30 years as it should have been, I'm confident we'd have a commercially viable reactor by now. I think we should roll out as many 3rd and 4th gen fission plants as we can now, while investing heavily into experimental technologies like fusion. Renewables currently power less than 1% of our total energy, and most of that is biomass. I really think it's all hype.
About the costs: I thought nuclear was the 2nd cheapest power source next to natural gas for plant construction... how is solar cheaper? I know it survives on government subsidy... can you provide me with more information on that? Also something to keep in mind are the other byproducts of nuclear, like the hydrogen fuel that is possible to create, and the fresh water. These benefits should be factored in as well instead of just watt to dollar.
Well, my general point is that this cycle has been going on for quite some time. I have a hard time seeing how these ongoing cycles are going to change. They believe that these CO2 cycles are only interrupted by ice ages, correct?
The natural glacial-interglacial CO2 cycles are coupled to orbital variations, so that part of the cycle will keep going. However, we are currently greatly over-riding the natural CO2 cycle with our excess fossil fuel emissions. The natural glacial-to-interglacial transition is about 100 ppm, and we've already added another 100 ppm on top of that. Another 1000 ppm is quite possible without conscious effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Whether that will disrupt the long-term glacial cycle remains to be seen (but see here and Archer's new book The Long Thaw for a sobering discussion). However, it will most definitely disrupt natural CO2 fluctuations over the next few centuries.
We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can stop glacial advance if we had the motivation.
We probably can't stop polar melting, but we can slow and reduce it by quite a bit. This is especially important to avoid crossing the threshold for runaway melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which will add a lot more sea level rise and boreal warming.
If you're concerned about glacial advance, you should want to save our fossil fuels for later when we need them, instead of using them all up now when we don't.
If sea levels really are going to rise any significant amount, engineering projects could keep cities safe, and the waters at bay.
Up to a point, we could do it, but it would be very expensive considering the number of people and value of properties which are currently near the coast. With a potential multi-meter sea rise, you'd probably have to abandon a lot of the planet's current shoreline.
There are, of course, many other serious impacts of climate change besides sea level rise.
Also, if we completely stop using fossil fuels, this cycle will continue, because it is fueled by various factors including astrological forces and gas release from the planet.
That's true, but not really the point.
They have a lot of benefits nobody is talking about like being able to produce hydrogen fuels from non-fossil origins, and fresh water for agriculture. These benefits are a lot greater than the benefits I can see from renewables.
Any power source can do that (hydrogen separation, desalination, etc.), not just nuclear, unless you're referring to processes I haven't heard of.
You are absolutely right about the current rate for plant production. We're limited by the quantity of casing that Japan Steel can produce (currently enough for 4 plants per year). However, we can start producing them here in the US again if a government corporation would take over surplus steel production. Additionally various types of 4th gen plants can be manufactured in our auto-plants (if retooled).
I can't see us realistically producing power plants at the rate I described, especially given their costs and side effects, and the political climate. But a WWII-level effort might do it.
If fusion was properly funded the past 30 years as it should have been, I'm confident we'd have a commercially viable reactor by now.
I highly doubt that. In fact, I don't know if commercial fusion will ever be commercially viable.
About the costs: I thought nuclear was the 2nd cheapest power source next to natural gas for plant construction... how is solar cheaper?
New nuclear plants are actually rather expensive, and as you note, that's not even counting the fact that they're heavily subsidized. Take away the subsidies and they do even worse b