'Educated' opinions on climate change part 2 40

[IceNine]

The main problem is population growth.

All of the things we humans do are harmless to the earth in moderation of course, but with the population approaching 7 billion and Chinese and Indian consumption habits approaching those of the U.S., we have a problem.

All of the earth's natural systems including the air, land and water are under stress.

Maybe we've exceeded the earth's carrying capacity?

 

[KENAT]

IceNine, that kind of thinking (or at least the discussion it starts about how to limit the human population) isn't popular/allowed here, you'll probably get red-flagged.

"So how do you deliver a message like cutting down trees is bad for the enviroment to some one who would other wise be using dried cow doung for cooking?"

A. what's wrong with using cow dung?

B. give them a solar cooker if they're from a hot/sunny place, which a lot of people facing this dilema are. (oh and completely re-educate them on how/what to cook)

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[RossABQ]

Ans.: Same thing that makes it all but unused in the US, which arguably has several times the amount of dung available.

 

[cranky108]

I have heard of mixing chipped wood with coal to reduce emissions, but that was from stoker plants, which aren't that efficent anyway. So in the few remaining stoker plants we could mix the coal with dung. (It might be even less popular that just coal alone).
Still I think the impact would be less than 5% reduction of coal, besides the energy and cost to collect and dry the dung. (Nice desposil idea for places like Dodge city).

The deforrestation problem, as I understand it, is mainly because of lack of local knoledge of maintaining soil quality.

 

[frv]

Educated?

Hardly.

I think people are forgetting a fundamental issue. Nobody on this board is qualified to speak about climate change with any level of authority. I certainly would not trust say, an EE, on a question regarding SE.

I've never understood this resistance to believing the experts that is ubiquitous in America. There is almost an animosity towards scientists simply doing their jobs and they are labeled "elitists". This cynical view of scientists who warn us of impending doom is entirely without merit. I'm not naive enough to suggest that no scientist has ulterior motives, but science is beautiful in that it is self-correcting. It is NOT perfect. It takes data and postulates the most likely scenario. It bases its findings on what others have learned for centuries and uses this to extrapolate into the future.

It is incredibly self-aggrandizing to believe we, as engineers, have more insight than the scientists who study this issue for a living. And let there be no doubt; ALL reputable scientists who have published papers in peer-reviewed journals (you know- the way science is SUPPOSED to work) agree that climate change is not only anthropomorphic, but the consequences of it may be irreversible.

This is not to say that ALL effects of global warming (climate change) will be negative. There will certainly be some winners. However, the science is in agreement that, overall, the effects will be negative for humanity as a whole.

Lets even throw out a ridiculously low probability of 5% of global warming threatening humanity. I'm going to plagiarize a line from a silly program I watched on the science channel regarding an asteroid impacting the earth: "If there was a 5% chance there was a rattlesnake in your back yard, would you let your kids go play there?"

 

[frv]

Please excuse my previous post- I've had a few Sunday beers

I meant to say anthropogenic, not anthropomorphic!

 

[cranky108]

I think that the question is not if the scientists are wrong, but if politics has entered the scientific community and has made an incorrect push in the direction of the results.
With such a large change in our living standards as a issue we can hardly sit back and be passive on what solutions are being forced upon us.

Having said that, what other solutions have we not consitered? I've brought up a few, but they don't seem to be what the scientific community wants to hear.

 

[LCruiser]

frv,

if you will recall your thermodynamics then you will realize that what the alatmists are saying is pretty much nonsense. As an SE that may be way in your past, but the typical engineer has more actual science than many "climate scientists".

While it may be true that there is a chance that AGW will be a problem, there is also a chance of the same order of magnitude that increasing CO2 will be beneficial to mankind. The science just isn't robust enough to warrant hobbling civilization for some windmill tilting.

For instance, photons in the CO2 band are basically absorbed within 150 meters of the surface. Doubling CO2 would make that 75 meters. Hardly what the alarmists would have you believe.

 

[electricpete]

I've never understood this resistance to believing the experts that is ubiquitous in America

Not all Americans thought going into Iraq was a good thing. Not all Americans think the scientific community (NASA, NAS, IPCC, NOAA, WHOI, LANL, Hadley Center, etc etc etc) is complicit in some wide-ranging conspiracy to create unnecessary alarm.

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[frv]

LCruiser-

I am a recent grad and I recall my thermo just fine. Please enlighten me as to how the laws of thermodynamics prove that "what the alarmists are saying is pretty much nonsense".

 

[zdas04]

frv,
The statement

It is incredibly self-aggrandizing to believe we, as engineers, have more insight than the scientists who study this issue for a living. And let there be no doubt; ALL reputable scientists who have published papers in peer-reviewed journals (you know- the way science is SUPPOSED to work) agree that climate change is not only anthropomorphic, but the consequences of it may be irreversible.

has to be the single stupidest thing that I've ever seen anyone post on these fora. For every single peer-reviewed article that claims a climate change caused by man, there is at least one peer-reviewed article claiming that climate change is either not caused by man, not caused by GHG, or that the direction of the change is a decreasing global temperature. My guess is that at the end of the day 100% of mass media, 100% of tree-hugging "celebrities", 80% of politicians, and something under 50% of climate scientists feel that so called anthropogenic-green-house-gas is a significant factor in global climate change.

