Global cooling.

[helene_t]

Hi Winston, tx very much for your trust, unfortunately my understanding of this is limited to a few very rudimentary facts, in particular

- CO2 is a head trap so the first-order effect of CO2 emission is a hotter climate.

 

However, how strong the effect is I don't know, and what the final picture is when all feed-back effects are taken into account I don't know, nor do I know if a slightly hotter climate is necessarily bad, nor do I know what it would cost to stop the process and what is politically feasible.

 

So like you, I can only rely on people I know (personally or as public figures) who I judge to be knowledgeable and unbiased, but I'm afraid I can mention no such person. I don't know a single person personally who has done serious research on any of the related issues. What I find interesting is that Bjorn Lomborg (the "skeptical environmentalist") who is one of the few knowledgeable people with an obvious bias in the "other" direction does not deny manmade global warming, his point is just that the Kyoto protocol will cost a lot of money and do very little to slow down the process.

 

Lomborg might be right, Gore might be right, but since both have an obvious bias I suppose the truth is somewhere in between. I could easily be wrong, though.

 

My personal gut feelings (which are probably worth less than GBP 0.02) is that most of the scenaria for this century are not that scary, but that there might be a risk for an insane run-away effect in the more distant future. Now this becomes even more uncertain of course, but anyway I find it scary, although I am not that worried for what will happen in my own lifetime. As for the costs, I think oil is about to end and no matter what one thinks about this climate issue there are a lot of other good reasons for going nuclear, solar etc so we might as well aim at phasing out the use of fossil fuels over the next few decades.

[Gerben42]

My personal gut feelings (which are probably worth less than GBP 0.02)

 

That would be your regular 3 cents (4 if you are in the States). :)

 

I think that there is a partial man-made effect in addition to the "natural" global climate. I don't know how large it is. What I do know is that the human-made part is not going to shrink any time soon. We can talk all we like but the people won't vote for politicians who hurt their wallet due to tough climate-saving regulations (not the soft ones that some politicians are suggesting now). So there will be none. Also the large producers of the 21st century (USA & China) won't stop.

 

So my advice is: Take it as it comes. Be prepared.

[hrothgar]

If you're so damned sure that human-caused GW is true then what odds will you give me that 20 years from now that premise will still be accepted? Someone with your level of conviction I'd think would be willing to go at least 1000:1. Put your money where your mouth is.

Ah, once again the Biblical literalist dons the mantel of the professional skeptic...

 

I find your pretensions of skepticism out right offensive. You exhibit as much of an absolutist mentality as anyone on this forum. Even if we ignore your political discourse, quotes like the following are incredibly telling

 

Consciousness transfer to a human-like robotic body and brain may be down the road but in the interim, we will soon (soon being relative, 50 or 100 years...not necessarily too close) have the capability to produce nanobots that can go in and repair all damage due to time from the body. Lifespans of 1000s of years or indefinite may be possible. If such technology is indeed possible, I doubt God will allow humans to possess it. I can't constrain God but He did at one point reduce human lifespan to around 120 years for a reason and I don't see that reason as having changed.

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...ethuselah&st=15

 

The only time that I've seen you exhibit any skepticism is when you're attempting to undermine arguments that violate your own absolutist world view.

 

You happily regurgitate all sorts of ridiculous crap without anything remotely resembling research...

[kenberg]

Natural versus man made causes: I think there are few people and virtually no scientists who still believe that human activity is not a significant factor in global warming. Suppose for the moment, as very well may be true, that there are also significant natural forces at work here and suppose, as also may well be true, that there is nothing we can do to push back against these natural forces.

 

It does not at all follow that we should not address the man made factors. If natural events are going to cause us some trouble, addressing the man made component may be the difference between trouble and disaster.

