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Living within a living, loving planet
Global Warming
Has ocean warming decreased? No!
Apr 26th
(Figure 2)
Has ocean warming decreased? No!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/levitus-2012-global-warming-heating-oceans.html
“TheWorldOceanaccounts for approximately 93% of the warming of the earth system that has occurred since 1955. The 700-2000m ocean layer accounted for approximately one-third of the warming of the 0-2000m layer of theWorldOcean.”
“The Meehl model results are exactly what Levitus find is happening. We are in the midst of a hiatus decade where global surface warming has been dampened, the increase of the upper OHC has slowed, but more heat is going into the deeper ocean layers.”
Dr. Pielke had argued based on the 700 meter OHC data that global warming had slowed. Levitus et al. note this leveling off in the upper 700 meters in recent years, but that this recent flattening is much less apparent in the 2000 meter data, meaning that more heat is being stored in the 700-2000 meter layer recently (Figure 2).
“This heating amounts to 136 trillion Joules per second (Watts), which as Glenn Tramblyn noted in a previous post, is the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima “Little Boy” atomic bomb detonations per second, every second over a 55-year period. And Levitus et al. note that this immense ocean heating has not slowed in recent years – more of it has simply gone into the deeper ocean layers.”
A Political Process fit for Purpose
Apr 25th
“The growth of emissions can be slowed, relative to the growth rate of the economy. However, emissions cannot conceivably be stalled or reversed while the economy continues to expand, however great the carbon-saving technologies of the coming years.
If our political processes cannot conceive of a non-growth future, and yet a fundamental rethink of growth is the only honest starting point for the fight against climate change, then those political processes are clearly not fit for purpose.”
Oliver De Schutter at the Guardian. Tuesday 24 April 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/24/climate-change-human-rights-issue?INTCMP=SRCH
There are two points that I would like to make about the quote above.
[1]
Fighting against climate change is ridiculous. Just a slight glance at a graphic of temperature variations over a few hundred thousand years reveal that it is always changing. There is no or practically no long period of stability. Over the last million years, at least, we have been going from quick zips of warming squeezed into long periods of increased glaciation and decreased glaciation. Talk about fighting climate change just understandably fuels the skeptics and “deniers.”
I read a lot about the climbing anthropogenic CO2 and steadily rising temperature. The level of CO2 in the air is unquestionably higher than any of the last 4 interglacial periods. Since we as humans had no modern recording and measurement devices, we just don’t know how the CO2 will affect climate. The best we can do is run computer models and simulations. These help us to see into the future but just don’t impress a large segment of our population. Ironically, to make a side step, these same people don’t seem to mind listening to the results of simulations so long as they reveal a story that they agree with.
I’ve said before and continue to claim that we are barking up the wrong tree. Our scientists, driven of course by what governments and multinationals want to hear, focus on why we are still experiencing increasing temperatures, when after around 12,000 years of interglacial warming, compared to the last 4 periods, we should be into a downward dip.
I suggest that we should be concerned and be trying to discover what brought the temperature (and CO2) down in the past. We need to do this as precisely as possible and then when we understand which of the factors discovered are now missing, for instance, millions of trees and immense grasslands and savannah, and then how we can either get around the situation or if not, how we had best prepare for the unknown. Scientists do agree that there are triggers, tipping points, that appear to spearhead the change up and down. I suggest that we have a lot of adequate information about the causes of the upward climb of temperature and emergence into an interglacial period. Whether CO2 climbed first or temperature climbed first is a side issue – important but a mystery that we can live with – while we deal with the known. As I have just said, we spend little time and effort revealing and I argue, explaining to the public that we will most likely skip a whole glacial- interglacial cycle. [An Exceptionally Long Interglacial Ahead?
