NationStates Jolt Archive

A recent article in EOS, v88, n5, 30 Jan 2007, raises an interesting issue regarding the impact of changes in the amount of solar radiation at the earth's surface. If I read this article correctly, the change in solar radiation at the earth's surface due to global dimming and brightening is greater than the change due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases by about a factor of 10. This is not a new discovery and the changes have been tracked over decades. The cause of the dimming and brightening changes is not known and cannot be explained by human activities, e.g. introduction of aerosols. There is a paradox between global warming and global dimming and brightening and again there is no apparent relationship to human activity.

It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has dealt with this data, some of which has been known for over 30 years, by ignoring it. Thus its work appears to completely ignore the ubiquitous role of solar energy in powering the water, gas, and carbon cycles of the earth machine.

I pose two questions. Please answer yes or no and explain your answer.
1. Do we have a true scientific understanding of all the factors that influence climate change?
2. Is the scientific climate change business avoiding questions which it cannot or does not want to answer?

A recent article in EOS, v88, n5, 30 Jan 2007, raises an interesting issue regarding the impact of changes in the amount of solar radiation at the earth's surface. If I read this article correctly, the change in solar radiation at the earth's surface due to global dimming and brightening is greater than the change due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases by about a factor of 10. This is not a new discovery and the changes have been tracked over decades. The cause of the dimming and brightening changes is not known and cannot be explained by human activities, e.g. introduction of aerosols. There is a paradox between global warming and global dimming and brightening and again there is no apparent relationship to human activity.

It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has dealt with this data, some of which has been known for over 30 years, by ignoring it. Thus its work appears to completely ignore the ubiquitous role of solar energy in powering the water, gas, and carbon cycles of the earth machine.

I pose two questions. Please answer yes or no and explain your answer.
1. Do we have a true scientific understanding of all the factors that influence climate change?
2. Is the scientific climate change business avoiding questions which it cannot or does not want to answer?1.Of all the factors? Unlikely.
Of more than enough factors to come to a more than sound conclusion? Definitely.

2. No.

A recent article in EOS, v88, n5, 30 Jan 2007, raises an interesting issue regarding the impact of changes in the amount of solar radiation at the earth's surface. If I read this article correctly, the change in solar radiation at the earth's surface due to global dimming and brightening is greater than the change due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases by about a factor of 10. This is not a new discovery and the changes have been tracked over decades. The cause of the dimming and brightening changes is not known and cannot be explained by human activities, e.g. introduction of aerosols. There is a paradox between global warming and global dimming and brightening and again there is no apparent relationship to human activity.

It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has dealt with this data, some of which has been known for over 30 years, by ignoring it. Thus its work appears to completely ignore the ubiquitous role of solar energy in powering the water, gas, and carbon cycles of the earth machine.

I pose two questions. Please answer yes or no and explain your answer.
1. Do we have a true scientific understanding of all the factors that influence climate change?
2. Is the scientific climate change business avoiding questions which it cannot or does not want to answer?

1. No. We do not. The physics, for the most part, is all there, but we lack a lot of the observational data required to fit stuff into our models and say, conclusively, yes or no. There is a preponderance of evidence that we are contributing to the global warming problem, but we lack the ability to say, conclusively, that we are a significant contributor, compared to other, external factors.
This doesn't necessarily mean we should kick back and keep burning fossil fuels, but it may mean that we can, at best, delay the problem, rather than outright solving it.
2. I'm not familiar enough with the international panel, but I would posit that it's as much a political agency as a scientific one.

I should also add: We have accurate, and I mean really bloody accurate, models of atmospheric physics and associated phenomena. Our problem is, as stated above, a lack of observational data.
You can't make a wholly accurate meteorological forecast for the next 10 days without being able to observe weather over the pacific ocean, and weather further up the jet stream.
My point in saying this is that, while the physics of this has been understood for decades, we still have trouble predicting a 5-day and 10-day weather forecast accurately, because of a lack of data.

1. No. Science is never really complete; our understanding of climate change is not yet developed enough to include all of the possible variables; however, we do have enough information to say with a high degree of confidence that there is a relationship between man-made CO2 and changes in global climate, and that regulating those emissions is advisable to prevent the potential damages that global climate change will likely cause if left unchecked.

2. No. Controlling CO2 emissions is logical and beneficial from no matter which angle you look at it; we gain nothing from wanton pollution and lose quite a bit, especially if predictions regarding human influence on the climate end up coming true and cause serious damage to our economy.

Controlling CO2 emissions is logical and beneficial from no matter which angle you look at it; we gain nothing from wanton pollution and lose quite a bit, especially if predictions regarding human influence on the climate end up coming true and cause serious damage to our economy.
Controlling in what way? Finding an agricultural application for an abundant resource or burying it in the ground like garbage?

