The Global Warming Agenda

[Conan71]

Rwarn, I think you're right about the amount of different paths to take and how ultimately complex that would be.  IMO, until something obvious comes long, we're going to be stuck relying much more on diverse energy sources -- decentralizing the mix, really -- rather than focusing solely on the next best singular thing.

However, we're bogged down still arguing the whethers, not the hows.  The believers and the deniers are at loggerheads over a relatively small patch of ground while the bigger picture -- this major opportunity -- is just hanging out there. 

On a personal level, obviously I think think that we're staring down some catastrophic stuff, but I'm hoping to point out that that doesn't have to be a point of agreement to move forward.

I think diversity in energy sources rather than dependence on one or two is very important. 

Take a look at what our over-dependence on fossil fuels has led to: pollution, health problems, economic issues, wars, and according to a percentage of the scientific community, it contributes to this global warming phenomena.  The more dependent we become on one or two sources, the easier it is for a smaller group to monopolize, control, and collude on pricing.  There are more than enough different ways to go about generating and distribute energy.  Some will make more sense by region than others, like wind or solar.

Diversity creates a broader range of economic opportunities.

You mentioned in an earlier post about this being an opportunity economically, politically and culturally.  Personally, I don't want to see politics anywhere near determining what the best technology(ies) is/are.  Political ideas like cap and trade do nothing but make US companies that much less competitive with China and India, and does nothing to force them to observe the same sort of emissions rules.  Those are sovereign nations, we cannot force their hand on what they will or won't do regarding emissions.  Treaties are only as strong as the earnestness in the leaders who sign them.  The only place I see for politics in the mix is helping to fund viable proven technologies and sponsoring relevant research.

[Red Arrow]

Rwarn, I think you're right about the amount of different paths to take and how ultimately complex that would be.  IMO, until something obvious comes long, we're going to be stuck relying much more on diverse energy sources -- decentralizing the mix, really -- rather than focusing solely on the next best singular thing.

However, we're bogged down still arguing the whethers, not the hows.  The believers and the deniers are at loggerheads over a relatively small patch of ground while the bigger picture -- this major opportunity -- is just hanging out there. 

On a personal level, obviously I think think that we're staring down some catastrophic stuff, but I'm hoping to point out that that doesn't have to be a point of agreement to move forward.

The question is.. Which way is forward.  I believe that jumping at a knee jerk solution could do more harm than carefully finding the solution to the correct problem.

[nathanm]

By true believer, I mean that you believe in this as one would be a religious devotee.  You are unwilling to accept that any of the data or analysis could be in error. 

No, I'm perfectly open to counterintuitive effects. I have yet to see any peer reviewed science that lays out how the prevailing ideas are wrong, however. If you have references other than bloviating by Republican Senators and right wing talk show hosts, I'd love to see them.

Based on the evidence, I am indeed convinced that we are bucking up the planet, and that it likely won't be more than 20 years before the sea warms enough to evaporate the methane clathrates on the Arctic seabed. (It's already happening on a relatively small scale) Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by the way.

We're playing russian roulette here, and the obfuscation from the right isn't helping matters.

Thankfully, it turned out that the clathrate formations under most of the world's oceans are stabilized mainly by pressure, not low temperature, so it's unlikely we will see the mass death of sea life from the changing ocean chemistry as has happened several times in the past. At least not from that particular mechanism. The increase in dissolved carbon dioxide in the oceans is already having an effect on sea life.

So anyway, can you explain where your disagreement stems from? Do you believe that there is in fact warming and just disagree about the consequences of it, or are you saying that you don't believe that there is in fact a warming trend going on? I'm genuinely curious.

[Red Arrow]

No, I'm perfectly open to counterintuitive effects. I have yet to see any peer reviewed science that lays out how the prevailing ideas are wrong, however. If you have references other than bloviating by Republican Senators and right wing talk show hosts, I'd love to see them.

Based on the evidence, I am indeed convinced that we are frakking up the planet, and that it likely won't be more than 20 years before the sea warms enough to evaporate the methane clathrates on the Arctic seabed. (It's already happening on a relatively small scale) Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, by the way.

We're playing russian roulette here, and the obfuscation from the right isn't helping matters.

Thankfully, it turned out that the clathrate formations under most of the world's oceans are stabilized mainly by pressure, not low temperature, so it's unlikely we will see the mass death of sea life from the changing ocean chemistry as has happened several times in the past. At least not from that particular mechanism. The increase in dissolved carbon dioxide in the oceans is already having an effect on sea life.

