Official Global Warming thread (merged)

#401
#401
utgibbs said:
Reason for Snowball Earth thaw: Natural carbon cycle was arrested. Volcanic activity - over aeons - pumped CO2 into atmosphere, but no oceans to suck it up (the ocean is a tremendous carbon sink, HOWEVER, it almost always exchanges at wave breaks. The North Sea, thanks to its stratified waters, exchanges 20% of the 90GtC of the ocean to atmosphere carbon dioxide). There was no rocks exposed to weather it. Life was at a low, low ebb. Runaway greenhouse effect melts ice. Result: Cambrian Explosion.

Reason for Eocene decline of CO2 levels: the consensus is building around the fact that India rammed Asia 55 million years ago and made the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau. Additional weathering took CO2 down to the pre-industrial range (over eons and aeons).

Clean air: you have (and those aerosols contributed to global cooling). Unfortunately, CO2 spends about 100 years in the atmosphere before getting pulled into the sink. Methane is better, about a decade. We've been pumping A LOT more CO2 into the atmosphere than we ever pumped SO2. Those aerosols have lifetimes of weeks in the atmosphere. Mt Pinatubo, the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century, shot material into the stratosphere. The effects were gone within two years.

I am concerned about the rainforest not only because a tremendous carbon sink is being put into the atmosphere, but I can barely contemplate the loss of biodiversity which has already occured. For every 10-fold decrease of habitat you lose half the species that habitat supported. We're losing no fewer than 74 species a day.

Hope this helps. :hi:
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In all the recent ice ages, CO2 forcings have been a side effect and smaller player to Milankovitch Cycles. That's partly why this current CO2 increase is so unprecedented. And that's also why CO2 tended to lag a bit behind temperatures.
 
#402
#402
IPorange said:
In all the recent ice ages, CO2 forcings have been a side effect and smaller player to Milankovitch Cycles. That's partly why this current CO2 increase is so unprecedented. And that's also why CO2 tended to lag a bit behind temperatures.
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Absolutely.

I thought VolDad went specifically to Snowball Earth and asked why it melted.

Orbital forcings and enough poleward land mass had everything to do with the "recent" glacial-interglacial periods.
 
#404
#404
IPorange said:
In all the recent ice ages, CO2 forcings have been a side effect and smaller player to Milankovitch Cycles. That's partly why this current CO2 increase is so unprecedented. And that's also why CO2 tended to lag a bit behind temperatures.
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utgibbs said:
Absolutely.

I thought VolDad went specifically to Snowball Earth and asked why it melted.

Orbital forcings and enough poleward land mass had everything to do with the "recent" glacial-interglacial periods.
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What role does changing Solar activity play in climate change?
 
#405
#405
VolDad said:
What role does changing Solar activity play in climate change?
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Well, it's obviously the primary source for all energy on the planet, and what powers the whole system. It's thought with a fair amount of evidence that the sun is somewhat stronger in the last few million years than it was a hundred or million years ago. But, as you can see, it's typically been cooler that last few million years than it was then.

So it plays a big (biggest?) role, but not necessarily a linear one because of the many factors in play. I know the Sun has trended slightly weaker over the last 100 years, despite us seeing a temperature trend upwards. I know that we were in the bottom of an 11 year solar cycle the last couple of years, and there is some thought that we can expect another steady increase in temperature like we saw in the lat 90's over the next five years.

It's kind of a hard question to directly tackle. It's a very important piece. It is pretty conclusive that it isn't driving the current climate change, however.


I mean, if you asked me as a paleoclimate guy how important greenhouse gasses were, I'd say they were crucial for our survival on the planet, but generally didn't play a major role in the change of climate-- until very recently. All the cogs are critical to make it "go."
 
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#406
#406
VolDad said:
What role does changing Solar activity play in climate change?
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Remember, the sun was truly "dimmer" (about 10% less than now) when the huge cold-blooded lizards were rampaging over Fairbanks, AK.

"Solar activity" is a lot better understood in recent years. From what I understand, we have been in a low period of solar activity for awhile.

But IP had given an even better, and more thorough, answer.
 
#407
#407
IPorange said:
Several natural things, but was initially triggered by Milankovitch Cycles, which are small wobbles in Earth's orbital path, that then set off a cascading series of positive feedbacks whose net effect lowered temperatures.
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The stars might not actually be aligned in your favor

The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was "in" on the day a person was born. During the ensuing millenniums, the moon's gravitational pull has made the Earth "wobble" around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment.
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You were being a smart azz the other day by asking how lunar activity can affect weather/climate. Well, if wobbles in the Earth's orbit can be linked to climate change/weather, is it possible that wobbles in the Earth's axis can have an effect?
 
