When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

RobertDyck · 2018-01-29 22:53:35

In Canada they're bringing in a carbon tax. As a result, I've posted against global warming. Global warming exists, but it's not as bad as the alarmists would have you believe. For one thing, we're in an interglacial period. Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica show the peak temperature the last 3 cycles was 6°C above the pre-industrial temperature. So when politicians debated in Paris whether to limit global warming to 2°C or 1.5°C, I had to laugh. What makes them think that can do that? Reminds me of a song: Camelot passed a law to only allow rain to fall after sundown, and the morning fog had to clear by 10:00am. Really? What makes you think passing a law will affect weather? However, the good news is if we follow the same pattern as the last 3 interglacial periods, that peak temperature won't happen for another 2,000 years. By geological standards that very soon, by human standards it's really not.

During the last ice age, ocean levels were so low that the Bering Straight was dry land, known as Beringia. The Grand Banks were an island, roughly the size of Newfoundland. The shore of India was much farther than it is today, Sri Lanka was part of the India mainland. Indonesia was an extension of the continent of southeast Asia. So yes, sea levels are rising. They've been rising since the end of the last ice age. It isn't going to stop. Sea level max will be higher than today, before the climate starts to cool down to the next ice age. The cycle will continue.

Want to argue for human intervention? Let's focus on man-made global cooling, from the beginning of the industrial revolution of 1855 until 1970. Rapid global warming was from 1970 until year 2000. Temperature in 1994 was the same as before the beginning of the industrial revolution of 1855. Assuming the rate of global warming form 1550 to 1855 was the rate of nature, and assuming that rate would have remained the same if humans hadn't messed with it, the temperature in year 2000 was what it would have been. The rate of global warming dramatically slowed at that point. From year 2000 until late 2014 it was slightly faster than 1550 to 1855, but not much. Unfortunately rapid global warming appears to be back.

All that means we need to do something, but not panic. And please stop acting like any sort of change is the end of the world. Yes, the climate is changing. The cycle of ice ages never stopped. Get over it!

EdwardHeisler · 2018-01-30 08:55:11

RobertDyck wrote:

Want to argue for human intervention? Let's focus on man-made global cooling, ....

What kinds of actions should humans and their governments take to fight this world-wide "global cooling"? I for one will do my best to increase carbon dioxide emissions. We could all stop car pooling and perhaps have a national "Let Our Cars Idle All Day". That would help .Perhaps we need to build many more coal burning energy plants and end solar and wind powered energy production to at least slow down this global cooling danger.

The snow storms in the east and cold weather at the North Pole are a clear indications that we are entering a new ice age.

RobertDyck · 2018-01-30 11:36:15

EdwardHeisler wrote:

What kinds of actions should humans and their governments take to fight this world-wide "global cooling"?

Global cooling was caused by aerosols, that's particulates and droplets in emissions. Most environmental activists obsess over carbon emissions, but they choose to ignore the fact that aerosols in smoke from coal burning cause global cooling. When strict environmental regulations were passed in 1970, global climate change reversed from cooling to warming. That's not a coincidence.

Actually, global warming is good for Manitoba. When I was a child, the coldest nights of the year got down to -40°F; real temperature, not windchill. Canada changed to metric when I was a teenager, so when I was a pre-schooler we still used Fahrenheit. -40° is the one temperature where Celcius and Fahrenheit are equal. One night in 1966 got down to -49°F (-45°C), again real temperature. That was thought to be the all-time record low for my city, until someone dug up weather records from 1878. The last time it got down to -40° was one night in January 2005. It hasn't gotten that cold since. Good riddance! Manitoba has active agriculture in the south only, warmer temperatures mean agriculture will become possible farther north. And we can already grow corn now in southern Manitoba. Global warming will mean more rain, but after the flood of 1997 we already increased flood protection. The electric utility uses hydro dams and windmills 100%, more rain means more electric power. And an engineer for Manitoba Hydro told me our dams do not silt-up.

That engineer said she didn't know what a certain feature was for, on the oldest dam in our province, over 100 years old. I had to tell her it's for silt control. She responded we don't need it because our dams don't silt-up. Our rivers don't carry significant silt. I still find it disturbing that I had to tell a professional engineer whose job is to design hydro dams. But she looked to be in her late 20s. Perhaps I should just get an engineering degree. Aerospace engineering.

elderflower · 2018-01-30 11:56:12

Is it Manitoba's policy to accommodate several million people from Bangladesh, Eastern China, Louisiana etc who will be displaced by the melting ice?