So anyway, can you explain where your disagreement stems from? Do you believe that there is in fact warming and just disagree about the consequences of it, or are you saying that you don't believe that there is in fact a warming trend going on? I'm genuinely curious.

I'll start off by saying that I don't trust the Global Warming voices.  (I will identify Global Warming / Global Climate Change as GW to save space.)  I pick on Al Gore because he is the high profile voice for the movement.  Most of us depend on others to take the raw data and do the analysis so at some level we all depend on someone else.  I believe Al Gore can also be categorized as a bloviator.  Obfuscation is not a characteristic solely of the right.  Voices of GW have said that gross  exaggeration is a legitimate tool to send the message of GW. (GW is not the only issue to use this method.) I am frequently at a disadvantage on this forum since I don't have a photographic memory.  I see, hear or read something and evaluate the credibility then promptly forget the exact source.  Much of my opinion on GW is based on the information gathering of my father (deceased in 2001) and my uncle (deceased in Nov 2008).   They were both retired engineers and had the time to look at both sides of the issue and determine if the presentation had a scientific legitimacy.  I still have to earn a living and already spend too much time on this forum.  Another friend, a retired geologist, also has the time and inclination to look for both sides of the issue.  I expect you have the same respect for anything from Fox that I have for data from  the mainstream media.  I am not prepared to call the mainstream media intentional liars, just that they pick and present information favorable to their (often left leaning/ liberal) views.

The hockey stick.  It is reasonable to extrapolate from a data set that has followed a pattern.  To extrapolate from a relatively sudden change in a pattern and predict disaster is not reasonable.  I won't say the extrapolation cannot be accurate, just unlikely.  The industrial revolution is an obvious correlation if you include a lag time of 50 or so years. It may or may not be a cause.  The analysis of the data leading to the hockey stick has been questioned.  One predominate response has been that the data as analyzed by the model used, consistently predicts the hockey stick.  No surprise that the same analysis of the same data leads to the same results.  Peer review using the same model would lead to the same conclusion.  The model is what is actually in question.  As I have posted earlier, (my uncle found that) the model used cannot accurately  "predict" events that have already happened with the data that preceded it.  The hockey stick impresses me as "publish or perish".

Both sides have cherry picked data.  One side of the antarctic is melting.  The other side is building ice. Each side picks the data advantageous to their case.  I don't have info on the mass balance.  You seem to be educated enough that I assume that you know the difference between heat and temperature.  The earth is a really large area/mass to integrate a relatively small sample of data over.  Melting sea ice or ice not supported by a land mass will not raise sea level.  Melting ice supported by land will raise sea level.  All we hear in the media is the sky is falling the ice is melting. The sea level will rise significantly.

At one time, Greenland was warm enough for the Vikings to establish settlements there.  How warm was the earth then?   What was sea level?  Were they emitting huge quantities of CO2 or methane? While I sympathize with island and low lying areas around the world,  were they populated before the little ice age like they are now?  Have we taken advantage of a relatively cool period and are we now unprepared to live in a warmer period.  I have seen on Discovery or History Channel (certainly not right wing bloviators) that during the little ice age that priests would climb mountains to the edge of a glacier to pray to try to stop the advance of glaciers in Europe.  It didn't work.  The ice advanced.  If they had only known that if they had burned huge quantities of hydrocarbons instead, they could have stopped the advance of the ice.  The famous picture of the polar bears on the ice floe has been debunked by the original photographer, at least from what I have found on several sources on the internet. The photo was taken by an Australian in Canada in the summer, August I believe.  The bears were not in the middle of the ocean with no other ice around.  There were about 5000 polar bears in 1960, about 25000 recently.  The GW crowd glommed onto the picture (about 2 years after it was taken) as proof that we are sending polar bears to their extinction.

I have seen pictures of arctic ice that indicate the lowest ice level was not last year.  One year does not a trend make but it doesn't support runaway positive feedback either. We'll have to see what the next few years bring.  Note that I don't claim that the local snow situation proves or disproves GW.  We are cold here but they had to truck in snow to the winter olympics.  Again, the earth is a huge place to integrate temperature/heat data over.

