The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

[craigwatanabe]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

So we're getting a build up of Co2 and a build up of Methane. One theory is that the methane in large quantities could explode in the atmosphere causing catastrophic results. But with rising Co2 levels wouldn't that prevent methane from reaching the lower flammability point?

We'd all die from lack of air but I'd think it would be too lean for combustion to occur with all that Co2.

Okay you got methane or CH4, carbon dioxide which we all know as Co2 and now Halemaumau is belching tons of sulphur dioxide or So2.

Put em all together and what kind of mix do you get?

Okay all of you chemistry wizards, what kind of compound can you derive out of mixing Co2, So2 and CH4 together? And can we die from it or does it make Earth more habitable?

[DoctorDoom]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

One of my favorite topics ...

Some random facts that AlBore and his disciples won't tell you:

• Earth's climate has been changing since climate began.

• The sun is the major contributor to global temperature change.

• Mars' temperature is also increasing. Martians don't have SUVs.

• It has been much colder and much warmer than it is today.

• During the "Little Ice Age" (ca. 1400-1800), the Thames River in England froze every winter. In 1780 New York Harbor froze.

Source: The Coming of a New Ice Age

• Greenland, where all that ice is allegedly melting, was named by the Vikings who farmed it during the Medieval Warm Period.

• CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Life could not exist without it.

• CO2 and temperature are related, BUT the CO2 changes lag the temperature changes by 400-1200 years. Ergo the temp changes cause the CO2 changes. Gore's film deliberately separated the two graphs, omitted vertical lines, and used a vast time scale to mask the relationship.

• The greenouse effect of CO2 is not linear.

Calculating the actual temperature increase

So, what is the actual increase? Interestingly enough, that is easy to estimate--and without resorting to complex computer models.

Because a linear increase in temperature requires an exponential increase in carbon dioxide (thanks to the physics of radiation absorption described above), we know that the next two-fold increase in CO2 will produce exactly the same temperature increase as the previous two-fold increase. Although we haven't had a two-fold increase yet, it is easy to calculate from the observed values what to expect.

Between 1900 and 2000, atmospheric CO2 increased from 295 to 365 ppm, while temperatures increased about 0.57 degrees C (using the value cited by Al Gore and others). It is simple to calculate the proportionality constant (call it 'k') between the observed increase in CO2 and the observed temperature increase:

This shows that doubling CO2 over its current values should increase the earth's temperature by about 1.85 degrees C. Doubling it again would raise the temperature another 1.85 degrees C. Since these numbers are based on actual measurements, not models, they include the effects of amplification, if we make the reasonable assumption that the same amplification mechanisms that occurred previously will also occur in a world that is two degrees warmer.

If we want to include other greenhouse gases, such as methane, in the calculation, we need to use the "effective" CO2 concentrations instead. These effective CO2 numbers are less solid than the CO2-only numbers, but the best estimates are that effective CO2 increased from 305 to about 450 ppm during the 20th century[12]. Using these numbers, k becomes 0.6823 and the predicted ?T becomes 1.02 degrees.

These estimates assume that the correlation between global temperature and carbon dioxide is causal in nature. Therefore, the 1.85 degree estimate should also be regarded as an upper limit.

Source: Cold Facts on Global Warming

• Every adult human being exhales about 1 kilogram of CO2 each day, or 365 kilograms/year. That's about 800 pounds.

According to the World POPClock Projection, the total population of the World, projected to 04/18/08 at 21:58 GMT (EST+5) is 6,662,188,402

6,662,188,402 x 800 = 5,329,750,721,600 pounds or 2,664,875,361 tons of CO2 annually. Kids obviously exhale somewhat less, but that's immaterial for the purpose of this detailed scientific analysis. And IAC they're made up for by doggies and kitties and fuzzy bunnies.

According to the EIA, "6.1 billion metric tons of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions (are) produced each year ..." That's about 6,724,100,000 tons.

