Thread: Global heating questions

Hy ,
I'm a bit confused about the whole issue of global heating.
Everybody only talks about reducing CO2, while it is only one of the greenhouse gasses.

It is true that our way of industrial living attributes to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, 29 gigatons versus 750 gigatons emitted by mother nature
(source sceptical science.com).

What does the IPCC want to achieve, with the reduction of manmade CO2?
Do they want to maintain the staus quo for the global temperature?
Or do they want to delay or minimize it, if yes by how many years?

To me this is confusing because I read everywhere that we should push back CO2 production etc, but nowhere I can find what they hope to achieve.

Please enlighten me

Cheers,
Gerrit Jan

Originally Posted by Gerrit Jan

Hy ,
I'm a bit confused about the whole issue of global heating.
Everybody only talks about reducing CO2, while it is only one of the greenhouse gasses.

It is true that our way of industrial living attributes to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, 29 gigatons versus 750 gigatons emitted by mother nature
(source sceptical science.com).

What does the IPCC want to achieve, with the reduction of manmade CO2?
Do they want to maintain the staus quo for the global temperature?
Or do they want to delay or minimize it, if yes by how many years?

To me this is confusing because I read everywhere that we should push back CO2 production etc, but nowhere I can find what they hope to achieve.

Please enlighten me

Cheers,
Gerrit Jan

You're only looking at part of the picture. From your source;

Vegetation and land Net -11 GT
Oceans Net -6 GT
-------------
Total natural -17 GT

Man Made +29 GT

Net without emissions -17 GT
Net with emissions: +12 GT

CO2-Emissions-vs-Levels.jpg

co2_data_mlo.jpg

Full size Mauna Loa record from 315 to almost 400 ppm in 50 years...

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

OK that may very well be true, and I don't deny that the temp. is rising.
But that is not my question at all.
My question still is: What doe the IPCC want to achieve?
They keep telling us that we should put enormous amounts of money in reducing CO2 output, allright.
What is their long time goal?
What will be the end result of all these implentations (we're talking big money!!)?

To put it very plain: What are we going to get for our money?

We hope to avoid flipping the global temperature into a new stavle state many degrees higher than it is now, in the blink of an eye (geologically speaking). There are positive feedback mechanisms that will release even more greenhouse gases from land and sea (sequestered CO2 and methane respectively). We are also changing the pH of the oceans at far too rapid a rate for much of the foundation of the food chain to survive.

It's not about what the IPCC wants - the IPCC was set up by agreement between the world's governments to summarise and advise. The emphasis on CO2 is a consequence of actual and predicted changes in it's concentration being the largest contributor to climate change; the scientific bodies that contribute the science the IPCC examines and summarises don't ignore other human and natural contributions. Reporting on their work often does ignore them. Take a look at the IPCC reports - much more informative and accurate to go to the source than rely on second hand reports and claims about what this body does. It's also not the only body summarising and advising - institutions like The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences are worth paying attention to.

The advice to reduce emissions of CO2 arises because of the expected impacts - which include overall warming in most of the human occupied globe, changes to rainfall patterns, severe weather frequency, ocean levels, ocean pH - will impact human activities including that most essential and basic one , food production. The intent of the advice to reduce CO2 emissions boils down to minimising the expected harms. Stabilising CO2 at levels that avoid dangerous and damaging climate change is arguably already beyond us and it's becoming an effort to avoid extremely dangerous to catastrophic changes. Given that most nations consider it in their current and near term interests (planning and investing in energy and emissions intensive infrastructure) to avoid having to act meaningfully to reduce emissions, what the IPCC advises isn't having a great impact.

What is their long time goal?

The goal of the IPCC is simply to summarise and present the latest science in each report.

The goal for everyone else is to find out (from the science the IPCC summarises) whether the reported changes are severe and important enough to be concerned or to take specific actions.

What will be the end result of all these implentations (we're talking big money!!)?

To avoid moving permanently out of the climate that has supported our agriculture and our social infrastructure. The objective used to be to avoid dangerous climate change. That option is now off the table.

The objective now must be to delay some effects while we get our disorganised act together and to take a long hard look at what infrastructure may have to be abandoned as not worth the cost of saving. (There are far too many port and coastal cities in the world for all of them to be held onto in anything like their current role and form.) And to hope that preventive and remedial action will get a quick response to bring us back from our excursion into the danger zone. If you think that this year's UK floods, US fires and floods, US and Russian crop problems are serious - just wait until we have a couple of strong El Nino years in a row. The record shattering June that the US has just lived through will be routine in about 10 to 15 years time.

As for the money question. Everything costs money - the issue is what do we spend it on.

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering.We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix isgoing to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will berequired and the less suffering there will be.

(That's John Holdren's words. He uses this formulation often, sometimes he uses 'misery' instead of 'suffering' but the meaning is plain.)

The most important financial question is that adaptation is much, much more costly than mitigation. And suffering is generally paid in other coin, which we'd all much rather not deal with.

If you don't believe me about the higher costs of adaptation, think about roads, railways and bridges. They are built to engineering standards to withstand loads, winds, storms, floods, heat, tidal surges of varying severity. The busier the road (or bridge or railway), the more important it is so the higher the standard is set for its continuing operation. When the seas rise and the weather worsens, the more stresses these structures face, the more often they fail or get washed away or weakened. So you have to rebuild - to a higher standard. Or you have to abandon that place for that facility and build a replacement (to a higher standard) in a less vulnerable position.

Add up all the major roads, bridges and railways of the world that are within say 2 kilometres of the coast, or a kilometre either side of a river. Then add in all the sewage processing plants, power stations, port facilities, water treatment plants in the same area. Think about the economic impact of a) such a facility being out of action for a number of weeks or months, b) the cost of replacing it, c) the disruption while it is being reconstructed. Then factor in the uncertainty of never really knowing when you're going to have to take such action. If there's one thing businesses don't like, it's uncertainty. And when business lacks confidence in the immediate or long term future, that also has economic impacts. One business activity you should think about. Insurance. If the world's insurers want to stay in business, they have to deal with uncertainties - usually by raising premiums or by refusing to underwrite unacceptable risks. That has a big impact on economic activity generally.

The question isn't whether we will or whether we won't invest money. The question is what choices of investment will we make.

Originally Posted by adelady

What is their long time goal?

The goal of the IPCC is simply to summarise and present the latest science in each report.

The goal for everyone else is to find out (from the science the IPCC summarises) whether the reported changes are severe and important enough to be concerned or to take specific actions.

What will be the end result of all these implentations (we're talking big money!!)?

To avoid moving permanently out of the climate that has supported our agriculture and our social infrastructure. The objective used to be to avoid dangerous climate change. That option is now off the table.

The objective now must be to delay some effects while we get our disorganised act together and to take a long hard look at what infrastructure may have to be abandoned as not worth the cost of saving. (There are far too many port and coastal cities in the world for all of them to be held onto in anything like their current role and form.) And to hope that preventive and remedial action will get a quick response to bring us back from our excursion into the danger zone. If you think that this year's UK floods, US fires and floods, US and Russian crop problems are serious - just wait until we have a couple of strong El Nino years in a row. The record shattering June that the US has just lived through will be routine in about 10 to 15 years time.

As for the money question. Everything costs money - the issue is what do we spend it on.

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering.We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix isgoing to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will berequired and the less suffering there will be.

(That's John Holdren's words. He uses this formulation often, sometimes he uses 'misery' instead of 'suffering' but the meaning is plain.)

The most important financial question is that adaptation is much, much more costly than mitigation. And suffering is generally paid in other coin, which we'd all much rather not deal with.

If you don't believe me about the higher costs of adaptation, think about roads, railways and bridges. They are built to engineering standards to withstand loads, winds, storms, floods, heat, tidal surges of varying severity. The busier the road (or bridge or railway), the more important it is so the higher the standard is set for its continuing operation. When the seas rise and the weather worsens, the more stresses these structures face, the more often they fail or get washed away or weakened. So you have to rebuild - to a higher standard. Or you have to abandon that place for that facility and build a replacement (to a higher standard) in a less vulnerable position.

Add up all the major roads, bridges and railways of the world that are within say 2 kilometres of the coast, or a kilometre either side of a river. Then add in all the sewage processing plants, power stations, port facilities, water treatment plants in the same area. Think about the economic impact of a) such a facility being out of action for a number of weeks or months, b) the cost of replacing it, c) the disruption while it is being reconstructed. Then factor in the uncertainty of never really knowing when you're going to have to take such action. If there's one thing businesses don't like, it's uncertainty. And when business lacks confidence in the immediate or long term future, that also has economic impacts. One business activity you should think about. Insurance. If the world's insurers want to stay in business, they have to deal with uncertainties - usually by raising premiums or by refusing to underwrite unacceptable risks. That has a big impact on economic activity generally.

The question isn't whether we will or whether we won't invest money. The question is what choices of investment will we make.

That is exactly my point,
OK let's assume that we humans are responsable for the global rise in temperature(the root of all future doom) we are guilty, we still hold the smoking gun in our hands, we have no alibi, and 46 witnesses recocnized us).