Scare tactics... Oh my (deity of your choice), a little more warming and the clathrate formations will release untold amounts of methane and the world will end in our lifetime.  Oops, the formations under most of the world's oceans are mostly stabilized by pressure, not temperature.... never mind. (With apologies to Gilda Radner, who I expect would have supported the GW movement.)  What else has been insufficiently researched before releasing conclusions to the public?

It's OK to burn ethanol as fuel.  The products of combustion of ethanol are water and CO2.  It's acceptable though since the ethanol came from carbon on the surface of the earth.  Never mind that it is in the atmosphere once it is burned until plants can re-absorb the CO2 product.  What if we ate that  carbon (corn, sugar cane, beets) instead and allowed the same plants to absorb the CO2 from burning dinosaurs and plants from eons ago?  Is the answer to tell Brazil to stop cutting down the rain forest or does the CO2 only apply to the northern hemisphere that was used for the hockey stick? (I know that most of the world's land mass is north of the equator.)

I cannot deny that some areas have melted a lot of ice.  Is the heat content of the earth increasing?  Picking some areas where there has been a lot of ice melting does not prove that the overall heat of the earth is increasing.  Are we selectively ignoring some areas that are difficult to get to that may be cooling.  My uncle (yes, the deceased one) claimed that NASA's satellites have not proven that the overall heat content of the earth has increased.   Twenty or so years of temperature change as related to geologic time does not prove an ever increasing trend.  Some claim the earth is not as warm now as a few years ago.  Again, hard to prove one way or the other.

Regardless of whether GW exists or is or is not human induced, we should pursue alternate sources of energy.  Dumping stuff (CO2, water vapor, methane...) into the atmosphere can't be good. (Unless maybe we have stopped a massive global cooling, which is unlikely.)  Everything humans do has some effect on the earth.  We need to evaluate the cost and benefit.  

The GW community has made a presentation but I don't believe they have proven anything.  The GW community has achieved a near religious intensity.  To doubt GW is heresy.  I am not prepared to turn my thermostat down to 33 (to keep the water pipes from freezing) in the winter or give up my air conditioning in the house in the summer.  

So anyway, my disagreement stems from my perception of a lack of credibility of the GW movement.


Edit: corrected date of uncle's death

[nathanm]

The GW community has made a presentation but I don't believe they have proven anything.  The GW community has achieved a near religious intensity.  To doubt GW is heresy.  I am not prepared to turn my thermostat down to 33 (to keep the water pipes from freezing) in the winter or give up my air conditioning in the house in the summer.  

So anyway, my disagreement stems from my perception of a lack of credibility of the GW movement.


Edit: corrected date of uncle's death

First off, I appreciate you taking the time to write such a long post. I know these things take time. (you can only imagine how much of my life I waste writing posts on various Internet fora)

On to the meat, I think you're confusing the science of Global Warming with the politics of Global Warming.

Take, for example the clathrates I was talking about. You are correct that most are stabilized by pressure. Research has shown, however, that the clathrates in the Arctic are not, because the Arctic Ocean is much shallower than the world's other oceans. There, it's temperature-based, which is why they are already dissolving, leading to significant methane releases.

For political reasons, this science got trotted out by bloviators (to borrow your term) before it had finished baking. Continued research found that clathrate formations in most of the world's oceans are indeed pressure-stabilized.

You are completely correct that there have been some instances of exaggeration on the part of Global Warming proponents, and even a few (relatively minor, all things considered) errors in the science that we've discovered over the years. That's true in any field. No science is perfect, not even General Relativity. That said, I'm sure you can understand how this happens. It's similar to Bush's scare tactics about Iraq, except with more factual basis and less continuing to push false data after it is known to be false.

The Medieval Warm Period was primarily concentrated in Northern latitudes for some reason, so doesn't have a large bearing on the idea of global climate change. Further research will prove instructive as to what we can expect, given that the temperature average across the North Atlantic was about 1C higher than it is today. (yet cooler globally) The Antarctic, for example, was abnormally cold during that timeframe.

There is still a lot we don't know (and a lot more that I, personally, don't know), but it's short sighted to expect that dumping millions of tons of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere will have no effect whatsoever.

Examples of how these things are being refined, just in the Antarctic:

"Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates," said Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for WAGN. "So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear."

