Slashdot Mirror
Northern Hemisphere Pollution a Cause of '80s Africa Drought
vinces99 writes "Decades of drought in central Africa reached their worst point in the 1980s, causing Lake Chad, a shallow lake used to water crops in neighboring countries, to almost dry out completely. The shrinking lake and prolonged drought were initially blamed on overgrazing and bad agricultural practices. More recently, Lake Chad became an example of global warming. But new University of Washington research shows the drought was caused at least in part by Northern Hemisphere air pollution. Particles from coal-burning factories in the United States and Europe during the 1960s, '70s and '80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere, shifting tropical rain bands south. That meant that rains no longer reached the Sahel region, a band that spans the African continent just below the Sahara desert."
Ha! And you thought they were crazy when they bllamed the "White Man" for droughts in Africa.
Seriously USA, get it together and get rid of it already.
Didn't anyone hand out the talking points? Coal causes CO2 emissions and global warming, not cooling! Please people, let's stay on script.
Payback, that is, for all the hurricanes they send us every year. Suck on it, Africa.
"Particles from coal-burning factories in the United States and Europe during the 1960s, '70s and '80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere,..."
That should be pretty easy to duplicate. Could we use that system to cool the entire Northern Hemisphere again?
The cooling is the warning, obviously. Cooling is warming, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, Comrade!
If that was caused my industrial pollution in the U.S. 30-odd years ago, what can we expect from the pollution China is dishing out?
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Burn more coal in the southern hemisphere, and push the rain back north...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Coriolis effect. Next FUD!
Particles from coal-burning factories in the United States and Europe during the 1960s, '70s and '80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere
But, at the same time, the article says:
People living in the Northern Hemisphere did not notice the cooling, the authors said, because it balanced the heating associated with the greenhouse effect from increased carbon dioxide, so temperatures were steady.
If temperatures were steady, there was no cooling.
Global warming will save the day and make things right as rain!
This goes much further into explaining some of the variance, both seasonal and longish-term (only goes back to the Fifties), of water table levels in the entire Chad basin - a system that covers a tenth of the entire African continent, not just a relatively small body of surface water. The human impact, according to that paper, accounts for about one twentieth of the total variance in the system but as much as 40% of the surface area of the lake itself (and up to half the volume), with most of that variance originating upstream in tributary river systems. AGW is barely even considered (or even mentioned, going by a quick scan down the paper), since the effects of AGW, if it even exists, have not been or cannot currently be measured because until it is properly defined, nobody even knows what to look for. It does deal with precipitation, which has had a bit of a lull over recent decades (1985-1994 being particularly dry years), but again this deals with the entire system not just the lake.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Personally, I don't buy into the global warming camp or anti-climate change camp. I recognize that the system in question is far too complex for us to understand with certainty. I also recognize that the system is "easy" to understand within statistical certainties, which are not reported often enough. I am also sane enough to recognize that my education in astrophysics only gives me some understanding into the issues of anthropomorphic climate change, rather than a complete understanding of it. I also recognize that my education gives me less understanding in it than climatologists, yet more understanding in it than scientists who never deal with problems at a planetary scale.
Yet one thing I am certain of: actions imply consequences. The consequences may be positive, negative, or neutral. Whatever the outcome, we must make an attempt to understand it. Our best means of understanding it are scientific. Political attempts to understand it only tell us if the consequences are desirable, thus they must come after scientific attempt to understand it. Other means of understanding climate change are likely based upon invalid systems of knowledge, and ought to be rejected altogether.
To make a long story short: I'd have to read the paper itself to judge the degree to which it's valid. Given that it is based upon scientific principles, I'm going to have to plead: I'm human, I have limited resources to deal with the problem presented before me, it is based upon a system of knowledge that I find acceptable (i.e. science), so I accept it.
As long as the authors are being intellectually honest, I believe that it is a valid way to accept their conclusions. (If they aren't intellectually honest, I'll hate them but still stand by the principle: actions imply consequences, now figure out what the consequences are.)
If by pollution, you mean Mount St Helens erupting, then yes the infamous drought in Africa what's the result of air pollutants originating from North America. This is very old news.
You failed to comprehend what you read. The pollution from burning coal caused hemispherical cooling for the Northern part of the globe. Sad to admit but I'm unable to understand how cooling the Northern hemisphere caused global warming but I'm sure some of the geniuses around here will be glad to explain it to me. Too bad about Africa. It seems like whitey has been shafting them for a few centuries now. The slave trade, then the European powers carved the continent into provinces and raped the resources for their own benefit then throwing them unprepared into nationhood with no money and no prospects. Now through exploitation of coal for energy they've had their climate drastically changed. Life sucks, then you die.
This study sounds all radical and leading edge but was fundamentally done about 10 years ago by a Canadian researcher from Dalhousie University.
Talk about taking credit for someone else's work. Without going through the paywall I can't see if the much earlier work was properly cited but regardless they are making it sound like this is a groundbreaking discovery as opposed to confirming and probably increasing the detail of previous work.
Did Toto write a song about this?
I'm sure the industrial countries are not helping the environment, but the geologic record shows plenty of warming and cooling trends over a course of millions of years, not just the past 30. So a lake is drying up, probably is also over tapped for irrigation as well. I'll play the world's smallest violin for Lake Chad.
We all know it was Bono and all that clapping of his hands
Sucks to be them!
Fuck those people anyway...
Why? Because fuck you too.
Doing Science!
