The Cycle of Global Warming 42

[SomptingGuy]

What conclusions you draw from that I guess depend on your predispositions.

I think that's the whole point of the book. It challenges just about every bit of ingrained thinking. Some of his points really make you think, even if you end up not agreeing.

 

[2dye4]

A few posts back I asked Lcruiser if he though our course
was sustainable in regard to fossil fuel burning.
He answeared no.
So what do we have if we acknowledge right now that we are
on a non sustainable path regarding our enviroment but we
also are unwilling to reduce our usage of the very substance
that puts us on the downward path.
You can argue all day about what scientist predicts what.
If you believe our way of life steadily reduces the
carrying capacity of our planet then what argument can
you give that we should not take some action now.
You can say lets wait and see if science develops some
majic bullet that will fix all the unwanted by products
of carbon fuel burning. You could even say one day a
bright guy will emerge from a lab with a vial of
enviro-fix-it and release it into the atmosphere and the
problem would be solved. But i ask in return how do we
get to this point. We can't get there by saying its too
difficult now lets put it off until there is better
science. Then when will we devote the resources to
fix the problem??

 

[electricpete]

Predictably, I have to point out that the Wall Street Journal is a business publication (we know where business stands on the issue), and this author is one voice among many. Surely he is more distinguished and knowledgeable on this subject than anyone in this forum (certainly me), but he also got a chance to get his name in the paper (would he have had the same chance if his views were more mainstream?). I will repeat that in my view, the only way to cut through the spin is to diligently search for credible sources. Not one person, but organizations that made their credibility and fame long before any pronouncements on global warming, who have a lot to lose in putting their credibility on the line.

Surprisingly, I think Lindzen is not too far off on most of his points... I disagree mostly with his tone.

He is certainly correct IMO that Al Gore's speeches have exagerated some facts. One thing is Mr Gore's implications that recent increase in hurricanes are caused by global warming. I don't think that many scientists are saying anything like that. Similarly malaria seems like a stretch to me.

Lindzen trumpets a series of somewhat unrelated statistics and factoids as if they prove something... these don't seem to prove anything to me:

"* To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940
* that icebergs have been known since time immemorial;
* that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. [WHERE IS THAT EVIDENCE?)]
* A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming. [ THERE ARE SEVERAL LINKS ABOVE DESCRIBING LOSS OF TOTAL ICE AREA... NOT JUST CLIPS OF ICE FALLING INTO THE OCEAN.... PLEASE PROVIDE ONE LINK SHOWING GREENLAND ICE SHEET IS GROWING]
*They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that.
* Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

Dr. Lindzen critiques Gore harshly on the semantics of "there is consensus....". One item he points out is that the question being debated is not defined. (as we have observed in this thread it's tough to pin down what the question is when there are so many different voices). Another he points out is that there are substantial variations in forecasts (how many meters in how many centuries). From my perspective the fact that there is a consensus among scientists that we need to do something is more important than the fact that not all scientists agree on all their coefficients, which is certainly no excuse for inaction. To continue the credit card analogy, do I have to know whether my credit card balance is $50k or $500k to know I better cut down my spending?

I like Lindzen's wrapup of the state of the debate:

A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. [SIGNIFICANT!]

This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.

There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume) in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today.

Finally, there has been no question whatsoever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas -- albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system...

It seems like he agrees the state of the art conclusions are that warming is going on, man has had a significant impact on it, CO2 is known to have significantly increased and is known to be a factor in warming. His only point I can see is that CO2 he says is a small factor.... followed immediately by the criticism that he himself expects that if our temperature change were due soley to CO2 then it should have been larger??? Two responses:
1 - How can he say he thinks it's a minor effect and at the same time say he expects to see a bigger temperature increase.
2 - If you focus on his sentence structure, you see that the contradiction must be resolved by a flaw in his stated assumption that the climate change were due soley to CO2. The logical conclusions are that there are other forcings at work to push temperature down but the change in CO2 would have increased temperature by MORE than we have seen if not for those other factors.

