Analyzing Climate Change On Carbon Rich Peat Bogs 163
eldavojohn writes "A new report (PDF) from Climate Central shows that climate change has been affecting some states more than others for the past 100 years. As you can see from a video released by NASA, things have become most problematic since the 70s. Among the states most affected is Minnesota, where moose populations are estimated to have dropped 50% in the past six years. Now the U.S. Department of Energy is spending $50 million on a massive project at the Marcell Experimental Forest to build controlled sections of 36 feet wide and 32 feet tall transparent chambers over peatland ecosystems. Although peat bogs only account for 3% of Earth's surface, they contain over 30% of carbon stored in soil. They aim to manipulate these enclosures to see the effects of warming up to 15 degrees, searching for a tipping point and also observing what new ecosystems might arise. The project hopes to draw attention and analysis from hundreds of scientists and researchers around the globe."
Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Interesting)
So in a sense the fact that scientists in the U.S are still able to openly conduct this sort of research is good news, even if the discoveries they make are bad.
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It depends on the state. The North Carolina legislature, for example, has just thrown out any climate models that don't solely rely on historical data.
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So logically then, all forms of prediction based on simulations of the real world must be banned in NC. I can well imagine the following conversation:
Officer: Sir, do you know why I have pulled you over?
Driver: Uh, I'm not sure officer
Officer: What is that on your dash?
Driver: It's a GPS, I'm -
Officer: And what does it say?
Driver: Well, see the thing is, I'm from out of town and -
Officer: SIR! I asked you a question
Driver:.... It says my destination is Ansonville and it's 22 minutes
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:4, Funny)
Driver: But it's OK! See, it's a Garmin "Ye Olde Trip Almanacke", and it's based only on trips made 100 years ago!
Officer: In that case, welcome to the Ansonville city limits, sir.
Sigh of relief.... (Score:2)
Then, I read it was in the US, and had something to do with a few Moose dying off...
At least my Scotch supply won't be impeded!!!
Ahh....Balvenie!!!
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But moose drool is vital to the production of Scotch!
I take it you've never actually savored a real single malt Scotch.
Its flavor is dominated by curds of moose snot, lovingly matured for years in second-hand barrels by skilled craftsmen. Fresh moose drool is only in the cheaper "blended" varieties found in hellholes like Tesco supermarkets.
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Insightful)
A climate model does the same thing but with many more dimensions. The legislation is based on the notion that climate doesn't change and hence historical trends will be sufficient for predicting future climate. This, as another poster accurately quipped, is like a GPS based on travel times from a 100 years ago.
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Because the Climate is controlled by three variables.
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You are the one who made the comparison.
Which is it? Climate Models predicts the future like a GPS predicts your arrival time or they are nothing alike?
Your analogy is a complete fail.
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It's the projection component of climate models which is specifically barred. In my illustration, this translates to using a GPS to predict when the driver will arrive in Ansonville. Do make this prediction, the GPS baselines various variables (speed, distance to travel, road data) and then predicts when the vehicle will arrive. A climate model does the same thing but with many more dimensions. The legislation is based on the notion that climate doesn't change and hence historical tre
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, the fallacies come fast and strong with that one ;) My favorite is the deadpan "In region after region, if one model predicted a tendency toward more flooding, the other tended to predict drying," as if the two can't happen in the same region, and as if both aren't forecast predictions of a warmer climate. No, clearly a region must *only* flood or *only* experience drought! There's no way that the most intense precipitation events (the ones that cause flooding) can increase as moisture in the troposphere increases, and that evaporation rates and precipitation variability increases due to warmer temperatures as well as seasonal river flow rate variability increases due to reduced snow cover can occur, alongside already-being-observed northward shifts in the jetstream and other precipitation-pattern altering events. Definitely not! ;) Apparently he's picturing that people are predicting some sort of weird hybrid drought-flood instead of discrete drought events and flood events.
Anyway, no need to read an opinion piece by a solidly-in-the-minority individual; there are ample peer-reviewed studies on the accuracy of cliamte forecasts. Now, this comes with the caveat that in the 1970s and 1980s climate science was in its infancy, and even in the 1990s there was a lot that was still being learned. And, as appropriate, the science in these time periods made clear their level of understanding, just as it does now, including discussions of mitigating factors, margins of error based on the unknowns, and so forth. The IPCC reviewed these papers in the TAR [grida.no]. Among the "well-established" conclusions (the highest confidence category): "Coupled models can provide credible simulations of both the annual mean climate and the climatological seasonal cycle over broad continental scales for most variables of interest for climate change. Clouds and humidity remain sources of significant uncertainty but there have been incremental improvements in simulations of these quantities."
The section has 416 peer-reviewed references, pretty much the whole of the modern literature on the topic. The problem with cherry picking and making un-peer-reviewed claims - aka, that entire article you linked - is that it's basically the opposite of the scientific process. Cherry picking a broad field of research and making un-peer-reviewed claims can allow someone to make virtually *any* argument in virtually *any* field, with the errors only obvious to those who work in the field. Aka, another term for it is "propaganda".