 

Gerben is pessimistic about anyone being able to rouse anyone to do much of substance. I somewhat share this pessimism. Still, strong leaders can sometimes lead. I'm sure I'm not the only guy around who thinks that it is more important to tend to the welfare of the planet than it is to get a super sized tax refund. We cannot be the generation that trashes the planet. That's not what I want engraved on my tombstone.

[PassedOut]

I'm sure I'm not the only guy around who thinks that it is more important to tend to the welfare of the planet than it is to get a super sized tax refund. We cannot be the generation that trashes the planet. That's not what I want engraved on my tombstone.

Nor I.

 

It seems to me many deny man-made global heating because accepting the reality would demand action that might be uncomfortable.

[Al_U_Card]

Our choices to date have been:

 

healthy meal:unhealthy meal:poisonous meal:no meal

 

we have been hungry and will remain so.

 

Seems clear to me.

[DrTodd13]

If you're so damned sure that human-caused GW is true then what odds will you give me that 20 years from now that premise will still be accepted?  Someone with your level of conviction I'd think would be willing to go at least 1000:1.  Put your money where your mouth is.

Ah, once again the Biblical literalist dons the mantel of the professional skeptic...

 

I find your pretensions of skepticism out right offensive. You exhibit as much of an absolutist mentality as anyone on this forum. Even if we ignore your political discourse, quotes like the following are incredibly telling

 

Consciousness transfer to a human-like robotic body and brain may be down the road but in the interim, we will soon (soon being relative, 50 or 100 years...not necessarily too close) have the capability to produce nanobots that can go in and repair all damage due to time from the body. Lifespans of 1000s of years or indefinite may be possible. If such technology is indeed possible, I doubt God will allow humans to possess it. I can't constrain God but He did at one point reduce human lifespan to around 120 years for a reason and I don't see that reason as having changed.

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...ethuselah&st=15

 

The only time that I've seen you exhibit any skepticism is when you're attempting to undermine arguments that violate your own absolutist world view.

 

You happily regurgitate all sorts of ridiculous crap without anything remotely resembling research...

Believe me or not, I don't care. My absolutism on this topic is only to the degree that virtually no one has any reason to claim to _know_ that anthropogenic GW is true. We've got a bunch of laymen claiming that they know it to be true but all they have is someone else's word filtered through a biased media and political system regarding one of the most complex systems on the planet. Anyone who doesn't accept their view is considered to be a shill or a moron even if they present evidence and try to have a scientific discussion. When you claim you know something, you transcend from the probable to the definite and this requires a leap of faith. What I find offensive is that leaps of faith in science are praised and ridiculed in religion. I don't believe things that are contrary to evidence. My faith only operates where evidence stops. I readily admit I choose to believe in the existence of the Christian God through faith but not blind faith because I believe there is evidence that the resurrection was a historical event and I choose to listen to someone who has that sort of power. This is fortunate for if I believed that the universe and everything in it were deterministic with no intrinsic value or purpose and that I was condemned by determinism to have these meaningless discussion with you I'd be truly miserable.

[hotShot]

(Contributing rather than criticizing is the best way to straighten things out, no?)

Remember, you asked for it......

 

A lot of what happens in nature is about balance. This is one main point of the global warming you have to understand.

I will try to one of the involved equilibria, involving water.

If the suns heat radiation hits earth, several things happen.

1) If the heat radiation hits liquid or solid water, it can produce steam.

This effect increases the amount of steam in the atmosphere.

 

2) If the heat radiation hits a water molecule in the gas phase, radiation of specific wavelength can be absorbed. This radiation causes vibrational and rotational excited states. If this excited molecule hits another molecule part of the energy is transfered to the other molecule involved into the crash.

Most of you will have done that, because thats basically what your microwave oven is doing.

And this is what happens in the lower atmosphere where the air is dense.

This effect increases the amount of heat absorbed from the suns radiation. It is a basic part of the natural greenhouse effect, we like. (See Gerbens earlier post).

