Climate and Weather
- Thread starter espola
- Start date
Bruddah IZ
DA
How much are we affecting it?
"We" can't control this....
The air in Beijing is so polluted that breathing it does as much damage to the lungs as smoking 40 cigarettes a day, says a new study.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/
BEIJING — Filthy emissions from China’s export industries are carried across the Pacific Ocean and contribute to air pollution in the Western United States, according to a paper published Monday by a prominent American science journal.
The research is the first to quantify how air pollution in the United States is affected by China’s production of goods for export and by global consumer demand for those goods, the study’s authors say. It was written by nine scholars based in three nations and was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which last year published a paper by other researchers that found a drop in life spans in northern China because of air pollution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/w...pollution-to-western-us-study-finds.html?_r=0
The air in Beijing is so polluted that breathing it does as much damage to the lungs as smoking 40 cigarettes a day, says a new study.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/
BEIJING — Filthy emissions from China’s export industries are carried across the Pacific Ocean and contribute to air pollution in the Western United States, according to a paper published Monday by a prominent American science journal.
The research is the first to quantify how air pollution in the United States is affected by China’s production of goods for export and by global consumer demand for those goods, the study’s authors say. It was written by nine scholars based in three nations and was published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which last year published a paper by other researchers that found a drop in life spans in northern China because of air pollution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/w...pollution-to-western-us-study-finds.html?_r=0
Wez
DA
"We" can't control this....
The air in Beijing is so polluted that breathing it does as much damage to the lungs as smoking 40 cigarettes a day, says a new study.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/18/
Can you imagine living there? How those poor people put up with that bullshit amazes me.
True, we can't force other nations to embrace our way of thinking, but defining our way of thinking and having that translate into long term energy policy would be a good start. Embracing a mindset of AGW denial is not going to bring about long term solutions to what could be a very harmful outcome for mankind.
You can question if AGW is real, but assuming it isn't and forming your policies around that assumption is foolish. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
Wez
DA
AGW is a 'theory', is it not?
There is conflicting data regarding "Anthropogenic Global Warming" or has the theory been proven?
I'm just glad it's not "Anaphylactic Global Warming" .....
Please see the definition of "theory" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed"
AGW has not been proven beyond question, but I'm not saying it has. I'm suggesting we hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
One can also look at the evidence, claim to see what is happening and still be an idiot.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Agree. One would have to be an idiot to look at the evidence and not see what is happening.
It is important to begin by emphasizing that few skeptics doubt or deny that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas or that it and other greenhouse gasses (water vapor being the most important) help to warm the surface of the Earth. Further, few skeptics deny that man is probably contributing to higher CO2 levels through his burning of fossil fuels, though remember we are talking about a maximum total change in atmospheric CO2 concentration due to man of about 0.01% over the last 100 years.
What skeptics deny is the catastrophe, the notion that man’s incremental contributions to CO2 levels will create catastrophic warming and wildly adverse climate changes. To understand the skeptic’s position requires understanding something about the alarmists’ case that is seldom discussed in the press: the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming is actually comprised of two separate, linked theories, of which only the first is frequently discussed in the media.
The first theory is that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels (approximately what we might see under the more extreme emission assumptions for the next century) will lead to about a degree Celsius of warming. Though some quibble over the number – it might be a half degree, it might be a degree and a half – most skeptics, alarmists and even the UN’s IPCC are roughly in agreement on this fact.
But one degree due to the all the CO2 emissions we might see over the next century is hardly a catastrophe. The catastrophe, then, comes from the second theory, that the climate is dominated by positive feedbacks (basically acceleration factors) that multiply the warming from CO2 many fold. Thus one degree of warming from the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 might be multiplied to five or eight or even more degrees.
This second theory is the source of most of the predicted warming – not greenhouse gas theory per se but the notion that the Earth’s climate (unlike nearly every other natural system) is dominated by positive feedbacks. This is the main proposition that skeptics doubt, and it is by far the weakest part of the alarmist case. One can argue whether the one degree of warming from CO2 is “settled science” (I think that is a crazy term to apply to any science this young), but the three, five, eight degrees from feedback are not at all settled. In fact, they are not even very well supported.--Warren MMeyer
Bruddah IZ
DA
Bruddah IZ
DA
Of course, in the scientific method, even an incorrect hypothesis is useful, as it gives the scientific community a starting point in organizing observational data to confirm or disprove the hypothesis. This, however, turns out to be wickedly difficult in climate science, given the outrageously complex nature of the Earth’s weather systems.
