Global Warming

[lonnarin]

Who is to say that life as a post-apocalyptic protoplasmic concoction on the face of an asteroid is any less fulfilling than that of Joe Consumer with his 2.4 children, 3 cars, amassing tower of debt and credit card bills?  If reincarnation is true and we are obliterated to atoms, then I will simply party hard as an atom.  It seems a big weight off the shoulders really.  All the paramecium I view under a microscope seem to be boogying down, waving their flagelli in the air like they just don't care... diggin it. Seems a good life.

[Gunther]

Woot!  I want to be a paramecium.  That sounds pretty sweet.

[hawklen]

Woot!  I want to be a paramecium.  That sounds pretty sweet.

*pooof* You're a paramecium!

[kenty191]

When you get a Bachelor's degree you think you know everything.

When you get a Master's degree you realize that you really don't know anything.

When you get a doctorate you realize that neither does anyone else.  

I'm going to write this down somewhere on my wall or something. It should spurn me on when working on my assignments for my Bachelors degree! Hehe!

My arguements thus far though, have been from a perspective that I *think* I know everything. I suppose that is the big enlightenment that comes with a first degree, but it makes you confident if a little naive perhaps.

[Skywatcher]

I'm going to write this down somewhere on my wall or something. It should spurn me on when working on my assignments for my Bachelors degree! Hehe!

My arguements thus far though, have been from a perspective that I *think* I know everything. I suppose that is the big enlightenment that comes with a first degree, but it makes you confident if a little naive perhaps.

Yeah the idea is similar to the statement "The more you know, the more you know there is to know."  Bachelor's degrees are typically wide based introductions to a field of knowledge so since you know something about a wide area it seems like you know a lot.  When you work on a Master's you have to specialize into a specific part of that field of knowledge and actually become somewhat of an expert on a particular topic.  This made me feel like the actual field of knowledge was so huge the I would never be able to grasp it all.  I haven't reached the PhD level yet but I understand that its the colaboration with other experts that makes you realize that field of knowledge is so big that even though there are many experts in very narrow areas there is hardly anyone who is an expert on broad ranges of it.  

This is actually one of the difficulties in this global warming debate since you have experts in lots of different aspects of the issue like the effects of temp increase on plant and animal life, Climatologist, computer progamers making models, and many other areas but to really figure out what's going on would take an expert on so many areas that it's hard for many to grasp.  

So what I have been hearing thus far in the debate is partially a good dialogue between scientists who think there is a big short term problem with other experts who think there isn't a big problem and things might just be the way they are supposed to be.  

The problem is tha politicians have grasped this issue as a way of motivating people before the truth is really known.  I think the scientific community will figure things out in time but they have been wrong a lot before for long periods of time so I just think it's a bit premature to be changing the way we live in ways that can cost lives and lower standards of living around the world.

That's my perspective on it.

[ycleption]

I don't want to get too involved in this discussion. I just want to say, whatever side you're on, do your research before making blanket statements, repeating hearsay, or taking sides. Global warming research includes a variety of fields, some of which are better understood than others. So go find out about them. Reading Time magazine, or listening to talk radio, or watching "An Inconvenient Truth" are not substitutes for actually informing yourselves.
A couple starting places: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
US Global Change Research Program

[Chongo]

I hope folks are actually clicking on the links instead of doing the skim-assumptions.
 
 I found my links rather witty. Then again, I usually think I'm witty. Keeps me entertained.
 
 IPCC is a good resource.

[hawklen]

You are witty chongo!

And it shouldnt be "Save our Planet" It should be "save Our habital Zone"

Oh, has any of those links done research to include the increased output of the sun, and increase in solar radiation and so on?

*shifty eyed*

[darkstorme]

*nods*  I linked IPCC a few times in my initial posts to this thread, and the USGCRP (though the later is euphemistically named, in my opinion).

@Chongo: While the links are clever, the situations are somewhat different; in "the 70s case, people saw a situation and were looking for causation - in the modern case, people predicted an effect from greenhouse gases, and the observations are starting to fit the model.

A bit scarier, I think.