Question remains:
What do we want to achieve, to keep the global temperature from rising for ever and ever?
Or do we want to delay the temperature rise long enough so things won't go beyond critical, untill the time we will glide back in to the next ice age?

What are the methods or technologies we are going to use?

Please don't tell me that the rest of the world is as stupid as the Dutch governement that wants to pump CO2 into dried up gasfields, no please don't come up with that one

So, to put things more clearly:

We are heating up our planet, so what are we going to do to stop that.

Cheers

Or do we want to delay the temperature rise long enough so things won't go beyond critical, untill the time we will glide back in to the next ice age?

There won't be another ice age for tens of thousands of years--the deep ocean methane is in ample supply when that need comes many many many generations from now.

Most want to keep temperature nearly the same so we don't have to move entire agricultural belts, coastal cities etc. This year's US corn harvest is being devastated--many models forecast the entire corn belt moves into the thin soils of Canada by the end of the century

There's also the idea of potential tipping points to the climate that move the earth's climates into completely new regimes something still being researched by science.

What do we want to achieve, to keep the global temperature from rising for ever and ever?

That's the wrong way to frame the question. It's not what we don't want, it's what we do want.

The main thing we want is food production. We can't do anything at all if we don't feed ourselves.

And that's not just about heat, it's about seasonal predictability. Regions of southern Canada and the upper north-east of the US just lost 90% of this year's apple crop. Why? Unseasonal warmth in early spring provoked early blossom of fruit trees. Frost a couple of weeks later wiped out the crop. Those frosts were entirely normal for that period of the year. The abnormal thing was that the trees were setting fruit at that time.

Same issues arise in relation to grain production. Growing wheat in Australia is about getting good rains around seeding time and for a few months thereafter. When the winter and spring rains stop, the crop matures and dries out. Rain at harvest time can be disastrous. We're already seeing some of this come into play. What should be northern tropical weather systems are now sending humidity and rain into the south east at the 'wrong' time of the year. When it's exactly the wrong time, we get problems.

And if the Australian crop is adversely affected in the same year as the Russian or Canadian crop - maybe heat, maybe floods - then the whole world has a problem.

Originally Posted by adelady

What do we want to achieve, to keep the global temperature from rising for ever and ever?

That's the wrong way to frame the question. It's not what we don't want, it's what we do want.

The main thing we want is food production. We can't do anything at all if we don't feed ourselves.

And that's not just about heat, it's about seasonal predictability. Regions of southern Canada and the upper north-east of the US just lost 90% of this year's apple crop. Why? Unseasonal warmth in early spring provoked early blossom of fruit trees. Frost a couple of weeks later wiped out the crop. Those frosts were entirely normal for that period of the year. The abnormal thing was that the trees were setting fruit at that time.

Same issues arise in relation to grain production. Growing wheat in Australia is about getting good rains around seeding time and for a few months thereafter. When the winter and spring rains stop, the crop matures and dries out. Rain at harvest time can be disastrous. We're already seeing some of this come into play. What should be northern tropical weather systems are now sending humidity and rain into the south east at the 'wrong' time of the year. When it's exactly the wrong time, we get problems.

And if the Australian crop is adversely affected in the same year as the Russian or Canadian crop - maybe heat, maybe floods - then the whole world has a problem.

My question is : What do we want to achieve, to keep the global temperature from rising for ever and ever?

You answer that by stating : That's the wrong way to frame the question. It's not what we don't want, it's what we do want.

DUHHH.

I never ever wrote about what we do not want.

Please read the things you quote.

So I repeat my question : What do you propose to do to stop or delay global heating.

What practical, REAL solutions could anyone propose.

Thirty years ago I already knew what desastrous things are going to happen so it is no use repeating that.

The one and only question of this thread is : ( I for once am going to shout in typing capitals)

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO TO STOP IT!!!

Have a nice day.

And I hope your summer is better than ours

What do you propose to do to stop or delay global heating.
What practical, REAL solutions could anyone propose.

Can't be done in any significant way.

We're already destined for hell and high water and we might as well start thinking in terms of how much of each we can or can't tolerate.

One thing the advanced industrial economies could do as a show of good faith when dealing with the developing world - start extraction processes to absorb CO2 from the oceans and atmosphere. (None of this mealy-mouthed one-day-we'll-get-CCS-to-work techno fantasy.) We may want to reduce emissions, but it's more important to extract surplus CO2 from the air and waters around us.

Summer? It ain't summer here for another 6 months.

IPCC want the global CO2 output to be same as before year 1990s (correct me if I got the date wrong).

Everyone can build more factory and more gasoline car except that they must pay CO2 "taxes". The "taxes" as defined in 'Kyoto Protocol' as in term of global conservation work (ie: you pay for people to feed plankton at sea, or to plant more trees anywhere: -> you get reduced carbon credit), OR develop new technology to store and contain excess CO2 (ie: convert CO2 into fuel, or store CO2 underground), OR to invest in more energy-saving-technology/"green-technology" (ie: replace old taxi cab with newer/more-efficient one, or replace incandescent bulb with fluorescent bulb).

*pls correct me if I got that wrong...


----
I think that's the only concerted effort we have right now... else we won't be doing anything for global warming.

There are numerous strategies to reduce CO2 output. Which ones are applied will be a combination of political and economic influences.

For example : burning coal for electricity generation is a massive source of CO2 emissions. It has to stop. My own view is that we should be putting an enormous emphasis on development of nuclear power, which is largely greenhouse gas zero. Thorium based power has the greatest potential, and even at ten times current electricity production, the thorium would last humankind for 1,000 years.

Capturing CO2 is an option much discussed, either to convert chemically into something else, or to store deep underground.

Other strategies involve transport. The battery operated electric car is on its way, and should be a major part of personal transport within one to two decades. Some biofuels will be needed (or synthetic fuel)to operate trucks and buses. Ships could be operated using small sealed nuclear reactors. Here is one concept suitable for small scale energy delivery, possibly suitable for ships. US firm unveils plans for mini nuclear reactors - physicsworld.com

Planting more forest is an important strategy, which absorbs CO2. New developments in fertiliser may be needed, such as genetically modified crops that make their own nitrogen fertiliser, since synthetic nitrogen fertiliser manufacture creates lots of CO2. We may need new ways for feeding cattle, which produce lots of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, through farts and belches. Cement manufacture releases heaps of CO2 and may need to be modified.

There are also a number of geoengineering proposals, in which the entire planet is to be modified to make it cooler. These ideas include pumping sulfate aerosol into the upper atmosphere to reflect more of the suns heat back into space. Adding finely ground carbonate into the ocean to absorb CO2. Adding iron to the ocean to stimulate phytoplankton, which absorb CO2. Various ways of making the Earth more reflective, to send heat back into space, ranging from white paint on roofs, to mirror balloons in orbit. And many more ideas.

IPCC want the global CO2 output to be same as before year 1990s (correct me if I got the date wrong).

Not exactly... What we need is to get the CO2 concentration down to pre-industrial levels.

Which means that sooner or later we have to stop releasing CO2 entirely and start extracting it from the atmosphere/oceans. Hence the 350 campaign. We're already blasting through on our way to 400ppm. Someone needs to metaphorically smack our irresponsible fingers at that point and send us out into the backyard to pick up litter/ sweep up leaves/ clean up our industrial disaster.

imho The concept of controlling the climate(though a noble endeavor) represents the supreme lunacy of an overreaching arrogance which seems to have infected our species.

We do not know what has caused this ice age, nor the periods of glaciation or the interglacials within one of which we are lucky enough to have lived.
And, yet, in our deluded arrogance, we would control that which we do not understand? Really amazing nonsense. Some days, i almost expect to see the fruiting body of something like ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani sprouting from the head of one of the global warming alarmist's head's. Some have claimed a collective unconscious for the species, and others a collective insanity. We barely understand the surface of the earth, and solar system. And yet many feel that we should take control. What the (pre-deleted expletives) is wrong with these people?
Don't drink the cool-aid.

anecdotal story:
Long ago, when i was maybe 8 or 9, my older brother and a friend voiced a desire to drive my step fathers tractor. I had always clearly understood electrical systems, (call it a savant) so I offered to hot wire it for them. Unfortunately, I knew nothing about gears, nor that my step father always parked it in gear. So, I started the thing(an old oliver) where it was parked, in the barn, facing the back wall, right next to a post that held up the floor above us, and main beam which held the tie joists. As soon as it started, it lurched forward, and they panicked and jumped off. All by itself, the tractor made a U turn around the post, headed down the driveway, made a turn in front of the house(aiming for the living room of the house), and crashed into a tree that was in front of the picture window, smashing it's radiator, with it's wheels digging down into the lawn. So, I yanked the wires and made it stop. And there it stayed, awaiting the arrival of it's owner.

Never underestimate the power of dumb luck to see you safely through when planning and intellect fail!

One of my fears, is that some climate savant will try our luck with his abilities. And we may not be so lucky.