Assuming that the EIA omitted breathing as a source of "anthropogenic carbon dioxide", the total would be 9,388,975,361 tons, of which our exhaling amounts to about 28.5%. Therefore, we can reduce human-generated CO2 by almost 30% by killing everyone, which of course would then remove the other 71.5%.

• Gore claims that the oceans would rise 20 feet. The IPCC's worst-case scenario predicts about 23 inches. Al is thus wrong by a factor of 10. And that's worst-case. In the real world, it will never rise more than a few inches.

• There are 35 separate scientific objections to AlBore's egregiously bad "Inconvenient Truth":

35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie

• Several major glaciers have stopped receding and are now advancing again.

• The antarctic ice mass is growing.

• There has been no significant increase in global temperature since 1998, and there is evidence of a coming cooling period.

• Many of the scientists who are screeching about global warming were raising alarms about a new ice age in the 1970s.

• Humans have as much ability to alter global climate as we have of holding back the tides with a picket fence.

• There is no way of proving that our present climate is the ideal or even the norm. Ergo, we are assuming that it is because we happen to live in it.

An excellent resource: Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?

In short, if one must worry, it would be more productive to fret over alien invasions.

[Jim75]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Akrauth, today on the radio I heard a plug that offered 3 ways an individual could take action.
Reduce - Reduce consumption. I'd guess things like buying fewer products that have extensive packaging and so on. Carpool to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
Re-use - Instead of throwing everything away, they said to use it again if possible, in some other way. Maybe build a tourist attraction type shrine out of old hubcaps and beer bottles next to the driveway, so the trip to the mailbox could double as a cultural outing.
Recycle - We should all be doing this. There might be some poetic justice in uv filtering sun visors fashioned from reconstituted car tires. You know, the one's worn down from all the trips to the mailbox.

Dr. Doom, eh? I'm picturing a sinister mad scientist with a shaved head and monacle in a castle on a mountaintop. Lightning crackles in the inky sky as a giant pipe organ breathes out some ominous durge.

Kidding aside, you clearly know more about this than I do. But I'm guessing that many of the scientists who see it differently than you are also aware of the points you noted. Could they all be wrong? Sure.

It seems unlikely to me that these folks haven't considered, and factored into thier perspectives, past ice-ages, the Thames River, Greenland, etc. Those things aren't exactly obscure historical facts.

Is the present climate ideal? Well, an ice-age doesn't seem that great to me, at first glance. Would it be somehow better if Siberia was like San Diego? Maybe. Pass the tanning butter, Olga.

An issue of Rolling Stone, from the not too distant past, had an article titled something about a Dr. Doom. Some prominent scientist, a world class thinker about whatever it is he thinks about. I'd be able to remember more, but I'm convinced global warming affects memory. He and a number of prominent others have been thinking up ways to manipulate the climate. For example, he suggested we could lace the atmosphere with tiny, reflective carbon particles that would stay suspended and reflect away heating rays. I certainly don't support any junior high class experiment on the planet, but it highlights the fact that inquiring minds do think we can adjust the thermostat.

And CO2 may not be a pollutant, but neither is water. Human beings who get overly enthusiastic about hydrating can unexpectedly cross the great divide. There's definitely some balance point that if varied from too greatly will likely result in a significant reorganization of the existing order.

I'll concede that there's clearly more to global climate change than too many big-haired southern girls drenched in aerosol aquanet driving SUV's to buy dinette sets carved from rare rainforest woods, but how do you justify the gamble of doing nothing when the stakes are potentially so high? Do you just say 'What the hey, eat drink and be merry. Que Sera, Sera. It'll be 2012 before you know it!"

And how did you know about the Alien Invasion?!? We'll have the last laugh when we don our tinfoil hats and repel the intruders.

[DoctorDoom]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Dr. Doom, eh? I'm picturing a sinister mad scientist with a shaved head and monacle in a castle on a mountaintop. Lightning crackles in the inky sky as a giant pipe organ breathes out some ominous durge.

The avatar reveals all!