And yes, both sides do this to try to sway the public. The difference is that only one side actually has the field consensus on their side as well.
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OK, so things are going to hell in a handbasket and if we continue burning pretty much anything we are all doomed. Right?
There is one huge problem with this. People are pretty subborn about strong beliefs. So much so that they tend towards behaviors that will induce other people with different beliefs to kill them and they go willingly to their deaths rather than abandon their beliefs. You know, the whole "Give me liberty or give me death" sort of thing. Joan of Arc, etc. Got it?
So where are the "clim
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Citation needed.
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Wow, the fallacies come fast and strong with that one ;) My favorite is the deadpan "In region after region, if one model predicted a tendency toward more flooding, the other tended to predict drying," as if the two can't happen in the same region, and as if both aren't forecast predictions of a warmer climate.
... As if government planners can't use it to plan for the future. Oh, wait...
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Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only cherry picked (aka, of the countless papers on the subject, picking out the very few that support their point of view)... but it's not even peer reviewed.
Look, if you don't like how science works, just go ahead and say it: "I hate science". Just be honest about it and say it. Don't try to pretend like what you're doing is in any way accordant with science.
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Ask Ignaz Semmelweis [wikipedia.org] how well he liked how science really works.
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The more I read about all this the more I don't trust the scientists
Yes, because listening to people who a) have no extended knowledge of the subject, b) have extensive bias, c) make money off of arguing against the scientific consensus is a much better alternative.
I mean, if you are REALLY interested in finding out the truth, you could do the research yourself. Let me know when your paper passes peer review. If you do manage to overturn the consensus, you'd be a hero on the scale of Galileo.
Though to be honest, I'm not holding my breath.
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cite?
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Yes, cherry picking *a single report* out of the many hundreds on any given climate topic is the very essence of cherry picking. And the fact that their claims have not passed peer-review make them irrelevant. So why are you wasting my time with irrelevance?
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Why would I go to a long-dead particle physicist for climate predictions?
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Your post is missing these things, AC:
1) Citation
2) Relevancy
It is therefore guilty of the following logical fallacies: appeal to authority (look it up, it's more subtle than you think) and strawman. Since that is all your post consists of, you have actually contributed only noise to the discussion. Congratulations. Keep at it, AC.
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:4, Informative)
The climate models in use thirty years ago when I was at school told us that by now, up here around 56 degrees north we'd be buried under a mile of ice, and that equatorial Africa would have a climate similar to Central Europe.
Please provide a link to the model in question, as well as a peer reviewed paper from the 1980s predicting a mile of ice covering land masses at 56 degrees north.
The climate models in use twenty years ago when I was at university told us that by now, the Earth would be fried by intense UV because of the complete unstoppable destruction of the ozone layer, with arid deserts reaching from the Sahara to as far north as Denmark - where it wasn't all submerged under water from the melting icecaps.
Please provide a link to the models in question, as well as a peer reviewed paper from the early 1990s making those predictions.
The climate models in use ten years ago when I worked on data visualisation for - among other things - weather modelling told us that by now, we'd be experiencing unprecedented storms, hurricane-force winds all year round, and bitterly cold winters and blistering hot summers that kill off all the arable crops.
Please provide a link to the models and peer reviewed papers from 2002 which make those predictions.
You'll have to forgive me if I don't entirely believe the climate predictions we hear today.
You'll have to forgive me if I think that you are intellectually dishonest and fraudulent - given:
1. In the 1980s to prevalent view on global warming was the same as it is now, and models from the 1980s accurately predict the warming we've seen since.
2. *I* was in university (studying science) in the early 1990s and the prevalent view of global warming at the time was exactly as it is now. In the early 90s the hole in the ozone layer had been known for 20 years, and satellites accurately mapped it's extent and growth - and the effects of UV were well known and not exaggerated.
3. In 2002 the prevailing view on climate was exactly as it is now, and no predictions were made in 2002 abotu what would be happening in 2012, apart from what we have subsequently observed
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This is what really puts me off with the whole "no - we havent changed our mind, we were saying exactly the same thing before"-shtick.
I *personally* remember being indoctrinated (well - they tried their best).
Having lots of young people (who weren't even alive in the 80s) trying to convince you that you now have false memories of the past and that nothing that you experienced actually happened is quite irritating and further detracts from anything sensible they might have to say. Makes them seem like a bunc
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Please provide a link yourself (Score:1)
Your snide comments ignore the fact you cannot provide a link to any truly peer reviewed paper proving the modern disasters predicted ahead - all of them used data that was not generally published.
No model published has been able to predict anything about what the climate is doing, what sea levels are doing, etc. etc. - yet they are not afraid to make the most dire of forecasts, like four feet of sea level rise.
So be careful throwing that stone around, there are a LOT of glass walls where you are standing.
Y
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you'll have to actually come up with something concrete and based on REAL science.
Is that something like a real Scotsman?