RobertDyck · 2018-01-30 12:22:33

But seriously, several things we can do to combat global warming. These are actually effective, and don't do economic harm like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system:

Kill the long-haul trucking industry. Use rail instead. Rail already costs 1/3rd the price per tonne (or ton) of cargo, per km (or mile). I have suggested removing the annual license fee that truckers must pay, replace it with a government-issue GPS tracking device. If a trucker services an intermodal terminal, hauling loads from suppliers to the local terminal to be loaded on a train, or from the terminal to final destination, then no toll at all. If a truck services a northern community such as northern Manitoba or Ontario where there is no rail, again no toll. But if a truck drives long-haul, then a toll is charged. Data from the GPS tracker would have to be uploaded monthly, with a bill sent to the trucker. If the truck doesn't do any long-haul at all that month, then zero bill. Truckers that strictly service intermodal or remote northern communities would find their total annual bill is lower. Railroads have complained that they have to build and maintain their own road, while trucks get to use roads for free. This toll would level the playing field by charging a toll; to big-rig trucks only, not cars or RVs or pickups trucks.
Introduce continental containers to North America (Canada and US). Europe uses these. Shipping containers are designed for ocean going ships; steel and designed to be stacked 6 high with full load. They can be stacked 7 or 8 high if only partially loaded. Continental containers are built like the trailer of a semi-truck; lighter weight but cannot be stacked at all. Useful for train and truck only, cannot be used on a ship. Lighter containers cost less to buy, but more importantly the truck or train consumes less fuel to haul them. The catch is they have to be lifted from the bottom, they can't be lifted from the roof. So they need special handling equipment. European terminals already have that equipment.
Complete development of gallium-indium-nitride photovoltaic cells. This was discovered by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, they went to UC Berkeley to fabricate a prototype to test it. Paper published in year 2000. It works. 2 junctions produce 56% conversion of sunlight to electricity, 3 junctions 64%, 36 junctions 72%. A later scientist calculated optimum configurations for 2 through 8 junctions; 2 and 3 produce the same as UC Berkeley calculated. 8 junctions produce 70.2% conversion. Ok, so 8 junctions is optimal for this chemistry. A house roof that *IS* photovoltaic. Not couple small solar cells nailed to the roof, but the roof as nothing but solar panel. With solar thermal mounting and transparent protective cover to protect from snow and hail. This means photovoltaic and active solar thermal in one unit. Don't obsess over the cost of each cell, instead focus on cost per watt. I they can be mass produced at the same price as current solar panels, but produce 5 times as much power as those currently available for domestic use, that means 1/5 cost per watt.
Build houses with solar roof, windmill, batteries in the basement, and geothermal heat pump. A dense suburban neighbourhood would require deep vertical ground loops to produce enough geothermal heat for all houses. This would make every house energy independent, and sell surplus electricity to the grid. And I want to design houses so they never ever ever purchase electricity; power flows one-way, from the house to the grid. The reason is if power is "net metered" then the utility will find a way to charge you. The goal is the utility will mail a cheque every month, never a bill. Or direct deposit with email statement, if you want to avoid snail-mail.
Build a shed for farms to make their own biodiesel. Take canola grain directly from the combine harvester as it comes off the field, process it to vegetable oil. Then some of the straw and ferment it for methanol. Take more straw and burn it to distill the methanol. Then percolate water through the ashes to make lye. Combine those to make methanol. Give the shed a solar panel roof, small windmill, truck battery, so it's self-contained. Just provide canola grain and straw, and water. The byproduct of processing vegetable oil to biodiesel is glycerine soap. That can be used as a base for fancy hand-made soap, or used directly. The farm could use it, or sell it. This would disconnect agriculture from the oil industry, so grocery prices don't fluctuate with oil prices.
My city is the largest one in North America with no form of mass transit what-so-ever. A couple years ago they built a "bus rapid transit" (BRT) system to address that, but that's just a bus. They built a road just for buses, but it's short, most buses don't use it, and those that do drive most of their route on normal city streets. I want an LRT at grade level, with a short section of subway downtown. That would start with the old rail yard that was converted to a walking path, lay tracks back there, and convert the BRT route to rail. They city had been in talks with a rail company, asking them to move their tracks to one side of their land so LRT tracks could be laid beside them. That parallels a major city road called Pembina Highway; the primary traffic artery for southern part of the city. That rail line starts where the BRT route ends. An electric LRT makes a lot of sense for a province that has surplus hydro-electric power.
Develop carbon nanofibre power transmission lines. This has lower electric resistance than copper, and copper has lower resistance than aluminum. Current long-distance power lines are aluminum. And carbon nanofibres can carry 1,000 times as much current vs aluminum for a cable of the same diameter. That allows the carbon nanofibre cable to be narrower, reducing cost. The only catch is the carbon cable has to be insulated; otherwise a lightning strike could catch it on fire. Reducing resistance means more power gets from generating station to paying customer. We already know how to make carbon nanofibre cables. Individual fibrils are only 1/10 mm long, but cables are currently made by continuous extrusion. Making fibrils longer would make the cable stronger, but it's already stronger than steel, so that would just increase cost without improving electrical characteristics.

RobertDyck · 2018-01-30 12:31:06

elderflower wrote:

Is it Manitoba's policy to accommodate several million people from Bangladesh, Eastern China, Louisiana etc who will be displaced by the melting ice?

Canada does accept more immigrants than the US. (proportionate to our population) We currently accept immigrants from those areas. Winnipeg gets immigrants from those areas, the small town of Morris gets immigrants from Brazil. The Canadian navy provided the only assistance to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. FEMA took months to get their act together, and no other country helped. Canada did increase its immigration quota to 1 million over 3 years.