Kidding aside, you clearly know more about this than I do. But I'm guessing that many of the scientists who see it differently than you are also aware of the points you noted. Could they all be wrong? Sure.

The question is whether they are wrong or agenda-driven. After all, research grants go to those who are willing to "discover" what the grantors want to hear. And the global-warming mythology is a prolific source of funding, e.g., AlBore's $300M ad campaign to sell his piffle.

It seems unlikely to me that these folks haven't considered, and factored into thier perspectives, past ice-ages, the Thames River, Greenland, etc. Those things aren't exactly obscure historical facts.

Of course not, but what is largely ignored is that the climate has been going from hot to cold for eons entirely without human input. F'rinstance, wooly mammoths have been excavated from thick ice. They were herbivores, meaning that there was at one time vegetation where the ice is now. Conclusion: it was considerably warmer then, and there were no coal plants, SUVs and incandescent bulbs. So what drove the warming?

Getting back to Viking farms on Greenland, what powered the Medieval Warm Period?

Is the present climate ideal? Well, an ice-age doesn't seem that great to me, at first glance. Would it be somehow better if Siberia was like San Diego? Maybe. Pass the tanning butter, Olga.

How much of the world is hostile to agriculture because of insufficient warmth to permit vegetation? If the temperate zones were extended a few hundred miles north, a lot of land could become productive.

And after having gone through the coolest summer in years and another New England winter with a $2000 heating oil bill, I'm ready for a little global warming.

An issue of Rolling Stone, from the not too distant past, had an article titled something about a Dr. Doom. Some prominent scientist, a world class thinker about whatever it is he thinks about. ... He and a number of prominent others have been thinking up ways to manipulate the climate. For example, he suggested we could lace the atmosphere with tiny, reflective carbon particles that would stay suspended and reflect away heating rays. I certainly don't support any junior high class experiment on the planet, but it highlights the fact that inquiring minds do think we can adjust the thermostat.

The world is replete with thinkers of impractical thoughts. The Dyson sphere comes to mind.

And CO2 may not be a pollutant, but neither is water.

Life requires both. We also require oxygen. Plants require CO2. We exhale CO2, the plants consume it and give us oxygen. The perfect symbiosis. And the higher the CO2 concentration is, the happier our leafy friends are. That's why the air in many greenhouses is spiked with CO2.

Carbon Dioxide Enhancement

The introduction of supplementary carbon dioxide into the greenhouse has been found to significantly increase the yields of greenhouse tomatoes and other vegetables. Supplementary carbon dioxide is most effective on days when the greenhouse has been shut up for several days with no ventilation. Maximum results can be achieved by injecting 1000-1500 ppm CO2 into the greenhouse using propane burners or other CO2 generators.

Greenhouse Vegetable Production

IOW, for the "greenies" to oppose higher CO2 levels is hypocritical, because plants thrive on it. They want to starve plants in the name of "protecting" them. For shame!

Human beings who get overly enthusiastic about hydrating can unexpectedly cross the great divide.

The great dangers posed by dihydrogen monoxide are well documented.

There's definitely some balance point that if varied from too greatly will likely result in a significant reorganization of the existing order.

CO2 is not toxic. However, when CO2 replaces the oxygen in confined areas, it becomes dangerous. People have died under those conditions, which is why "confined space entry" in industry (where I spent my 38 years of work) always involves a team, a safety harness, and a device to lift the person out if he is overcome by oxygen deprivation.

IAC, the amount of CO2 in the air could be increased fivefold—not that we could do it even if it were our intent—without posing a significant danger to anything. And the vegetation would thrive in it.

I'll concede that there's clearly more to global climate change than too many big-haired southern girls drenched in aerosol aquanet driving SUV's to buy dinette sets carved from rare rainforest woods, but how do you justify the gamble of doing nothing when the stakes are potentially so high? Do you just say 'What the hey, eat drink and be merry. Que Sera, Sera. It'll be 2012 before you know it!"