Our global temperature measurements over the last one hundred years show about 0.7C of warming since the early 1900s, though this increase has been anything but linear. Skeptics argue that, like a police department that locks on a single suspect early in a crime investigation and fails to adequately investigate any other suspects, many climate scientists locked in early on to CO2 as the primary culprit for this warming, to the exclusion of many other possible causes. W. Meyer
Bruddah IZ
DA
When the UN IPCC published its fourth climate report several years ago, it focused its main attention on the Earth’s warming after 1950 and in particular on the 20-year period between 1978 and 1998. The UN IPCC concluded that the warming in this 20-year period was too rapid to be due to natural causes, and almost certainly had to be due to man’s CO2. They reached this conclusion by running computer models that seemed to show that the warming in this period would have been far less without increased CO2 levels.
Skeptics, however, point out that the computer models were built by scientists who have only a fragmented, immature understanding of complex climate systems. Moreover, these scientists approached the models with the pre-conceived notion that CO2 is the main driver of temperatures, and so it is unsurprising that their models would show CO2 as the dominant factor.
In fact, the period 1978 to 1998 featured a number of other suspects that should have been considered as potentially contributing to warming. For example, the warm phase of several critical ocean cycles that have a big effect on surface temperatures, including the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, coincided with this period. Further, the second half of the 20th century saw far greater solar activity, as measured by sunspot numbers, than the first half of the century. Neither ocean cycles nor solar effects, nor a myriad of other factors we probably don’t even know enough to name, were built into the models. Even man’s changing land use has an effect on measured temperatures, as survey efforts have shown urban areas, which have higher temperatures than surrounding rural locations, expanding around our temperature measurement points and biasing measured temperatures upwards.
If CO2 is but one of several causes of warming over the past decades, then current climate models almost certainly have to be exaggerating future warming. Only by attributing all of the past warming to CO2 can catastrophic future warming forecasts be justified. In fact, even the 0.7C of measured historic warming is well under what the climate models should have predicted for warming based on past CO2 increases and their assumed high sensitivity of temperature to CO2 levels. In other words, to believe a forecast of, say, 5C of warming over the next 100 years, we should have seen 2C or more of warming over the past century.
This is why the IPCC actually had to make the assumption that global temperatures would have fallen naturally and due to other manmade pollutants over the past several decades. By arguing that without man’s CO2 the climate would have cooled by, for example, 0.5C, then they can claim past warming from CO2 as 1.2C (the measured 0.7C plus the imaginary 0.5C). Anyone familiar with how the Obama administration has claimed large stimulus-related jobs creation despite falling employment levels will recognize this approach immediately.
Skeptics, however, point out that the computer models were built by scientists who have only a fragmented, immature understanding of complex climate systems. Moreover, these scientists approached the models with the pre-conceived notion that CO2 is the main driver of temperatures, and so it is unsurprising that their models would show CO2 as the dominant factor.
In fact, the period 1978 to 1998 featured a number of other suspects that should have been considered as potentially contributing to warming. For example, the warm phase of several critical ocean cycles that have a big effect on surface temperatures, including the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, coincided with this period. Further, the second half of the 20th century saw far greater solar activity, as measured by sunspot numbers, than the first half of the century. Neither ocean cycles nor solar effects, nor a myriad of other factors we probably don’t even know enough to name, were built into the models. Even man’s changing land use has an effect on measured temperatures, as survey efforts have shown urban areas, which have higher temperatures than surrounding rural locations, expanding around our temperature measurement points and biasing measured temperatures upwards.
If CO2 is but one of several causes of warming over the past decades, then current climate models almost certainly have to be exaggerating future warming. Only by attributing all of the past warming to CO2 can catastrophic future warming forecasts be justified. In fact, even the 0.7C of measured historic warming is well under what the climate models should have predicted for warming based on past CO2 increases and their assumed high sensitivity of temperature to CO2 levels. In other words, to believe a forecast of, say, 5C of warming over the next 100 years, we should have seen 2C or more of warming over the past century.
This is why the IPCC actually had to make the assumption that global temperatures would have fallen naturally and due to other manmade pollutants over the past several decades. By arguing that without man’s CO2 the climate would have cooled by, for example, 0.5C, then they can claim past warming from CO2 as 1.2C (the measured 0.7C plus the imaginary 0.5C). Anyone familiar with how the Obama administration has claimed large stimulus-related jobs creation despite falling employment levels will recognize this approach immediately.
Just in the years from 1960 where the Moana Loa observatory has been measuring atmospheric CO2, it's more like 25% increase, but numbers never were your strength, were they?
Bruddah IZ
DA
You mean because you find measuring Co2 levels at a Volcano National Park compelling evidence of imminent doom for the human race? I'm actually shocked that the numbers aren't higher given that the Volcanoes at that National Park have been erupting for the entire period covered by your link. If you've ever been to the Volcanoes National Park you will see that the ferns growing around the Thurston lava tube are freakishly huge, Jurassic like. Must be all that Co2 getting sucked up by the Jungles on the Big Island. And what about the new island, Loihi, being formed under water.
You're doing great. Don't worry about all those people laughing at you.
Bruddah IZ
DA
So nothing then?
I prefer you stay clueless.