RE: [Utah-astronomy] Climate chaos?
Joe, I have remained silent for a while, but can't continue to do so. The evidence for rapid recent temperature increases is overwhelming, but not certain (is anything?). We know that we are dumping enormous quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we know what those gases do. We also know that we are wiping out forests all over the world, thus reducing the buffering ability of the system. Why would it be a surprise to anyone that we are causing a change? I realize that there have been wide variations on climate in the past, and that it is difficult to separate our actions from the natural variability, but I don't think it takes a great leap of logic to see that we may be causing substantial change. Even small changes in global temperature can have dramatic consequences. The ecosystem can easily adjust to such changes, but we can't! Even small changes in sea level would be catastrophic for humans because of the way we have chosen to distribute ourselves on the planet. I personally know several scientists (at NOAH in Boulder, Colorado) who have no axe to grind and who are absolutely convinced on this issue. Also, consider the consequences of our actions.... if we are wrong about global warming but take action anyway, we may spend some money, but we will have cleaner air and more efficient factories and transportation, etc. What is the down side? If we are right, then we may help avert a global disaster and show a little bit of our human intelligence and ability to adapt our own actions to accommodate increases in our understanding. Either way, action now means we win! Every time we have asked corporate America to take action on pollution, they respond by saying that it will break the bank. That has never been the case. I am glad that past generations took action on pollution, and I hope that we can do the same. I just hope we get a President soon who is willing to consider the costs and potential benefits and then take action. The rest of the world looks at us and shakes it head in disbelief. I am tired of leaders who ignore the science in favor of profits. The US needs to be a leader on this issue, not a ball and chain! That is my 2-cents worth. Please don't be offended Joe, but I just couldn't sit still for this thread. Cheers, Tyler Allred _____________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces+tylerallred=earthlink.net@mailman.xmission.co m] On Behalf Of Joe Bauman Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:04 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Climate chaos? Not to beat a dead horse with a hockey stick, but I found this comment by Mr. Gettings to be especially important: "In practice, we use boreholes that are deep enough to get the last 200-500 years, and we use an analysis method that looks for a pre-instrumental mean temperature. For the northern hemisphere, this indicates roughly 1C of warming in the last 200 years. Our more recent work (such as the paper referenced above) has been on reconciling the difference between the proxy results, which often show 0.5-0.6 C of warming, with our results." So there has been 1 C of warming in the last 200 years -- except that with their more recent research, that has dropped to 0.5 to 0.6 degrees. I repeat: How can such a tiny shift in 200 years result in all these supposedly catastrophic changes, even assuming humans are responsible? Is our ecosystem so finely balanced that it can't stand a change of half a degree over 200 years. Since the average temperature of the Arctic is -- who knows? But it must be really cold. How do you get from there (a degree or half a degree in 200 years) to here (man caused serious global warming that is melting the world's ice caps)? It seems ludicrous, yet everybody seems to subscribe to the theory and dump on anyone with doubts. Sorry to make anyone mad -- Joe _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com
Warning: those bored by the debate, please delete this note. Absolutely, no offense, Tyler! And again, I am sorry I ever was so misguided as to get rude with people I truly do like. Yours is a good, reasoned argument and may well be the correct explanation. But I'm baffled that what most concede is a small temperature change could cause all this chaos. What if there is a different scenario? Let me propose an alternative: Let's assume Mr. Gettings is correct and the temperature change was something like .5 degree C. in 200 years. Even assuming it's our doing, that is not much of a contribution by humans, and we haven't been industrialized longer than that. But for the sake of argument, let's further assume it isn't human-caused, and that 0.5 degrees C. per 200 years is a fairly steady temperature increase. If we were to project that backward 10,000 years, when the last ice age was about to end, that would give us 25 degrees C. in that period. Does today's temperature minus 25 degrees C. seem a likely average temperature during the last ice age? We know the various ice ages had much colder temperatures and that they did end. Why did they end? Maybe volcanism, maybe a hot solar cycle, maybe some perturbation in Earth's orbit -- who knows? But several times, something changed and they did end. What if we are at the tail end of that change? In other words, we're still exiting the last big ice age. Earth's cycles could be so slow they are hard to detect from our short perspective. If so, is it unreasonable to assume that maybe the ice caps need generally much colder conditions than in the last 200 years in order to maintain themselves? What if the retreat of the ice in Greenland is part of the retreat of the ice cap that once covered northern North America? What if ice caps passed some temperature tipping point long ago and