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Black Soot May Be Aiding Melting In the Himalayas
Hugh Pickens writes "The Himalayas, home to some 10,000 glaciers, are the main source of replenishment to lakes, streams, and some of the continent's mightiest rivers, on which millions of people depend for their water supplies. Since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has declined by more than 20 percent with a rate of warming twice the global average over the past 30 years. Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases — may be causing much of the rapid melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. 'Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate,' says James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. 'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.' The circulation of the atmosphere in the region causes much of the soot-laden air to 'pile up' against the Himalayas. The soot mixes with other dust from nearby deserts, creating a massive brown cloud visible from space that absorbs incoming solar radiation. As this layer heats up in the Himalayan foothills, it rises and enhances the seasonal northward flow of humid monsoon winds, forcing moisture and hot air up the slopes of the mountain range."
...which links to a god damn diagram, not an actual picture from space of a massive brown cloud. Way to fail submitter.
'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.'
Becomes:
Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases (...)
Quite shameless. I am almost impressed by the gall of the submitter...
underneath we will have a shitstorm of politically biased comments
so i offer a third option, to climate change doubters and climate change believers:
1. who fucking cares whose fault it is
political recrimination gets us nowhere. its cold in the house because someone left the window open? ok, so you're going to sit there and scream at each other over who opened the window? here's a new idea: how about someone demonstrating actual responsibility and instead actually stand the fuck up, walk over, and close the fucking window: NO MATTER WHO LEFT IT OPEN
2. who fucking cares if we are heating up or cooling down or not changing
the fact is, we live here, and we are interested in controlling the thermostat. if it gets too cold, do something to turn it up. if it gets to hot, do something to turn it down. we are homo sapiens, this what we do: we do not adapt to our environment, we adapt our environment to us. we do not grow fur, we make clothes. we do not enter torpor at midday, we invent air conditioning
if you say we shouldn't mess with the weather, you are by extension denying the fact that we already are having an effect on the climate. so we might as well get involved with twiddling with the environment ON PURPOSE, because the notion that 6.5 billion humans can magically have no effect at all is a completely absurd premise on your part
this environmental attitude is the engineer's approach. fuck all of you capitalists, politicians, activists and hysterical whiners. the engineer will prevail here, because only we have the solution to what the rest of you simply bicker about
we need scientifically, factually sound well-researched methods for forcing change on our planet on purpose. and then we'll fix your fucking problem. something like seeding the dead zones of the ocean with iron
lets put it this way: make believe, for the moment, for the sake of argument, regardless of your beliefs, that
1. the earth is actually heating up
2. it is doing so because of nature, not man-made reasons
ok, well what are we supposed to do, just accept rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the sahara desert growing 25%?
no, we artificially introduce methods for cooling the earth down. we do this, #1, for selfish reasons, but also for #2: a preservation of current species and ecosystems, as a side effect. are you going to let the amazon dry up because you don't like the idea of man fiddling with the environment?
yes, the planet could continue to evolve new species without human intervention. but what is really going to happen is that this planet is going to become a museum, under human supervision, of the current catalog of species and ecosystems that have evolved so far. why? because we want to fucking live here, that's why
so, for the deniers in opposition to supposition #1 above: if you don't believe the earth is heating up, you still have to admit the earth has had historic swings in climate, and that we earthlings will have to intervene at some point, correct?
and for the believers in man-made change in opposition to supposition #2 above: you believe that climate change is caused by man, you have to admit that to fix the problem we have to do it PROACTIVELY. please don't try to sell me the moronic bullshit that 6.5 billion humans can live on this planet like ghosts. this is a different kind of denial than those who deny climate change, but no less foolish
imagine that: no pointless recriminations and blame games, no living in denial and sticking your head in the sand
commence with the retarded partisan bickering anyway. meanwhile, us engineers will roll up our sleeves and will actually go and fix your fucking problem while you political assholes do nothing but bicker
more action, less "hot air"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You haven't addressed the secondary issue; that the melting in the Himalayas is only doubled by the soot, not caused by it. And the scrubbers would have little to no effect on glacier melt in the rest of the world. And that "destroying the world economy" is a politically motivated, short sighted conclusion. Most of the reasonable forecasts show it "dragging" the economy down by about 1-3% of the "GWP" (Gross World Product). The economic doomsday types like to discount the possibility that the cost of oil will increase much beyond the rate of inflation, as if the entire world can start living like Americans (or even Western Europeans) without drastically increasing the price of oil.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Cry me a river about lost corporate profits.
Says he who doesn't realize that Eeeeevil Corporate Profits are what
Or are you too young to remember why the Iron Curtain fell, and why so many (non-union) citizens welcomed (nay, screamed for) government privatization: government bureaucracies do an absolutely suck-ass job of providing services.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The linked diagramm is a dead giveaway that this is more of a PR stunt than usefull scientific research. No matter what the verdict, fact is: we are putting to much polution into the atmosphere and we need to stop. That's a fact, and no lobbying otherwise will change it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Corporations != the free market. I am not in favor of communism, I am in favor of taking power away from huge corporations and reducing their role in government.
Thoughtful people are slowly, slowly awakening to the idea that the climate alarmists predicting doom for the planet's climate may be less than completely right. Previously, the melting of the himalayan glaciers was positively, definitely, absolutely, without doubt, guaranteed attributable 100 percent to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The simple fact is that nothing technical that supports the AGW theory that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from "pre-industrial" levels to the current level has caused (or even contributed to) any measurable amount of planetary warming. Similarly, there is nothing to support the popular idea that some arbitrary co2 concentration is necessary to maintain our current planetary climate conditions. Our current knowledge of the things that might affect the Earth's climate, and the magnitude of their effect, is primitive, and dominated scientifically by the equivalent of 15th-century flat-earthers. Go to the NSIDC (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) website and read their 'news and analysis' to see how they spin every little uptick in the arctic ice cover. Would you trust agenda-driven people like that to tell the unvarnished scientific truth about...anything? They are the technical equivalent of eugenics people excavating an african anthropological site. If the Earth's climate continues to cool (as it has for the last two years) they will keep spinning it as validation of their models, right up until their funding dries up and they have to pull the power plug on their computer and website. Anyone (Al Gore comes to mind) who claims to know all, or even any, of the answers to global climate change is being blatantly dishonest. It was hysterically funny to see record low temperatures and snow visit Copenhagen at the same time that planetary leaders were meeting there to discuss global warming.
Corporations != the free market. There was capitalism before we became the corporate state we (the U.S.) are now.
But free market --> Corporations IOW capitalism kills itself. Thanks for admitting that.
You missed a step or two. Free market --> government intervention --> Corporations --> more government intervention --> Fascism.
And another comparison you may want to think about: decentralizing government --> more freedom vs. centralizing government --> tyranny.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
First off the coal industry not the oil industry are the main funders for anti-science propoganda (Exxonn have a large stake in both industries). Secondly they are feeding us poison.
And please the IPCC is not a government in any sense of the word, nobody is trying to take the free market away. The word "market" in "free market" refers to a set of rules for exchanging goods and services (ie: government regulation). The word "free" refers to the fact you are free to join if you play by the rules.
People want those rules changed so that unintended side effects such as AGW are minimised. But we have had this converstaion before and despite the wealth of cotra-evidence I don't expect you will change your extreme view of capitalisim that colours most of your posts and blinds you to every other issue.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.