Last edited by RobertDyck (2018-01-30 12:38:03)

elderflower · 2018-01-30 13:12:44

On high voltage transmission lines: Aluminium is as good as copper in practice as its weight is supported by a steel core and the whole is mounted on towers. Use of Copper would reduce the diameter of the cable for the same resistance, but it would still cost more to procure and build the line.
You are right about looking for an improvement, though. For years people have been chasing superconductivity in an attempt to get better transmission efficiency. High Voltage dc is the best at the moment as it avoids losses due to inductance and capacitance. It incurs losses due to ac/dc conversion at source and dc/ac conversion for distribution, but these are less than the losses in transmitting HV ac in bulk over large distances.

EdwardHeisler · 2018-01-30 15:30:10

RobertDyck wrote:

But seriously, several things we can do to combat global warming. These are actually effective, and don't do economic harm like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system:
Kill the long-haul trucking industry. Use rail instead.

Railroads can't pick up and deliver LTL freight for long haul.

Trucking companies and owner-operators handled over 10 billion tons of freight and 70% of all freight shipped last year.

The shrinking U.S rail freight industry doesn't have the rolling stock and locomotive fleet to handle that amount of additional freight. And the railroads simply don't have railroad tracks giving them direct access to the hundreds of thousands of shippers that the trucking companies do have access to.

And it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars that the government and railroads won't invest to rebuild the kind of profitable freight train system you advocate.

If that was feasible, the railroad owners would have done that already. They have a good nose for profit making ventures.

Last edited by EdwardHeisler (2018-01-30 15:31:15)

EdwardHeisler · 2018-01-30 15:36:28

[Excerpt]

Trump's view that ice caps 'setting records' baffles scientists
By Alister Doyle
January 29, 2018
Reuters

Scientists puzzled on Monday over U.S. President Donald Trump's assertion that ice caps are "setting records" when much of the world's ice from the Alps to the Andes is melting amid global warming.

Trump cast doubt on mainstream scientific findings about climate change in an interview aired on Britain's ITV channel on Sunday night, saying "there's a cooling and there's a heating".

"The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now. But now they're setting records. They're at a record level," he said.

Many people use the term "ice cap" to refer to polar sea ice or vast ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. It is also a technical term for smaller masses of ice on land, ending in glaciers.

"Glaciers and ice caps are globally continuing to melt at extreme rate," said Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service which tracks hundreds of glaciers.

Trump's implication that glaciers and ice caps are growing "is simply wrong. Or maybe he is referring to a different planet," Zemp said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ … &ocid=iehp

EdwardHeisler · 2018-01-30 15:40:39

January 12, 2018
Global Warming Stirs the Methane Monster
by Robert Hunziker
Counterpunch

It’s January, yet methane hydrates in the Arctic are growling like an incensed monster on a scorching hot mid-summer day. But, it is January; it’s winter, not July!

On January 1st Arctic methane at 2,764 ppb spiked upwards into the atmosphere, which, according to Arctic News: “Was likely caused by methane hydrate destabilization in the sediments on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.” (Source: Unfolding Arctic Catastrophe, Arctic News, January 2, 2018) Once again, with emphasis, it’s January; it’s winter, and there’s little or no sunshine above the Arctic Circle. So, what gives? Why are alarming levels of methane spewing into the atmosphere in the dead of winter?

For starters, record low sea ice volume, which has been dropping like a leaden weight for years because of human-generated (anthropogenic) global warming. That’s a recipe for trouble, big time trouble as methane hydrates (lattices of ice that entrap methane molecules) get exposed to warmer water. In that regard, average sea ice volume throughout 2017 was at record lows.

Making matters worse yet, extraordinarily warm water currents flow into the Arctic from nearby ocean waters that have been absorbing 90% of global warming. Ergo, Arctic water in thin ice does not cool down without a lot of thick ice to melt the warm water currents. So, abnormally warm water remains into winter months and, in time, reaches sediments at the bottom of the ocean, disrupting methane hydrates, which have stored tonnes of methane over millennia. However, in due course, all hell breaks loose with large-scale methane eruptions, one of those “Naw, it can’t be happening” moments.

Here’s the problem: On average, sea surface temps were 23.35°F warmer during the period October 1 to December 30, 2017 compared to the 30-year average temperature. On October 25th, the sea surface was as warm as 63.5°F. For the Arctic, that’s hot, not just warmer. And, that brings forth a big-gulp question: What’s going to happen in summertime when methane hydrates are more exposed?

After all, methane (CH4) is a dominating greenhouse gas that makes carbon dioxide (CO2) look like a piker during initial years and packs the walloping risk of runaway global warming, which, in turn, threatens agricultural sources of food… not a good scenario. Imagine the chaos, considering the fact that “runaway” means totally out of control!

In all, an impending disaster seems destined to happen, but nobody knows when. It will likely occur unexpected by an ill advised, crass, blundering, philistine society blindsided by a scorched planet and extensive loss of foodstuff. Chaos spreads throughout when all of a sudden, unexpectedly, crops fail. One bad crop season follows another and another. For example, Syria, where its 2006-11 devastating drought caused 75% of Syria’s farms to fail and 85% of livestock to die. That’s a wipeout!