Maybe he was making another point that he thought the climate change was a natural cycle unrelated to man. That seems a little inconsistent with his admission that the state of the art consensus is the climate change is occuring and man has a significant impact.
===================
I have another article by Dr. James Hansen. His credentials from Wikipedia: "Dr. James E. Hansen is the lead climate scientist and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science. His primary interests are radiative transfer and climate modeling."

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/hansen_timebomb.pdf

There are a lot of things you can take out of this article. I would point out just a few:
1 - CO2 is not a small factor. Either Hansen is mistaken or Lindzen is mistaken. I know who I believe (because it's not just one expert against another expert...remember all those other organizations?).
2 - Chart on page 72 (page 6 of 11). It tells the story that climate is no longer 1 exclusively a naturally-controlled phenomenon. Man has significant impacts in both directions (I'm sure there are a few significant natural forcings omitted but still a sobering picture). With this realization should come the realization that we have an obligation to act responsibly.
3. - Whenever he estimates the effects he mentions the delayed effects of CO2 that is already in the pipeline. In my simple mind this means there is significant inertia. The climate doesn't respond instantly to the forcings. Even after we finally start decreasing our production of CO2 (a long way off?), the effects of the CO2 we have already produced will continue to drive temperature up. In other words, we can't wait until the situation gets untolerable and then take action. We have to use a little bit of foresight to keep out ahead of this. Or we could keep on charging until the bank cuts off the credit cards, the car gets repo'd and we don't have any way to commute to work to pay back our debt.

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[z633]

CO2, another commodity of the future. Most everybody changes their oil and hopes that the recycler transforms this into a useful byproduct. Why not CO2 as well? Imagine as you fill it up with methanol, the integral safety hollow framework of your vehicle, charged with waste C02 is discharged simultaneous with the re-fuel. Sure, additional infrastructure piping associated with the transport of the C02. Plus the remote sites would require liquefy or some other form of molecular combinational compaction of the CO2. There would be the some efficiency penalty as LC states in the vehicle performance, but we are used to that; EPA, catalytic converters, lean combustion etc. The transport and recycle of CO2 is a piece of cake compared with H2. Plus it is non-volatile, and if leaked it no big environmental catastrophe. Plus!!! Imagine given the soon to be mentioned solar conversion technology that used the C02, water, with output methanol. The car would re-fuel its self!! With much more energy storage potential compared to “current” electrical solar-battery technology. New meaning to green car, literally as green is evolutionary the choice color for the synthetic photosynthesis function. Arguably carbon neutral, but better than nothing

 

[electricpete]

what would be the reaction
2CO2 + 202 -> 2CO + 3O2 ?

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[SomptingGuy]

Methanol as an energy storage medium?

I don't know how much of this is fluff and hype, but people are working on it. It's not hard to see the benefits of methanol over hydrogen.

http://www.oceanethanol.com/site/OceanEthanol.html

 

[electricpete]

I probably got a little carried away talking about credibility. All sources are relevant, but we just should bear in mind what we know about our sources.

I did not mean to imply that Hansen's view is the official view of NASA. He had made it clear in other articles that his articles represenent his own personal views and not official NASA views.

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[GregLocock]

I've just been reading the Hansard of the Senate Committee on Australia’s future oil supply and alternative transport fuels. This is is a process by which pollies invite written syubmissions from interested parties, and then discuss them with various 'experts' and experts.

In their opinion: Hydrogen is a niche product. Fuel cells are therefore a waste of time, since once you add a reformulator you might as well just have a diesel engine.

Ethanol offers a reasonable alternative to oil. I haven't seen a discussion of methanol (there's several hundred pages of this to read).

In Australia, at least, Coal to Liquid (CTL) aka Synfuel, is a viable technology if oil stays above $40 per barrel.

OK, so that's oil sorted.

For greenhouse, it seems to me that the contribution of vehicles is rather over-stated. Their overwhelming contribution these days is CO2, road transport represents less than 1.2% of total CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. So, increasing the efficiency of cars will make a relatively small contribution to the greenhouse effect, even if it exists in the popularly accepted form.

Working: Total worldwide automotive CO2 emissions are equivalent to 700 million tons of carbon per annum.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2006/2006-06-28-03.asp

Gross non-marine flow of carbon (not CO2) into the atmosphere is 59.3 billion tons per annum

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/facts_and_figures/globalco2flows.cfm

Of that 59 billion tons most gets reabsorbed into plants etc.