As engineers we have an obligation to make up our own minds about the quality of the interpretation of published data and in fact the quality of the data itself. I for one take this very seriously. When I see papers that "account" for the urban island effect with a multiplier that varies by an order of magnitude from researcher to researcher I get a very strong feeling that one or both of the "scientists" are cooking their data to satisfy their grant provider.

If we (as engineers, not scientists) are not allowed to question their numbers who is going to? The peer review process is amazingly full of reviewers who share the opinion held by the publication's editors/publishers. This results in little real scrutiny of papers that have conclusions that the publication supports and immediate rejection of papers with data counter to those conclusions. No process that involves people will be perfect, but the peer-review process is far more a reflection of bias, funding, and politics than quality on this topic.

David

 

[frv]

zdas04-

I am underwhelmed.

It gives me comfort that you disagree so vehemently with me. Please do me a favor and post a link or a copy of any peer reviewed article published in the last 10 years (when this subject has truly taken off) that questions global warming as anthropogenic.

I am not suggesting we have no right to question, but one must have the proper tools to question. It seems that many of these questioners have what amounts to an inferiority complex, as they are unable to deffer to authority on any subject. Rather, they'd rather use their tenuous understanding of a subject in order to make themselves appear informed. One of the most important aspects of being an engineer is recognizing when you do not know something. And as far as who questions the scientists, everybody does. But the most significant questioning comes from other scientists. You act as though all scientists had one goal and they all walk in unison. What would be more beneficial to a scientists career than to find data that proves GW is not occurring or that it is not anthropogenic? They'd give him a nobel prize. You think they don't do it because there is some vast conspiracy? They don't because the science doesn't support it.

By the way, I have a very good understanding of the science behind global warming, but I am not going to sit on this forum and claim that I know more than the tens of thousands of scientists who study this. I've only read a few (quite honestly, only between 10 and 15) peer-reviewed scientific articles about this subject, and dozens of articles in non peer-reviewed journals relating to this subject. But regardless of my understanding, I trust science and the scientific method.

 

[electricpete]

LCruiser
photons in the CO2 band are basically absorbed within 150 meters of the surface. Doubling CO2 would make that 75 meters.

Can you provide a link or reference to support this statement?
Thanks.

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[GregLocock]

I think we agree that the scientific method is the right approach, but would dispute that it is being applied rigorously in this field. The problem is that it is very difficult to perform proper experiments in such a 'noisy' environment, where one has little control, and little desire, to make massive changes to calibrate your models. So the models are pretty shaky in the first place. However they are given undue respect because they support a world view that is currently popular, and was politically convenient.

The recent decade long halt in the rise of global temperatures, despite a continuing rise in CO2 levels, is one example of an inconvenient truth that is causing recalibration of models (aka adjusting fudge factors) around the world.

If there is no direct nexus between CO2 levels and global temperature (that is to say, there are compensating natural mechanisms such as activity of the carbon cycle, and changes in ocean currents, or that the CO2 effect was trivial in the first place) then there can obviously be no direct nexus between /anthropogenic/ CO2 and global temperature.



Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[LCruiser]

Here's what the IPCC says:

"Large uncertainties remain about how clouds might respond to global climate change."

and:

"Models differ considerably in their estimates of the strength of different feedbacks in the climate system."

Doesn't sound like they all agree to me, unless they all agree they don't know what's going on.

There are close to a million "pier reviewed" papers on global warming - you can pretty much find whatever you want.

Here is a window to what I view a realistic viewpoint, which has many, many links to non-alarmist climate science:

http://climatesci.org/

Don't peruse it unless you are willing to think for yourself.

...............

Here you go Pete:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2562

 

[GregLocock]

"Please do me a favor and post a link or a copy of any peer reviewed article published in the last 10 years (when this subject has truly taken off) that questions global warming as anthropogenic."

Veizer, J., Y. Godderis, and L. M. Francois, Evidence for
decoupling of atmospheric CO2 and global climate during
the Phanerozoic eon, Nature, 408, 698–701, 2000.

Enjoy.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[frv]

LCruiser-

I'm trying to contain myself from some snide remark.

I really don't mean to come off as condescending but do you know what they mean by feedback systems?

Take, for example the melting of the ice caps. Less snow means less reflected sunlight which, in turn, leads to more absorbed heat. What they are talking about is a disagreement of how to quantify this effect. NOT whether or not GW is happening and NOT whether or not it is anthropogenic.

I never claimed that the science is complete in the sense that all aspects are fully understood. It is impossible to do this as it is, in fact, a terribly complex system. The science, however, is in agreement about global warming as a whole.

 

[frv]

LCruiser-

I'm still waiting on the thermodynamic reasons

 

[LCruiser]

fry -

Of course you are trying to contain yourself from snide remarks, and that's admirable, as snide remarks are usually what people descend to when they don't have anything else to go on.

Engineers are "applied scientists". Don't underestimate your ability to understand the science - don't just take the dogma for granted.

Look at figure 10 here:

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2000/annrev00.pdf

As for thermodynamics - think evaportranspiration and convection. What would a 5% change in global precipitaton (equal to evaporation) do to the energy budget:

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/abstracts/files/kevin1997_1.html

?

P.S. Feeback also means increased albedo from increased cloudiness, a result of increased convection. It works both ways.

 

[frv]

GregLocock-

I am unwilling to pay $32 dollars to read this article, so I cannot give you an informed response.

However, from the abstract, two things stand out: 1) temperatures were taken only around the equator and 2) the authors themselves admit that the CO2 reconstruction may be flawed