In the end, as crops fail, it’s too late to take remedial action beyond dealing with dystopian warring factions locked in bloodthirsty combat over morsels of foodstuff.

Not only that, one more nasty early warning sign of trouble is right around the corner: The National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) January 3rd year-end headline reads: “Baked Alaska and 2017 in Review,” stating: “… notably high temperatures prevail over most of the Arctic, especially over Central Alaska.” That’s permafrost country! That’s where tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of methane lies in-waiting to spring loose into the atmosphere. After all, global warming is the kissing cousin to methane buried in permafrost.

And, of equivalent concern on a worldwide basis: “In 2016 – now and at least for another year, the hottest year on record – global sea ice extent suffered a precipitous drop, plummeting from a fairly average 2015 value to a new record low. Now, as we wrap up 2017, data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that annual average global sea ice extent has dropped again, hitting an even lower record value.” (Source: Global Sea Ice Hits New Record Low for 2nd Year Straight, The Weather Network, January 8, 2017)

Meantime, the two poles, north and south, are in the early stages of collapse. Scientists know it, and there is lots of chatter about geo-engineering and assorted methodologies to fix anthropogenic global warming before it consumes civilization in a fireball, but those proposals are in dreamland for the moment. Hopefully, one of their fixit ideas works “to scale” because the planet is likely too big for geo-engineering schemes to work without some kind of unintended consequence, which may be worse than the original fix. In fact, nobody really knows for sure what will happen when the biosphere is forced to behave according to computer-designed plans. It’s an enormous undertaking!

Therefore, it is recommended that today’s push-button, screen-watching youth learn survival skills rather than playing games for hours on end, endlessly, moronically pre-occupied with electronic fantasylands, because one day in the near future that fantasy turns to harsh reality, likely hitting hard, really hard.

After all, eco-migrants, numbering tens of thousands, are already worldwide phenomena, especially along the southern and eastern Mediterranean Sea regions, where land is turning bone dry faster than anywhere else on the planet. It’s the start of the Great Global Warming Migration scenario… but, pray tell, where to?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/12 … e-monster/

RobertDyck · 2018-01-30 16:36:55

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Railroads can't pick up and deliver LTL freight for long haul.
...
If that was feasible, the railroad owners would have done that already.

Trucking has an unfair advantage: they don't pay for roads. What I just said is long-haul trucking will be charged a toll, so they will. Once that advantage is killed, rail will be far more competitive. As I said, rail right now costs 1/3 the price of trucks.

Intermodal means a container is picked up by truck, taken to a terminal for transfer to train. At the destination city, the container is shifted from train to another truck. The truck then takes the container to its final destination. So business doesn't need a rail spur into every industrial or commercial building. One rail terminal per major city is all you need. And I already said, under my proposal any truck that simply ferries containers to/from an intermodal rail terminal in the same city would not be charged toll.

I had to do a Google for "LTL frieght". It means "Less than Truck Load". In that case, what are they doing now? Does an 18-wheel truck pick up multiple loads in one city, pack them into a single trailer, drive them all together to the destination? If that's the case, they could do the same thing; just with an intermodal container.

There are also small containers, US military terms: Bicon is 1/2 size of a standard 20-foot container, Tricon is 1/3 size, and Quadcon is 1/4 size. Yes, that means Quadcon is 5 feet long. This correspond to ISO 668 standard sizes 1D, 1E and 1F respectively. That means a trailer designed to carry a single 53' container could carry 7 Tricon containers. A single rail car designed to carry a stacked pair of 40' containers, could carry 8 Quadcon containers on the bottom, and another 8 stacked on top.

A truck with a Tricon (1E) 6½ foot container:

RobertDyck · 2018-01-30 17:02:06

Safeway is a major grocery chain in Canada. In my city they have a major warehouse, which is also a rail terminal. It's just owned by that one company, only serves their store. Bulk groceries arrive by train, stored in the warehouse, then repackaged for individual stores. Trucks deliver within the city to each store. Safeway was bought by Sobey's, not sure what they do now.

SpaceNut · 2018-01-30 17:15:43

Methane release into the atmosphere is also a global warming greenhouse gas as well. As for global cooling that also seemed to track when we had a big problem with teh Florocarbon releases before we reverse the course of the ozone whole by changing the propellant for the aerosol cans.

This image shows the wear by water, staining and then the loss of it via global warming Watson Lake in Granite Dells, Arizona

th?id=ABT170679D3FDE303D80145FF30A2F8FFC63DE6ADD6904EF849526D5D37F373A204&w=608&h=200&c=2&rs=1&pid=SANGAM

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/10/th … izona.html

SpaceNut · 2018-01-30 19:55:26

Floods peak in Paris as France sees worst rains in 50 years

Floods in Paris are so bad that the French Statue of Liberty is now completely cut off by water

The flood waters measured 5.84 metres on the Austerlitz scale, according to the Associated Press.
The scale refers to a point on Paris' Austerlitz bridge, which is used as an official yardstick for water levels, and is typically under 2 metres. Floodwaters peaked in Paris on Monday and were threatening towns downstream as the rain-engorged Seine River winds through Normandy toward the English Channel.
Rivers swollen by France's heaviest rains in 50 years have engulfed romantic quays in Paris, swallowed up gardens and roads, halted riverboat cruises — and raised concerns about climate change.
Floodwaters peaked in Paris on Monday and were threatening towns downstream as the rain-engorged Seine River winds through Normandy toward the English Channel.
The floods have caused damage in 242 towns along the river and tributaries already and more warnings are in place as the high waters move downstream..