Having said that there is no point in burning oil for the sake of it, it is a valuable resource, and using it in stationary applications in particular is quite ridiculous.


Cheers

Greg Locock

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[z633]

Sorry guys, just trying to think outside of the ellipsoid.

 

[z633]

And Pete, Sorry. The answer to your question is, well ,that I am no organic chemist. But I think some of the ideal by-products of combustion are h20 and c20. Now, looking out your window, from your nuclear powered yacht, you probably notice some hungry plankton soaking in the sunlight, sucking in a good CO2-H20 cocktail, and getting high off the sugar rush. Now this organism is jazzed up to re-produce, that is how it is programmed.

So in short there is a development of membranes and capillaries and effective stages of yeast-like digestion that, again given sunlight H20, & C20, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that products a tailored energetic hydrocarbon compound that is in liquid form, pure, and ready to internally combust.

The key is to develop are these hard working nanobots, and keep the motivated, as so they do not get lazy, distracted. What do you do? Reproduction, but this is dangerous as the mutant offspring are likely to have an uprising. So some other distraction would be required, reward for the hard work?

So I am no rocket s.., well actually I am in the broad sense of the word(s). But I think it is per principle sound. May take another Madhatten project to solve, but then again,…., maybe the byproduct of this endeavor will not emit deadly sub-atomic particles for the next 100K years either.

 

[z633]

And I am sorry, again, do not mean to electrocute you folks. But, I forgot. The closest analogy we have found so far are ants and bees. The produce chemically encoded elixirs that somehow program the masses for the need at hand and satisfy their needs.

However, in the lab, these have been difficult to analyze. Plus the complex nature of the compounds can produce irregularities in the resultant, desired product. pollution.

Anyway who would figure? Ants, Plants, and a higher intelligence at work.

 

[electricpete]

Al Gore on CNN was a bust. Nothing interesting there. I'm not sure whether Al only came prepared with hype (forgot to bring his facts) or whether Larry King kept him too busy tapdancing around questions about politics. Either way, I apologize for recommending a useless show last time.

I'm hoping Tom Brokaw will be better.
The Discovery Channel
9pm EST Sunday
Be there!

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/globalwarming/about/about.html?clik=fsmain_feat4

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[LCruiser]

Al Gore on scientists' knowledge of global warming:
"They just don't know."

http://newsbusters.org/node/6231

 

[electricpete]

If you follow the links on the left hand side of the page above, there looks like a lot of information pulled together.

Under "Signs and Sources" / "Sources" / "Getting Around", their statistic is that 20% of US CO2 engines come from gas-powered internal combustion engines and another 13% from commercial trucks. Seems out of whack with Greg's statistic in Australia. I'm not sure why.

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[GregLocock]

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=are_you_a_global_warming_skeptic_part_iv&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

for some reasonably intelligent observations.

I was using the total ground based emissions into the air, I suspect you are using the proportion of anthropogenic CO2.

My point was, in a system with an annual turnover of say 150 billion tonnes, (of which 59 is land based) paying undue attention to the precise impact of a particular additional 0.7 billion tonnes seems odd.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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[electricpete]

If we get past the "is it real?" and "is it man-made or natural cycle?" phases of the discussion (which I am not necessarily dismissing), then it would be logical to focus on those parts of the equation that we can control.

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[GregLocock]

Grow more seashells? It seems to me that you can control many aspects of the cycle, to fine tune it, IF you understand what you are doing.

Note that cement production is releasing carbon from the bank, might it not be more cost effective to look at that process than the usual suspects?

Cheers

Greg Locock

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

 

[electricpete]

The link looks interesting. If I click on the author's name I see it brings up a whole series of articles by him. Looks like I have some reading to do.

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[electricpete]

Don't forget 9pm EST 8pm CST (now!)
Tom Brokaw on The Discovery Channel.

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[prost]

Brokaw, eh? Great! Another "lecture" from a non expert who uses 100 times more resources than I do. My apologies if you find my sarcasm offensive.