@Skywatcher - I've always been fond of that quotation.. well, that and the paired quotations on quantum physics:

If you are not completely confused by quantum mechanics, you do not understand it." - John Wheeler.
"Nobody understands quantum theory" - Richard Feynman

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

According to Google News, the IPCC put out some new information as of thirty minutes after I looked it up in second period - i.e. sometime around 9:30 EDT this morning.

IPCC Reports Quick Action Can Avert Worst Climate Impacts

There's the link... Though oddly it only lists as being an hour ago, now. Many hours later...

[darkstorme]

Nice article, Stephen - it's about as thorough an answer to #3 above as I've yet seen.

Oh, has any of those links done research to include the increased output of the sun, and increase in solar radiation and so on?

 I would imagine that the UN council would, in fact, have taken something that simple into account over the years that they've done these studies, but even if THEY haven't, one of my links involved a satellite study of the atmosphere, and the amount of entering solar radiation vs. the amount of leaving solar radiation.  The gist of it was that there is an incongruity between the amount that should be leaving (for a steady-state temperature system) and the amount that is leaving.  And given the size of the incongruity, it's virtually impossible that it's a natural occurrence.

[vitor]

*winces*  Sorry, vitor, not really supporting your horse:



Not exactly.  Rising temperatures can disrupt the prevailing wind and water currents on the globe, resulting in major weather pattern change.  Carbon dioxide is clear, and cannot act as a "smokescreen".  Particulate matter in the atmosphere could lower temperatures (as Krakatoa did), but the issue here is with gases that trap solar radiation, not things that reflect them.

 Well, what happens is: The ash, accumulates small particles of water, which doesn't fall as rain as it should. These makes huge and dense cloud, what blocks and reflects sun rays, what doesnt let the area under it be warmed. The changes are on rains, which are lesser, and then... aridity.
 That's called Global Dimming.

[hawklen]

*thinks* Wish I could find the link, but it was a study, showed the suns output has increased around 30%. Forget in how many millions of years.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Well, what happens is: The ash, accumulates small particles of water, which doesn't fall as rain as it should. These makes huge and dense cloud, what blocks and reflects sun rays, what doesnt let the area under it be warmed. The changes are on rains, which are lesser, and then... aridity.
 That's called Global Dimming.

Any sources on that to cite? I mean, it's an interesting theory (even if I, personally, feel its likelihood is slim), but if you've got any sources to cite on that, I'd be interested in reading them.

What that sounds like, though, is good, ol' fashioned, acid-rain-producing smog.

[Gunther]

Its still in the mid 30's in eastern WA.  And its May.  We had snow falling three weeks ago.  Any chance this global warming could hurry up and get here?  To quote Dr. Evil, "Its fricking freezing up here".

I think I'm gonna go park my car in the driveway and leave it running all night.

[ycleption]

*thinks* Wish I could find the link, but it was a study, showed the suns output has increased around 30%. Forget in how many millions of years.

The sun's output has natural cycles, just like the earth. How that affects earth's climate is very poorly understood at the moment. Even our highest estimates however, places the radiative forcing due to solar variability far below that of CO2 alone (see the 2001 IPCC report for details). Some more recent studies suggest that up 30% of global warming may be due to the sun, but I don't know too much about the details. I may check and get back to you :-)

[Kindo]

Plus,the earth doesnt care about it. It will go on and continue to create life. Its only humans that care.

Yeah, actually, the planet does care about its condition and the destruction we cause to it. I thought it was obvious to everyone that we're not magically building it up and making it "feel better", but we are, rather, slowly consuming it. What environmentalists and certain politicians try to do is to simply try to minimize the damage we do to the planet, or to rectify damage already done to it. I'm not commenting on global warming, except to say I believe it does exist, only I cannot say to which extent. My point is, we are consuming it. It's not like the nature is consuming itself.

Sir David Attenborough said something along the lines of; 'We have a unique power to do what we want with this beautiful planet. We can either destroy it, or we cherish it.'

[MJZ]

Yes, the earth goes through it's own periods of warming and cooling, ice ages, and the like. It is difficult therefore to tell precisely what climactic changes are due to human pollution - but I think we can all agree that if cities in America have "smog alert" days, our contribution isn't exactly a positive one. You know I'm in Atten's boat, Kindo.