are simply continuing to thaw? Is that such a ridiculous idea? Just for fun, I checked the average temperature in New York, an area that was under ice 10,000 years ago. In July the 24-hour average temperature for Central Park is 75.6 degrees F., or 24.2 degrees C. Take away 25 degrees C. and you get just under 0 C., or just below freezing. Is that reasonable for an average 24-hour period in July in New York during the ice age? Seems reasonable, if not too warm. I agree that our release of CO and CO2 may be extraordinary (though I still think volcanoes could likely be a far bigger source). Does that translate into a temperature increase? How do you explain the fact that the ice caps are melting without any high temperature rise? Maybe air pollution is a separate issue, something that has not yet contributed significantly to global warming. A lot of the problem with forests dying apparently is acid rain, which is terrible but, as far as I know, not a contributor to global warming. To answer the question, why not do something even if we don't know that it will help? (I'm paraphrasing.) Every tax dollar you slap on gas in a possibly-misguided attempt to stop global warming is a dollar out of everyone's pockets. It would damage commerce. People who are scraping by and putting aside everything they can to send their children to college may find themselves unable to pay tuition. Or buy food that has a higher shipping cost. I remember when a new tax was placed on 2nd class postage, or whatever it was that applied to magazines, and it wiped out a lot of fine weeklies like Life Magazine. What difference would another few cents make? Plenty. Anyway, I don't mean to belabor the subject, but I think there are two sides to it. I don't think global warming is as cut-and-dried as many believe. I want to keep an open mind but I see a great deal of propaganda -- like Al Gore claiming global warming has spawned terrible hurricanes. A weather scientist I interviewed said that is untrue. If we believe Al Gore, this year's hurricane season was even worse than last year's -- was it? Best wishes, Joe
--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
So there has been 1 C of warming in the last 200 years -- except that with their more recent research, that has dropped to 0.5 to 0.6 degrees. I repeat: How can such a tiny shift in 200 years result in all these supposedly catastrophic changes, even assuming humans are responsible? . . . .
For the moment, put aside the question of responsibility and human causation. There is little disagreement that since 1750, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 30% from 280 ppm to 380 ppm. It is at a higher level than at any time in the last 650,000 years. This increase is mostly caused by burning fossil fuels and deforestation. For the moment, assume that you just can't increase the levels of atmospheric carbon dixoide in a closed atmosphere and not raise the temperature. The costs of future increased temperature raises will be borne predominately by the Third World in the form of higher levesl of death by starvation from increased desertification.
(I'm paraphrasing.) Every tax dollar you slap on gas in a possibly-misguided attempt to stop global warming is a dollar out of everyone's pockets. It would damage commerce. People who are scraping by and putting aside everything they can to send their children to college may find themselves unable to pay tuition.
Again, set aside the question of retrospective moral responsibility and who or what caused global warming. The moral issue is prospective and concerns avoiding uncertain future effects. It concerns the level of obligation that you owe to aid distant people that you do not personally know - akin to what is the reasonable level of U.S. foreign aid to reduce famine overseas. Given that temperatures will increase and that global famine will increase as a consequence of it, if personally you or as a country we have the ability to ameliorate that future effect by reducing your or your country's CO2 emissions, what is our moral obligation to do so, even though it will benefit people that we will never meet? What is your moral obligation to aid distant strangers (those who starve to death from increased desertification) relative to aiding people in your own neighborhood (those young persons who might be able to go to college if taxes were lower)? If such persons were starving here in your community - let's say in cardboard boxes on 400 South - you would have little compunction about voting a tax increase to render aid - since poverty is boorish and ugly and wrong - particularly when you can see it. How does your personal moral obligation change if there is third way, even given uncertainty in the future effects of global warming? What if the alternative is not increased taxes, but simply forebearing use of oversized low-mileage pickups and SUVs in favor of smaller, high-mileage cars? How does that change your balancing of the ethical choices between future uncertain starving foreigners and present but certain conspicuous and excessive consumption? In that balance, is present conspicuous and excessive consumption, that produces unnecessarily high volumes of CO2, an ethical act? Just a philosophical thought on the question. - Kurt ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com
