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Soot Is Warming the World — a Lot
sciencehabit writes "Soot is bad stuff all around, whether you're breathing it into your lungs or it's heating the atmosphere by absorbing more of the sun's energy. But a new 4-year, 232-page assessment (PDF) of soot's role in climate finds that the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought. The study points policymakers toward the best targets for reducing climate-warming soot emissions while at the same time improving the health of billions of people."
I'm canning my coal-powered clothes dryer! And my wood-burning stove!
Sent from my ENIAC
Soot is warming the globe, and smut is keeping me warm at night. So what's the problem?
This reminds me of a cartoon. Caption: "What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
The reason that occurred to me is, here's a case where it makes sense to reduce a pollutant (soot) for public health reasons, even setting the global warming issue aside.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Take it with a spoon full of sugar
Everyone hears about global warming, but did you know there is also something called global dimming? Although there are many probable causes, soot falls into this category as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
I find it surprising that this study is so late to the global warming game. I wonder how this affects the existing climate models. For, if as the study says, the exisitng affects of soot have been understated by a factor of 100%, does that not mean that the existing warming models are overstating the effect of CO2?
The article just says that the contribution of soot to global warming is higher than previously thought. It doesn't say that soot is now the sole or even the main cause of global warming (the linked article ranks it #2, behind CO2).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Of course now we can all eagerly await the responses from the Heartland Institute and others touting the health and economic benefits of soot.
Thank you, soot!
- From Frozen Hell (AKA. Finland) with love!
Proof! Mind Blown!
QED
So it's not the cars causing global warming?
Strawman - nowhere do the articles or summary make that statement.
I'm confused. Oh wait, I'm not, it's the scientist who are.
No, sorry, it's just you.
Seems you did it to yourself, even...
They know nothing, they just guess, and then say they need more money to study it!
Um... you do know the definition of "hypothesis" is "an educated guess," right? As in, all scientists "just guess," albeit with a much better understanding of the topic than you or I.
Also worth noting: the statement is "the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought."
"could be" != "is"
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
So it's not the cars causing global warming? Or is this just a way to garner more research funds?
This is about the contributions soot has to global warming and the magnitude of those contributions. This is, by no means, an attempt to isolate global warming down to one factor. It is a complex situation and your logical fallacy is to prey upon that complexity in order to disprove any additional information people try to publish on it.
Also, the paper had a very helpful executive summary. Had you bothered to read even that small fraction of it, one of the opening sentences states:
Sources whose emissions are rich in black carbon (‘BC-rich’) can be grouped into a small number of categories, broadly described as diesel engines, industry, residential solid fuel and open burning.
So, yes, according to the paper in the Americas and Europe diesel engines are some of the biggest contributors whereas in Africa and Asia the biggest contributors are coal and biomass burning operations.
I'm confused.
I know -- it's quite evident. I'm here to help.
My work here is dung.
Nuclear power is clean and quite safe. The historical disasters are presented without a sense of scale and have people frightened for no reason.
Reactors built according to modern standards, and properly maintained, are quite safe and produce power that is squeaky-clean compared to the alternatives.
Whenever I see or touch soot, it is ambient temperature. Not sure how inert particles in the air make the air warm
"/sarcasm"
sudo make me a sandwich
Sure, There hasn't been any average warming for 16-17 years, but 2012 was the 10th hottest average on record. TENTH hottest! Be afraid!
Also 2012 was the record hottest for the United States and since USA is the world, we're all fucked. Just kill yourself now, Why suffer?
Oh this crap again?
Phil Plait says it better than I can: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/01/14/no_global_warming_for_16_years_debunking_climate_change_denial.html
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Did you not live through the summer? There were droughts everywhere. Its the warmest year on record, ever.
>(the linked article ranks it #2, behind CO2).
That's ridiculous, because water vapor is a tremendously more important greenhouse gas than 1/3000th of our atmosphere (CO2) that has a self-limiting (logarithmic) saturation effect in its ability to absorb certain frequencies of light.
Climate science wins again.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
That's right.
Because global warming is NOT HAPPENING!
Climate researchers are well paid by government grants. Socialism is fascism. Freedom is slavery. Two plus two is five. Fox News tells the truth.
God bless the Republican Party! God bless the new truth!