Counterquestion: how do you justify spending trillions of dollars, and endangering the economies of many nations, on doing "something" without unarguable scientific evidence that it will or even can make the slightest difference? I've used this list on other boards, and I offer you the opportunity to address the points.

Outline for us what would be required to reduce the Anthropogenic CO2 emission level to reduce the GCC (Global Climate Change) rate by a specific level. Both can be in percentages. The analysis must include:

• the necessary technologies for achieving the reduction;
• the costs of research and development to optimize them;
• the costs of manufacturing, distributing, installing, operating and maintaining the technologies;
• the negative environmental effects of the technologies;
• the economic impact of the technologies on the nations' businesses and governments;
• the impositions on the lifestyles of the people of the nations;
• the cost-benefit ratio of dollars spent vs the value of the achieved GCC change;
• the cost of minimizing natural changes in the level of "greenhouse gases" to maintain the target GCC rate;
• the source of funding for bringing the technologies online and operating them;
• the total economic burden of the entire process.

I have never gotten a response from those to whom i've directed it. I trust that you are up to the challenge.

And how did you know about the Alien Invasion?!? We'll have the last laugh when we don our tinfoil hats and repel the intruders.

Foolish Earthlings. We guffaw at your bravado. Even now our invasion fleet is practicing for the day when the directive will be received from Ashtar Command, and then ... ah, but 'tis too appalling to contemplate when sober. Several rounds of Romulan ale are in order.

[Jim75]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

There are many facets of this topic that I know nothing about, and I don't have any investment in holding on to anthropogenic global warming theories, per se. I'm only interested in the truth and the collective well-being; so I see myself as having nothing to lose and only insight to gain. I also see myself as more of a juror in this process, definitely not an attorney (a climate scientist). While you seem very certain that you are correct, I remain uncertain and also unwilling to gamble.

The question is whether they are wrong or agenda-driven. After all, research grants go to those who are willing to "discover" what the grantors want to hear. And the global-warming mythology is a prolific source of funding.

I guess I'd ask if this is what you believe in general, what you believe via your own experience, or what you know as an overarching fact from some credible source. It seems logical that this may be true with pharmacuetical research, for example, as Lilly or Glaxo have a vested interest in the outcome for financial reasons. But it seems counterintuitive to me that there is some deep pocket interested in saving the environment. It would seem more likely to me that if anyone was invested in the outcome of global warming research it would be Big Oil or Industry.

. . . what is largely ignored is that the climate has been going from hot to cold for eons entirely without human input. F'rinstance, wooly mammoths have been excavated from thick ice. They were herbivores, meaning that there was at one time vegetation where the ice is now. Conclusion: it was considerably warmer then, and there were no coal plants, SUVs and incandescent bulbs. So what drove the warming?

In the case of Mammoths in ice, the question is really what drove the cooling. Like the one they found frozen with green grass in its mouth or stomach. There had to have been a pretty quick dip in temp for that to happen. Here in the Black Hills, the fastest change on record occurred.

"Spearfish holds the world record for the fastest temperature change. On January 22, 1943, at about 7:30am MST, the temperature in Spearfish, SD was −4 °F (−20 °C). The chinook kicked in, and two minutes later the temperature was 45 °F (7 °C) above zero. The 49-degree rise (27 °C) in two minutes set a world record that still holds. By 9:00am, the temperature had risen to 54 °F (12 °C). Suddenly, the chinook died down and the temperature tumbled back to −4 °F (−20 °C). The 58-degree drop (32 °C) took only 27 minutes[4]."

For me, rising and falling periods of temp (ie ice ages and thaws) seem somehow beside the point. Most of these scientists have to be aware of these natural cycles. As far as I know, nobody is denying this. It'd be ludicrous. My understanding is that their concern is with the significant correlation between temperature change and industrialization, via ice core samples, bristlecone pine ring samples, and so on.

Getting back to Viking farms on Greenland, what powered the Medieval Warm Period?