A. Berger and M. F. Loutre in 23 AUGUST 2002 VOL 297 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org]
Another issue that bothers me is that of our worldview or how we look at our planet. As I’ve tried to suggest and support in my book, Planet as Self, we don’t understand how our planet “works” primarily because we see it as a large and intricate machine. We use the limited views within a pragmatic, physicalist, mindset, with instruments designed to measure machines, to understand a living being. We are IN a planet not on it. We have studied and know that a star, our sun, has a birth and death cycle of increasing heat output on its way to becoming a red giant then a white dwarf and finally a black dwarf. Gaia Theory explains how living beings on the outer skin, so to speak of Gaia, actually work together to counteract this heat increase and maintain Earth’s temperature to the benefit of said life-forms. That’s why we need to work with nature and honour the wisdom inherent in the life of Gaia. After all, we are all first and foremost Earthlings.
[2] Looking again at the quote above, I am extremely pleased to read a critique of the idea of unlimited growth. Out of control growth is known as cancer. Surely it is common sense to agree that a planet with finite resources cannot support unlimited growth. As the author points out, we need to adapt a political (economic) process that is fit for purpose. That purpose being, as a famous American document proposed, the purpose of maintaining a government of the people, by the people and for the people and not just the 1%.
Large-scale production of bioenergy from forest biomass is neither sustainable nor GHG neutral
Apr 12th
New research from last week 14/2012
Posted on 11 April 2012 by Ari Jokimäki
http://www.skepticalscience.com/new_research_14_2012.html
Large-scale bioenergy from additional harvest of forest biomass is neither sustainable nor greenhouse gas neutral – Schulze et al. (2012)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01169.x/abstract
Abstract: “Owing to the peculiarities of forest net primary production humans would appropriate ca. 60% of the global increment of woody biomass if forest biomass were to produce 20% of current global primary energy supply. We argue that such an increase in biomass harvest would result in younger forests, lower biomass pools, depleted soil nutrient stocks and a loss of other ecosystem functions.
The proposed strategy is likely to miss its main objective, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, because it would result in a reduction of biomass pools that may take decades to centuries to be paid back by fossil fuel substitution, if paid back at all.
Eventually, depleted soil fertility will make the production unsustainable and require fertilization, which in turn increases GHG emissions due to N2O emissions.
Hence, large-scale production of bioenergy from forest biomass is neither sustainable nor GHG neutral.”
Citation: Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Christian Körner, Beverly E. Law, Helmut Haberl, Sebastiaan Luyssaert, GCB Bioenergy, DOI: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01169.x.
This carbon neutral claim has always sounded suspect. Chopping forest causes a loss of water distribution that limits the ability to sustain new growth. The result points to more desertification. Climate change deniers like to reference millions of years ago when the planet sustained far more CO2 in the air.
We must not forget the climatic conditions which preceded this situation. We cannot expect an increase of CO2 now to develop into anything like what happened millions of years ago. Anyway, unless our thinking changes, water supplies left available will be used to sustain humans and not trees.
Group decides that CO2 lags Temperature
Apr 9th
4 April 2012
CO2 ‘drove end to last ice age’
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404
“Our global temperature looks a lot like the pattern of rising CO2 at the end of the ice age, but the interesting part in particular is that unlike with these Antarctic ice core records, the temperature lags a bit behind the CO2,” said Dr Shakun, who conducted much of the research at Oregon State University but who is now affiliated to Harvard and Columbia universities.
“You put these two points together – the correlation of global temperature and CO2, and the fact that temperature lags behind the CO2 – and it really leaves you thinking that CO2 was the big driver of global warming at the end of the ice age,” he told BBC News.
