The Cycle of Global Warming 42

[z633]

I had the pleasure of attending a detailed briefing on global warming and future strategy of mitigating such, The briefing was given by DR. John P. Ziagos of Lawerence Livermore National Laboratory. From this briefing, there was no debate about if. The fact is that it is in fact happening and there is in planning for a tremendous engineering effort to mitigate the effects. Some of what I can remember.

1. Carbon sequestration from coal burning power plants and other major producers of CO2.

2. Huge deposits of "methane Ice" that exceed the integrated total of petroleum "oil". Said is deep, mostly in coastal areas around the globe. Plus the tar sands etc. Apparently "oil shale" does not produce oil, but rather, something mineral based, but simular.

3. 5X increase in the use of nuclear power.

4. Additional "North Dakota sized wind farm"

5. Comparable effort in solar technologies.

All said, Global warming will be a huge windfall for armies of engineers in the future.

So the naysayers in this thread really have there heads up somewhere or in the sand. Prostegious institutions like Lawerence Livermore do not blindly run around and make these types of planning and statements just for more R&D funding.

 

[LCruiser]

electricpete - You can pretty much look at any two reputable graphs of both and see that.

z633 - I don't know too many people who have their heads hidden somewhere denying temperatures are going up. The question is why? CO2 has never before caused temp to rise except in the laboratory. There are many other potential causes (see above).

You're right about adaptation though - and that's what homo sapiens are very good at.

Don't kid yourself about LLNL though. Many researchers are there because they are alarmists. Not many people get more funding if they say "It's probably not a problem".

 

[jmw]

z633,
I assume you received some convincing evidence at this briefing that will compel all other scientific experts in the field to the same evidence-based conclusion, or was it just their assurance that it is true?
Scientists have split and.... well see the rest of this and related threads for the discussion.

Prostegious institutions like Lawerence Livermore do not blindly run around and make these types of planning and statements just for more R&D funding.

and the evidence for this is...? why are they so different?

You then say:

"All said, Global warming will be a huge windfall for armies of engineers in the future."

.

Hmmm. Does this mean engineers are far less ethical than the scientists on the side of GW? Are you appealling to our greed?

Actually we have several scenarios, on either side of the debate, and most of them will benefit engineering.

What we have at the moment is a propaganda war, not science. We are being asked to adopt a "religious style" belief system and act accordingly.

"Convincing", "compelling", "overwhelming" is when the majority of scientists and institutions are all aligned and are perhaps arguing about the details not the principal.

We need the scientific method to work and to let it work its way through to the point where everyone (the scientific experts, not the journalists and politicians) have agreed on a theory that accounts for all the evidence, that makes predictions that can be tested and shown to be true.

One cannot simply discount the evidence for or against simply because it doesn't fit the model; it has to be accounted for. So far as I can see, we aren't anywhere near a reliable "theory of everything" for global climate.

Nor are we in the situation where we have a win win situation: it would be nice to think that the safe option is to assume the truth of the model and act accordingly since there is no harm done if it is wrong... we aren't there either.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ivymike]

"Convincing", "compelling", "overwhelming" is when the majority of scientists and institutions are all aligned and are perhaps arguing about the details not the principal.

All right, we'll wait for the last three to join, then we'll use those words.

 

[z633]

Lc and jmw, perhaps you are right. It is all just one big conspiracy to raise taxes, milk the middle class out of billions to subsidize Exon Mobile. Exon Mobile can further expand their monopoly of the energy supply, continue double digit growth rate, and reward the major stake stock holders.

And as far as university researchers stretching the truth to get more funding, shame on you. Well, other than setting their mothers sock on fire, with the mother in them, "for research into safer socks".

 

[Ashereng]

z633,

Just because "LLNL said so" is the arguement?

I'm not saying whether LLNL is right or wrong. I am just not convinced by the arguement "Put Name of Prestigious Institution Here said so".

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Ashereng]

z633,

Found the name for your type of argument:

Ad Hominem

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[CajunCenturion]

I don't think that's an ad hominen fallacy.