 

If the excited Water molecule does not hit another molecule, it returns to the ground state after a while, emitting the same amount of heat radiation again. This emission can go into any direction. So if this radiation hits another water molecule the heat can be still absorbed there. But if this happens very high in the atmosphere, a lot of the direction point to outer space, decreasing the the amount of energy absorbed by the earth.

 

So we have 3 effects, 2 of them increase the energy absorption and one that is limiting it. The effect that does the limiting is powered by the effects that increase the absorption. So at some point we get a dynamical equilibrium.

 

So if you imagine that you put two things on the scales and they are balanced, your experience tells you that even a small grain of sand will end the balance.

 

Now if you ad another gas that absorbs heat, you will distort this equilibrium.

CO2 is such a gas.

The CO2 that breathing produces and the CO2 that comes from volcanic activities are beyond human control and fortunately they seem to be absorbed by plants or by the oceans. There are other equilibria involved but since I try to keep it simple I won't go into details.

 

We know that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is growing, and the manmade part is the only thing we can control.

 

The argument that the manmade part is very small is irrelevant, because even very small distortions to an equilibrium shifts the balance to one side.

 

The scientist are discussing this for about 40 years now, and almost the complete scientific community has adopted the view that mankind's CO2 emissions contribute significant the the global warming. There have been challenges when new facts have been discovered, but they could not invalidate this point of view.

 

The only problem the scientists have, is that their estimations they made in the past have been exceeded by the reality. It's more that they underestimate the effects, exaggeration is frowned among scientists.

[whereagles]

hotShot, it's much simpler than that. Just look at this experimental evidence of the greenhouse effect:

 

"Lock yourself inside a car in a sunny day, windows shut. In no time you'll be out of there because of the heat." :)

 

In the atmosphere, greenhouse gases do what the car's glasses are doing: trapping heat. Actually, the car's trapping process is slightly different, but the principle is the same.

[whereagles]

DrTodd: while it is true that any theory that explains the universe, be it science or religion, requires an act of faith, it must be admitted that science has one MAJOR argument over religion: it has predictive power.

[DrTodd13]

hotShot, it's much simpler than that. Just look at this experimental evidence of the greenhouse effect:

 

"Lock yourself inside a car in a sunny day, windows shut. In no time you'll be out of there because of the heat." :)

 

In the atmosphere, greenhouse gases do what the car's glasses are doing: trapping heat. Actually, the car's trapping process is slightly different, but the principle is the same.

The process is not slightly different. It is totally different. Read the wikipedia page on the greenhouse effect.

[hrothgar]

What I find offensive is that leaps of faith in science are praised and ridiculed in religion.  I don't believe things that are contrary to evidence.  My faith only operates where evidence stops.  I readily admit I choose to believe in the existence of the Christian God through faith but not blind faith because I believe there is evidence that the resurrection was a historical event and I choose to listen to someone who has that sort of power.  This is fortunate for if I believed that the universe and everything in it were deterministic with no intrinsic value or purpose and that I was condemned by determinism to have these meaningless discussion with you I'd be truly miserable.

Comment 1:

 

Let's be perfectly clear. Your previous quote doesn't just indicate that you're religious/believe in the Christian god/whatever. The quote indicates that you believe in biblical literalism. I find it intriguing that you can simultaneously claim

 

I don't believe things that are contrary to evidence.

 

while making statements that suggest that you believe in Methuselah...

 

I can't constrain God but He did at one point reduce human lifespan to around 120 years for a reason

 

Even if one could prove that the resurrection took place, you're going a hell of a lot further. You've bought in to all that weird Old Testament mumbo jumbo...

 

Comment 2:

 

I disagree that leaps of faith are praised in Science. Indeed, the entirety of the scientific method is based on hypothesis testing, experiments, and repeatability.

 

You its certainly true that many lay people, myself included, need to accept many scientific discoveries at face value. I don't have my own particle accelerator. Even if I could follow the math that gets used in high energy physics I'd never be able to independently verify the results. I certainly don't consider this praiseworthy, but I accept it because I don't see any better alternative.