Sky: I suggest that we look very carefully at this article. The findings are anything but conclusive. The charts showing CO2 and temperature have always shown that they are very closely interwoven. I am suspicious reading the contents of the quote below. “CO2 was the big driver of global warming at the end of the ice age” As Don J. Easterbrook, PhD Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University. Retired, reminded readers recently,[ http://wattsupwiththat.com/] correlation does not prove cause. When two phenomena move together they are often simply driven by the same phenomenon. We must ask, what drove the driver? What made the CO2 shift? Obviously we ask, What made the temperature shift? There is very little doubt that when in the midst of an ice age, a warming trend strong enough to melt glaciers almost obviously comes from an increase of heat retention from the sun. When the sun’s orbit is more circular and the Earth’s tilt allows the sun’s rays to strike the Earth in the North and South more directly and precession favours warmer summers, [not so effective when the Earth’s orbit is nearly circular] then ice in polar areas will melt. It just so happens that CO2 and temperatures are low during an ice age. It is probable that as insolation increases oceans become warmer and thus expel some of the accumulated CO2 into the air. If the high insolation persists, then you get the combination of insolation and the greenhouse effect working together as positive feedbacks. From the graphs, it appears that these positive feedbacks gain momentum and cause an interglacial period in a couple of thousand years or so. There doesn,t appear to be any other factor than a temperature increase that would cause a rise in CO2. Ice core data may not be precise enough to prove which one occurred first.
“Right off the bat, a most surprising conclusion in this paper is that the authors claim that correlation proves cause. Simply showing that CO2 correlates with anything surely doesn’t prove that CO2 was the cause. It’s the same kind of mindset involved with the oft-heard claim that if we have had global warming while CO2 was rising that proves the cause was the rise in CO2.” Don J. Easterbrook, Phd
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Who Cares?
Apr 2nd
Drought fears for Midlands and south-west England
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17571709
“Farmers in East Anglia are unlikely to be allowed to draw water from the ground or rivers to irrigate crops. Some are reporting crop reductions of between 20-50%, in vegetables like onions and carrots.
Extra capacity is being found in other areas of the country.
Environment Agency water resources head Trevor Bishop told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the situation was becoming more serious.
‘If we see a continuation of dry weather, which is now very likely, these conditions will probably extend further westward over the next couple of months.’”
I suggest we reconsider taking on the responsibility of “feeding the world.” I repeat, we do not have the problem of lack of food or lack of growing areas where food is needed. The problem is largely twofold. [1] Too many people live where they have “eaten out their environment” [2] Exploitation by the wealthy who own large tracts of land and grow food for export to enable the well to do to gobble out of season fruit and vegetables. Surely if we plough up marginal land here to feed them there, then they will continue to make more and more children until we all be in the same boat.
A few questions. Where will the water come to increase global food? Where will the water come from to water the millions of trees needed to reduce CO2 to stabilize the climate so droughts can be reduced? Now that food has become a global commodity in a global market, can we expect the food sector to favour reducing demand by backing efforts to restrain population growth? Of course not. Except for China, when have you read about a government encouraging the limitation of population growth? I suggest that most governments are now driven by the business attitudes that favour more people. They would wouldn’t they?
Regulators are interesting devices. Voltage regulators, for instance keep a constant voltage level to a voltage output. Regulators are vital to the function of a diesel engine driving a generator because when the regulation fails, the engine “runs away” and explodes.
Perhaps a corporate structure lacks a “regulator.” Is there a corporate concept of “enough profit?” Do corporate executives ever make “enough”?
Can you imagine this statement being made by a corporate executive to the board? “Well, we need to decrease our output and consider that we have made enough profit this year. Our procurement policy is overdriving supply to the detriment of both the organisations and dependent environment.” Sound familiar? Of course not.
I’m just rereading a letter sent to the government of Slovenia from James Hansen, one of my heroes. Read it here if you will.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120330_SlovenianPresident.pdf
“The most basic matter is not one of economics, however. It is a matter of morality – a matter of intergenerational justice. As with the earlier great moral issue of slavery, an injustice done by one race of humans to another, so the injustice of one generation to all those to come must stir the public’s conscience to the point of action.”
Intergenerational justice. I often consider starting my memoirs so that my grandchildren might know who I was and what I thought. Why? Well, I know very little about my Grandfather McCain and I often wonder now what he thought about things. Who was he really?
However, will my grandchildren ask, “Was our welfare important enough to you that you cared enough to speak out during your life against the wanton destruction of our way of life?
