Post #345,963
8/8/11 8:55:31 PM
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His mouth is moving and he isn't as stiff as a tree anymore.
He will get more attention if he keep calling BS in the pseudo science.
The bad thing is there are Real Scientists calling BS to the Global Warming stuff also.
There are plenty of indicators the Sun is really behind much of the warm up... I mean not just because that is were all the energy came from in the first place. The Sun has been warmer by a wide margin for many number of years.
I agree its getting warmer, but not 100% sure we (the Royal we) are *THE* one and only culprit. Volcanoes *do* put out enough CO2 and other Greenhouse gasses in one day that many nations put out in many years. Heck the Volcano in Iceland puked out enough CO2, 2 years ago to top the US output in a year by a VERY wide margin.
There have also been numerous events recorded in the sediment layers that show there have been time where the earth has been something like 10-15C warmer for thousands of years.
I'm not saying that we aren't helping out. I'm just saying we are looking at it in a MYOPIC way and not getting the WHOLE picture.
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Post #345,968
8/8/11 9:55:43 PM
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Hmm...
1) Yes.
2) Maybe.
3) No. http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun:
* Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly.
*If the warming were caused by a more active sun, then scientists would expect to see warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere. That's because greenhouse gasses are trapping heat in the lower atmosphere.
* Climate models that include solar irradiance changes canÂt reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.
4) No. http://news.discover...imate-110627.html
"The question of whether or not volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activity is one I get more than any question in my email from the general public.' said Terrence Gerlach, a retired volcanologist, formerly with the Cascades Volcano Observatory, part of the US Geological Survey in Vancouver, Wash. Even earth scientists who work in other areas often pose him the question, he said.
To lay out a clear answer, Gerlach compiled the available estimates of CO2 emissions from all global volcanic activity on land and undersea and compared them with estimates for human emissions. He published the compilation in Eos, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
Researchers estimate the amounts of carbon dioxide released by terrestrial volcanic eruptions by methods including remote sensing or flying through clouds of erupting volcanic gas, and by measuring certain isotope concentrations near undersea volcanoes. Carbon dioxide is dissolved in magma at great depths and is released as the magma rises to the surface.
"A lot of climate skeptics claim that volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans do," Gerlach said. "They never give any numbers, but the fact is you will never be able to find the volcanic gas scientist that will agree to that," he said.
[...]
While there is uncertainty in the measurements--researchers estimate between 0.13 and 0.44 billion metric tons per year, with their best estimates between 0.15 and 0.26 billion tons--even the highest end of the range is dwarfed by anthropogenic emissions of 35 billion metric tons in 2010.
Gerlach noted that human land-use changes alone, which include deforestation, release 3.5 billion metric tons per year. Cars and light-duty trucks produce 2 billion metric tons; even cement production produces 1.5 billion tons. Any of these by itself is still several times higher than the annual emissions of all of the world's volcanoes .
Pakistan or Kazakhstan each produce about the amount of CO2 as volcanoes do each year, Gerlach noted in the article.
5) Yes, there were many times in the past when the Earth was warmer and there were no humans around. That's why we should be even more concerned now. The Carbon Cycle was in a sort-of balance without billions or trillions of tons of ancient carbon being thrown up in the air in the course of a few hundred years. And yet there were times when the climate changed rather quickly. Ocean levels changed by tens of feet. Glaciers advanced and retreated. Etc.
There is no doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Look at Venus. If more CO2 is added to the atmosphere more quickly than the system can handle, the temperature of the Earth will increase. And it will lead to more CO2 release in the Arctic (permafrost melting, fires) and more sunlight being absorbed (less ice to reflect it).
We know a lot about the sources of CO2 by looking at the isotopes. CO2 that has been locked up in coal and oil for millions of years has different ratios of C12, C13 and C14 than does CO2 from burning plants (due to different radioactive decay over time). http://www.realclima...tivities-updated/
It's good to be skeptical. But the critics are wrong in this case.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #345,970
8/8/11 10:16:36 PM
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Re: Hmm...
Well since the Sun puts out about 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts of measurable energy per second, I just wonder.
I'd guess they are full of shit.