The chlorophil blooms in the high oceans have been increasing as more CO2 becomes available, and they consume billions of tons of the stuff.
Worry all you want, and please plant some trees and cut travel to that which is necessary, leave the air conditioner off, and use less heat, but please leave the climate alone.

We do not know what has caused this ice age, nor the periods of glaciation or the interglacials within one of which we are lucky enough to have lived.

But we do know.

All you really need is to know about the physical properties of atmospheric gases, the orbital forcings generally described as Milankovitch cycles Milankovitch cycles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , tectonic movements on earth and the steadily declining power of the sun.

please leave the climate alone.

So if your toddlers or your teenagers have been fooling around in the house and now it's flooded, you're just going to say stop it and not do anything to repair the damage they've done?

the supreme lunacy of an overreaching arrogance which seems to have infected our species.

The arrogance is in doing what we like when we like and leaving others to clean up the mess we leave behind us. We've been poking and prodding at really powerful forces, and now that we better understand what we've been doing we're going to throw our hands in the air and tell the grandkids it's their problem?

We can build a gigantic monument so that future civilization can see how awesome we have become.... before our demise. I'm sure some archeological dig in 1million years from now can find some trace of iPad and a gigantuously tall hotel (Burj Dubai).

Originally Posted by adelady

...
But we do know.

the supreme lunacy of an overreaching arrogance which seems to have infected our species.

The arrogance is in doing what we like when we like and leaving others to clean up the mess ... ?

In point of fact, we do not understand the specific mechanisms that drive the climate nor the ice ages. The milankovitch cycles seem to mimick parts of the first 1/2 of this current ice age when it ran in roughly 41 thousand year cycles, but falls apart as a definitive causal factor in the second 1/2 of roughly 110,000 year cycles. Do you personally understand the mechanisms inherant in the milankovitch cycles? Or, are you just parroting others' claims who may or may not understand what they are claiming? We do not know the long term cycles of the sun, nor can we state with a certainty that it is steadily declining in power. We do not know if our orbital distance from the sun has changed in the past 65 million years. Nor do we fully understand the implications of the ever increasing distance of our moon. We do not understand all of the self correcting mechanisms of the biom, maybe we have a small understanding of a few of them. But we are as but children poking at the edges.
Clean up the mess----we have ameliorated many of the messes we have created as we have found them out---we have much less polution than we did 2 short generations ago---do not throw your hands in the air and continue a piggish lifestyle-------plant trees, dig frog ponds, use less,
reduce
repair
rebuild
reuse(retask)
then, recycle

But beware of people who want to do radical things to and for the climate and economy.
The fear and desperation of the germans circa 1930 led to accepting and welcoming the national socialists
Let us learn from those who reacted in fear and desperation, and not make similar mistakes.
Let us think for ourselves and eschew group think and collective insanity.

Earth's orbit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaMilankovitch cycles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You need to get yourself more up-to-date with orbital forcings and Milankovitch cycles.
Here's a google scholar search to get started. milankovitch - Google Scholar

We do know that the earth's distance from the sun has stayed pretty constant at 150 million kms. The effects though are drastically different at various times depending on changes in axial tilt and all those other things that heat or cool the earth due to polar amplification effects.

I know you're very proud of your frog ponds. How about you stop including me, of all people, in your "piggish lifestyle", ignorant peasant panic speeches.

Your orbit link used the phrase "relatively stable" not really precise as to what has happened in the distant past, nor distant future.

I have been studying the various periods within the cycles postulated by Milutin Milankovitch, and really appreciate his insites, but fail to find enough therein to explain the variations within the records of our ice age. It's like, I have a good part of the information, but have many gaps that do not fit.
Try it---------download a picture of the various cycles, and overlay them on a grid, then overlay the information from the deep cores, and you will notice divergences not explained by the cycles.

Just because it is a good tool, doesn't mean it is the complete toolkit.
The old phrase "if your only tool is a hammer, pretty soon, all problems look like a nail.

look farther

No one really thinks, or has said here, that Maliankovish forcing explains the "complete look." It has bore out through pretty rigorous study over the past 50 years as the most dominant forcing---on the far side of 60% or more. Of course there are probably other things that happen, both astronomical such as small changes in solar output (as far as we can tell), major geologic events such as super volcanoes, and plenty of non-linear feedbacks from the cryosphere, oceans, and biosphere that sometime amplify, lag, dampen or tilt the overall climate into different stable climate regimes within that broader larger scale forcing; of course those are at the center of climate science.

explain the variations within the records of our ice age. It's like, I have a good part of the information, but have many gaps that do not fit.

In fact, that's not a bad description of how Milankovitch fits into the overall picture. Milankovitch provides the corners, the edges and large swathes of sky or sea or snow. Then you have to look at the specifics.

Was it more than 4 million years ago? If yes, you need to use different ocean and atmospheric circulation calculations to account for a circum-equatorial flow and the absence of a Gulf Stream. .............. several thousand similar questions

Then you do all the maths twiddles for tilt, precession, eccentricity. Now do the same mathematical elaboration for albedo, vulcanism, hydrology, biosphere. Shift the clock forward a couple of million years or a dozen millennia. Do it all again

If you understand the forcings that Milankovitch describes overlapping, reinforcing, counteracting, weakening each other at various times and you still can't 'get' the progress of the climate through the interglacial - it's not conceptual difficulties you're facing.

It's the figure skating problem. The physics of spin faster, jump higher, glide smoothly are all very, very straightforward. Doing it is an entirely different matter. Same thing for looking at ice ages and other climate phenomena. There are plenty of climate models available online for anyone to download and 'play' with. But this kind of 'play' is a lot like online chess, you still have to work really, really hard.

irelectromag.jpgirCO2.jpgirgreengas.450.jpgirmethane.jpgirN2O.450.JPG

5 files per post, pardon my bandwidth, more coming.
These files are a few years old and may be a tad outdated, but give a fair understanding of some of the players on the field.
I'll upload more then discuss.

to begin, each molecule reacts to different bandwidths within the electromagnet spectrum, so peruse them and their energy spikes while i add more.

irwater.jpgseatemp.sonspots.jpgVaryingGravityGalaxy.gif6031-004-89E5D4FB.jpgFive_Myr_Climate_Change.jpg5 million years citation: Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2005), A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d¹⁸O records, Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071
OK?
Lets look at the ice age chart, and notice that the temperature swings within the past 3 million years have been getting wilder with 10 degree variance from our highs and lows.
Now the molecules, each wants to have a relaxed state, but by being excited by energy from solar irradiance, they stretch and bend, untill, they can release that energy by re-radiating that energy, to earth, to space, to other molecules in the atmosphere-----(which is why I had stated previously that "global warming is a misnomer, it is atmospheric warming that has been happening with our added(?) GHG which is why we see more warming at higher latitudes and altitudes, as that extra energy dissipates poleward.

One often overlooked climate forcing(especially when the focus of a conversation is on CO2) is sunspot activity, which is an indication of us getting more power from the sun from whence, basically all energy on earth is derived. Then it becomes obvious that we must needs consider the absorbsion of that energy by the seas. The oceans react a lot slower than the atmosphere, but slowly, they will transfer that surface heat deeper into their depths as the warmer water replaces the cold upwellings of nutrient rich waters. Part of this process may have to do with altering the level of the thermocline which acts almost as a membrane seperating the deeper water from the (usually)warmer surface waters.

Add into this the forces from our galaxie, which though poorly understood, most likely have strong long term effects on our sun and on our climate. As we spin around the galaxy, our speed, and the effects of gravity increase and decrease, which throws us into closer proximity of nearby stars, the galactic center, etc, or hurls us outward into a more isolated open space.
How much does this matter?

More later, I got a waggon of timber to load, unload, and re-arrange-----It finally rained yesterday, and i can give my garden's hoses a rest.
Looking forward to your comments,
rod

That solar graph is a bit out of date (ends early 80s). 20 years more observations show a distinct break. Solar down. Temperature up.

(Speaking of which, that graph gives no information about calculations. Firstly it's SST rather than atmospheric temp, which might mislead some people. It doesn't say so but I'm guessing it's a 60 month smooth?? Highly inappropriate if so. If you want to pick up any sunspot cycle related temperature information you absolutely must use 11 year smoothing. I know the graph is simple and attractive. I'd strongly suggest getting another one just as clear and simple - with the right mix of information.)

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Solar_vs_temp_1024.jpg


You'll need to do some more exposition of what physical effects you think galactic gravity variations might have on earth climate in the next 50, 100, 200 years. I'm not getting whatever the message might be about that.

Same thing goes for the water vapour IR absorption bands. Anyone interested in the topic should be familiar with these sorts of illustrations. I can't for the life of me see any physical proposition or argument here related to greenhouse gases. I need more details.

