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Pollution In China Could Be Driving Freak Weather In US
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Jonathan Kaiman reports at The Guardian that China's air pollution could be intensifying storms over the Pacific Ocean and altering weather patterns in North America leading to more ... warm air in the mid-Pacific moving towards the north pole. 'Mid-latitude storms develop off Asia and they track across the Pacific, coming in to the west coast of the U.S.,' says Ellie Highwood, a climate physicist at the University of Reading. 'The particles in this model are affecting how strong those storms are, how dense the clouds are, and how much rainfall comes out of those storms.' Fossil fuel burning and petrochemical processing in Asia's rapidly developing economies lead to a build-up of aerosols, fine particles suspended in the air. Typically, aerosol formation is thought of as the antithesis to global warming: it cools our Earth's climate. But researchers say, too much of any one thing is never good. 'Aerosols provide seeds for cloud formation. If you provide too many seeds, then you fundamentally change cloud patterns and storm patterns,' says co-author Renyi Zhang. China's leaders are aware of the extent of the problem and will soon revise China's environmental protection law for the first time since 1989 ... 'The provisions on transparency are probably the most positive step forward,' says Alex Wang, expert in Chinese environmental law at UCLA. 'These include the requirement that key polluters disclose real-time pollution data.'"
China? Tempests on the other side of the world?
It's clearly a quantum weather butterfly
Simple; tax all goods on the amount of pollution used in their manufacture. Set the level so that it does not effect the U.S.A. (Europe and Japan use less energy anyway) and problem solved. Will have a nice side effect of making it less worth while off-shoring manufacturing to China where it is largely cheaper because they don't have to worry about pollution. So not only is it good for the environment it is good for jobs.
Its easy to blame China for massive pollution, but it's industry is merely trying to satisfy massive demand, mostly western.
They cannot be expected to adopt first world environmental standards that took decades for the west to develop. Also US/Euro companies outsourcing manufacturing, are dodging domestic environmental regulations to save on costs. So here at least, no one to blame but the west.
In a way, this reminds me of the financial crisis when it was brewing. We could blame the property developers for profiteering, the real estate agents for overselling, the banks for over-lending, the regulator its for 'light-touch' approach, the politicians for not legislating appropriately and the central banks for not raising interest rates to cool the whole thing down.
But...
Everyone has a share of the responsibility, everyone has little (but many) choices to make daily.
And just as the financial crisis, everyone will be held accountable with the exception of the elites.
So it is true, if a butterfly flaps its wings in China .... The Butterfly Effect
Well, you clearly refused to RTFA. They used high-fidelity models and derived at the conclusion that an amazing increase in particulate has affected weather patterns by increasing cloud formation. This is not complext like the 3rd order effects of CO2 which cause AGW, this is a first order affect. It's not complex. You apparently are just as irrationally religious about AGW as the deniers are.
And oh by the way, the western world has rigorous particulate limits that continue to be advanced because we're aware of this.
True, however, this is talking about how the pollution in china changing the weather patterns in the Pacific, which in turn changes the weather patterns for the U.S.
I am sure if they looked at the data, they would also find that pollution in the U.S. is changing weather patterns in the Atlantic, which in turn changes the weather patterns in Europe.
The article is not saying that China is to blame for global warming, it is just saying that China is to blame for the intense weather swings. For instance, here in Michigan, on Monday, it was 70 degrees F. On Tuesday, it dropped to 29 F and we got a couple inches of snow. That can be traced back to cold air pushed out of the arctic, to warm air pushed into the arctic from the Pacific, to a storm caused by the pollution in china in the Pacific.
This particular effect is not attributed to global pollution levels, but specifically to the northern Pacific zone. Given the known, prevailing wind patterns, it's pretty clear that China has the greatest impact on this particular area.
Of course, AGW is also a huge part of the overall problem, and the USA is a major contributor (the major contributor per capita), but TFA article is not really about AGW per se, it's about a a regional weather trend which happens to affect a neighboring region, North America.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Especially when it's in reference to the air like substance that surrounds most large Chinese cities.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Per capita statistics on energy use aren't very useful. Americans are also productive. If your method of measuring efficiency is per capita usage, then places like the favorite Marxist straw man of Somalia (and favorite neocon straw man of North Korea) would rate very highly.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I bet if you got any typical Climate Scientists drunk and just partied with them, it would eventually spill out that they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
I bet if you got any typical Climate Scientists drunk and just partied with them, it would eventually spill out that they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
Of course, because the Koch brothers have told us that the scientists are the side of this that are just in if for the money, sitting there in their big mansions with their bling, super sports cars and supermodels.
...and the Democrat Underground have both infested Slashdot.