You could see clearly what was happening and how things would turn out when we were too young to either realise it or speak out. Did you lift a finger on our behalf?”
A very Clever Observation
Mar 2nd
TheIndependenceof Global Warming on Residence Time of CO2
Posted on 1 March 2012 by Dikran Marsupial
http://www.skepticalscience.com/essenhigh_rebuttal.html
The author of this Skeptical Science post has used a very clever method to counter claims that the present and persistent rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. He managed to get a peer reviewed paper published on this subject because most scientists find it so obvious that there was nothing published to cite as an argument against the naysayers.
When you check his blog you’ll see that the Earth is a net carbon sync but just can’t keep up with the human caused emissions.
Another interesting fact is that the ocean is absorbing a net gain in carbon [becoming more acidic] and not as most would think. Opinion is that as the ocean temperature increases it outgases CO2. Time for a rethink, huh?
Climate Skepticism Efforts
Feb 17th
Heartland Institute’s Leaked Documents Reveal Climate Skepticism Efforts
AP SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated: 02/16/2012 6:55 pm
“Leaked documents from a prominent conservative think tank show how it sought to teach schoolchildren skepticism about global warming and planned other behind-the-scenes tactics using millions of dollars in donations from big corporate names.”
“Because Heartland was not specific about what was fake and what was real, The Associated Press attempted to verify independently key parts of separate budget and fundraising documents that were leaked. The federal consultant working on the classroom curriculum, the former TV weatherman, aChicagoelected official who campaigns against hidden local debt and two corporate donors all confirmed to the AP that the sections in the document that pertained to them were accurate. No one the AP contacted said the budget or fundraising documents mentioning them were incorrect.”
“The documents showed how heavily Heartland relies on a single person it identified only as “Anonymous Donor.” In the past six years, the man has given $14.26 million to the institute, nearly half its $33.9 million in revenue.”
When you find that there are 25.4 million (American million) millionaires which includes 1,200 billionaires, can you be surprised that one or more of these people can purchase, in so many words, public opinion? Is there a doubt that English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton was right when he said in 1839: “The pen is mightier than the sword”
We are in big trouble with our almost totally self-serving institutions. It is ‘kinda’ late now to do anything about it as we look forward to begging for crumbs as they take our dear Gaia and most lifeforms down the tube with them.
Why so many climate change deniers?
Jan 29th
I think James makes some really valid points here and I’m glad that he is again speaking out.
James Hansen 27 January, 2011
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20120127_CowardsPart1.pdf
“The scientific method requires objective analysis of all data, stating evidence pro and con, before reaching conclusions. This works well, indeed is necessary, for achieving success in science. But science is now pitted in public debate against the talk-show method, which consists of selective citation of anecdotal bits that support a predetermined position.”
“Today most media, even publicly-supported media, are pressured to balance every climate story with opinions of contrarians, climate change deniers, as if they had equal scientific credibility.”
“Media are dependent on advertising revenue of the fossil fuel industry, and in some cases are owned by people with an interest in continuing business as usual. Fossil fuel profiteers can readily find a few percent of the scientific community to serve as mouthpieces — all scientists practice skepticism, and it is not hard to find some who are out of their area of expertise, who may enjoy being in the public eye, and who are limited in scientific insight and analytic ability.”
“Distinguished scientific bodies such as national science academies, using the scientific method, can readily separate charlatans and false interpretations from well-reasoned science. Yet it seems that our governments and the public are not making much use of their authoritative scientific bodies. Why is that?
I believe that the answer, and the difficulty in communicating science to the public, is related to the corrosive influence of money in politics and to increased corporate influence on the media.”
Sky: With 24.2 million millionaires about it is not unbelievable that some might be corrosive!
“Some clarification of what this is about, the secret efforts of Lords, the wealthy, the privileged, to dupe the public in our democracies into supporting their continued and growing privileges, is provided by this news article and press release:”
“Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics atAustralia’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, has backed Mr Montague’s case.