I agree with Joe on the points he has raised. I think one of the main problems with the global warming debate is the lack of objectivity by all parties - myself included. Most, if not all, proponents of man caused global warming resulting in climate catastrophes are funded by green groups or by government money that is based on global warming concerns. If global warming is shown to be caused primarily by natural factors their funding dries up. Having worked in a university environment where federal funding was the main source of your research income I have first hand experience that if you don't toe the party line your funding dries up. Many oil and gas companies have jumped on the global warming hysteria because there is big bucks in carbon sequestration from real and proposed tax credits not to mention that injecting carbon dioxide into oil and gas reservoirs can substantially improve recovery of hydrocarbons. Despite the fact that some scientists claim the sun is not a primary source for global warming I remain a proponent of that view. The correspondence between solar activity and global temperature changes is too great to ignore. I doubt that we can account for all of the radiation from the sun including far infrared, radio and magnetic effects but solar activity such as sunspots can be accurately measured and corresponds extremely well with global temperature changes. See "The Role of the Sun in Climate Change" by NASA scientist Kenneth Schatten and Hughes researcher Douglas Hoyt. As far as I know they have no axe to grind and have written a fairly balanced book on the subject. By the way, if you think CO2 is all bad see http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp Clear Skies Don
Quoting "Don J. Colton" <djcolton@piol.com>:
I think one of the main problems with the global warming debate is the lack of objectivity by all parties -
I think one of the main problems with the global warming debate is the lack of "civility" by all parties. People can certainly disagree without being talked down to by those who think they hold the moral high ground on the topic. No one knows the real cause of global warming so no side holds the moral ground on this topic. So, when we discuss these issues among ourselves, it might behoove us all to maintain a civil tone. Now, if there is anyone who feels offended by what I just said, "bite me". ;)
Reference Pierce, J.L., Meyer, G.A. and Jull, A.J.T. 2004. Fire-induced erosion and millennial-scale climate change in northern ponderosa pine forests. Nature 432: 87-90. Description Pierce et al. (2004) dated fire-related sediment deposits in alluvial fans in central Idaho, USA, in a research program designed to reconstruct Holocene fire history in xeric ponderosa pine forests and to look for links to past climate change. Their work centered on tributary alluvial fans of the South Fork Payette (SFP) River area (~44°N, 115.6°W), where fans receive sediment from small but steep basins that are conducive to post-fire erosion. Altogether, they obtained 133 AMS 14C-derived dates from 33 stratigraphic sites in 32 different alluvial fans. The results suggested that the size and severity of large-event stand-replacing fires in this region tend to increase with temperature and that intervals of stand-replacing fires and large debris-flow events are largely coincident in SFP ponderosa pine forests "most notably during the 'Medieval Climatic Anomaly' (MCA), ~1,050-650 cal. yr BP." Based on these findings, the Medieval Warm Period was likely warmer than the Current Warm Period.
I'm not in a position to argue about specific data, but the issue need not be debated in such detail. What I've read seems to say that warming caused by greenhouse gas emmision is a very different animal than that caused by other sources (i.e., variations in solar output), due to the possibility of a rapid "runaway" effect being tripped. No-one knows even remotely where that threshold actually is- thus the mindset of erring on the side of conservation. Kurt was quite eloquent and dead-on in his essay. The debate is an ethical one. The fact that some maintain that most of the global warming trend isn't man-caused, does not argue against reductions in man-made emissions and misses the point. A runaway greenhouse effect means death for all of us, regardless of our opinions- or the real cause. Conservation and 'green' lifestyles, even down to the smallest details, collectively, make complete sense, both logically (science), and ethically (your moral baseline as it relates to stewardship of this planet). Humans should not produce pollutants that can contribute to global warming, period. You don't screw with what you don't understand, you don't litter, you don't risk ruining the environment. It's not OK to keep playing with the stove just because you haven't been burned yet. It's a human trait to tell ouselves what we want to believe, so we can maintain a certain comfort level or belief system. We want to be able to sleep at night. Nobody is an idiot or villain for thinking like that, just human and trying to make sense of things like everyone else. We all have ethical questions in our minds and moral decisions to make. Does anyone else think that "Alarmist" has negative connotations? This troubles me and is obvious non-scientific political spin. Many of those branded thus are genuinely trying to keep this planet a nice place to live- even for those who don't think human activity is damaging the environment in possibly catastrophic ways. Not all are at risk of losing funding. Perhaps "Cautionist" might be a better term? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
I rather liked the way Carl Sagan viewed our planet, as us riding in a vast space station hurtling through space. Why would anyone in their right mind risk screwing with the life support system? ;o) --- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm not in a position to argue about specific data, but the issue need not be debated in such detail.
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participants (7)
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Canopus56 -
Chuck Hards -
diveboss＠xmission.com -
Don J. Colton -
Joe Bauman -
Richard Tenney -
Tyler Allred