I think it's more likely the
Argumentum ad verecundiam - appeal to authority. It must be true because <insert name here> says it's true.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Ashereng]

CajunCenturion,

Argumentum ad Hominem (abusive and circumstantial): the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.

You are correct. In this case, it is sort of a reverse ad Hominem arguement.


Oh, by the way, Argumentum ad Verecundiam: (authority) the fallacy of appealing to the testimony of an authority outside his/hers special field.

I would posit that LLNL is within its area of specialty and authority on the subject, depending on the speaker.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[LCruiser]

I would argue that climatology is not a "special field" and as such is outside of all "special fields". It is the ultimate interdisciplinary study. The unknowns in it are largely outside of the physical sciences fields, and are now mostly in the natural sciences. Unfortunately, due to the tendency for people to study "more and more about less and less" we have a rather serious Tower of Babel problem when it comes to climate science.

I would think LLNL would be the penultimate place to study climate, if the alarmists could be held at bay. Unfortunately a lot of them get into climate science just because they are alarmist - also there is a big tendency for computer gamers to contiue their play in the modeling fields, so take that for what it's worth...

At any rate, it's pretty much common knowledge in the scientific field that LLNL is a distant second to LANL. That would be Los Alamos National Laboratory. ;-)

 

[electricpete]

OK, let's look at LANL.

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=home.story&story_id=2030&view=print

"We want the global-warming community to know that we've identified a possible explanation for why satellite atmospheric temperature and surface temperature trends can disagree," said Charles "Chick" Keller, director of Los Alamos' Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics. "The truth is that the temperature trends probably do agree when you consider the effect that massive ozone depletion caused by large volcanic eruptions has on the stratosphere and upper troposphere."

Keller and his colleagues - Manvendra Dubey and Howard Hanson of Los Alamos' Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Group, and Tracy Light of Los Alamos' Space and Atmospheric Sciences Group - presented their findings today at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco.

The researchers set out to explain why scientists have seen less warming in the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, than at the surface. If global warming were actually occurring, some scientists have said, then observers should be able to document warming trends in the atmosphere as well as on the surface. This doesn't always happen, however, and critics of global-warming theory use the trend disparity to discount the idea that Earth is slowly heating due to a buildup of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and other environmental factors.

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=nb.story&story_id=2443&nb_date=2002-04-09

Researchers at the Laboratory are studying a simple, cost effective method for extracting carbon dioxide directly from the air, which could allow sustained use of fossil fuels while avoiding potential global climate change.

The method would allow researchers to harvest carbon dioxide from the air, reducing buildup of the so-called "greenhouse gas" in the atmosphere and allowing it to be converted into fuel. A Los Alamos-led research team presented the topic at the 223rd annual meeting of the American Chemical Society today in Orlando, Fla.

"Fossil fuel supplies are plentiful, and what will limit the usage of fossil fuels is the potential climatic and ecosystem changes you may see as a result of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere," said Los Alamos researcher Manvendra Dubey of Hydrology, Geochemistry and Geology (EES-6).

Somehow it doesn't sound to me like LANL considers CO2 harmless.

By the way, is MIT Woods-hole an organization that you don't consider respectable?

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[LCruiser]

I didn't say they were perfect...

 

[electricpete]

http://ams.allenpress.com/amsonline...t&issn=1520-0442&volume=17&issue=18&page=3477