SpaceNut · 2018-01-30 21:02:56

Climate change eroding women's status in Zanzibar

Men hold most of the jobs in this conservative Muslim society, but more than 80 percent of seaweed farmers here are women. Over the past few decades, trade in seaweed has brought them unprecedented financial independence -- and the social status that comes with it. When the first commercial farms were set up on the archipelago in the late 1980s, they were in the shallow waters by the beach, where conditions for growth were optimal. For cultural reasons, the shallows in Zanzibar were considered women's spaces. The deep sea, however, where men would go to fish, was a no-go zone for women. The slow pace of seaweed farming also lessened its appeal for men, who were used to receiving a daily paycheck.
In 2001, crops began to fail. The most valuable species of seaweed, Cottonii, was suddenly struggling to grow, and algae blooms choked plants that did manage to thrive. Zanzibar's production of Cottonii began to drop radically; by 2015, it had fallen by a massive 94 percent.
Water temperatures in the Indian Ocean were rising, turning the previously hospitable shallow growing areas into Cottonii dead zones. In the late 1990's, the average surface sea temperature (SST) in the shallow water was 86 degrees Fahrenheit, perfect for seaweed cultivation. In 2013, temperatures in the farms were recorded as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

ouch now that is hot to say nothing about it being Ocean water.....

Terraformer · 2018-01-31 11:46:02

Rivers swollen by France's heaviest rains in 50 years have engulfed romantic quays in Paris, swallowed up gardens and roads, halted riverboat cruises — and raised concerns about climate change.

50 years? Now, if they were the heaviest in *5000* years, I'd be concerned. But 50 years, that's just normal variation. What grounds do with have for believing that the last 50 years are indicative of how the climate normally is?

kbd512 · 2018-02-01 20:53:43

I see that nobody has addressed the fact that our own temperature measure electronics are skewing the temperature observations, irrespective of what the actual temperature happens to be. If it didn't vary by temperature, then it wouldn't be a problem. Since it does, accuracy is a problem. Pretending that the data collected is accurate won't fix the problem, either. There's no way to know how much of a problem you do or don't have without accurate observations.

Void · 2018-02-01 21:38:30

I hope you guys won't resent that I am posting on top of your stuff, but I thought this was very interesting. Might help to make some sense about climate change.

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … arger.html

So, the suggestion is that a comet hit the Earth and caused a large amount of pine forests to burn off.

Quote:

According to Melott, analysis of pollen suggests pine forests were probably burned off to be replaced by poplar, which is a species that colonizes cleared areas.
Indeed, the authors posit the cosmic impact could have touched off the Younger Dryas cool episode, biomass burning, late Pleistocene extinctions of larger species and "human cultural shifts and population declines."

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … r.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … r.html#jCp

And a pine forest would reflect much less light into space than would a poplar forest with it leafs off in the winter.

So then going to the beginning of the article:
Quote:

On a ho-hum day some 12,800 years ago, the Earth had emerged from another ice age. Things were warming up, and the glaciers had retreated.
Out of nowhere, the sky was lit with fireballs. This was followed by shock waves.
Fires rushed across the landscape, and dust clogged the sky, cutting off the sunlight. As the climate rapidly cooled, plants died, food sources were snuffed out, and the glaciers advanced again. Ocean currents shifted, setting the climate into a colder, almost "ice age" state that lasted an additional thousand years.
Finally, the climate began to warm again, and people again emerged into a world with fewer large animals and a human culture in North America that left behind completely different kinds of spear points.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ice-age-h … r.html#jCp

So I interpret this as indicating three primary changes:
1) Pine forests burn, massive smoke in the sky.
2) Pine forests burn, massive release of CO2.
3) Pine forests with low albedo, replaced with poplar forests with high winter albedo.

So here is my issue. Yes the smoke would cool things off a lot. But would that last for 1000 years?
So, then after the smoke settled out why would the CO2 not heat things up before 1000 years were up?

Granted perhaps the poplar forests were able to absorb the CO2 into themselves at such an efficient rate that a CO2 heating after the dispersal of smoke happened did not happen. I wonder what the comparative mass of a poplar forest vs a pine forest would be?

The thing I do notice is that a 1000 year extension of ice age was occurring when after the pine forests were burned, and replaced with poplar.

I believe there may be feedback mechanisms involved with the growth of pine or conifer forests.
1) If things get warmer, then the forests can advance northward. I believe that they need at least 50 DegF in the summer to reproduce.
2) I again suggest, that if they have more abundant CO2, they do not have to open their Stomata as much to get the Carbon they need. This relieves them of water losses to evaporation and could promote the further growth of Pine and conifer forests.