But I just LOVE when people go on as if humans were entirely separate entities from ALL other existence and all other life. Obviously never studied human origins or well, biology, for that matter. But oh well. They'll be feeding daisies soon enough.

lo, I actually do love your response - words of wisdom, words of wisdom.

[darkstorme]

Well, what happens is: The ash, accumulates small particles of water, which doesn't fall as rain as it should. These makes huge and dense cloud, what blocks and reflects sun rays, what doesnt let the area under it be warmed. The changes are on rains, which are lesser, and then... aridity.
 That's called Global Dimming.

This is true.  It is not, however, associated with global warming in any manner other than its probable cause: burning diesel and other dirty fuels (wood, coal, etc.) and aerosols.  These wind up sending particular matter (macroscopic pollution) into the upper atmosphere, where it blocks solar radiation.  These particles also bind with water vapour, causing cloud formation (in the same way that clouds can be "seeded" with silver iodide to cause rain), which in turn blocks solar radiation.

It has been suggested that Global Dimming has had a mitigating effect on Global Warming, since it increases the albedo of the planet by inducing cloud formation.  This is hotly (no pun intended) debated, however, since carbon black absorbs solar radiation, heating the upper atmosphere, and increasing global temperature regardless - but without permitting the solar radiation to directly impinge on the ocean, and thus slowing evaporation as well.

This slowed evaporation is a mixed blessing; water vapour is a greenhouse gas, so slowing evaporation will slow global warming, albeit slightly, but once the macroscopic pollutants are bound to water droplets, they can be rained out of the sky, clearing it and removing the pollutants that are hazardous to health and global well-being.  (This can result in acid rain, but this is in fact easier to deal with than airborne sulfates.)

There has actually been a decrease in global dimming over the last decade or so - a steady measured increase for three decades (starting in the mid-sixties), and then a gradual decline to the present day.  This is attributed to the banning of certain aerosols from public use, and the decreased and cleaner use of coal for power.

The process of Global Dimming was what led to the fears of Global Cooling that the Time magazine article Chongo referenced from the 1970s was referring to.  Calculations involving a simple energy model to represent the earth's absorption/reflection of solar energy indicated that sufficient pollution (or a major volcanic eruption) could raise the earth's albedo to the point where more ice would form.. further raising the earth's albedo, and so on, and so forth, until a new ice age would begin.  (This is the converse of the result of global warming, as the ice caps shrink.)  However, these early models took macroscopic pollution alone into account, and didn't calculate for the greenhouse effect induced by the non-reflective pollutants flooding into the atmosphere.

The odd weather patterns perceived to have been caused by Global Cooling were in fact induced by the disruption to the hydrologic cycle caused by the absorption/reflection of solar radiation in the upper atmosphere, rather than in the oceans.  This disrupted certain prevailing winds, and has been had things attributed to it to the present day, like the unusual 2006 Atlantic hurricane season.

Gobal Dimming was suggested in the late 70s as a desperation measure to deal with a runaway greenhouse effect (ie, burning sulfates in the atmosphere to block out planet-heating sunlight), but this was largely gainsaid due to the fact that[list=1]

• the pollutants/aerosols involved, in order to blot out sufficient solar radiation, would have to be of a type necessarily harmful to human (and general biologic) health.
• because there are no pollutants linked to Global Dimming which do not also speed the Greenhouse Effect, more and more aerosols would have to be pumped into the atmosphere just to keep steady-state.. with the resultant ecological fallout.

(It should come as little surprise that this desperation measure was suggested by the same Russian group that suggested using nuclear weapons to snuff out forest fires.  You have to give them credit for enthusiasm.)

Regardless, my beef with your comment, Vitor, was not that it was generally incorrect, but specifically incorrect, since you seemed to be linking it to carbon dioxide (not the case) and global warming pollutants (only partially the case.)

[vitor]

The problem is, english is not my first language, then, sometimes, i say something thinking im saying another... my words may be not so clear, and my translation not perfect.