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
rewriting history since 2109
Um, perhaps you ought to check out a real history book some time. African slavery was run my Muslims. American businessmen were just one of the customers. Even today there is enslavement of Black animist and Christian Africans by Arab Africans in Sudan. Look on YouTube for "Simon Deng" if you want to see the personal testimony of a Sudanese man who escaped his Islamic masters. Sure, the imperialist European powers brought much bad in addition to the enormous good - but let's put the slave situation into historically accurate perspective, please. Especially since slavery still goes on today - and once the Caliphate is re-formed (by the Muslim Brotherhood, and their Salafi, Wahabbi and Al Qaeda mates) and an "Age of Jihad" is formally declared then we'll again see mass slavery again (non-Muslim women being espeicially prized as sex slave concubines with no rights). Saudi Arabia did not ban slavery until 1962 (and it still continues underground). In Britain there have been an epidemic (at least 60 gangs in recent years) of Muslim men deliberately grooming and drugging white British girls (around 12 seems to be the target age group). This article provides background about how slavery is explicitly permitted by Islam (and unlike the Abrahamic faiths) is still considered canon today. Here's an article that discusses the modern Islamic rulings that permit slavery (not just Qur'an 4:3):
http://sheikyermami.com/2013/03/23/sex-slaves-are-not-forbidden-by-islam/
This sort of confusion is what psuedo-skeptics are are taking advantage of when they claim an ice age was predicted in the 70's. Coal gives off (among other things), SO2, CO2 and soot. Sulfur causes cooling, acid rain, and deadly "pea soup fog", Soot causes warming, lowers albedo, and accelerates ice melt. CO2 causes warming and ocean acidification. Some of the soot and sulfur was cleaned up by various clean air acts in the 60's & 70's after the death toll from "pea soupers" in London and other European cities started getting difficult to ignore. Sulfur emissions (and acid rain) were dramatically 20 odd years ago when Regan instituted a cap and trade treaty on sulfur emissions, similar to those being proposed for CO2 (ironic, huh?).
Having said all that, climate scientists don't really talk about cooling or warming, they talk about +ve and -ve forcing and feedback, two forcings with different signs can indeed cancel each other out. To confuse matters further CO2 can be both a forcing (humans, volcanoes) and a feedback (melting permafrost, increased bushfires). Feedbacks have far more uncertainty associated with them than forcings. When everything is taken into account you can work out a figure called "climate sensitivity" (CS). The CS in models compares very well with the CS derived from geology and really hasn't changed that much since the 70's.
All this is just a sample of the complexity that adds up to ripe pickings for people who have no problem deliberately misinforming the public for personal gain.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Ha! And you thought they were crazy when they bllamed the "White Man" for droughts in Africa
No, they are not crazy, they were just political correct
This was the subject of a BBC documentary about three years ago!
So now burning coal causes cooling? I thought it was supposed to cause warming.
I think anyone blaming a specific change in regional weather/climate on specific human causes is full of themself.
Oh, come on, those subtleties and nuuuuances are for effete environmentalists. Real men know that no decent explanation requires so much as high school science or math.
Climate change, as far as I'm concerned isn't just man made, but we certainly have NOT helped make our climate better.
Between the great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, air pollution, huge deforestations and water pollution, well, let's stop fooling ourselves about our 'negligible' impact.
Won't even go in the wildflife and the habitats we have endangered for all kinds of reasons, including many gas and oil spills, or the many species of animals, insects, plants etc, which we have seeded in area where there is now a disbalance.
Bottom line, we are not helping, because we are NOT in harmony with nature. In an undisturbed area, you find there is a healthy balance between predators and prey.
We just go where we want and we just multiply without thinking about the resources we use. I think sometimes we are more like a virus than an animal.
Anyways, money won't mean much if we can't have a planet to live on.
So maybe we as humanity should stop thinking in terms of barriers and segregation of people and we should really start working together at fixing this mess we've created. Not in the name of profit, but in the name of survival. For the sake of the generations to come, our kids and their progeny.
Life is what we make out of it, let's stop the bankers and big corps from dictating how we should live and let's do what's right.
It is not a claim that a ice age was predicted, it was predicted. I remember learning in elementary school in the 70's about it and was told by the year 2000 some large percentage of the earth would be covered in snow.
And cleaner. And safer. There's only one to choose,
Robert Hargraves - Thorium Energy Cheaper than Coal @ ThEC12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayIyiVua8cY
Screw the overblown 'proliferation issues', which are used by governments all over the world as blunt billy clubs to discourage the development of cleaner, better nuclear energy and its alternative methods, while the chosen few use a false moral high ground to perpetuate a condition of endless war for oil. There is already enough processed uranium and spent nuclear fuel out there to make bombs.
Isn't it time we begin to make electricity with it?
And bring the entire world up to a standard of living that is reasonable by our own personal standards, not those politicians impose upon the less-developed areas of the world. Just sayin.'
The journey begins here. It's quite a trip.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I am glad there are no nuclear reactors being built in the United States. The only, correctly upgraded nuclear reactor, the European EPR reactor, has a design that is currently difficult to construct, as demonstrated in France and Finland. Design changes will be needed. By waiting, America can get a low bug nuclear reactor. Low cost natural gas and wind turbines have slowed the desire to build expensive nuclear reactors.
So coal is to be blamed for warming the earth but this says it helped cool the earth?
Just helps show "global warming" is more made up than fact.
If the pollution COOLED the northern hemisphere, wouldn't that be contrary to global warming? I know, I know, global warming, BRRRR!