One often overlooked climate forcing(especially when the focus of a conversation is on CO2) is sunspot activity,

It's not overlooked at all, in fact just about all climate scientist mention variation in solar forcing as one of the variables. It's also in most of the current climate models. The question is by how much. Until the mid to late 20th century the total variation of solar forcing was at least in the ballpark of that of radiative forcing of about 1 W/m^2 (e.g. Total Solar Irradiance during the past 9300 Years inferred from the Cosmogenic R) compared to ~1.5 W/m^2 added from industrial CO2. As we double and triple CO2 by the end of the century we'll probably add >3W/m^2 to the radiative forcing--enough that even if the sun gets as quiet as our proxies ever indicate, we still end up with significant overall warming by at least several degree C. The larger forcing by green house gasses compared to variation is solar, as well as the fact we can only change one of them, are why greenhouse gases get more discussion.

Originally Posted by sculptor

OK?
Lets look at the ice age chart, and notice that the temperature swings within the past 3 million years have been getting wilder with 10 degree variance from our highs and lows.

Temperature do swing within million years or thousand of years, but global warming didn't occur in million years or thousand of years, instead it just happen in really short time: in 100 years you'll get drastic climate change. So... whatever cycle earth has in a million years, it won't make dent on a short rise.

You can't possibly hope ice-age to come tommorow to save us of anything... if you wait: you'll have to wait 50,000 years, and by then its already 10x lifetime of known human civilization.

Originally Posted by sculptor

irwater.jpgseatemp.sonspots.jpgVaryingGravityGalaxy.gif6031-004-89E5D4FB.jpgFive_Myr_Climate_Change.jpg

OK?
Lets look at the ice age chart, and notice that the temperature swings within the past 3 million years have been getting wilder with 10 degree variance from our highs and lows.

What ice age chart?

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

Originally Posted by sculptor

irwater.jpgseatemp.sonspots.jpgVaryingGravityGalaxy.gif6031-004-89E5D4FB.jpgFive_Myr_Climate_Change.jpg

OK?
Lets look at the ice age chart, and notice that the temperature swings within the past 3 million years have been getting wilder with 10 degree variance from our highs and lows.

What ice age chart?

the one on the right, labeled "five million years of climate change from sediment cores" focus on the last 3.5 million years
after the first dip below the dotted line of equivalent vostok (degrees C)= 0

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

Originally Posted by sculptor

irwater.jpgseatemp.sonspots.jpgVaryingGravityGalaxy.gif6031-004-89E5D4FB.jpgFive_Myr_Climate_Change.jpg

OK?
Lets look at the ice age chart, and notice that the temperature swings within the past 3 million years have been getting wilder with 10 degree variance from our highs and lows.

What ice age chart?

the one on the right, labeled "five million years of climate change from sediment cores" focus on the last 3.5 million years
after the first dip below the dotted line of equivalent vostok (degrees C)= 0

In which post?

It's in post #25.

Now that I look at it again, I'm wondering where it came from. It covers 5 million years. There's not enough detail to show the overlaps of the various Milankovitch forcings. It needs a bit more flesh on its bare bones. Or perhaps some context from the paragraph/s surrounding it in a scientific paper.

Most importantly, it's strictly paleo. "Years before present" on a graph of this sort means that the information runs out at the average or the midpoint of last century.

Originally Posted by adelady

It's in post #25.

Now that I look at it again, I'm wondering where it came from. It covers 5 million years. There's not enough detail to show the overlaps of the various Milankovitch forcings. It needs a bit more flesh on its bare bones. Or perhaps some context from the paragraph/s surrounding it in a scientific paper.

Most importantly, it's strictly paleo. "Years before present" on a graph of this sort means that the information runs out at the average or the midpoint of last century.

That chart was to show the time of this current ice age long after antarctica refroze/reglaciated. It illustrates the tighter temperature gradiants befor the freezing of the arctic, and then as it dipped below our current high temperatures, how the timeframe of glaciation and interglacials gradually tightened into a 41,000 year cycle which held steady for the better part of 2 million years. Then, a little over a million years ago, we shifted into the longer glacial cycles(the chart reads 100kyr cycle, which i believe to be slightly inaccurate) of about 110k yrs. And, as previously mentioned, You will notice that the high temperatures of those 110kyr cycles rarely exceed the vostok 0 deg.C, while the lows have dipped significantly during the latter 1/2 of the 110kyr cycles.

Just background stuff. Read the charts and draw your own conclusions.

In the same posting, you will notice a picture of the galaxy. There are postulations that our motion around the galaxy, as the galaxy is racing through space, places us in the position of speeding up and slowing down (at-least relative to the galaxy, and maybe absolutely), and experiencing more or less gravitational forcing from our neighborhood. It's kind of a tug of war between gravity and centrifical force with one or the other moving us along. We are currently within a galactic arm. It has been postulated that this is not always true, that the arms move at a relatively constant speed relative to the galaxy, but we do not, so we enter and leave the arm which leaves us more or less effected by gravity and more or less open to cosmic rays, which have an effect on the energy within the atmosphere , and may account for .1 deg.C(lotsa players in this climate orchestra). We rotate around the galactic center slower than the stars closest in to the galactic center, and make a complete rotation every 225 million years(or so- the high guess is 250 million years)meanwhile, moving into and out of the arms about once every 130-135 million years. As we rotate toward the front of the galaxy, we enter a period of higher local gravitational forcing and, as the galaxy moves forward, when we are out in front, the galaxy is catching up to us and we find ourselves nearer the galactic center, increasing gravitational forcing, till we begin to rotate beyond the front of the galaxy and it seems to be passing us, as centrifical force moves us farther from the galactic center, reducing local gravitational forcing while increasing the supply extra galactic radiation. Eventually, we find ourselves behind the galazy as it hurtles through space, experiencing the lowest gravitational forcing. And so the cycle repeates itself. It has been postulated that the above timeframe alligns closely to earth ice ages, and mass extinctions(I've barely scratched the surface in researching these claims).

What I'm getting at is that climate derives from an extreemly complex interplay of elements from plate tectonics to galactic forces and radiation from beyond the galaxy. Just like in baking, sometimes, one spice makes another come out much stronger, each player here is a spice that alters the effect of the main ingredients. And what we don't know about the interplay of these elements far exceeds what we do know.


Sorry that some of the charts are old, I became more interested in the study of climate after reading Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, and have been collecting information and formulating personal understandings for quite a while. Coincidentally, Lovelock has recanted his "global warming alarmism" and confesses that we do not understand the climate----he said we thought we knew 20 years ago, but we were wrong. He still cautions that we should show Gaia a little respect and treat the biom as if our lives depended on it(which they do).

Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis

I wondered.

Gaia is good imagery but rotten science. Lovelock was completely wrong when he made his doomsday predictions decades ago and he's still completely wrong. He did outstanding work on CFCs and ozone depletion. And if he'd thought about it for a tiny bit longer he'd have realised that his CFC/ozone work completely undercuts the Gaia hypothesis.

Why? Because they're chlorofluorocarbons. We all know perfectly well that if bromine had been cheaper than chlorine at the time these compounds were first put together, that would have been the sensible, economic, business-like choice to make. Bromine is both more reactive and more persistent than chlorine. They knew enough to restrict brominated CFCs. Lovelock never seems to have put it all together in the omg, what if it they'd all been brominated!!?! sense. Mammalian life as we know it would have had a major extinction event. "Gaia" simply could not have saved us from such trivial folly, just as it couldn't save us from the deliberate decisions of powerful people initiating and completing a MAD nuclear exchange.

Gaia seems to be a more suitable approach for a geologist whose millions of years perspective is along the lines of Life? Extinction? Really? Wonder what that'll do to the sediment layers.

In Lovelock's handling, it comes across as mysterious unknowable handwavey the universe knows best mystic knit your own yogurt logic-bending. I wouldn't say that Wiccans enthusiastically endorsing your scientific pronouncements automatically makes them invalid, but you should rethink your messaging if you want to be taken seriously as a scientist. Lovelock never did. Still hasn't.

confesses that we do not understand the climate----he said we thought we knew 20 years ago, but we were wrong.

The breathtaking arrogance of this is ..... breathtaking. Generally, only physicists are considered to be this presumptuous. xkcd: Physicists Apparently it also applies to chemists.

He thought he knew climate 20 years ago. He was wrong. He does not understand climate.

OK adelady
perspective matters, I had just completed my studies into zen, and then was working on the TAO, and(If i can said to be religious, perhaps I have one foot firmly planted in the TAO) the concept of a unified co-evolutionary biom and not just a random assemblage of random components appealed to my ordered meticulous mind. That being said, have i ever referenced Lovelock in these forums before? Perhaps, there is an important clue embodied within that non action.

The concept and cautions embodied within the gaia hypothesis may not be scientifically proveable nor motivated, but are good guidelines for treatment of our shared co-evolutionary biom. "Be green, plant a tree" was the motto of my woodworking business for several years.

Ok?
anyone care to discuss the relative strengths of the excitations of the molecules referenced above: While referencing the varied em bandwidths which excite them? And the interplay of the fact that each builds warmth on a different segment of the em bandwidth, and what potential that may hold for those interested in understanding and controling ghg forcing of the climate?