So, if this is eventually supported with more evidence, then not only is the return of the Mammoth Steppe an option, but converting Pine and Conifer forests to other type of forests that reflect more light into space is also an option.

*Note: I am not saying that there is no greenhouse effect. I just don't know what it's contribution proportion for supposed warming is. And I do believe that there is warming. I just don't think it as simple as greenhouse gasses alone.

An interesting thing to consider, is that if the Tundra permafrost is in danger of releasing massive amounts of Carbon into the air, then I can suppose that when the Mammoth Steppe, disappeared, and the ice caps dwindled, I have to believe that permafrost was thawed in more southern regions, and it would have released Carbon in abundance, fertilizing forests without human help.

So then Ice ages and warm eras, may be assisted by such effects. An oscillation where in the ice age, increasing permafrost sequesters Carbon, further cooling the climate, and making it harder for pine forests, conifer forests to persist in marginal locations. But once a tipping point happens and permafrost begins to melt in the southern regions, then just the opposite happens. A positive feedback where some warming promotes further warming.

......

Here is a happy thought:
Why not promote wild apple orchards where the climate permits, replacing conifers with them.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the … le-forests

It might seem strange to think that the common apple was not originally a universal fruit, but in fact it has its roots in one specific region of the world. The ancestor of the domestic apple is the Malus sieversii, which grows wild in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan.

My understanding is that bears eat them and then scat out seeds to replant them.

However, I can imagine electric robots that could harvest some of the fruit and also disperse the seeds.

Why not get some extra food, cool off the planet and make some bears happy?

Last edited by Void (2018-02-01 22:27:59)

Void · 2018-02-02 12:20:44

Going a bit further:

Seems like there are two extremes.
1) Glacial Earth
-Low CO2 (Probably less greenhouse effect from CO2)
-Low Moisture (Water vapor is a greenhouse gas)
-High reflectance of sunlight from both ice masses and Mammoth Steppe type environments.
-Increased sequestering of Carbon into permafrost, and Clathrate hydrate in the colder oceans.
2) Warm Earth
-High CO2
-Higher Moisture (More greenhouse effect from Moisture)
-Lower reflectance of sunlight from both ice masses and Mammoth Steppe type environments, in fact to elimination of both, probable replacement of them by darker vegetation such as conifers.
-Decreased sequestering of Carbon into permafrost, and Clathrate hydrate in the colder oceans, and probable release of both.

I want to add some other factors to consider.

I am interested in Forrest and Grass fires, and the smoke/soot and charcoal they produce. What becomes of the products of fire?

So if I camp in a place where there is forest, I get regulations from the government in accordance to the dryness of the forest.
If it is damp I can try to make a campfire. If the forest is dry, I am prohibited from having a campfire. So obviously moisture levels have a lot to do with forest and grass fires.

So, if the climate is cold and dry, and low on CO2 (Which forces the vegetation to dry out to get Carbon), I can expect more forest and grass fires I presume. Although ignition from lightning will be rarer.

On the opposite end if the climate is warm and moist, with extra CO2, I would expect less forest and grass fires, although ignitions from lightning should increase.

I think that for the most part it is asserted that smoke in the atmosphere, especially high up will tend to cool things off. So, more forest and grass fires, then greater cooling. But what becomes of the airborne soot/smoke?

The Earth is dominantly covered in water. What happens to soot/smoke that enters the water? And for that matter it is likely that rivers wash more of it off of the land and into waters to be entombed in silts, I presume.

Such particles that fall on ice cap will at first tend to warm the ice cap, but as they descend downward with evaporation, and as fresh snow and frost cover them the would become inactive. Similarly such particles falling on permafrost would likely be entombed to some extent. So if ice ages have more fires due to a lack of moisture, then it seems to me that the fires will be a possible method to remove Carbon from the land surface biosphere. This will then favor more reflective land surfaces. (In my opinion).

A big question is what happens to soot/smoke if it falls into the ocean? Do organisms digest it before it falls down to the lower reaches where sedimentation will take it out of service? My guess is that some is recycled and some is not.

More smoke means more particles to stimulate precipitation. So moisture emerging from wetter areas into the atmosphere will much more quickly return to those moist surfaces as rain or snow. Therefore depriving inland areas of moisture, suppressing the growth of darker vegetation I propose.

As for charcoal, I presume most of it is eventually recycled into the land biosphere, but a minority might be buried by muddy washes which I presume can happen if ground cover is burned off.

"Popular and Sensational" Science likes to speak of the run away greenhouse effect, or snowball Earth. These are sensational, and make popular reading materials.

I cannot promise that there will never be a run-away greenhouse effect, but I don't think we are near it, and I think we have sufficient tools to treat it if it seems to be appearing.

But one think I want to rant about is this concept of "Snowball Earth".

The Snowball Earth notion, supposes that suddenly the Earth will be covered completely in white snow and ice and will therefore never be able to break free of the deep-freeze due the suns lack of ability to reheat the Earth. It wonders how life could have survived this.