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Your snide comments ignore the fact you cannot provide a link to any truly peer reviewed paper proving the modern disasters predicted ahead - all of them used data that was not generally published.
I take it from this radical change in rhetoric that in fact, there is NO models that make the predictions specified by the GP: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2917007&cid=40333763 [slashdot.org] - specifically:
There is no model form the 1980s that predicted that by now, at 56 degrees latitude north landmasses will be buried under a mile of ice, and that equatorial Africa would have a climate similar to Central Europe.
There is no model from the 1990s that the Earth would be fried by intense UV because of the c
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And we did something to invalidate the models - we actually banned CFCs. I believe the Montreal Protocol [wikipedia.org] was one of the drivers to prevent depletion of the ozone layer.
Basically
I suggest you go to Greenland (Score:2)
dozens of mines have opened in areas where it wasn't viable as late as 10 years ago due to coverage 40 metres deep of ice that has since disappeared making the opening of these mines viable for the 1st time.
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Climate Change Twaddle:
Here's your Climate Change [wattsupwiththat.com]
Interesting that a Google search doesn't really show anyone in the AGW crowds addressing this.
The reason I suspect is that (a) ClimateAudit and WUWT aren't the contenders they think they are. Climate scientists go to the chicken coop to collect the eggs - not to engage in stimulating conversation. and
(b) It's obvious from the discussion following that something has gone wrong in the climateaudit analysis although it takes a while to sink in. Then some awkward questions start arising. Does the O18 data from the Law Dome actually match the assertion? What is the relationship between the O18 data and
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It depends on the state. The North Carolina legislature, for example, has just thrown out any climate models that don't solely rely on historical data.
Not quite: they are ignoring all evidence of acceleration of sea-level climate rise. The sea-level rise has been accelerating, and expected by nearly all researchers to continue to do so (and models). The legislature has decided it would be more convenient if it didn't, and is dismissing all research that gives more than 15 inches of sea-level rise in 100 years (current consensus is 1 meter).
All the models are validated by historical data, and hence "rely" on it (and physics).
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If anything, it has been slowing down over the last decade as global temperatures have stabilized, the net icepack (NH and SH) combined has actually grown, and even the NH ice coverage is within a fingernail's width of the thirty year mean.
People seem to be confusing the order in which science is done. Observations trump theory. When the theory is an elaborate one with many adjustable, essentially unknown parameters and little objective predictive ski
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Informative)
and even the NH ice coverage is within a fingernail's width of the thirty year mean.
Wrong. [noaa.gov]
When (no matter what) the sea level isn't going to suddenly jump ten centimeters in a decade (where at most 1-2 cm is a lot more likely)
Strawman [wikipedia.org]
the measured bond albedo of the Earth has increased by 7% over the last fifteen years,
Mistaking cycles for linear trends [njit.edu]
which corresponds to a roughly 2 C temperature drop due to reduced net insolation "off the top" as it were.
Total lack of data for that statement. I'm willing to check out any support you have, but just as a warning, a 2 C change due to change in bond albedo is basically impossible just based on the temperature data we have.
looking out the window at the water in Beaufort NC, where the tidal levels haven't significantly changed for years).
Yes, because eye-balling a waterline trumps actual measurements taken over the course of decades, and where significant seems to mean something completely different to you than to oceanographers - or anyone working with oceans.
Yes, you've indeed admirably proven your position with sources that are peer-reviewed, based on multiple and independent data sets, and you have demonstrated a strong understanding of basic physics, scientific principles and research methodology. /sarcasm
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Wow, linking to primary resources is now a troll post. Nice going, America. And yes, odds are that the troll post comes from a conservative/republican American. They could also come from a caveman, but I repeat myself.
NOW feel free to waste your mod points on flamebait.
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You mean the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, used to determine the greybody temperature that is the base from which the Greenhouse Effect proceeds to warm the planet? Since the energy influx that has to be in balance with outgoing radiation is TOA insolation less radiation that is directly reflected
Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:4, Informative)
At least you're starting to show your work. Your entire first paragraph, until the last sentence, is actually correct. Two issues still: the 7% increase in albedo is not a unanimous fact. See here for quite a few papers discussing the evolution of albedo, the accuracy of the Earthlight project, etc: http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/papers-on-the-albedo-of-the-earth/ [wordpress.com]. Secondly, the calculation has been met with great skepticism, precisely because the 2C drop in temperature hasn't been observed. This means that changes in albedo have a very limited impact on the global temperature. Finally, Grey-body calculations are fine, but they are far more complex than you let on. For one, what's the impact of dealing with irradition onto a sphere, instead of onto an ideal black-body cavity with an albedo factor applied to it? Hint: it involves integration.
You're still completely lacking in citations. Here, let me help you a bit with a paper actually discussing the impact of bond albedo and solar cycles on future insolation: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/apr/article/download/14754/10140 [ccsenet.org] They don't discuss the
As for the other assertions, obviously we look at different graphs for sea ice -- the SH is over the 30 year mean and has been for a rather long time.