What I'm getting at is that climate derives from an extreemly complex interplay of elements from plate tectonics to galactic forces and radiation from beyond the galaxy. Just like in baking, sometimes, one spice makes another come out much stronger, each player here is a spice that alters the effect of the main ingredients. And what we don't know about the interplay of these elements far exceeds what we do know.

Indeed. No one disputes those. Although there are a growing number of paleoclimate models which do a pretty good job of depicting climated even many millions of years ago, when the continents, oceans etc were under different configurations--all of which suggest some of the effects we might presume such as galactic dust etc, might not add much to the picture.

Also of course most of those are very unlikely to effect the next century.

anyone care to discuss the relative strengths of the excitations of the molecules referenced above: While referencing the varied em bandwidths which excite them? And the interplay of the fact that each builds warmth on a different segment of the em bandwidth, and what potential that may hold for those interested in understanding and controling ghg forcing of the climate?

Not sure what you want to discuss about them. They happen, their effects postulated some 120+ years ago, measured some 70+ years ago, and incorporated into models since the beginning of climate models on a large scale as well as incorporated into parameterized effects (e.g. cumulus clouds) more recently. What's the question?

Originally Posted by adelady

It's in post #25.

Now that I look at it again, I'm wondering where it came from. It covers 5 million years. There's not enough detail to show the overlaps of the various Milankovitch forcings. It needs a bit more flesh on its bare bones. Or perhaps some context from the paragraph/s surrounding it in a scientific paper.

Most importantly, it's strictly paleo. "Years before present" on a graph of this sort means that the information runs out at the average or the midpoint of last century.

Good point. To my knowledge, the only peer reviewed reliable records only go back ~440 ky, not millions of years.

sculptor, what is the source of the chart?

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

...sculptor, what is the source of the chart?

not sure, that chart survived my last computer------------if memory serves, it was from Lisiecki and Raymo/nature

here's more http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v...geo965_F1.html

The concept and cautions embodied within the gaia hypothesis may not be scientifically proveable nor motivated,

I found the hypothesis attractive when it was first publicised too. I also think that many people used it as a springboard into useful practical things like permaculture. (But never, ever biodynamics. Please. Never.)

But as I've matured, I realised that Lovelock's mystical, everything's-interlinked, it's-beyond-our-understanding approach is simultaneously arrogant and lazy. Firstly, understanding the details of how climate can be predictable - eg, seasons - and unpredictable - eg ENSO, we never know until a few weeks before onset which way it's going to go - is not beyond our understanding. It's just lots and lots of tedious record keeping and hardcore number crunching.

Everything is interlinked. But complexity is not the same as mystery. And pretending that it is has kept Lovelock's thinking from developing very far - or at least his followers from developing anything remotely describable as a theory.

Understanding the physics and maths of greenhouse gases is time consuming at first and not really easy (at least not for someone who's stayed pure and avoided the siren call of calculus for 40 years). I can follow a leading by the hand approach at Roadmap « The Science of Doom but don't ask me to reproduce the science or the equations. I merely use the concepts of adiabatic lapse rate or latent heat or laws of thermodynamics the same way I use household appliances - plug them in, keep them clean, refer to the manual if problems arise. Skeptical Science is probably better for giving overviews of the science at appropriate levels (basic, intermediate, advanced) without blowing too many maths gaskets.

Or just for the easy, digest in small portions way. Try Spencer Weart The Discovery of Global Warming - A History

Originally Posted by MeteorWayne

Good point. To my knowledge, the only peer reviewed reliable records only go back ~440 ky, not millions of years.

The Vostok records which are considered pretty good go back 800,000 years.

Before that it's spotty but increasely better recontructions are being put together from foraminifa, fossilized planktons, isotope rations Mg/Ca etc and a variety of other technics that go back hundreds of millions of years.

greenland, vostok, deep ocean cores
jeez guys, this stuff ain't really nothing new

Adelady

Did I ever explain to you my personal corollary to the Gaea idea, and humanity's future role?

OK. Personal corollary to the Gaia idea? I'm game.

(This might be just another fuzzy-headed symptom warning me that I'll soon need an ambulance. Of course, I'm pretty tired, that killer headache's back and I'm a bit tetchy - so I'll blame you rather than myself if I don't like what comes back.)

OK, Adelady, you asked for it.
If you see a slight bulge in my cheek, do not think my tongue is firmly pressed there. Heaven forbid!

Anyway, about Gaea.

We all know that Gaea is the personification of the living Earth. All ecosystems together as a single entity. The grandest, of all grand old ladies. Except, of course, that 'old' may not be the best description for a living planet..

Gaea is 3 to 4 billion years old. She has grown and matured. Yet now she has spawned what appears to be a dangerous new organ - Homo sapiens. James Lovelock claimed humanity was a cancer. But what a terrible point of view. I beg to differ.

My view is that humanity is a constructive new part of the body of Gaea. But what part of this ancient living creature needs to be added? Well, a little thought tells you that. The only thing the body of Gaea appears to lack is the capacity for reproduction.

Yes, our species is simply the reproductive system of a planetary entity. We are the gametes, and our structures are the gonads. How does this work? Well, you have to realise for a start that Gaea's reproductive system is still growing. She is passing through a brief (brief by her time view) and painful puberty. This involves pollution and global warming. Like any female passing into puberty she has side effects from the rapid growth of reproductive capability. Pollution is simply Gaea suffering planetary acne. Global warming is the blush that she shows.

How can she reproduce? Simple. Her genes are those of the living ecosystems, and reproduction is the copying of her genes onto other planets. Already there has been an international conference on terraforming Mars. And that is just the start. Over the next few tens of thousands of years we can expect our descendants to go forth to other star systems and terraform planets in many different stellar systems. Soon Gaea will have many daughters.

Humanity's phallic shaped space ships will thrust forth into the wider universe, carrying human gametes with the gene stock of Gaea's many bacteria, plants and animals. Each space ship that blasts off into the wider universe is a mighty orgasm of effort, and many will fertilise the planets they visit, to grow new Gaeas in the womb of the universe.

Sigh. I did ask, didn't I.

I might have known.

Originally Posted by sculptor

greenland, vostok, deep ocean cores
jeez guys, this stuff ain't really nothing new

Yes but that specific chart stated Vostok records going back 5 million years, which to my knowledge has not been done.

The Nature Geoscience article you mentioned is not the source.

No, mw. I don't think it is. The Vostok whatever-it-is seems to be that zero benchmark. And you're right, the longest sequence ever analysed from a Vostok core is only about 400000 years.

And the Milankovitch info on that display is really oddly presented. Yippie! Found this from googling Milankovitch images.

Google Image Result for http://courses.missouristate.edu/emantei/creative/PMilankovitch cycles.jpg

Anyone who needs a new hobby can start right here on this page of images. Ex.Cell.Ent.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=m...w=1280&bih=899

Tracking down the maths behind the overlap of the various obliquity, eccentricity, precession cycles will be fun!
Trust me.

This thread has evolved into another discussion about the amplitude of global heating.
Just FWIW I repeat the OP question:

What does the IPCC want (what do we homo sapiens want)to achieve, with the reduction of manmade CO2?
Do they want to maintain the staus quo for the global temperature?
Or do they want to delay or minimize it, if yes by how many years?

Just saying

The IPCC doesn't want much more than for people to read the science they've consolidated from research around the world from multiple fields.

You're other questions are about how nations will use that data and are far from unified.

Originally Posted by Gerrit Jan

This thread has evolved into another discussion about the amplitude of global heating.
Just FWIW I repeat the OP question:

What does the IPCC want (what do we homo sapiens want)to achieve, with the reduction of manmade CO2?
Do they want to maintain the staus quo for the global temperature?
Or do they want to delay or minimize it, if yes by how many years?

Just saying

1) They want to delay it, by hundred of years.
2) Global temperature must not increase by 2 degrees Celcius.
3) IPCC want every nation to reduce CO2 of industries to the like of several decade ago.

This is what's happened with CO2 from all processes and all sources for the last 400,000 years.

CO2_history_1024.jpg

The IPCC wants everyone to know that what we've done in the last couple of centuries is seriously off the scale of anything that's ever happened since humans walked onto the stage 200000 years ago.

And yes. They'd really like us to work out how we expect to maintain liveable temperatures and reliable growing seasons for the foods we rely on in these changed circumstances. For those who haven't done the maths, there used to be 4 kg of CO2 in the column of air above each sq m of earth's surface. There are now 6 kilograms/sqm.

What happens next is out of the IPCC's hands. It's over to us.

Originally Posted by skeptic

OK, Anyway, about Gaea.

We all know that Gaea is the personification of the living Earth. ... ... , carrying human gametes with the gene stock of Gaea's many bacteria, plants and animals. ... to grow new Gaeas in the womb of the universe.

WOW skeptic, that was really beautiful. thanx

symbiosis
a raspberry bush offers us it's delicious berries so that we will eat them, then wander off and shit out the seeds wrapped in our fertilizer so that the plant may propagate beyond the reach of it's root system in a symbiotic bargain. Every time we shit in a toilet we break that bargain, and violate the symbiosis. Little piccadillos add up, and pretty soon, we reject the symbiosis which spawned us.