You want to see economic ignorance incarnate? Just come to Slashdot where a bunch of unemployed college students will vomit back all manner of Marxist, Stalinist, Leninist and Maoists economic theory poured into their giant, empty heads by their professors.
You provided a population-energy ratio. I would love to know what pollution-energy ratio, and a GDP per capita/energy ratio. Do you have a source I can peruse?
I slipped and busted my ass on a patch of ice outside of my apartment this morning.
That's who's to blame!
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Thank goodness for transparency. I mean, we all know how honest and forthcoming Chinese and Chinese-American businesses are. They're just like Western corporations now.
Surely they wouldn't lie, would they?
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
How we put some blame on the fleets of planes deploying chemtrails all at the same time and in a pattern? I see it everytime there is a clear day.
Man, I wish I was a scientist.
So I could be bought off by the Koch brothers.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Americans constitute 5% of the worlds population, yet we consume 24% of its energy.
Please stop using this bogus comparison to imply that Americans use more than "their share" of the world's energy. The correct comparison is between inputs and outputs. The USA produces nearly 20% of the world's GDP. If your 24% is correct, we have room for improvements in energy efficiency, but we're not nearly the energy gluttons that you're suggesting. The low ratio of population to energy use is largely due to our high productivity.
It is widely reported in So. Cal. media that 25% of Los Angeles County's smog comes from Asia/China.
FIlters on coal fired power stations and industrial chimneys, catalysts and DPFs on vehicles and a ban on coal heating in cities. Why China can't manage these simple tasks is anyones guess. Its not like they don't have the money.
If the Kock brothers truly want to have influence, they would buy a major network. Look how that worked for Comcast. Their is very little opposition to their merge in part because who wants negative coverage from a major network. With a major network you can exert tremendous influence on elections without having to worry about election laws. Do the Kock brothers spend more on elections than other billionaires? I suggest you educate yourself.
"Do the Kock[sic] brothers spend more on elections than other billionaires?"
Yes, through many personal donation and other organization set up solely to fund more money.
They also get pundit to repeat whatever they want, regardless of truth. See Glenn beck thanking them for the information he says about Climate Change.
However, that's besides the point.
They pay a lot of money to organization who specifically fund global warming deniers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"China's leaders are aware of the extent of the problem and will soon revise China's environmental protection law for the first time since 1989"
Whew! Nice to know they're on top of this now.
"Taxes never go down"
False. The tax rate for those who made a million dollars a year used to be 90%, now it's 33%
Every income brackets federal taxes has dropped. The richer you are the more they dropped.
"The government can't and won't live within it's means."
Nearly all agency in the Federal government live with in their means. The others are usually dictated by citizens or external factors in unexpected ways during a fiscal year. War, 9/11. natural disaster, etc...
.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Care to explain how a revenue neutral shift in tax base changes who gets government assistance?
Of course:
1 - Tax Chinese items. -> Chinese items go up in price.
2 - Lower general tax with the benefits generated by (1) -> everyone has more money.
[However one must take into account that the money distributed by (2) is the same as the one generated by (1). Therefore]
3 - If an individual buys Chinese items for an exact value such as the tax (1) of those items equals the increase (2) of that individual's money, he ends just as rich as before both (1) and (2).
[However]
4 - If an individual buys more than those exact balance Chinese items, he'll be poorer, and if he buys less, he'll be richer. (as they'll pay for, respectively, a greater/smaller share of the the tax production while getting the same reduction)
[Also]
5 - Chinese items are cheaper than local items, otherwise the problem wouldn't exist in the first place.
6 - Poorer people will have a tendency to buy cheaper (both in price and quality) items because they are poor.
[In conclusion]
Poorer people will have a tendency to buy more Chinese items (6) and will thus become even poorer because of (4).
Richer people will have no need to buy Chinese items (6) and will thus become even richer because of (4).
Of course they'd both be only microscopically richer or poorer, but it's the accumulation of microscopic differences that create the gigantic gap.
You also need to find out, on average, how much pollution is generated per million KWh.
If I use more energy then you do, but it's all solar, then I will emit far less gasses and particulates in to the atmosphere.
That example was only to illustrated my point.
China per capita Energy usage includes a lot of people who have little or no electricity.
China use more coal the any other country, and there coal emission standards are very, very low.
So, the amount of crap the put in the air is substantial, and more the what the US puts in the air.
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next to Chinese Journalist
Thank you Dave Raggett
We also invent half the shit that's invented every year. Other nations need to be more like us, not the other way around...if concern for the comman man is your standard.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
http://www.eia.gov/
also the IEA(not to be confused with the eia above))
https://www.iea.org/co2highlig...