I am pleased that they have at least figured out how life might survive under ice in ice caves in Antarctica.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09 … plex-life/

That's actually cool, literally.

But here is this (Further redundant ranting):

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … Antarctica

Antarctic Dry Valleys, and Katabatic Winds.

The point is if the Earth is frozen over, the high areas will be the coldest, and air masses will fall from them periodically , and heat up. As they heat up they will fall to the low areas (The presumed frozen ocean surfaces)

If the oceans were completely frozen to their roots, this would evaporate ice from the continental shelf, and beyond, potentially to 10,000 to 29,000 feet deep. Mega Dry Valleys.

Even in a snowball Earth situation, if you place 10,000 to 29,000 feet of extra atmosphere over a dry sea bed, you will have a greenhouse effect, a massive one. So, by this method as well habitats for simple and complex life would have potential to persist even in a Snowball Earth situation.

Bad news sells.

So, if you want to publish something, say "Run-Away Greenhouse Effect" or "Snowball Earth". Throw in "We are all going to die!".

If you want to try for political power, then attach to these extreme and sensational publications.

Last edited by Void (2018-02-02 13:03:50)

SpaceNut · 2018-02-02 20:01:34

post 293 & 294 answer for soot is only a short visit to the california wild fires of the seira nevada area...and colorado ice melts as a results of the dust and ash on the snow as it warms.

The race to save Florida’s devastated coral reef from global warming with the sea Encroaching Tides in the Florida Keys (2015)

The frequency, extent, and duration of tidal flooding are all likely to increase over the next 15 to 30 years, resulting in damage to the Keys’ economy, infrastructure, and ecology. By 2045, the sea level in the Florida Keys will rise 15 inches, according to a projection by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

With that Coastal Florida and Everglades - Sea Level Rise Map So much so that we will need to raise up the levels of roads and create walls to keep the water out.

Void · 2018-02-02 20:22:32

Fair enough Spacenut, not unexpected. But that is a low latitude ice mass. I am thinking that in the deep ice age, at high latitudes it would be less likely to melt, and more likely to sublimate ice, and then the Carbon would sink out of sight, and be covered by a new layer of snow/frost. But I am willing to suppose that soot from fires can do some melting. But then you have to ask "If that comet hit and caused 10% of the pine forests to burn, how come that introduced a 1000 year reversion to ice age conditions? The net effect was to cool the planet. Of course at first apparently the smoke in the atmosphere. But that could not have lasted 1000 years I would think. The conversion of pine/conifer forest to poplar over 10% of the pine/conifer land could have changed things as I have asserted, by changing the reflection of those tracts of land.

Not trying to be a jerk. Just trying to get a better grip on it.

Void · 2018-02-02 20:26:51

I was going to post here again anyway.

My feeling is that this can be divided into parts:
1) Political objectives of groups with different interests.
2) Attaining a better idea of the complexity of how climate change works. I don't feel that greenhouse gasses by itself is sufficient at this point. It is considerably more complex in my opinion.
3) Treatments. I am going to contend that the United States and North America, and in fact other places who have certain objectives are rapidly moving towards treatments of the problem, as those treatments are in the interest of the parties I will mention.

For #1, there are quite a few foreign powers who don't mind trying to undermine the USA, and perhaps North American culture.
An example is fracking for Oil which also produces abundant natural gas, which the frackers would rather not have, but they are required to stop burning it into the atmosphere after a certain time period. This waste product "Natural Gas", has gone very far to reduce the USA Carbon contribution. We now sell quite a bit to other countries as well I understand. Eastern Canada? Mexico for sure.

So, due to our oil people and their cleverness, we are quite ahead of quite a few nations in the elimination of Carbon emissions.

But the left, and certain foreign powers, and people who made money importing oil, tried to strangle that baby in the crib.

The foreign powers just wanted to maintain their markets, understandable, but inconvenient to local interests.
The importers, just wanted to do the same and make money importing oil. Understandable, but it looks like they lost the game.
The left the right, pretty much the same creepy old world attempts to rape the USA, and places of similar capability.

The birthplaces of civilization are now the locations for vampires who try to live off of the peoples that their ancestors ran out of those lands. The USA is a place where some of these civilization builders move to. The creatures that run them out are all about feeding on other peoples. They are specialized in the process. But they largely lack innovation and typically cannot build a significant economy without slavery, and without usurping the achievements of innovative peoples.

Where in the beginning the innovative civilization builders were at or near the middle east. Now what remains there are the peoples who specialize in exploiting innovative and productive peoples, if they can find the means. However we are very tricky, and they only seem to understand language, cruelty, and weapons.

......

As for #2, I already did a lot with that in previous posts.
......

As for #3, treatments.
I mentioned shale natural gas, that is a start.
I have also borrowed from real scientists who support the notion of the Mammoth Steppe to try to get the Carbon to stay in the permafrost of the arctic. I won't name them, because I am not of their caliber.

But their are at least three entities in the world who would benefit from going to Electric and Hydrogen technology, and eventually to go away from Carbon emissions.