Again, everyone knows that something outside of our current understanding caused this to happen. Could those forces be the source of the current change? Yes, but there's agreement, not unanimous, but more than just scattered, that there's sufficient evidence that man's actions are the source of current changes. Even Honest Al Gore's giant graph acknowledges the cycles.

How much of the world is hostile to agriculture because of insufficient warmth to permit vegetation? If the temperate zones were extended a few hundred miles north, a lot of land could become productive.

Yeah, there could be corn on the cob for everybody, but there could also be corn on the cob for nobody. Man has been able to exist for a long time now with the climate changes that have occurred via natural processes. The multiplicity of variables at play are way beyond our current ability to have any real predictive power about how changes in one thing effect changes in another, at this level of complexity.

One of your bulleted statements from your first post says temperature increase raises CO2 levels, not vica versa. Then the math equation you posted right below it describes how doubling CO2 levels increases temperature. These appear to me to be contradictions. And, the math equation appears to me to make the assumption that all possible outcomes and interactions are known. It's seems to me to be kind of like heating water. If you didn't know water could boil, you might believe that application of greater amounts of heat simply causes the water to get warmer in a linear fashion. Then all of a sudden at 212 degrees it starts bubbling. You wouldn't know that was coming until it happened, or at least until you got pretty close to it happening. We can look at variables and make assumptions about how they will interact, but until they do interact we really don't know what the outcome will be. I'm not suggesting anything so concrete as that the world will start boiling, but there might be some shift that really puts a wrench in the gears as far a human life is concerned.

I'm going to post this so I don't lose what's here and I'll address further points in a second post.

[Jim75]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

The world is replete with thinkers of impractical thoughts. The Dyson sphere comes to mind.

I found an online version of the Rolling Stone article. Turns out it was Dr. Evil, not Dr. Doom. Here's the link: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto...save_the_world Dr. Evil, Lowell Wood, is kind of a kooky character, but not a garden variety intelligence. More than a few respected scientists on the global stage appear to have given his proposal serious consideration, including Nobel Prize winners. To imagine that all these people are paper tigers and that the best, brightest, and most well-informed of them that believe in anthropogenic warming are in the main dupes or agenda driven seems likely to be an error, to me.

IOW, for the "greenies" to oppose higher CO2 levels is hypocritical, because plants thrive on it. They want to starve plants in the name of "protecting" them. For shame!

Conditions in a plant nursery greenhouse may not represent an accurate reflection of broader environmental changes that could happen. Plants might be fine with the increase in CO2, but if temperatures increase, larger climate changes could take place that affect where rain falls. All the CO2 in the world won't save a plant that doesn't get enough water. What if shifts occur that turn Brazil into a desert and the Sahara gets saturated with rain? You can't grow much in sand, at least not that I'm aware of.

IAC, the amount of CO2 in the air could be increased fivefold—not that we could do it even if it were our intent—without posing a significant danger to anything. And the vegetation would thrive in it.

My example of a human drinking toxic levels of water wasn't meant to suggest that CO2 levels would overcome us directly. It was meant to suggest that just as the human system could take in too much water and have adverse consequences, so could the environmental system of the planet have too much CO2 for the benefit of human life, even though neither water nor CO2 are "pollutants". I gather that you understood that, but wanted to make sure you didn't think I thought our troubles might stem from breathing too much CO2. However, inhalation of concentrated levels of CO2 does result in a release of repressed emotions, ie an abreactive experience. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/...act/110/10/765 Maybe the world could use an increase.

Counterquestion: how do you justify spending trillions of dollars, and endangering the economies of many nations, on doing "something" without unarguable scientific evidence that it will or even can make the slightest difference?

Like I stated earlier in this thread, cleaning up the envioronment seems like a good idea to me, independent of global warming. I think the people/nations of the world need to come to grips with the idea that the world is finite and we need to learn to live in it in a sustainable way. I think the "West" has been setting the pace, or standard, of consumption and that others are following suit. To me, it seems like we need to live simpler lives, at least until we've better sorted out how to do things in a way that won't harm us in the future.