Ok I'ts over to us,
what are we going to do to stop or delay global heating, what methods technologies, are we going to use ?

Originally Posted by Gerrit Jan

Ok I'ts over to us,
what are we going to do to stop or delay global heating, what methods technologies, are we going to use ?

Political method: people who produce CO2 must pay "taxes". To pay "taxes" you must: use OR develop technology that combat global warming by yourself OR pay any private company to develop & conserve the ecosystem. -Its called "Carbon Credit".

No technology was defined.

Hm Carbon credits is that the prime merchandize sold by Eco guru mr Al Gore.
The gentleman who is so busy defending mother earth that he has to fly around in aprivate jet to be able to get everywhere in the world ?
So everybody buys carbon credits and the problem will go away ?

I just wonder how much the stil to develop countries, like countries in Africa, are going to pay for their carbon credits.

Do I smell a rat, or is it burnt jet fuel ?
ETA
Your statement :

No technology was defined.

Is excactly the thing that has me worried, and the one and only reason to open this thread.

"Pay us your money and we'll see what we can do for you", is not a very convincing argument for me.

what are we going to do to stop or delay global heating, what methods technologies, are we going to use ?

Anything and everything we can. We blew our chance to make a graduated, sensible, stepwise, economical transition to low carbon technologies 30 years ago.

Now we're stuck with doing everything at breakneck speed. And we don't need just low carbon outcomes any more, we need carbon negative outcomes.

And it gets personal. I've always preferred cooking on a gas cooktop. But I have solar panels on my roof. Should I really consider replacing my ghastly 40 year old stove in my recently bought house with a gas or electric cooktop. 20 years ago I made the decision to stick with microwave, slow cooker, electric kettle for a lot of cooking activities. Now I'm thinking it would be more responsible to not just go for an electric oven but an electric cooktop as well. I've never yet met anyone who originally preferred gas now preferring electric cooktops of any design. And I really don't want to spend the last 30ish years of my life with unsatisfactory cooking.

But ....... Should we give up such preferences now? Or wait another 20 or 40 years. Or do I double my treeplanting? I'm beginning to think that treeplanting is just too small, too token a gesture. Or do I piously hope that the world at large will get sensible.

Your all electric cooking apliences would have to get their juice from green sources !

As I said, I've got solar.

Must be an impressive installation, to be able to handle electric cooking.
If you have a sufficient supply than switch over to solar, to me that would be a no brainer.
The cost of a new electric cooking top, would be payed back in no time.

Let us assume that the planet is warming and will continue to do so during this interglacial, and will warm to a higher mean temperature when this ice age ends(maybe several hundreds of thousands of years, maybe a lot sooner)

Then we need to address co-existing with the biom at those higher temperatures. Less CO2 emissions for heating seems obvious.
If we assume that the sea levels will rise(and I see no reason to doubt this) all on the planet's own(3 of the 4 last interglacials for sure), and maybe with our inadvertant help. Then we should address our shorelines. We could build artificial reefs upon which corals may build barrier islands. Plant mangroves and etc, in a steady progression seaward slowly reclaiming the pre-industrial(read ship canals) shorelines. Declare the entire shoreline a national forest, and (as the owners die, or the buildings fall to storms) replace ocean front condominiums and beach vacation homes with salt water marshes. Treat the runnoff silt as a national/natural treasure and destribute it wisely into the reclaimed shorelines. Selectively remove some of our dikes(changing from year to year/flood to flood) and build broader richer flood plains.

(This is already happening in Canada and the U.S.)Replace tree species that don't like the heat with species that thrive on it. Plant tree species that sequester carbon faster and thrive in a carbon rich atmosphere than the slower ones.

"carbon taxes" will do nothing positive for the environment. Imho they are an arrogant elitist capitalists scheam designed to enrich the elite at everyone else's expense.

Divert military budgets into building better soils (like terra preta) carefully designed to work within their particular environment.

We are an inventive species--------Perhaps, the question should be what can't we do? And, that may well include controlling the climate without first understanding it.

(but, then again, I could be wrong)

Replace tree species that don't like the heat with species that thrive on it. Plant tree species that sequester carbon faster and thrive in a carbon rich atmosphere than the slower ones.

Yeah, I used to think that. It turns out that you need to change not just the trees but the soil chemistry, insects, fungi, creepers and climbers, understory plants, little critters - the whole thing. I just can't remember where I saw this. It was some forestry expert commenting on a blog, I'll have to push my foggy brain a bit to get it back to consciousness.

As for faster sequestering of carbon. The biggest problem with forests is that the carbon sinks like the Amazon are now releasing carbon because of droughts. Maintaining, restoring and extending what we've got is probably a more economical approach - with more assured likelihood of a reasonable outcome.

switch over to solar, to me that would be a no brainer.

Are you a cook? I really don't fancy using a wok without a super hot gas flame.

Originally Posted by adelady

switch over to solar, to me that would be a no brainer.

Are you a cook? I really don't fancy using a wok without a super hot gas flame.

No, I'm by no means a cook.
I think that we all will have to make little sacrifices and become very inventive.
Finding a way to wok without super hot gas flame would be such a challenge.

Somewhere deep down in my very disorganized brain vague images of ads for high power electric woks keep popping up.

I did a search a long time ago because at that peiod I was atracted to wokking and I have no gas, but did find that I was to clumsy a cook to do wokking.

Originally Posted by adelady

Replace tree species that don't like the heat with species that thrive on it. Plant tree species that sequester carbon faster and thrive in a carbon rich atmosphere than the slower ones.

Yeah, I used to think that. It turns out that you need to change not just the trees but the soil chemistry, insects, fungi, creepers and climbers, understory plants, little critters - the whole thing....

As for faster sequestering of carbon. The biggest problem with forests is that the carbon sinks like the Amazon are now releasing carbon because of droughts. Maintaining, restoring and extending what we've got is probably a more economical approach - with more assured likelihood of a reasonable outcome.

Yes, it ain't just the trees, don't forget the beneficial fungi-------that being said, evidence from a wisconsin bog and lake shows that the forest switched from pine to broadleafs within 100 years all on it's own, without our help. Now imagine how we could help this process, and what the trees will need, and we have started something good. And for Gaia's sake, eschew monoculture in all things, including forests.

as/re Amazon, it was warmer during the beginning of this interglacial, and warmer again during the mideivel warm period, and the amazon was dryer, and held more population and they created a soil, terra preta, that worked well in that environment, and is still a good fertile soil 7-800 years after it was created and laid down in great broad causways that linked the various villages (first discovered along the rio negro, and since along rivers higher up). I have been copying their soil building techniques for my gardens, and the plants seem to love it.

your

Maintaining, restoring and extending what we've got is probably a more economical approach - with more assured likelihood of a reasonable outcome

only works in a steady state environment/climate. and As any study into paleo climates and paleo plant species (gee ginkgo and the leaf stomatal density)will show, "steady state" ain't the norm on this planet. And, i think it folly to assume that "it is different now".
For our species, and for our shared co-evolutionary biom/ planet, the only constant is change.
And, "economical"? did you mean money or wealth?
When i got here, I crawled around on my hands and knees and planted 1458 trees on my small acreage at my own expense, dug a frog pond at my own expense, and cared for the trees till they were big enough to survive on their own. I'm just one frail human with a few acres, sequestering more carbon than is used by my entire family. Just imagine if there were millions like me, we would enjoy life in a richer biom within a generation. Birds are singing outsied my window as I type this, and when it is hot, under the shade of my trees the moss is growing and it is much cooler. Was i worth my time, energy, and money? I think so.
Spending money for people to plant and care for a forest may cost money, but creates wealth beyond economies or federal reserves or central banks or international banking. What is really important?
Imho, it's the biom to which we owe our existance and those of our children's children's children's...(hopefully ad infinitum)

(but, then again, I could be wrong)

I'm just one frail human with a few acres, sequestering more carbon than is used by my entire family.

Meanwhile, those forestry companies rampaging through Malaysia, New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines managed to damage more biomass than either of us has sequestered in our whole lives in a matter of hours - and they're still doing it.

It's probably more important to persuade all our friends to refuse any and all palm oil products - and to write to all the food and cosmetic companies we formerly used that we won't buy any of their products until they get rid of the palm oil based ones. (This can cause real personal angst. I won't use Nestle products, and the stinkers keep on buying up companies whose products I do like. It's like a game of Twister but on supermarket shelves. Just keep looking for the next space uncontaminated by their seemingly exponential reach.)

Originally Posted by adelady

I'm just one frail human with a few acres, sequestering more carbon than is used by my entire family.

Meanwhile, those forestry companies rampaging through Malaysia, New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines managed to damage more biomass than either of us has sequestered in our whole lives in a matter of hours - and they're still doing it.