It was less that two years ago that they said that the reason warming is lower than forecasts is because of pollution in China Global warming lull down to China's coal growth. While I certainly believe the earth has warmed and humans have some blame I'm HIGHLY skeptical of the media's representation of Climate Change for reasons like this.
Watch Free Spammers-Getting-Flayed Movies online!
Do you think the universe gives a flying fuck about politics? If the climate is changing (and just about every active researcher in the field says it is), then it does not matter what fucking little bit whether you find it political. Nature is not bound by any ideology, or by politics, or by your distaste for either.
Grow the fuck up. What are you, eight years old, that your reaction to this sort of thing is to shove your fingers in your ears and declare you don't want to hear about it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here is what the Dr. Hansen did: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ed.html
Yea, no cherry picking there..
We should shut down China.
I am worrying about the rising number of diesel cars. Much more soot is coming of their exhaust, and about 20% more CO_2 compared to traditional engine.
Wait. Is that science? Who let you in? Listen, I don't know who you think you are, but we don't allow actual science in our global warming discussions. Got it? Now, scram!
*In the US, which is only the entire world when convenient.
Fascism is socialism, but socialism is not necessarily fascism, FYI.
And yes, we have fascism, and it is failing as fascism always does (contrary to the myth that the Nazis "fixed" the German economy--they were just squished as they were collapsing under the weight of their own inefficiency). Look to the economy of Spain under Marco to see the long term effects of full-on fascism.
Socialism is when government owns business. Fascism is when business controls government. They're quite different. But yes, in the U.S. we do have a lot of corporate control of government, and huge corporate propaganda outlets like Fox News. So you're right about that. But I don't know if it's failing.
It is only political in American where people love to be willfully ignorant of facts and science. This has been accepted everywhere else in the world. Time to grow up.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Northeastern Ohio winter weather is often too damn cold anyway. If such a "global warming" tames winter weather and extends the growing season, then I'll be the last one to complain.
The sky is falling, The sky is falling....dumazzes
How can something that blocks out the sun make it hotter?? Wouldn't it make it cooler? Thats what they say is going to happen if a super volcano erupts it will block out the sun and make it much cooler and making very hard to grow stuff with less sun. Ya ask me its all the roads that have been build and building with dark roofs making it much hotter on the surface of the earth. The reason cities are much warmer then the burbs. Soot moves around and it cleaned out by rain our natural air filter.
Jack of all trades,master of none
For comparison, the article states that soot has a radiative forcing of 1.1 W/m^2.
CO2 has a radiative forcing of ~1.7 W/m^2.
You can see a handy chart on Wikipedia (taken from the IPCC report, I believe soot is mixed in with aerosols there).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Which puts the lie to your " nobody has really refuted his calculations". Those calculations are far more evidenced and are completely different to your assertion about cost v benefit.
because water vapor is a tremendously more important greenhouse gas than 1/3000th of our atmosphere (CO2) that has a self-limiting (logarithmic) saturation effect in its ability to absorb certain frequencies of light
This is an example of a statement that is both true and pointless, because while it is true that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it is also true that adding CO2 to the atmosphere can have an effect.
And that effect, including its magnitude, is entirely the question.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The difference is that the average water vapor concentration is constant because it falls out of the sky if there's too much in the air.
Relax folks, the study was funded by T. Boone Pickens and the Natural Gas industry. It is therefore biased beyond all credibility.
This is an example of a statement that is both true and pointless, because while it is true that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it is also true that adding CO2 to the atmosphere can have an effect.
Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
...but you ride in to the rescue and attack the people pointing out the dishonesty.. what does that make you? Doesnt that make you a defender of liars?
It seems to me that you ignored the false statement, and instead felt that you just had to go after the true statement.
The problem here is two fold. First is your motivation, and we can guess what that is in a moment. Second is your pretense to be standing up for some form of higher honesty.
If the second part were true, you would have (at least) also gone after the lie, but you didn't.. you only went after the statements pointing out the lie. This tells us what your motivation really are, and they have nothing to do with truth and honesty.
There is a reason people keep having to explain that CO2 is not the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component, and that isn't just because it is often claimed that it is, its because that claim is done so in such a way that the mere fact that its "number one" is supposed to carry some weight.. ie, its dishonesty combined with marketing tactics.. a big fucking pile of dishonesty.
"His name was James Damore."
Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
If you're talking about anthropogenic effects, it is.
I honestly have no idea what you were talking about in the rest of your post.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I have a hard time believing mankind is doing more damage with our little bit of soot than all of the volcanoes everywhere over time. Sure, maybe we aren't helping but they're volcanoes!
I'm from Chicago. If AGW means 50 degree winters, FUCK YEAH!
So what if it means 130 degree summers! This is what AC is for bitches!
This sets a whole new standard for sticklers of "RTFA". Any one who does try to RTFA will not post before the comment period is closed.
Doomsayers say their model is rubbish, automatically assume the worst
We've discovered that our climate models do not reflect reality," said self-appointed guardian of the world Ivor Placard. "Since we know as an article of religious faith that climate change is man's fault and we will all be punished for our sins, it stands to reason that since the model is wrong things must be much much worse than we thought. It is vital that everyone ride bicycles and eat chickpeas while holding hands and singing around a campfire that is magically exempt from carbon emission stuff because it's cultural."
I live in Australia and I think it's baloney. Sure there's climate change. It was probably global cooling that killed off the dinosaurs.More recently Earth has exhibited a major and a minor glaciation cycle. The temperature goes up and down like a yoyo, entirely without benefit of human influence. Most of the time it's a freezing ball of ice. Sea level also goes up and down like a yoyo. Only forty thousand years ago the seas were so low people could walk from Papua New Guinea to Australia. At other times they've been so high Australia had an inland sea - which totally failed to kill the Great Barrier Reef despite current prophesies of rising-water doom. Water on both sides of our Great Dividing Range would produce a cooler more temperate climate with reliable rainfall as well as an estuary the size of France producing millions of tonnes of fish not to mention red meat and leather from the boom in crocodile population. If you live in Siberia you'd find you could grow wheat and maize on what used to be frozen tundra the size of the USA.
Of course there's climate change. There may be global warming. It might even be caused by combustion emissions. I just don't believe that's a bad thing.
Actually, that's debatable too. Irrigation and damming of rivers can make significant changes to the humidity over fairly large, but still local, areas. Whether the total of local effects is more or less than the effect of global anthropogenic CO2 is dificult to calculate.
And the level of water vapor is totally dependent on temperature so is can't drive temperatures. The level of water vapor is dependent on other things that drive temperature (like CO2). CO2 is nowhere near being completely saturated.
>I honestly have no idea what you were talking about in the rest of your post.
Me neither. I was going to pass his post through google translate but they still don't support moronese.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
I think if you read the original paper what they actually said is that CO2 is the #1 forcing agent of greenhouse warming. Water vapor is strictly a feedback effect.
The ozone hole is still there. We've just reduced the emissions that exacerbated it enough so that it's quite getting worse and is on the way to returning to normal in 50 or 60 years.
This article is about climate change science. That the discussion devolves into politics is not the fault of the article.
still burning crap for energy, solving the problem of landfills FOREVAH!
Nuclear still sucks that much, propagandized moronic sheeple?
Okay, I'm going to say it. Soot is thick particulate matter so I'm not surprised ....
...is off by 100%.
Can we really say with a straight face, that our models are at all accurate? Is the blind assumption now by the Church of Global Warming that any parameter adjustments to models will be in one direction?
Perhaps we should tell China and India to stop burning coal at an Astronomical rate.....There is one open pit coal fire burnning out of control in a strip mine in China that produces more CO2 than all the cars in America....
I believe any knowing scientist knew the whole co2 thing was crap, and that there was a lot more than that going on. Climate change has been presented to the public entirely as a carbon dioxide thing when c02 is only following what's actually happening. It makes modern meterologists stink, while the world enters the neo-Dark Ages.
well, if you want to talk about black being white and white being black....Why is it the same people who want to abolish the death penalty are also pro abortion? Life for the guilty, death for the innocent......
Thanks China!
Regards,
World
Yes, but before its was soot it was airborne particulates that reflect sunlight back into space and avoid their energy deposition into our atmosphere. So, there's a offest to the warming effect.
Guy's entitled to his opinion, no need to be so nasty about it. Maybe you have some growing to do?
Bzzzt. This appears to be a persistent myth among people who were schooled in the US. The "National Socialists" (NAZIs for short) were about as socialist as the democratic republic of Korea is democratic.