Professor Hamilton is a long-time critic of think-tanks promoting outlying views on the risks of human-caused climate change, including the Melbourne-basedInstituteofPublic Affairs.
‘The public should know who is funding climate denial so they can properly judge the information put out by organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation,’ he said.”
“TheUK’s Charity Commission, which regulates charities in theUK, is being asked to release a document that would show the start-up funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, chaired by formerUKchancellor Lord Nigel Lawson.
Launched in November 2009, the foundation has consistently challenged the mainstream scientific view that human emissions of greenhouse gases represent a significant risk to the planet and societies.”
“Mr Montague, who has worked for national newspapers the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail in the UK, said because Lord Lawson’s charity was lobbying heavily for changes in climate change and energy policy, this could affect the lives of ‘millions of people’.
‘Climate change will have dramatic impacts inAustralia,’ he told brisbanetimes.com.au.
‘Therefore it would be unfair on the people ofAustraliafor aUKthink-tank to be trying to influence government policy that’s funded by unknown sources.’”
”In interviews, Lord Lawson, whose daughter is TV chef Nigella, described wind farms as ‘primitive and inefficient’, dismissed climate change computer models as “clearly rubbish” and claimed scientists were not in agreement about the risks of rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
During the debate, co-sponsored by The Spectator Magazine and the free-market think-tank the Institute for Public Affairs, Lord Lawson said anyone who claimed carbon dioxide was ‘pollution’ or ‘dirty’ was ‘either ignorant or a liar.’
Poll: Should climate change think-tanks on both sides of the debate be forced to declare who is funding their work?
90%
No, it would not change the credibility of think-tanks’ claims
10%
Total votes: 1061.
Sky: If we, speaking for non-professional climatologists, are to be able to sift through the propaganda and find something near the truth, we must be familiar with the fundamentals. Find below some background on the source of the Earth’s surface heat and what keeps us from being permanently frozen as we would be without the greenhouse effect.
http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/factors/radiation.html
Solar Radiation
Solar radiation drives atmospheric circulation. Since solar radiation represents almost all the energy available to the Earth, accounting for solar radiation and how it interacts with the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface is fundamental to understanding the Earth’s energy budget.
Solar radiation [6000K] reaches the Earth’s surface either by being transmitted directly through the atmosphere (“direct solar radiation”), or by being scattered or reflected to the surface (“diffuse sky radiation”). About 30 percent of solar (or shortwave) radiation is reflected back into space, while the remaining shortwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere is absorbed by the Earth’s surface and re-radiated as thermal infrared (or longwave) [longwave radiation is heat radiation (4 micrometers)] radiation.
“The atmosphere is nearly transparent to short-wave radiation, but is relatively opaque to long-wave radiation” http://mysite.du.edu/~etuttle/weather/atmrad.htm
“Solar energy enters our atmosphere as shortwave radiation in the form of ultraviolet (UV) rays (the ones that give us sunburn) and visible light.”
“Most of the energy emitted from the earth’s surface does not go directly out to space. This emitted energy is reabsorbed by clouds and by the gases in the atmosphere. Some of it gets redistributed by convection. Even more energy is released into the atmosphere through condensation. The majority of the energy is reabsorbed by the greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon dioxide and water vapor. These gases constantly emit the sun’s energy back into the atmosphere and keep the earth a habitable temperature. Eventually, most of the energy makes its way back out to space and Earth’s energy balance is fairly well maintained. The energy that doesn’t make its way out is responsible for global warming.
On a global scale, the atmosphere’s circulation and weather [Sky: serves as] an attempt to balance differences in solar energy that the earth receives across the globe. Sunlight at the tropics is intense and direct and a lot of heating of land, atmosphere and oceans occur there. Sunlight in the polar regions is weak and indirect and does not do a good job of heating up the region. Currents in wind and ocean water carry energy from the tropics toward the poles to help balance out the energy differences across the globe.”
http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/edu/k12/.EnergyBalance
Back to: http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/factors/radiation.html
The intensity of solar radiation striking a horizontal surface is measured by a pyranometer. The instrument consists of a sensor enclosed in a transparent hemisphere that records the total amount of shortwave incoming solar radiation. That is, pyranometers measure “global” or “total” radiation: the sum of direct solar and diffuse sky radiation. Incoming (or “downwelling”) longwave radiation is measured with a pyrgeometer. Outgoing (“upwelling”) longwave radiation is measured in various ways, such as with pyrgeometers or with sensors that measure the temperature of the surface.