 

Comment 3:

 

In order for this type of system to work, I do need to have faith that the scientists aren't lying to me. Therefore, I have a significant problem when I see money and political agendas corrupting the system.

[helene_t]

Yet another thread hijacked by the pro/con religion epidemics. Maybe a somewhat interesting question if theology is a proxy for something else in the U.S. but to be honest there are other issues I'd rather discuss.

[hrothgar]

New York Times has an article on "Global Cooling" this morning

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/science/...tml?ref=science

[kenrexford]

Yet another thread hijacked by the pro/con religion epidemics. Maybe a somewhat interesting question if theology is a proxy for something else in the U.S. but to be honest there are other issues I'd rather discuss.

Saint Peter and Stephen Hawking went into a bar...

[Winstonm]

The argument that the manmade part is very small is irrelevant, because even very small distortions to an equilibrium shifts the balance to one side.

 

Hotshot, thanks for the post. This helps my understanding.

 

This has the basis for a chaos theory model, it seems to me. Do you know if these types models have been created and what the implications were?

[whereagles]

The process is not slightly different. It is totally different. Read the wikipedia page on the greenhouse effect.

Well, I know they're different. By the way, I know how greenhouse effect works. I'm a physicist :rolleyes:

[matmat]

Yet another thread hijacked by the pro/con religion epidemics. Maybe a somewhat interesting question if theology is a proxy for something else in the U.S. but to be honest there are other issues I'd rather discuss.

Saint Peter and Stephen Hawking went into a bar...

did one of them tunnel through?

[matmat]

By the way, I know how greenhouse effect works. I'm a physicist :P

does the latter follow directly from the former?

[whereagles]

In the sense that I understand the physical processes of greenhouse effect, yes.

[Al_U_Card]

As a chemist, the concept of dynamic equilibrium is pretty straightforward.

 

The earth is a pretty complicated system and one that has a history of cyclical changes that have a pretty high signal to noise ratio. We are trying to find that signal by looking at the noise.

 

Have we reached the global maximum temperature? Is cooling into the next ice-age upon us? Is this the start of another Younger-Dryas episode? Is it just part of the wilder fluctuations caused by the perturbation of the dynamic climate system by the increase in CO2?

 

Stay tuned to find out... :)

[skjaeran]

As a chemist, the concept of dynamic equilibrium is pretty straightforward.

 

The earth is a pretty complicated system and one that has a history of cyclical changes that have a pretty high signal to noise ratio. We are trying to find that signal by looking at the noise.

 

Have we reached the global maximum temperature? Is cooling into the next ice-age upon us? Is this the start of another Younger-Dryas episode? Is it just part of the wilder fluctuations caused by the perturbation of the dynamic climate system by the increase in CO2?

 

Stay tuned to find out... :)

For how long - 1 million years, 10 million years? B)

[Al_U_Card]

Not wanting to join the ranks of the scare-mongers but...

 

Over the last 800,000 yrs or so, the change to ice-age from interglacial warm period (about 20 times or so) lasted from 5 to 50 years ( eg. snow never melts at 45 deg. latitude).

 

On the bright side, the Younger-Dryas episode only lasted 1000 years and despite the ice-sheets growing some, they mostly stayed put. :P

[hotShot]

If a scientist whats to go to a scientific conference, he needs to pay for his travel, accommodation and of cause the conference fee. If a scientist wants to give a talk about his findings, it has to be approved by a comity that is evaluating the suggested talks.

 

About now in New York the "International Conference On Climate Change" is held. All those well know global warming skeptics meet there.

According to this source those who give a talk are paid 1000$ + expenses.

 

A bit unusual, isn't it?

 

The British Royal Society (Academy of Science) prompted ExxonMobil in a letter 2006, to stop the support of 39 groups that are spreading false informations on the science around climate change.

[han]

Getting expenses paid is normal.