Sea ice is a rather minor aspect of the ice in the SH, as well as utterly uninteresting when it comes to rising sea levels. Furthermore, you are conflating ice area and ice volume. See here for some very accurate measurements that indicate that ice volume is decreasing: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uoca-ais022806.php [eurekalert.org] Now that you're 0 for 2, you want to try again?
If you google a bit, you can actually see the variation year by year over the last decade or more, all on one graph.
Yes, it's well known. It's the one I linked. I'm glad you don't even read the replies. It's a great way to stay ignorant and look like a fool.
Oh, and while you're worrying about explaining how you can tell what is a linear trend and what is cyclic in the absence of any sort of serious baseline for data or workable theory,
Ok, now I KNOW that you didn't read anything I linked to. Want to retry that AFTER looking at the graph in my reply? Or are you talking about the slight uptick that came from the Earthlight project, and that no one was able to replicate in their DIRECT measurements of albedo?
But either way the physics of both is perfectly clear, and any halfway decent climate model that includes the measured albedo as a parameter should be showing strong cooling.
The models do include measured albedo, you meandering, cherry-picking, misleading nimrod, and neither the data, nor the models indicate much cooling. Merely a bit of a pause after a record high in 1998, with a slight upward trend if you start your trend at 1999.
But they're not, even though this is bone-simple physics even more fundamental (and prior to) the GHE. I wonder why?
If you would read anything I've linked to, did any sort of research with the goal of understanding your question, rather than confirming your existing bias, you'd know that everyone has been asking the same question, came to the conclusion that the physics model is far too simple to be used as the only controlling factor, and decided that there's got to be more to the current data than what can be inferred merely from water vapor and albedo.
If you want me to take you seriously, you might want to start linking your sources. Because so far, you are batting a big fat 0, and coming across as someone who is mistaking expertise in one area for expertise in a completely different one - and making a total ass out of himself in the process.
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My understanding is that applies mainly to sea-level predictions, which according to some models should be meters higher on the way to 60 meter increase, where reality is more like a couple millimeters.
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What models would those be that show sea level "should be meters higher on the way to [a] 60 meter increase"? I'd bet you couldn't cite even one specific model that predicts any such thing in less than centuries.
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That's not true; even the proponents of the bill admit that NC sea levels have risen. They want to constrain decisions, however, to the historic rate that the sea level has been rising, not the forecast rate, which is predicted to increase.
The Earth has a great degree of climate inertia. The ocean is basically a massive heat sink. Inertia means a slow start to acceleration followed by an increasingly rapid slope.
I have no clue who these "some fellows" you speak of are, or whether you're even talking abou
hazards (Score:2)
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Which is why there have been many dozens of papers published on model analysis, and everyone includes statistical confidence intervals and discussions of the known and potential unknown uncertainties.
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Re:Somewhat welcome news (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not just "openly" conducting the research, they're doing it with money from the government. So actually the situation is even better than you think.
Yes - as I said, it is fortunate that in some countries research which contradicts the prevailing view of the government and it's financial 'contributors' (such as the Heartland Institute) is allowed to continue, at least outside of North Carolina. In Australia such intellectual honesty is not permitted - governments threaten errant scientists with a loss of funding, while denialists openly threaten their lives and the lives of their families.
The government not only approves of what they do - it actually pays them to do it!
"Approves" is not the word you are looking for - tolerates, for the time being, might be more realistic description
(Don't worry! This source of funding does not in any way influence the results. Honest. There's no pressure to produce results that help to get more grant money in the future.)
I'm not actually that worried about the big money affecting the science - various attempts have been made (e.g. Lindzen ) but failed. The big money owns the policy makers and will continue to do so despite the blindingly obvious truth that the science is giving us.
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Yes - as I said, it is fortunate that in some countries research which contradicts the prevailing view of the government and it's financial 'contributors' (such as the Heartland Institute) is allowed to continue, at least outside of North Carolina. In Australia such intellectual honesty is not permitted - governments threaten errant scientists with a loss of funding, while denialists openly threaten their lives and the lives of their families.
It might surprise you to find out, then, that this isn't the case at all.
In the US, the biggest long-running political contributors in the country have been Unions. Unions, as well as climate change, are the bastion of the political Left in the US. These institutions are the producers of every single 'legal' field in the US, from which all politicans tend to come from. They feed the beast of growth known as bureaucracy much more than the Right by perpetuating their own existence - much in the same way a cor
"15 degrees" of what? (Score:1)
Please always provide a unit. Thank you.
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My two cents... (Score:5, Insightful)
I seriously hope people reduce pollution for the sake of reducing pollution, regardless of whether it helps fight "climate change", "global warming", "intergalactic global warming", or whatever you want to call it. Regardless of the cause, cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution.
I hope people take these studies with a grain of salt. There seems to be so much conflicting information out there as to what the cause is or how to reduce it, it seems hopeless. So I'll say this again. Cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution.