1) East Asia. They don't have much oil or natural gas. It would be completely in their interest to do so.
2) Europe. Same thing. For them wind and not solar makes sense, unless somehow they would merge with the Sahara communities, but time will tell. Maybe there will be some of that.
3) Most of all the USA. We are at a lower latitude than Europe, so that solar is better for us, and we should have very significant wind powers. So, the point is, whatever role Carbon emissions may have to a climate change, you can expect the USA to be at the forefront of so called green energy. (Or at lest willing to borrow technology from East Asia and Europe).

So, the need for members to get up tight about climate change, is somewhat a waste of time, energy, and the opportunity to be polite instead of rude.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-02-02 20:49:04)

EdwardHeisler · 2018-02-02 22:01:26

The temperature in Omolon, Russia rose from 88 below zero to 38 degrees, 126 degrees warmer, in just two weeks!

The temperature in Siberia rose more than 100 degrees in two weeks
by Jason Samenow
Washington Post
January 31, 2018

As an antidote to the report of minus-88 degree weather in the Siberian outpost of Oymyakon earlier this month, we give you this: The temperature in a settlement just to its east was an astonishing 126 degrees warmer two weeks later.

The mercury in Omolon, Russia, reached its highest January temperature ever recorded Monday: a relatively toasty 38.4 degrees.

38 degrees doesn’t exactly sound like a day at the beach, but consider that it’s 64 degrees warmer than Omolon’s average high of minus-26 at this time of year.

Omolon is 540 miles east of Oymyakon, which was described as so cold “eyelashes freeze, frostbite is a constant danger, and cars are usually kept running even when not being used.”

In Oymyakon, the forecast high Tuesday was 17 degrees, not quite as balmy as Omolon, but still about 60 degrees warmer than its average high around minus-40, and 105 degrees warmer than it was two weeks ago.

Oymyakon has the reputation as being the coldest permanently occupied human settlement in the world.

The 500-some people in Oymyakon and 800-some people in Omolon are probably rejoicing in this relative thaw.

The mild weather can be traced to the development of an enormous, bulging zone of high pressure over eastern Russia (see top image). Mashable science editor Andrew Freedman called it “one heckuva monster” on Twitter.

Underneath this high pressure zone, models show temperature differences from normal exceeding 50 degrees over a broad area. Weather.US meteorologist Ryan Maue tweeted that these temperature anomalies are “off the charts.”

Strangely, this unusual warmth in Siberia could trigger a chain of events resulting in deep freeze over central and eastern North America.

As the high-pressure zone builds east over Alaska in the coming week, it will probably force the jet stream to crash south over North America in response — like a seesaw. This will, in turn, probably lead to colder-than-normal conditions over parts of the central and eastern United States.

It’s unclear, however, just how far south and east the cold will penetrate.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topst … ar-BBIu8Dw

elderflower · 2018-02-03 04:43:34

I do wish they would identify figures as F or C. Then we would know that the reports haven't got them mixed up. At -40 they are the same so it doesn't make much difference there, but at 38 degrees it is a huge difference.

SpaceNut · 2018-02-03 11:06:08

EdwardHeisler I remember that as the Mount washington temperatures at the sumit were second to theres on that coldest day...

Void your #3, we have been tapping into the shale and other such surface deposits but its come with some earthqakes as the fracturing is to agressive and needed to slow for a while to stabilize its use. It did turn the tide on fuel costs as they dropped about a dollar per gallon for gas at the pump. So far its working to control the energy costs for the US.
As for green energy from solar that has been given a slow curve by the import tax and its impact is already being seen in new installations in my local.

We have seen the impact of florocarbons on the atmosphere, CO2, NO, SO2, CH4, to which collectively these contribute to what is happening with the model of global warming. The sublimation of ice on earth must transision from solid to liquid to the gas state via a large input on temperature swing for a rapid disapearing act. That said the ice cores seem to have no soot from what I recal ever being meantioned but that maybe an omission. So the ramp of temperature swing is important to the disaperance of the level of ice that we have seen.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#276 2018-01-29 22:53:35

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#277 2018-01-30 08:55:11

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#278 2018-01-30 11:36:15

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#279 2018-01-30 11:56:12

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#280 2018-01-30 12:22:33

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#281 2018-01-30 12:31:06

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#282 2018-01-30 13:12:44

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#283 2018-01-30 15:30:10

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#284 2018-01-30 15:36:28

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#285 2018-01-30 15:40:39

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#286 2018-01-30 16:36:55

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#287 2018-01-30 17:02:06

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#288 2018-01-30 17:15:43

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#289 2018-01-30 19:55:26

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#290 2018-01-30 21:02:56

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#291 2018-01-31 11:46:02

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#292 2018-02-01 20:53:43

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#293 2018-02-01 21:38:30

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#294 2018-02-02 12:20:44

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#295 2018-02-02 20:01:34

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#296 2018-02-02 20:22:32

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#297 2018-02-02 20:26:51

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#298 2018-02-02 22:01:26

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#299 2018-02-03 04:43:34

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

#300 2018-02-03 11:06:08

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Board footer