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/10/19/west_antarctic_ice_sheet/

Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice-sheet interior north of 81.6°S increased in mass by 45 ± 7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003. Comparisons with contemporaneous meteorological model snowfall estimates suggest that the gain in mass was associated with increased precipitation. A gain of this magnitude is enough to slow sea-level rise by 0.12 ± 0.02 millimeters per year.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1110662

The rate of sea level rise is at least 2.4mm a year (the average over the last century is about 1.8mm/yr), so the increased precipitation in the East Antarctic has very little effect on the overall trend. It's a good example, however, of how changing weather patterns can have unintuitive effects as warming increases the amount of moisture air can hold, leading to increased snowfall. (since the warming isn't enough to raise the temperature above freezing)

Also, while it is true that melting sea ice does not, in and of itself, lead to increased sea levels (we're all familiar with ice cubes in our water), the ice shelves in Antarctica and elsewhere slow the advance of glaciers into the sea. In cases where ice shelves have collapsed, we have seen this effect first hand. Moreover, many of these ice shelves are not fully submerged, as much of the Antarctic landmass is below sea level due to the weight of the ice. This means that they are resting on the bottom, and not fully floating, so a collapse would lead to some rise in sea level, albeit less than if the ice shelves were fully land-based.

The possibility that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will collapse as a consequence of ice shelf disintegration has been debated for many years. This matter is of concern because such an event would imply a sudden increase in sea level. Evidence is presented here showing drastic dynamic perturbations on former tributary glaciers that fed sections of the Larsen Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula before its collapse in 1995. Satellite images and airborne surveys allowed unambiguous identification of active surging phases of Boydell, Sjögren, Edgeworth, Bombardier, and Drygalski glaciers. This discovery calls for a reconsideration of former hypotheses about the stabilizing role of ice shelves.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5612/1560

The concept that the Antarctic ice sheet changes with eternal slowness has been challenged by recent observations from satellites. Pronounced regional warming in the Antarctic Peninsula triggered ice shelf collapse, which led to a 10-fold increase in glacier flow and rapid ice sheet retreat. This chain of events illustrated the vulnerability of ice shelves to climate warming and their buffering role on the mass balance of Antarctica. In West Antarctica, the Pine Island Bay sector is draining far more ice into the ocean than is stored upstream from snow accumulation. This sector could raise sea level by 1 m and trigger widespread retreat of ice in West Antarctica. Pine Island Glacier accelerated 38% since 1975, and most of the speed up took place over the last decade. Its neighbour Thwaites Glacier is widening up and may double its width when its weakened eastern ice shelf breaks up. Widespread acceleration in this sector may be caused by glacier ungrounding from ice shelf melting by an ocean that has recently warmed by 0.3 °C. In contrast, glaciers buffered from oceanic change by large ice shelves have only small contributions to sea level. In East Antarctica, many glaciers are close to a state of mass balance, but sectors grounded well below sea level, such as Cook Ice Shelf, Ninnis/Mertz, Frost and Totten glaciers, are thinning and losing mass. Hence, East Antarctica is not immune to changes.

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1637.abstract

It is true that global warming proponents often trumpet the maximum effects predicted by scientific research, rather than quoting the likely range. I agree that for us thinking people, that is an issue. It turns people off because it seems dishonest. (although if clearly stated, it's not dishonest, but not particularly instructive, either) It's easy to confuse the liberal (as in loose, not "left wing") interpretations of these studies by the media with the relatively conservative estimates given by scientists.

Oh, and I also agree that Al Gore is a bloviator, but he did quite a lot to raise awareness of the issue and get people talking about it in a big way, even if some of the science he was quoting turned out to be wrong. (and the stupid polar bear, which does nothing but distract us from the real science)

Ten years ago, there was a lot less hard research on this subject than there is today. Sadly, very little of it has resulted in good news.

[Red Arrow]

I'm not so sure the politics and science can be separated anymore.  It would help to get the straight story.

Take, for example the clathrates I was talking about. You are correct that most are stabilized by pressure. Research has shown, however, that the clathrates in the Arctic are not, because the Arctic Ocean is much shallower than the world's other oceans. There, it's temperature-based, which is why they are already dissolving, leading to significant methane releases.

I would hope you agree since I took it directly from your post.

Thankfully, it turned out that the clathrate formations under most of the world's oceans are stabilized mainly by pressure, not low temperature, so it's unlikely we will see the mass death of sea life from the changing ocean chemistry as has happened several times in the past. At least not from that particular mechanism.

For political reasons, this science got trotted out by bloviators (to borrow your term)

Actually, I borrowed the term from you. I changed the form to fit my sentence.