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That's why climate change is a global thing.
Are people laboring under the belief that this will result in purely localized effects?
There is only one atmosphere, and if you screw it up, it's screwed up everywhere.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Americans constitute 5% of the worlds population, yet we consume 24% of its energy."
Why dont you also mention what percentage we are of the worlds energy ~production~?
If we produce more than 24% of the worlds energy, than using 24% is nothing to be ashamed of.
Except that a) most countries cope on rather much less, making it seem rather wasteful, consuming resources and generating pollution and b) the pollution doesn't stay in the US (just like China's doesn't stay in China...
They do pay a lot of money to organizations that question man made climate change yes. But then again, the flip side of that is the tens of billions of dollars that are invested in global warming being real and caused by man. Regardless of scientific merit I have always thought it odd that people think that 'climate deniers' are better funded than the groups supporting the idea.
Anyone else recall a sci-fi short story (I think by Frank Herbert, but maybe not) about a woman who worked at a weather office. Her boss finally died after his practice of deeply inhaling the local polluted air, waiting for clear air from China (one day, it stopped and so did he).
One of the side stories was a character who was a member of the Religion of the Month Club. The tagline was: "How can you be sure African Bantu isn't the True Way!!?"
It's cheaper for the deniers. They don't need to do the research. They primarily say "your research isn't good enough, go back and fix it, then we'll talk."
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
On the other hand, Chinese products will go up in price compared to now, so more manufacturing will happen in the U.S. The poor are disproportionatly likely to work in manufacturing, so their employment will increase, making them less poor. As they become less poor, they become less likely to buy Chinese products.
Just do what the EU did and demand better quality. We introduced RoHS for a reason, and now are looking at ways to make manufacturing cleaner in China too. They need to sell to us, we are massive market (bigger than the US) so what we say they have to abide by. If we say only so much CO2 and PM2.5 per product they have no choice but to clean up and meet those requirements.
Just to be clear, RoHS wasn't just about protecting us from harmful stuff, it was about eliminating it from the manufacturing process and from recycling/landfill (which also often happens in China).
In the end prices haven't really gone up due to it, they just fell at a slightly lower rate. Very slightly lower.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I bet if you got any typical Climate Scientists drunk and just partied with them, it would eventually spill out that they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
My father-in-law is actually a "climate scientist", or at least a high-ranking mathematician for GSFC. He's Russian, so he and his friends actually care little about environmentalism and pollution and littering and social responsibility and other stuff like that, even though they are at times the outdoorsy-type who do like to go hiking and camping in large groups and playing and singing music loudly to the annoyance of nearby campers.
What he does care about is math, and the mathematical models for tuning and interpreting satellite LIDAR and other instruments, and if you're doing the math wrong he will yell at you condescendingly. He does get annoyed, however, at all of the politics that are getting in the way of the schedules and funding for his next satellite launch.
A lot of his work involves collecting data on cloud and vegetation cover, and how that affects the energy balance. Pollution and airborne aerosols often seed clouds and serve to reflect solar energy back into space, so being able to measure the effects of that would give us a better picture of how fossil fuel consumption does help "self-regulate" greenhouse gas effects. It probably doesn't help that one of his main projects these days, DSCVR, is essentially known as "Goresat" within GSFC. But essentially these scientists are much too wrapped up in gathering data and facts properly to worry about pushing any social agenda... to them, any form of politicking is just a waste of time and energy and schedule on both sides. There's SCIENCE to be done! :P
The original IPCC scientific report stated that 70 percent of the climate change emissions were coming from just 10 countries, of which two of the largest were the US and China.
But they removed that, because then those countries might have to actually change their behavior and stop shipping US coal to China.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Um, we also have regulations on efficiency here. Not everyone is going to go so far as to sacrifice quality of life and freedom just to make the greens happy. The USA falls somewhere between you and France, which indeed has wasteful homes.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
They pay a lot of money to organization who specifically fund global warming deniers.
They tried that with Richard Muller and BEST but it kind of backfired.
One of the real problems with China is that few fully realize how bad of shape they are in. When OCO2 comes out and the numbers are measured for CO2 flows in and out of CHina, the world is in for a shock.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And yet, that is a joke. China emits more than 1/3 of the CO2 emissions in the world today. America is below 15%. And Europe-OECD is actually ABOVE America. The problem is, that IPCC normalizes in bizarre fashions. The idea that CO2 emissions are compared in a national way is a joke. Germany's emission are climbing fast and yet, total emissions are below America. Many nations in Europe are fairly low, and yet, in terms of CO2 / $GDP, they are monster high.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
Could it be affecting our weather, too?