The Carbon cycle is NEVER in balance, why do you think we have the extremes recorded in the sediment.
Oh well, we are all doomed anyway, as soon as Oil, Coal, LPG, etc... is gone.
All plastic, food delivery and other things we take for granted right now will be gone.
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Post #345,971
8/8/11 10:30:02 PM
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The Sun is billions of years old.
Why would its output have changed significantly over a mere 150 years?
Yes, it puts out big numbers, and it varies a bit over time. But that doesn't explain the CO2.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who agrees that burning stuff won't be an issue in a few hundred years, but most of us and our kin will be dust long before then...)
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Post #345,986
8/9/11 9:58:09 AM
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human carbon forcing is an issue now
Since the atmospheric carbon load is at a much higher percentage than 100years ago the miniscule amount that humans put in does matter. Carbon sequestration is the answer and fossil fuel which according to everyone ran out in 2001 shouldn't be a factor much longer (in planetary terms)
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #346,022
8/9/11 10:58:55 PM
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Preliminary peek at sequestering suggests
it would be inefficient, ineffective, expensive--that is, the ROI looks to be staggering [low.]
But I have yet to delve sufficiently/separate out the fantasy folk from science-based takes, with refs.
(Just look also at the bloviating around Canada oil sands, so much of that completely eliding the Cost to environment of the processes VS modest yields of mediocre-grade petro.)
One thing is Certain [a word I eschew mostly]: None of the approaches to the Whole Enchilada is yet being treated with the seriousness demanded,
because of the HUGE Noise-to-Signal re anything complex, in this enviro of ignorant brats with huge opinions--based-on-wishes or just plain mindlessly polarizing dogma.
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Post #346,024
8/10/11 12:51:04 AM
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Deep water plan seems - scary
Somebody did some small-scale tests. It turns out that the specific gravity of CO2 in liquid state is higher than that of water. Even seawater. And the ocean is deep enough that if you pump it way down, the pressure will put the CO2 in liquid state.
So it's technically possible to sequester CO2 that way.
But there was a lake in Africa that used to have a lot of CO2 in it, and one day for whatever reason it was suddenly released and the village on the shore died.
Not something that would be good to have happen on the kind of scale it would take to affect climate.
And perhaps not healthy for the Badass and Delicious things on the bottom.
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Badass! (and delicious)
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Post #346,025
8/10/11 1:04:11 AM
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During the last global warming . . .
. . some climate scientists believe the carbon dioxide was brought down by vast blooms of aquatic ferns in the lakes and streams of North America.
These ferns still exist all over the north central part of the continent, and are considered major pests interfering with recreational use of lakes and streams. Eradication efforts have not succeeded.
They grow very fast and guzzle CO2 like nobody's business.
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Post #346,028
8/10/11 3:09:56 AM
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So those damned weeds
may save us all no matter how hard we try to wipe them out.
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Badass! (and delicious)
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Post #346,034
8/10/11 8:28:57 AM
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It's happening already.
There's a whole region of very deep water in the Gulf of Mexico so saturated with CO2 that no life lives there. None at all.
There was a well regarded documentary some while ago about how carbon moves around in the world and it touched on the industry in the Gulf. I can't seem to find it, unfortunately, as I seem to have mis-remembered the unusual scientific term for the intense level of CO2 dissolved, but there is CO2 sequestration happening. ISTR it wasn't planned; it was "just happening".
Wade.
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Post #346,037
8/10/11 9:04:46 AM
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And BIG landslide triggered that release in the lake.
To try and stem the build up... they have a pipe that goes to the bottom of the lake with a dome on the bottom (3-4 ft in diameter)
They pressurized all the water out of the pipe and then "let go" the pressure. This caused the liquefied CO2 to decompress and begin a process that continues to this day.
The GAS *IS* light and travels with great speed towards the surface, in the pipe. It carries CO2 laden water and other gases with it and spews about 70 feet above the water surface from the pipe.
Its not enough to eliminate the build up, but evidently based on some estimate, it should help with the frequency of these massive out-gassing.
There is another lake in Africa that also has Methane build up of same proportions... They are doing a similar thing but using the gas to power Electrical turbines and other items.
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