Remember that carbon dioxide being an essential trace gas that underpins the bulk of the global food web. Commercial growers deliberately generate CO2 and increase its levels in agricultural greenhouses to between 700ppmv and 1,000ppmv to increase productivity and improve the water efficiency of food crops far beyond those in the somewhat carbon-starved open atmosphere.

Use every part of the buffalo.

Controlling in what way? Finding an agricultural application for an abundant resource or burying it in the ground like garbage?

It makes more sense to use it than to waste it...I mean, there are applications for CO2 that are very useful and profitable. Why bury it when you can use it?

Remember that carbon dioxide being an essential trace gas that underpins the bulk of the global food web. Commercial growers deliberately generate CO2 and increase its levels in agricultural greenhouses to between 700ppmv and 1,000ppmv to increase productivity and improve the water efficiency of food crops far beyond those in the somewhat carbon-starved open atmosphere.

Use every part of the buffalo.

Oh, absolutely.

CO2 from power plants can also be used to produce biofuels like algae-based biodiesel; in that case, not only do you use the heat and CO2 but you produce a biofuel that is cleaner than its fossil fuel alternative, further cutting down on emissions while using the ones that you do produce. It could lead to extremely productive and profitable zero-emissions coal/biofuel plants that are far more useful than wasting the CO2 by sticking it in the ground.

A recent article in EOS, v88, n5, 30 Jan 2007, raises an interesting issue regarding the impact of changes in the amount of solar radiation at the earth's surface. If I read this article correctly, the change in solar radiation at the earth's surface due to global dimming and brightening is greater than the change due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases by about a factor of 10. This is not a new discovery and the changes have been tracked over decades. The cause of the dimming and brightening changes is not known and cannot be explained by human activities, e.g. introduction of aerosols. There is a paradox between global warming and global dimming and brightening and again there is no apparent relationship to human activity.

It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has dealt with this data, some of which has been known for over 30 years, by ignoring it. Thus its work appears to completely ignore the ubiquitous role of solar energy in powering the water, gas, and carbon cycles of the earth machine.

I pose two questions. Please answer yes or no and explain your answer.
1. Do we have a true scientific understanding of all the factors that influence climate change?
2. Is the scientific climate change business avoiding questions which it cannot or does not want to answer?


1. nope

2. yes, this issue is not about pure science anymore. It has been politicized and now politicions are falling over themselves to give subsidies to solar power companies and eletric car reaserchers. Skeptical scientists are bad for votes and make you look stupid if you are pro-enviroment.

*anyone who says controlling emissions dosen't hurt the economy has never had to buy a new catalytic converter. And to think that car exhaust systems contain platinum despite the fact that no one can prove CO2 emissions cause global warming. What bullshit.

It makes more sense to use it than to waste it...I mean, there are applications for CO2 that are very useful and profitable. Why bury it when you can use it?
Tell that to those that want to. See there are those that got it into their heads that just because it came out of the ground it ought to go back there. Trouble is they don't seem to understand that for it to stay put it needs to be locked up in the puddles of goo that are peat bogs or it'll just work its way back up. That's what gas does, especially under pressure, it'll find the tiniest crack even after you plug the whole you shot it down and work it's way in the same general direction it got shoved down. Coal fires, as in the underground deposits, in China burn 120 million tons of coal a year, emitting 360 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. This amounts to 2-3% of the annual worldwide production of CO2 from fossil fuels, or as much as emitted from all of the cars and light trucks in the United States. The biggest problem with those is that they usually can't be put out. All that comes up through the ground, working its way around anything in its path, all it needs is the tiniest crack.

CO2 from power plants can also be used to produce biofuels like algae-based biodiesel; in that case, not only do you use the heat and CO2 but you produce a biofuel that is cleaner than its fossil fuel alternative, further cutting down on emissions while using the ones that you do produce. It could lead to extremely productive and profitable zero-emissions coal/biofuel plants that are far more useful than wasting the CO2 by sticking it in the ground.
Or, and this is just me thinking, we could use it to grow the kind of food that you eat and feed the millions of starving people around the world and extract the energy from the coal directly for the next hundred years. Just a thought.

anyone who says controlling emissions dosen't hurt the economy has never had to buy a new catalytic converter. And to think that car exhaust systems contain platinum despite the fact that no one can prove CO2 emissions cause global warming. What bullshit.

I might be wrong about this, but isn't catalytic systems in cars working towards reducing the cancinogenic particles and free radicals that petrol emitts and instead burning it all to CO2? To my knowledge, it is not about reducing the Carbondioxide, but to make the exhaust less damaging to the enviroment. But then again, I ain't no engineer.