It's probably more important to persuade all our friends to refuse any and all palm oil products - and to write to all the food and cosmetic companies we formerly used that we won't buy any of their products until they get rid of the palm oil based ones. (This can cause real personal angst. I won't use Nestle products, and the stinkers keep on buying up companies whose products I do like. It's like a game of Twister but on supermarket shelves. Just keep looking for the next space uncontaminated by their seemingly exponential reach.)

If you really think that you can control the practices you derided, I say
GO FOR IT!!
I also recommend following the ecological path I have taken. Love gaia. Find your own personal Tao, and follow it.

Originally Posted by Gerrit Jan

Hm Carbon credits is that the prime merchandize sold by Eco guru mr Al Gore.
The gentleman who is so busy defending mother earth that he has to fly around in aprivate jet to be able to get everywhere in the world ?
So everybody buys carbon credits and the problem will go away ?
...
"Pay us your money and we'll see what we can do for you", is not a very convincing argument for me.

It could work. Some company might prefer to evade taxes, so they make those new hi-tech eco-friendly-toys. So they don't need to pay taxes.
----
Same reason why private company do charity... they are deducted from taxes.

Originally Posted by sculptor

WOW skeptic, that was really beautiful. thanx

Even though I presented that idea as a joke, I think there may be a little truth in the kernel.
Lovelock calls humanity a cancer on the face of the Earth. I cannot believe that. However, we know that the living Earth will have a limited lifespan. If nothing else, the sun is slowly warming up and will eventually become a red giant. Within 500 million years, Earth will be too hot to support life. It would be a shame if that was the end. I think it will not be the end, since humans will terraform other worlds long before then. Thus, life will live on.

Within 500 million years, Earth will be too hot to support life. It would be a shame if that was the end. I think it will not be the end, since humans will terraform other worlds long before then. Thus, life will live on.

I can't see how there will be anything remotely resembling humans around in half a billion years time. We've only been around for 200000 years. Creatures that were recognisably forebears of ours were walking or at least trudging around 4 or 5 million years ago. I'm pretty sure that our descendants/survivors 5 million years hence will see us in a related framework - but not as Dad! Mum! More like strange Aunt Maude and lazy Uncle Trevor.

And in 10 million years? 50 million years? Why would they care? Especially if they'd had to do the whole parallel-evolution-to-fill-a-niche because we'd blown our chance along the way. We'd be the branch of the family everyone uses as an object lesson for the rest.

We should make like football players. Don't worry about the finals series, concentrate on winning this week. We should make sure we get through the next 5 to 10 generations with the least possible pain and suffering, the best possible infrastructure. Anything more than that will be a bonus.

Adelady

Where humans will be in 500 million years is irrelevant.

It is what our species will do in the next 100,000 years. One thing we will likely do is terraform a large number of planets around other star systems. If the task is done well, it will be self sustaining. This means that, whatever happens to humans, Earth life will continue into the indefinite future.

I agree with you that the important thing for us here and now is to take care of immediate problems. However, it does not hurt to speculate on the more distant future, and I believe our species will be in the terraforming game in the time period measured in thousands of years.

I just edited post #25 to show the citation for the "5 million years..." chart thusly:
Lisiecki, L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2005), A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d¹⁸O records, Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071

I went ro Lisieki's website wherein she asked "If you use this data, please include the following citation: "
Fair is fair, they're nice intelligent women who did some work that i found interesting and useful.

Now imagine how we could help this process, and what the trees will need, and we have started something good

This is a useful item on the problems with forests - even though it's not the one I had in mind earlier.

Forest Feedback: Rising CO2 In Atmosphere Also Speeds Carbon Loss From Forest Soils, Research Finds | ThinkProgress

Bit depressing really. The more CO2 you put in, you can expect even more CO2 out.

Next, please!

CO2 is tree food
but it ain't the complete diet
just as with any fertilizer, water and other nutrient needs accelerate creating a self regulating damper on growth.
nitrogen---maybe they need some man made lightning? http://chemistry.about.com/od/geoche...rogencycle.htm
(already done by an artist in the s.w.)
Walter De Maria at C4 Contemporary- Artist Profile & Biography - The Lightning Field
thanx for the link:
I've been reading the free air CO2 studies for quite awhile , if memory serves, all else being equal, the benefits of enriched CO2 accelerate till about 600 ppm, then level off slowly to 1000 ppm, but depletion of other nutrients should be monitored and where feasable enhanced.
Fear not dear lady, this is the kind of science that will help to guide us down the path that lays before us.

Ha! I've finally worked out why the Gaia idea annoys me so much at the moment.

(Of course it could be the effects of virus plus lack of sleep plus skeptic's 'corollary', or it might just be grumpy old ladyness.)

It reminds me of all those arguments about biology and sex education. You'll take away the wonder and joy and mystery of sex and pregnancy and childbirth. No you won't. Just because something seems to our limited perceptions as ineffable or overwhelming or mystifying, it doesn't mean that putting the numbers together will take away the good things about it.

Lovelock's Gaia notion seems to me like sex education for teenagers being stuck in the style of "when mummy and daddy love each other very much ....." introductory sex education for junior primary kids. Mature people really need to know the specifics about how things work, how they fail, what to do, what not to do, where to go for specific information.

A Lovelock style educator will tell you you'll know what to do when the time comes. No you won't. You can hurt yourself or someone else, acquire and transmit STDs, get yourself pregnant - all without having a single moment of mutual sexual pleasure. You have to learn the boring stuff. The embarrassing details. The things that make you feel a bit guilty or ashamed that you've misunderstood so far. The educator has to be sure that male students won't one day assault or kill a partner out of jealousy because she continues to take her contraceptive pills while he's away on a trip. Or that women get pregnant by "saving" the tablets to use as morning after pills. All for lack of understanding pretty rudimentary details of female reproductive biology - that contraceptive pills only work if they're taken daily regardless of sexual activity.

The best way for good sexual health and good relationships is for everyone to actually know, not just presume they know, how sex and reproduction works. Might save a few women from assault if their in-laws really understood who is and who isn't responsible for determining the sex of a baby too. Just a small bonus.

This 'mother knows best' 'it'll all work out in the end' approach won't work for climate either. Great Oxygenation Event - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia How come this Gaia restore, repair, rebalance approach didn't work to get rid of the oxygen and save all the organisms that went extinct from poisoning? If it's just a hair ribbons and lipstick dress-ups version of the cavalier geologist attitude - what's a million years / a few thousand species / a whole ocean between friends? - then it has no value.

The right thing to do for dealing with climate is to not pretend that's it's all mysterious and beyond us. It's only beyond us in the sense that being a brain surgeon or a sports champion or an opera singer is beyond us. Just because not everyone can do it, it doesn't mean that no-one can. And even if every person on earth understood thermodynamics and could breeze their way through Clausius-Clapeyron calculations while making a meal, sunsets will still be beautiful. Birdsong at dawn will still lift the spirits. Photographing clouds will still be an absorbing hobby. Burying your nose in a bunch of freshly picked herbs will still be heavenly.

We can lose all the mystic talk and lose nothing else by concentrating on the numbers.

wow
oddly enough, I never got any of that from lovelock
science can only measure that for which it has the instrumentation,
and only developes the instrumentation for that which it thinks it can measure
so, the numbers are a shadow of a shadow and maybe they often work, but so did the math for the planets in the earth centered universe.

I ain't saying "don't trust the numbers". But i am encourageing keeping numbers as your servants, not your masters.

following lovelock, every living thing on this planet is a niche player, and many players create niches for other life forms. Did we evolve to fill a niche created for us to evolve into? Until science answers some important questions, intuition coupled to an open educated mind can be a valuable guide.
The old saw as/re art, "there is no accounting for tastes" is literal as well as figurative. Taste is a qualitative judgement not quantitative. If it were different, a computer might be able to create a universally loved piece of art.

Like they say about the readings at AA take what you need and leave the rest

I understand where Adelady is coming from. There is, indeed, a magical and mystical, unscientific interpretation to the Gaia hypothesis. It is one that is used rather a lot by less rational and pseudo-religious environmentalists. As Adelady says, it is of no value in that it does not give us the hard knowledge we need to make this world work. Much better to study real ecology.

I hope, Adelady, that my warped and twisted sense of humour did not offend you?

Did we evolve to fill a niche created for us to evolve into?

Absolutely not. It's all down to pure dumb luck.

We with our particular physical and intellectual attributes managed (to survive a few catastrophes but nevertheless) to get agriculture going because we learned how to coexist with grasses, roots and tubers - along with fire - and make the most of a very supportive, very stable climatic environment.

We should be grateful every single day that it worked out so well for us so far. We have no 'right' to be here. We certainly have no right to be among the very small, very privileged percentage of the human population that's well-fed, educated and living in societies that give us safe water, sanitation systems and access to healthcare.

We should be very careful in claims that nature or gaia or any other invisible force drove this process for our benefit - because it's so clearly not been much of a benefit for many millions of others. Some people might claim that there's something special about me and my family that 'the universe' has favoured us with long life and good health. Nothing special. It's all down to those numbers again. The most important numbers at time of birth being latitude, longitude and year. Other benefits are buried in the twists and turns of DNA that promote or impede health.