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is so conflicting about people pumping up 75million years worth of hydrocarbons, burning it all over a period of 200 years, releasing a shit load of greenhouse gasses in the process, and nature going out of whack because of it?
Everybody is trying to figure out what the possible consequences of this are going to be, some predicting the end of the world, others wondering what could possibly go wrong, we've been burning fossil fuel as fast as we can for the past 50 years, and we're still here, right? Wouldn't it be more conservative to play it on the safe side, and find a way away from our gasoline addiction, instead of trying to be the kind of conservative when keeping up the unrestrained growth, consumption, and related pollution? The fact that there are probable consequences of all of this pollution, especially on a scale as large as this, should encourage us to play it safe.
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Interesting)
We've done a lot worse than just burn the coal and oil. Hell, most of the substances we use everyday just do not exist in nature and there are billions of pieces of plastic floating in the oceans that weren't there 50 years ago. You don't get mercury pouring into the oceans if you just leave a planet without intelligent life.
But, that aside, just what precisely do you think will change? You're going to stop the world using oils, plastics and fuels before they run out anyway? Not a chance. It will not happen. It took decades to convince people not to use CFC's in large quantities but we still use them, and only converted because it was legislated, enforced and (to be honest) wasn't that much of a hassle in the first place. Cutting out the large items is actually orders-of-magnitude more difficult and unlikely to happen. And, actually, enforcing a "veggie-only" law and outlawing meat for everyone would actually do more, be cheaper and be accepted just as much (i.e. virtually zero).
Anything we build to replace those plastics and oil that we used will also require HUGE quantities of exactly those at first in order to scale up to the point where we replace them. Don't believe the hype about "sustainable" plastics because they are pretty much unusable for all the things we NEED to use plastics for, and cost SO MUCH ENERGY we can only supply it by burning fossil fuels or uranium. It's the "electric car" phenomenon all over again - you're just shifting the use of those materials and energies somewhere else instead, not actually "saving" anything.
Pretty much the only viable solution, when you take human nature into account (and not just ordinary individuals, who can do more eco-friendly things than governments ever do, but just the fact that you can't convince a country to stop using oil any more than you can outlaw meat), is to let them burn it all off.
Do the damage now. Do it as fast as possible. Run it out. Leave us with nothing. Then the 200 years of damage is unlikely to do much (on geological scales) to the planet at all long-term, and we won't have any excuse for not doing things differently. We'd actually lose quite a lot of things we take for granted up to and including our own lives in some cases (you can't sustain population numbers like we have now without the medicine and energy use we currently have). But that's the only "logical" outcome when you look at how the world works.
Stop faffing about pretending that an extra few years of oil before we suddenly make everything eco-friendly is going to make ANY difference at all. Just burn the stuff now. All of it. Run out the plastics until the prices rises to stupendous levels and we're forced to go back to older ways (which included chopping down and burning tress, I'd like to point out), reduce the population, or revert society back to an age where people couldn't guarantee food for themselves, let alone homes.
The problems of eco-destruction are nothing to do with climate change, animal extinctions or anything else. The problem is that when we run out, you have instantaneous anarchy and a dark-ages effect of not being able to do 1% of the things we take for granted. But actually, the BIGGEST problem is that our population would be decimated worldwide almost overnight. We can't grow, transport, store and treat enough food to feed people without consuming oil and oil-products galore. And have you seen the amount of fertile land it takes to sustain one person in even a third-world country? There simply isn't enough.
So stop TRYING to pretend we can actually do anything practical which doesn't lead to the same population decimation +/- 5 years anyway, accept it and burn the damn stuff up now finding alternatives. Hell, if that means space missions to find more resources (e.g. methane or something else we can burn) and other places to live, then do it. Do it now. Stop hanging around and pissing away resources on eco-initiatives that DO NOT WORK while waiting until the point that there isn't enough f
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In essence, the issue is sustainability. Regardless of whether burning oil or producing plastic is bad for the environment, the simple fact is there are limited raw materials and we are overly dependent.
Re:My two cents... (Score:4, Insightful)
Run it out. Leave us with nothing. Then the 200 years of damage is unlikely to do much (on geological scales) to the planet at all long-term
Releasing hundreds of millions of years worth of CO2 in 200 years is going to do more damage than releasing it in 2000 or 200,000. The problem isn't the CO2, all that CO2 came from the atmosphere at one point. The problem is a rapid change in CO2 causing rapid changes in climate that species do not have time to adapt to.
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And you really think that oil etc. will last another 200 years, let alone 2000 or 200,000 (the last of which is the only one where you'll actually see animals start to "adapt" in any evolutionary term - i.e. all the dead animals haven't bred successfully).
Geological scales.
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No, I expect humanity will choke itself on it's own wastes, like yeast in a jar of sugar water that eventually produces toxic concentrations of ethanol. That doesn't mean we should encourage it, even yeast isn't that stupid.