Previous studies have found that idealized hurricanes, simulated under warmer, high-CO2 conditions, are more intense and have higher precipitation rates than under present-day conditions. The present study explores the sensitivity of this result to the choice of climate model used to define the CO2-warmed environment and to the choice of convective parameterization used in the nested regional model that simulates the hurricanes. Approximately 1300 five-day idealized simulations are performed using a higher-resolution version of the GFDL hurricane prediction system (grid spacing as fine as 9 km, with 42 levels). All storms were embedded in a uniform 5 m s?1 easterly background flow. The large-scale thermodynamic boundary conditions for the experiments— atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles and SSTs—are derived from nine different Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP2+) climate models. The CO2-induced SST changes from the global climate models, based on 80-yr linear trends from +1% yr?1 CO2 increase experiments, range from about +0.8° to +2.4°C in the three tropical storm basins studied. Four different moist convection parameterizations are tested in the hurricane model, including the use of no convective parameterization in the highest resolution inner grid. Nearly all combinations of climate model boundary conditions and hurricane model convection schemes show a CO2-induced increase in both storm intensity and near-storm precipitation rates. The aggregate results, averaged across all experiments, indicate a 14% increase in central pressure fall, a 6% increase in maximum surface wind speed, and an 18% increase in average precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm center. The fractional change in precipitation is more sensitive to the choice of convective parameterization than is the fractional change of intensity. Current hurricane potential intensity theories, applied to the climate model environments, yield an average increase of intensity (pressure fall) of 8% (Emanuel) to 16% (Holland) for the high-CO2 environments. Convective available potential energy (CAPE) is 21% higher on average in the high-CO2 environments. One implication of the results is that if the frequency of tropical cyclones remains the same over the coming century, a greenhouse gas–induced warming may lead to a gradually increasing risk in the occurrence of highly destructive category-5 storms.

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[electricpete]

http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/pubs/dai_speech.pdf

"Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference*
A Discussion of Humanity’s Faustian Climate Bargain and the Payments Coming Due"

You need only read the title to figure out the gist of this article. Written by some left wing propaganda group? Not quite. James Hansen of NASA.

NASA, NOAA, LANL, LLNL, Woods Hole... all have political agendas? I guess you guys can dismiss anything if you try hard enough. Let's hear some of the credible sources that are saying that mans activities have no effect on the climate.

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[electricpete]

I have to say Woods Hole seems a little bit in the middle. They clearly acknowledge uncertainty. Their biggest concern is the Atlantic conveyor. Among their website you can find the following:

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=10149#ocean_2

Q. Have humans contributed to the warming?
A. Yes, but there is debate over how much. Natural variability - such as that arising from changes in the sun's energy input to Earth, volcanic activity, and regional climate phenomena like El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) - does play a role in adjusting the global thermometer. But the observed temperature record cannot be wholly accounted for by natural causes. As the American Geophysical Union recently concluded: "It is scientifically inconceivable that - after changing forest into cities, putting dust and soot into the atmosphere, putting millions of acres of desert into irrigated agriculture, and putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - humans have not altered the natural course of the climate system." Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), ozone (O3) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) are being added to the atmosphere largely as a result of burning fossil fuels, tropical deforestation and other human activities. These gases trap energy that would normally be radiated into space, and raise Earth's surface temperatures.

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[electricpete]

Go back and look at Scott's 2 links posted 27 Feb 06 and you will see a hint of the pressure applied to supress the view of the scientists.

Go back and look at the funding sources for all these anti-gw organizations and you will see how business is controlling the information we see.

Too plausible scenario's
1 - A bunch of hype played up by the environmentalists and the media and a few government scientists got caught up in it.
2 - mainstream science believes what they said at the ipcc. All of the spin comes from people trying to convince us it's not true.

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[electricpete]

Either one could be true in my opinion.

Speaking of credibility (or lack thereof)....

DON'T FORGET.... BIG AL! 9PM ET TUESDAY ON CNN
BE THERE!

=====================================
Eng-tips forums: The best place on the web for engineering discussions.

 

[Ashereng]

Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Yes, they are good. But there are several others:

Argonne National Laboratory


"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Ashereng]

Ooops, hit the enter buttn by mistake.

Also:

Sandia
Argonne
Oak Ridge

They are all very good. Some have specialties that others don't. It is hard to say one lab is better than another, since they all serve their own purposes.

Sort of like: What is the best engineering school in the US?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[MadMango]

I watched an interested program on NOVA last night, about Global Dimming and how it makes the effects of Global Warming seem lower or less serious.

What I found interesting, during the 3 days after 11SEP01 when all commercial air traffic over the CONUS was suspended, the temperature range (cold-hot-cold) increased by an average of 3deg F.

[green]"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."[/green]
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?