Accurate estimates of albedo are especially important as albedo places a fundamental limit on the amount of solar radiation that can be absorbed by the surface. For example, albedo strongly determines the rate of melt of sea ice. Over longer periods of time, changes in components of the radiation balance can be manifested in climate change.
Here is a clear explanation from a comment by: JohnDM Croydon January 27, 2012 5:53 AM
“JohnDM, it’s not a climate debate you need, it’s a science lesson.
“Earth is warmed by absorption of short wave sunlight. Because of this, Earth’s temperature can remain unchanged by returning the same amount of energy to space. That is, solar shortwave energy is balanced by the earth re-radiating to space as a ‘black body’ radiator with a characteristic temperature of ~255K; that is, from space the earth’s spectrum is roughly that of a radiating body with an optical surface temperature of around 255K.
Earth’s surface cools by evaporation of excited water molecules, heat transfer to deeper sea and to polar ice caps and by convection and radiation back into and through the atmosphere. At higher altitudes, where the atmosphere gets less dense, the proportion of energy (heat) transfer by long wave ‘thermal’ (microwave) radiation increases. Observing earth’s spectrum from space has big absorption bands due to greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. Prominent among these is carbon dioxide (CO2).
Greenhouse gases such as H2O, CO2, methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), CFC’s, and ozone (O3) absorb, then re-emit, some longwave wavelengths. About half of the re-emitted radiation is diverted back down toward the surface, as confirmed by radiation measurements at both surface and satellite observatories. This discrepancy increases with atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration.
Heat thus accumulates at the surface, 85% of which heat warms oceans, accelerating ice melting.”
Climate Change Skeptics
Jan 21st
“Skepticism about climate change comes with a particularly rich irony. Many doubters cite the earth’s past cycles of glaciation and warming to discount what we are seeing today as nothing but natural variation. How do the skeptics know of that climate history? From the very scientists whose conclusions they now doubt!” Jeff Schweitzer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-schweitzer/opinion-fact-and-hubris-o_b_1130039.html?view=screen
Knowing that many climate change skeptics have been paid to dredge up whatever warmed-over arguments they can find to confuse and misconstrue the issues is annoying, but what annoys me the most is what I call “muddy the waters.” It goes something like this. Alice says to Sam, “I think this is one of the coldest mornings we have had this year.” But instead of agreeing or disagreeing and citing alternative evidence to support a negative response, Sam says, “Oh but I’ve seen colder.” Therefore, Sam’s response deflects and changes the point raised and forces an affirmative response. So now,Alice may choose to just let it go or start over. After a couple of further exchanges Sam has in effect obtained agreement on his point and nullified Alice’s original point altogether.
Another favourite prevarication is to ignore the point and spend time establishing the validity of a side issue. This may be called “skirting the issue.” Similarly, the skeptic may pull you away from the point you are trying to make by refusing to respond about your point at all and making statements about a different point that lead you to agree. Then you find yourself agreeing but not about your point. Then often the skeptic will refuse to continue along that avenue leaving an affirmative in the air so to speak.
Vital Issues not Understood
Jan 17th
I like the way Orenstein puts this thought!
Guest post by Nick Orenstein
“We find ourselves at a time where advances in scientific discovery and information gathering have accelerated faster than the general public’s understanding of issues equally vital to everyone on Earth. As a result, many non-scientists among us are: confused by too much math, politically biased by convenient half-truths, or somehow religiously opposed to the consequences of the scientific data.”
View the source Here