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No, I expect humanity will choke itself on it's own wastes, like yeast in a jar of sugar water that eventually produces toxic concentrations of ethanol. That doesn't mean we should encourage it, even yeast isn't that stupid.
I expect that humanity, on the whole, will do just fine, and that all of the disasters that have been predicted and yet haven't happened... island chains and coastal states under water, vast famines in first world countries because theyv'e turned to desert, etc... still aren't going to happen. Oh, famines have happened in the third world and they will continue to, from time to time, but they'll happen in all the normal places for all the normal reasons. What I will predict is that everytime a famine or hurr
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Nevermind that these things happen from time to time
A hundred million years of carbon deposits don't get released in a 200 year time frame "from time to time".
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And, actually, enforcing a "veggie-only" law and outlawing meat for everyone would actually do more, be cheaper and be accepted just as much (i.e. virtually zero).
It would? On what basis? There is no evidence of this aside from fancy little fliers pushed out by NGOs like PETA on the basis of animal cruelty.
People who make this claim are, in my opinion, not really thinking much at all.
* Without meat, you will have no source of the necessary fats for proper muscle and brain functionality. They barely exist anywhere else, and where they do exist, it's in places like $12/lb nuts - and they're only that cheap due to near-slave labor.
* Meat, in most cases, means beef. Beef
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Pollution is not the issue here. You can put all kinds of scrubbers on a smokestack and get pollution (sulfer dioxide, CFCs, CO, etc) down to minimal levels, but you will still be pumping massive loads of CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 isn't considered pollution, it's just a natural molecule in the atmosphere like O2 and N2.
Winning hearts by confusing minds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cut pollution for the sake of cutting pollution.
Problem is, a large number of people don't consider CO2 to be a pollutant [youtube.com].
There seems to be so much conflicting information out there as to what the cause is or how to reduce it, it seems hopeless
Yep, life is messy and it's often hard to find a candle in the dark [wikipedia.org], it's full of blatant self serving liars such as the one in the linked video who on the surface appear to be reasonable common sense folk, to deal with with this avalanche of intellectual dishonesty from proffesional propogandists, and avoid being drafted into their particular army of useful idiots [wikipedia.org], you can either...
1. Pick the side that best matches your politics/r
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True, air pollution has much more serious effects on the environment than climate change, but it's not nearly as easy to market in the media than "the day after tomorrow"-style catastrophe scenarios with islands sinking to the bottom of the sea and stuff. Another problem is that reduction of air pollution and reduction of CO2 emissions are many times at odds with each other: for example, the catalytic converters on cars that neutralize the pollutants in the exhaust gas also reduce the efficiency of the engi
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If there's no detrimental effect of the pollution, then it's not really pollution. Therefore, anyone who cleans up pollution isn't doing it merely for the sake of cleaning up pollution, but to avoid the detrimental effects that make it pollution.
Declining Meese Populations (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if the decline is real, or if it's a sampling error. From the paper:
We estimated moose numbers and age/sex ratios by flying transects within a stratified random sample of survey plots (Figure 1). Survey plots were last stratified in 2009.
Could the stratification of plots be a source of error? I am not sure. They did account for viability bias:
We accounted for visibility bias by using a sightability model (Giudice et al. 2012).
But, did they properly account for a number of other sources of error (e.g. migration; herd location; etc)? I'm not saying their method is flawed, just that I cannot tell from the paper whether or not other reasons for the change in data.
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Quite possibly. It does seem like it would be very difficult to accurately determine error bars on those plots for exactly the reasons you suggested. Perhaps they were relying on other data that suggested migration was not a significant factor? They have mentioned other tracking methods; radio collars, for example, that they have also used.
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Biodome's don't work (Score:4, Informative)
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From the article at minnesota.publicradio.org [publicradio.org] :
The chambers aren't biodomes since they're open at the top. This means there will be plenty of fresh air, but temperature and CO2 levels can be raised by adding heat and CO2.
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But if CO2 causes warming as they claim (Score:1)
why do they also have to heat it?
Other Factors (Score:4, Interesting)
Moose populations are probably a poor indicator, especially in areas near the edges of their normal habitat. These are affected by deforestation, marsh draining, and more importantly, do not mix well in areas that also have deer (or so I'm led to believe) due to a disease frequently found in deer feces.
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Yep. Exactly.
This could simply be caused by the explosive deer population growth over the past decade (in most of the US). Deer are now one of the biggest vectors for disease in the US - lime disease, west nile, and many other things which ticks, fleas, and mites carry. People have even hypothesized that deer are partially responsible for the migration of bedbugs westward, from the Northeast regions.
Deer and other game do compete for food, and due to deer population numbers, they will push out the other spe
Single-malt (Score:2)
A long as these studies don't impact the production of my favorite, peaty single-malt Scotches... damn the environment, I need my Laphroaig, Ardbeg and Caol Ila!
GOP (Score:3)
Statistics (Score:1)
"Although peat bogs only account for 3% of Earth's surface, they contain over 30% of carbon stored in soil."