If you have references other than bloviating by Republican Senators and right wing talk show hosts, I'd love to see them.

Since even the IPCC is suspect anymore, who do we trust?  In my usual fashion, I cannot name names, but scientists have defected from the science organizations of GW/GCC.  To say they gave up their positions just to spew lies is a bit of a stretch.

and even a few (relatively minor, all things considered) errors in the science that we've discovered over the years.

I cannot agree that a model that cannot be proven correct by existing data is a minor error when that model is being used to predict extrapolated changes of the dire consequences stated by the GW/GCC proponents.  I'm also not convinced that at least some of the GW/GCC community is not trying to push false data per your comparison to Bush/Iraq. ( I would have rather left GWB/Iraq out of the discussion we are having but you opened the bag.) The data pushing is part of my statement of not being able to separate the politics and science anymore, if indeed it ever was separable at the public level. Promoting things like wild schemes to control cow flatulence doesn't do anything to increase the credibility of the GW/GCC community.

I didn't say that dumping tons of pollutants into the air had no effect.  I am not convinced the level we are dumping is controlling the climate and global warming. 

It's a good example, however, of how changing weather patterns can have unintuitive effects as warming increases the amount of moisture air can hold, leading to increased snowfall. (since the warming isn't enough to raise the temperature above freezing)

And, as a counterpoint, maybe the increased snow on 49 of 50 states is part of the relatively insignificant negative feedback that is ignored as a higher order term (insignificant part) in "the model" which makes it require correction factors.   I don't know how long the snow reflecting energy and keeping the air a few thousand feet thick colder than normal and the ground under it cooler has to stay to become significant.  To say it has no effect would, in my opinion, be short sighted.  You mentioned that during the medieval warm period that the antarctic was cooler than normal.  Temperature vs. heat.  Do you have an energy balance for the period?  BTUs or Calories of the world.  You can make a better case if you do.  I don't have the numbers so I'm leaving myself open here.  (For anyone reading that may not know what I am talking about with BTUs,  you can melt a couple of ice cubes with a few ounces of boiling water.  You can melt a lot more with a sink full of 100 degree F water in the same time.)

Al Gore did a lot to raise the awareness of the GW/GCC issue.  I believe he has also done a lot to discredit it.  Right now, credibility is as much an issue as the supposed science.  Since you brought up GWB/Iraq, I'll be forced to comment that for someone telling the world it needs to lower its carbon footprint,  Big Al needs to lower his personal carbon footprint.  I normally wouldn't consider his personal carbon footprint as significant on a world scale.  As a spokesman, he should set a better personal example.


As you said, the science is inexact.  The cause of most stomach ulcers was known by all the medical community, until one doctor (and probably a support staff) determined it to be related to bacteria.  Keep the research going but don't insist on the present cause/effect to the exclusion of other possibilities.  I don't see the present GW/GCC community being open to possibilities other than the current course.

[nathanm]

I don't have time to reply in full at the moment, but I'd like you to chew on this for a minute: Regardless of the models, there has been significant warming and significant ice melting in recent years. It has continued, although slowed somewhat, as solar output has decreased during the low part of the solar cycle. Controlled for the solar cycle, the trend shows strong correlation with the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We don't need models to show that we've been having some effect.

Also, just so I don't forget to mention it later, fudge factors are everywhere, in every model, even ones we consider to be pretty darn good. In physics, there are several constants whose value has no rational basis other than "what fits the best," yet somehow physics manages to predict all sorts of physical phenomena. The inclusion of such factors does not per se indicate the incorrectness of a particular model.

[Red Arrow]

I don't have time to reply in full at the moment, but I'd like you to chew on this for a minute: Regardless of the models, there has been significant warming and significant ice melting in recent years. It has continued, although slowed somewhat, as solar output has decreased during the low part of the solar cycle. Controlled for the solar cycle, the trend shows strong correlation with the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We don't need models to show that we've been having some effect.

Also, just so I don't forget to mention it later, fudge factors are everywhere, in every model, even ones we consider to be pretty darn good. In physics, there are several constants whose value has no rational basis other than "what fits the best," yet somehow physics manages to predict all sorts of physical phenomena. The inclusion of such factors does not per se indicate the incorrectness of a particular model.

My complaint is actually the models being used to predict the future.


The best models are the ones where the "constant" doesn't need to be adjusted once its found or at least the adjustments to the constant can be predicted.