Outline for us what would be required to reduce the Anthropogenic CO2 emission level to reduce the GCC

I have never gotten a response from those to whom i've directed it. I trust that you are up to the challenge.

I don't feel any pressure, or need, to address your list of concerns. Nor do I have the specific answers to your questions. But I think we need to start living differently. For me, it's back to 'If they're wrong and we act, we still benefit from a cleaner environment. I they're right and we don't act, we might wish we had'.

Foolish Earthlings. We guffaw at your bravado. Even now our invasion fleet is practicing for the day when the directive will be received from Ashtar Command, and then ... ah, but 'tis too appalling to contemplate when sober. Several rounds of Romulan ale are in order.

You know what they say on the Moon - There's no easier pickin's than drunken Romulans.

[Karen]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Our Kokua not needed. The earth is simply in one of her warmer phases. Not to worry! This 'ole globe has been warmer and cooler many times. It'll cool again no matter what we do or don't.

We need simply to continue to be as good and careful as most of us always have. it isn't time for anyone to panic or to give up our lifestyles and all start driving tiny golf carts and keeping our houses dark at night. That would only give those with an agenda what they want, and that is people like al gore want us to all save power so he and the other elite can have more for themselves. Al won't be giving up his extravagances, but is trying scare all of us "commoners" into living like spartans.

I ain't fallin for it.

[DoctorDoom]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Like I stated earlier in this thread, cleaning up the envioronment seems like a good idea to me, independent of global warming.

No argument. Being good stewards presupposes caring for—but not worshipping—our planet. But when caring becomes fanaticism, it usually results in greater hazards to the ecosystem than leaving it to care for itself, which it did for milliions of years before we decided to "help".

You know what they say on the Moon - There's no easier pickin's than drunken Romulans.

Romulans are wusses, but they do make good ale. And roast gray is always enhanced by chilled Rom-ale.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

And now...the Democratic rebuttal...

[Bobinator]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

I'm all for recycling, but don't beleive the lie about global warming being caused by people. What the media isn't telling you is man's contribution to greenhouse gases is only one half (1/2) of one percent (1%). Yes, that's right! 0.5%. I read this in National Geograph and saw a documentary on TV. Studies indicate that a medium size volcanic eruption spews as much carbon dioxide as 40 years of peak industrial activity around the world. Plus, there's undisputed evidence of global warming long before man became a monkey's uncle.

As far as our .5%, a large part is probably from our large consumption of beef and India's preservation and worship of cows who probably fart just as much as any volcano!

Speaking of which, the massive cattle ranches should rig their barns to catch and store all the methane so the media doesn't blame us.

[acousticlady]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Speaking of which, the massive cattle ranches should rig their barns to catch and store all the methane so the media doesn't blame us.

I just saw a news piece this morning on exactly this - how some cattle farm is recycling cow pooh. They generate enough electricity from the methane to keep the farm going. They estimated that each cow produces something like 90 lbs a day.

Here it is:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/211345...10705#24310705

[salmoned]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

No argument. Being good stewards presupposes caring for—but not worshipping—our planet. But when caring becomes fanaticism, it usually results in greater hazards to the ecosystem than leaving it to care for itself, which it did for milliions of years before we decided to "help".

Romulans are wusses, but they do make good ale. And roast gray is always enhanced by chilled Rom-ale.

I worship my planet. I don't know how many Gods there might be, but I'm certain we only have one planet.

[Bobinator]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

I worship my planet. I don't know how many Gods there might be, but I'm certain we only have one planet.

Frankly, I'd rather worship the Creator than the creation.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Frankly, I'd rather worship the Creator than the creation.

Well if you don't have a God then you worship material things. Earth can be considered material technically.

[salmoned]

Re: The Shrinking Arctic Ice Cap

Frankly, I'd rather worship the Creator than the creation.

One and the same. They only differ from a restricted perspective (polish your mirror).