I hate sentences like this. Don't compare apples and oranges. What % of the Earth's surface is soil? Then, what % of soil is peat bog? Don't jump that step to make your conclusions look more dire than they actually are.
I want to save the environment as much as the next guy. But I want to do it with sound logic, numbers, and reasoning, not deliberately inflammatory statistics.
Re:Minnesota Temps wend DOWN during the last 8 yea (Score:5, Funny)
Or those prone to go childish on this topic.
My irony meter just exploded.
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"Watching the Deadliest Catch they said the annual Ice was the worst if not worse then in 1972."
In northern waters the worst ice comes right after the spring breakup when lots of icebergs drift south.
Anti-science: Winning heats and confusing minds (Score:2)
The way the measure temps is laughable
I suggest that what you are doing is trying to understand the issue by reading people like Anthony Watts and their manafactured contraversies are confusing you. Here's a link to a very simple NASA experiment [noaa.gov] you can do yourself, it anhilates the ashpalt and concrete argument, Watts' recation to that debunking was to start issuing false DCMA take downs to hide it. Watts is just wrong and refuses to aknowledge it for
Re:Minnesota Temps wend DOWN during the last 8 yea (Score:5, Interesting)
The link you provided only lists temperature by month, which are you referring to? Isn't this the very definition of cherry picking data to prove your point? Why look at only an 8yr period when there is data going back to 1895?
If we can pick our point first and then choose the data, look at this study which says MN has experienced the highest temperature increase over the last 40 years. http://www.startribune.com/local/158771045.html
Nobody said the temperature has increased 15C, the article only says that is what the experiment is testing up to (actually it doesn't say 15C or 15F). This is standard engineering practice to stress test a system beyond the "norms" to simulate longer periods of time than is reasonable to test.
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If you had seriously read the article you might have noticed that they mentioned that fall temperatures have a significant impact on the moose because they don't eat as much when it's warm (they overheat too easily), and they need to bulk up in the fall to prepare for winter. So if warmer weather lasts longer then the Moose delay the start of the bulking period and not enough food may be left when they begin the bulking or they might not have enough time between the start of their bulking period and the fi
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The moose were supposed to have died in the story, of warmth, during the last 5 years.
Just as it was getting colder and colder.
So looking at the last 8 years is reasonable.
Since the last 10000 years had a temperature stretch of 4C,
were they trying to find out what happens 40000 years from now? 26000 years ago there were Neanderthals around, so 40000 is not a blip.
The Neandertals are still neanderig around.
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I don't know where exactly your figures relate to, but the 2011/2012 winter was the warmest I have experienced here. Of course I have only been here (in MN) for 10 years. It may have been different down in 'the Cities'.
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Picking a single start point and a single endpoint is essentially guaranteed to get you skewed results. That's like saying (after a cold spell hit), "Hey, it was 20 degrees colder today than yesterday - the temperature is dropping by 20 degrees a day! We'll be hitting absolute zero soon!"
The Daily Show did a great job of making fun of this sort of data cherry-picking.
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Also, xkcd [xkcd.com] has covered it pretty succinctly.
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Anyone who's not an idiot clicks the back button when they read the words "that hasn't been published". Or do you believe in a global scientific conspiracy to suppress publication based on "secret agendas" of all of those evil scientists?
Re:Minnesota Temps wend DOWN during the last 8 yea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like they need another alarmist plot point (Score:5, Informative)
Atmospheric CO2 partial pressure is at an all time high (post industrial revolution) for as far back as we can measure.
You contradict yourself - first you say that deep ice core data shows that temperature rises and atmospheric CO2 concentrations are linked, then you claim that "no one has proven ... if they just happen to appear together". I'll save you the trouble - the former is the accurate statement, although it's not exclusive to CO2; any molecule that absorbs IR in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas, which makes the biggest culprits CO2 and water vapour. There are many others that are considerably worse than CO2 (hundreds, sometimes thousands of times more potent as IR absorbers) that are mitigated by low concentrations.
It's very easy to demonstrate with a simple science experiment that you can do yourself at home with a plastic bottle, a thermometer, a stopwatch and a lamp. Seal the bottle then point the lamp at it and leave it for 10 minutes. Measure the temperature inside after this time has elapsed. Now open the bottle and breathe in and out, sealing your mouth around the neck for as long as you can manage it (until all the oxygen is gone) - ie, vastly increase the concentration of CO2 and water vapour inside the bottle. Seal it up and then wait for the temperature inside to fall to the same level as the air was in the first experiment (your breath will obviously be warm, so you want to start from the same air temperature). When it's back to the same level turn the lamp on and wait another 10 minutes and record the temperature. Record your results.
The chemistry of IR absorbing gasses is not controversial. It only seems to be when it's politically inconvenient. Suddenly the idea that CO2 absorbs IR radiation just because it's in the earth's atmosphere rather than in a lab setting is "merely anecdotal".
Most radiation that falls on the earth *is* reflected (our albedo is quite high), and even then, much of the re-radiated IR from the earth's surface is also lost to space - this is not new or controversial information.