#408
#408
Rasputin_Vol said:
The stars might not actually be aligned in your favor



You were being a smart azz the other day by asking how lunar activity can affect weather/climate. Well, if wobbles in the Earth's orbit can be linked to climate change/weather, is it possible that wobbles in the Earth's axis can have an effect?
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Yes, and does. You said lunar cycles. That isn't the same as the wobble of the Earth's axis-- which can heavily influence climate, as it is the source of the seasons.
 
#409
#409
IPorange said:
This is true to an extent. There are less sulphates and smog particles today than in the recent past in the US and Europe. However, sulphates have a cooling effect anyway, and the greenhouse gasses such as CO2 are not visible. Alas, the US and Europe are only one small part of the world. China is belching out pollutants like there's no tomorrow, India is pretty lax on emission rules out of poverty, and Africa is basically unregulated. That is most of the world's population, and they are rapidly industrializing.
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Then why is all of the focus on the US to sacrifice its economy and standard of living when you have just said that the problem from pollution today is coming from developing nations?
 
#410
#410
Rasputin_Vol said:
Then why is all of the focus on the US to sacrifice its economy and standard of living when you have just said that the problem from pollution today is coming from developing nations?
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Read more into the post you quoted. You're asking those people to basically die. All technology flows through the industrialized world. They can't do it until we do it.
 
#413
#413
IPorange said:
Read more into the post you quoted. You're asking those people to basically die. All technology flows through the industrialized world. They can't do it until we do it.
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And you are asking us to drop our standard of living and pay high energy costs.
 
#414
#414
Rasputin_Vol said:
And you are asking us to drop our standard of living and pay high energy costs.
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We'll be paying a price either way. Do we really need SUV's to commute to work in? Disposable everything?

An argument could be made that we have been doing things without paying their actual cost.

I'm sorry, between asking someone to starve to death or asking you to pay an extra 40 bucks a month on your electric bill, which seems more reasonable?
 
#416
#416
BeecherVol said:
Excellent question.
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Some things can't be completely simplified. It's a complicated system. That's why the scientific community is so specialized now as opposed to 150 years ago. When 98 % of a given scientific field say it's "x," it isn't unreasonable to take them at face value.
 
#417
#417
IPorange said:
Some things can't be completely simplified. It's a complicated system. That's why the scientific community is so specialized now as opposed to 150 years ago. When 98 % of a given scientific field say it's "x," it isn't unreasonable to take them at face value.
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What you see as "simple" in the scientific world is complex and complicated to me, as you stated above. It requires a level of trust or faith on my end.
 
#418
#418
IPorange said:
Some things can't be completely simplified. It's a complicated system. That's why the scientific community is so specialized now as opposed to 150 years ago. When 98 % of a given scientific field say it's "x," it isn't unreasonable to take them at face value.
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Like when 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around it? Or the time 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was flat? Knowledge is always evolving.

It does not help that your poster child is Al Gore.
 
#419
#419
VolDad said:
Like when 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around it? Or the time 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was flat? Knowledge is always evolving.

It does not help that your poster child is Al Gore.
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He is a cancer to whole thing, true or not.

His motivation was the $ not the science or well being of the planet.
 
#420
#420
VolDad said:
Like when 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around it? Or the time 98% of the scientific community said that the Earth was flat? Knowledge is always evolving.

It does not help that your poster child is Al Gore.
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How are priests and Church-educated men guided by theology "scientists?"

I am not a fan of Gore because he is setting himself up as a profiteer, and is hypocritical.
 
#421
#421
IPorange said:
How are priests and Church-educated men guided by theology "scientists?"

I am not a fan of Gore because he is setting himself up as a profiteer, and is hypocritical.
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I don’t doubt the scientists of those times were motivated by self interest; just as I do not doubt scientist of today are.

Regarding Gore; he has seen all of the information first hand. He runs in their circles. He supposedly has drunk the Kool-Aid. He is privy to inside information passed behind closed doors. If it were so bad I would think he would be scared straight. But not so. I wonder why?

Kennedy is another climate change hypocrite.
 
#423
#423
VolDad said:
Regarding Gore; he has seen all of the information first hand. He runs in their circles. He supposedly has drunk the Kool-Aid. He is privy to inside information passed behind closed doors. If it were so bad I would think he would be scared straight. But not so. I wonder why?
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This isn't Godzilla or Ebola. The difficulty of the issue that it isn't very "personal" or direct, so it is hard to get people to take it seriously.
 
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