"We need to understand climates change and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it" is probably the most hilariously inaccurate and naive statement I think I've ever read on slashdot. Not only is it one of the most ridiculous "head in the sand" conclusions drawn from a fundamental misunderstanding of basic science (if the first part of the comment is anything to go by), but it's contradicted by extensive evidence to the contrary by a number of widely famous examples. The most obvious of these would be the depletion (and subsequent re-establishment) of the ozone layer and the corresponding changes to the climate that were observed and reversed in response to human actions.
If all the people on earth disappeared the climate would indeed continue to change in response to events that occur - the only difference is that there would be no further changes from anthropogenic factors. The fact that it responds to natural changes does not mean that humans have no effect on it. Again, you seem to misunderstand the way that the climate works.
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No serious person is arguing that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas. The argument surrounds the magnitude of feedbacks. If there were no feedbacks, then a doubling of CO2 would have a net increase of .6C in temperature. It is the things like increases in atmospheric water vapor and change in landmass albedo which are being debated.
The last 15 years of recorded temperatures have been mostly flat with a statistically insignificant level of global temperature change. Yet CO2 as continued to increase at the exact same
Re:Like they need another alarmist plot point (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok,. climate changes. Within ten thousands of years. Climate change within 100 years didn't happen before except after catastrophical events like continent wide volcanism or a large meteorite impact. And you know what? After such events, regularly 50 percent or more of all higher lifeforms vanished. Those events occur about every 100 million years and are called major extinction events [wikipedia.org].
In textbooks from the 1960ies, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was given at 280 ppm. When I was in school, we learned that the CO2 level in the atmosphere is 330 ppm. Today we are at 400 ppm. So we managed to increase the CO2-level for 40 percent within 50 years. And today we have the highest amount of coal, gas and oil usage in history, far higher than in the 1960ies, pointing to an even higher increase in CO2 emittance than ever. If you still believe, we can't change the world wide climate, you have to have very strong arguments for the contrary. Just some handweaving "It won't be that bad as predicted" won't suffice.
I live in the Alps. We have the lowest glacier coverage here since recorded history (which partly goes back to the Roman Empire). Ötzi the Ice Man [wikipedia.org] came uncovered after 5300 years in the ice of the glacier, because the glacier was at an all time low at that time -- obviously at least the lowest level since 5300 years. Don't give me anything of "anecdotical evidence", when we can measure the change.
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Climate change within 100 years didn't happen before except after catastrophical events like continent wide volcanism or a large meteorite impact.
False: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event [wikipedia.org]
This false claim that the climate has never undergone a natural fluctuation comparable to the currently postulated anthropogenic one is actually kind of useful: it clearly identifies political hacks who don't care a tithe for science but who are either willful liars or inexcusably ignorant of the Earth's actual climate history.
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While I do not deny that the Alps glaciers, the polar and anpolar ice caps, etc. melting, I have to wonder a couple things
* Is there regional cooling occurring somewhere at a similar rate, just not as evident because there are no newly formed glaciers yet?
* Might it be related to global climate shifting, more so than just heating?
* Might the fact that the glaciers are shrinking result in the fact that there is less ice to cool the air, and thus the amount of cooling those giant ice cubes have aided in the g
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Ok, climates chage, this happens. It happened before people and industry were here and it will continue to happen when we are gone.
First they came for the peat bogs, and I did not speak out - because I was not a peat bog...
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"Ok, climates chage, this happens."
And when climate changes, fertile agricultural regions become infertile. Rainfall patterns change, making some regions prone to drought, or prone to flooding, or most joyfully, prone to both. Coastal regions have to be abandoned, putting millions of people on the move.
That's trillions of dollars in economic damage. Which is worth more than a dismissive "this happens."
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Yeah that's nice. So, in breaking news people are migratory and always have been. But we like to build next to large bodies of water which put us at risk. We like large bodies of water because it triggers this idea that we have access to the basic essentials to let us survive. When I bought my house, I did enough research to where I was buying it to make sure I was 50ft above the highest recorded geologic flood stage known for my area. Which is pretty amazing, considering I'm in the great lakes regio
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The last time people migrated in the numbers we're seeing today, the Roman Empire collapsed.
Really? History seems to disagree with you. The most recent would be WWII, before that it was the mass deaths due to the plagues in europe and people trying to escape mass death.
We like to drink. We like to eat. That tends to constrain where we settle.
Not really. We like to make things easy. Nothing is stopping you from living on the arctic tundra, except knowing how to survive.
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"We like to make things easy."
Sure. It's only laziness that's caused 300 million people to live in the Ganges delta region.
Re:THIS IS NEWS FOR HIPPIES !! (Score:4, Funny)
I demand News for Nerds !! What nerd cares of peat and bogs ?? No nerd !! Only a hippie cares of peat and bogs !!
OK, here you go:
“Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.”
Happy now?
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Shouldn't you be out campaigning, Mitt?