Skeptic. Lawks! no.

It probably kept my mind on it just that bit longer than my usual pfffftt dismissal. Enough to think about why I always dismiss it now. (Entertained it 40 years ago. Hardly thought about it at all for a long time.)

Originally Posted by sculptor

Worry all you want, and please plant some trees and cut travel to that which is necessary, leave the air conditioner off, and use less heat, but please leave the climate alone.

Leaving the climate alone would be exactly what the global warming alarmists most urgently recommend. Adding 30 - 50% to the atmospheric concentration of CO2 within a couple of hundred years is monkeying with the climate big time.

For good or for ill, leaving the climate alone is no longer an option.

Originally Posted by sculptor

I've been reading the free air CO2 studies for quite awhile , if memory serves, all else being equal, the benefits of enriched CO2 accelerate till about 600 ppm, then level off slowly to 1000 ppm,

The benefits of higher CO2 concentrations are specific to the species and the context - soil, weather, other plants and animals, etc.

Some plants are helped, some are harmed, in any given situation. Woody plants of genus Rhus will probably be helped by boosted CO2 and all that goes with it, those of genus Picea not so much.

Originally Posted by sculptor

only works in a steady state environment/climate. and As any study into paleo climates and paleo plant species (gee ginkgo and the leaf stomatal density)will show, "steady state" ain't the norm on this planet. And, i think it folly to assume that "it is different now".
For our species, and for our shared co-evolutionary biom/ planet, the only constant is change.

The change we are now imposing on the planet is both larger and faster than anything we have record of except possibly a couple of the larger extinction events. It is not folly to notice what a difference that makes.

The changes for which we have records of successful ecological adaptation were much slower, especially.

We might be wise to slow ours down, at least to within the parameters we have some evidence that things can handle.

Originally Posted by sculptor

I also recommend following the ecological path I have taken. Love gaia. Find your own personal Tao, and follow it.

And see that Exxon does likewise. Also the big coal companies. Which would involve cutting coal and oil burning by a large percentage.

Right?

Finding a way to wok without super hot gas flame would be such a challenge.
Somewhere deep down in my very disorganized brain vague images of ads for high power electric woks keep popping up.

Yeah, well, woks were a fantastic solution to a real problem of lack of fuel. Thin, sharply sloping sides on pan, very small, very hot fire focused on a very small part of the base. This heats the sides of the pan rapidly. If you've already cut your food pieces very finely, a quick shake and stir cooks the whole lot in seconds. The preparation may take a very long time - very fine, very evenly cut pieces - but the cooking method saves maximum fuel.

I find the idea of an electric wok a bit silly. Totally unjustified because I haven't even looked, let alone tried. But the concept just doesn't work for me. Whereas the low power slow cooker is an absolute dream.

iceaura: if you think you can control exxon or the big coal companies or the growing Chinese industrialists: Then, I say GO FOR IT And I will wish you luck.
(I'll do my part by buying less--and, fortunately, we have a lot of wind here in Iowa and thousands of windmills renting space in farmer's fields-one local referred to it as double croping.

For plant and C02 information look to/and from the face studies
basically: almost all plants grow faster and mature earlier under heavy CO2 concentrations.--- mature earlier = shorter growing season means more places to grow those crops= more crops = more sequestration.

Nitrogen is the main limiting factor, for growth, protien content, and CO2 sequestration
(even in adelady's link they said that most of the CO2 was being sequestered in the upper woody part of the trees. in the natural process, the trees would die and fall over, and their children and crildren's children would feast upon their dead bodies, and the complex hydrocarbons therein would become soil--or, there may be a fire, and the left over biochar would enrich the soil-... So? a win win if we just keep at it?), fortunately, legumes are one of the beneficiaries of an enriched CO2 atmosphere. If we want to see trees being more successful at helping to control the carbon cycle, then it seems that we must address the nitrogen availability. (I got it--- without nitrous oxide, the plants realize just how much pain they are suffering, and this makes them very sad, and they mope into the abyss of depression and quit growing
Seriously, the 2 best ways I know of fixing nitrogen in the soil are Legumes and Lightning.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...1c.Fv6cfdIZRBE
Walter De Maria at C4 Contemporary- Artist Profile & Biography - The Lightning Field

This biom has lived through much higher CO2 levels in our past, during some of which, our fossil fuels were created and stored for our benefit..........maybe it is time we thought about returning some of what we have taken? Let nature take back her swamps and she will show you CO2 sequestration marvels to behold(along with some really beautiful stuff).

I'd go for a higher tax on garbage, but landfills are a form of carbon sequestration, and a lot are now collecting methane, and controlling moisture content to optomise decomposition.

Can you show one instance of mass extinction that was from heat rather than cold?
I know of none.

alternately
In 2003, Dr. Veizer joined Nir J. Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to propose a new climate driver. They envisioned slow movements of the solar system through the surrounding galaxy as controlling the cosmic rays that bombard Earth’s atmosphere. A reduction, they argued, would lessen cloud cover and Earth’s reflectivity, warming the planet. The reverse would cause cooling. The Phanerozoic record of cosmic-ray bombardment showed excellent agreement with climate fluctuations, trumping carbon dioxide, they wrote.

If you read surrounding and following studies, the trend seems to be that the movement of the solar system through the galaxy may be the trigger for creating and sustaining ice ages, and concomittant mass extinctions, but fall short on predicting glacial cycles within the ice ages------
So, I will look to our path(tao) through the galaxy for seeking an end date for this ice age,
And focus on studies closer to home for information on the glacial cycles.

Have you ever mixed ginger and cumin, or cumin and cinnamon? If so---what were your findings?( the science of fine dining)

Meanwhile, what would you, personally, do to mess with the climate?

In 2003, Dr. Veizer joined Nir J. Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, to propose a new climate driver.

That would probably be a good topic for another thread-because is doesn't have an impact over the next century or two. I'm not a fan of his ideas anyhow, because most of his assumptions about condensation and fusion nuclei don't exist and the little observational evidence that exist tends to show the opposite of what he proposes.

I completely agree about sequestration strategies.

Lastly if we fully develop coal we are screwed big time--it and seabed methane ice forms are the elephants in the room.

Yes.
The first thing we need to do is stop digging coal out of the ground.
There are heaps of schemes on the drawing board for sequestering carbon. From pumping CO2 underground, to making artificial trees. My personal view is that the ideal method of sequestering carbon already exists. It is called coal. All we need do it leave it where it is.

Can you show one instance of mass extinction that was from heat rather than cold?

No. All of them were due to heating except the last, impact-caused event.

What Caused Most of Planet's Extinction Events? Leading Expert Says "Global Warming"

Originally Posted by adelady

Can you show one instance of mass extinction that was from heat rather than cold?

No. All of them were due to heating except the last, impact-caused event.

What Caused Most of Planet's Extinction Events? Leading Expert Says "Global Warming"

adelady!
If you must cite a reference, please cite someone who at-least has the semblance of sanity.
Ward doesn't make that cut.
his:

Ward explains how those extinctions happened, and then applies those chilling lessons to the modern day: expect drought, superstorms, poison–belching oceans, mass extinction of much life, and sickly green skies.

c'mon this guy is so far outside the mainstream...seriously do you fall for this sort of silly crap?

do you fall for this sort of silly crap?

OK. You don't want a brief summary overview.

And my judgement of what might and might not be relevant is apparently unreliable.

Exploring mass extinction events and their association with global warming event

Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life - Google Books

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018203006679
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...12821X07000763

Mechanisms of Climate Warming at the End of the Paleocene
ScienceDirect.com - Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology - The palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and palaeoenvironmental analysis of mass extinction events

RealClimate: CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas, and greenhouse effects are not the only CO2 problem
RealClimate: Methane hydrates and global warming

Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History

Oceanic plateau formation: a cause of mass extinction and black shale deposition around the Cenomanian

The Source and Fate of Massive Carbon Input During the Latest Paleocene Thermal Maximum

Global dinoflagellate event associated with the late Paleocene thermal maximum

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0423104522.htm



Do your own summary.

Hmmmm

The Permian mass extinction 'coincides' with the eruption of the Siberian plate volcanoes, which doubtless caused warming along with a whole raft of other effects, including poisoning the whole planet's atmosphere. To say the warming caused the extinction is almost certainly wrong. It may have been a part of it, but the high levels of H2S are a far more likely more potent cause. All of which came from a more basic cause, the volcanoes.

There is even a school of thought that suggests that the actual cause was an impact. We know that, when an asteroid impacts, enormously powerful seismic waves travel round the Earth and reinforce each other at the place on Earth that is diametrically opposite to the point of impact. The dinosaur killer impact resulted also in massive volcanic action in India, which was opposite to the Gulf of Mexico at the time. The Siberian volcanoes, at the time of the Permian extinction event, were diametrically opposite to Antarctica. There is a place in Antarctica which fits this theory, that has a gravimetric anomaly, consistent with an asteroid impact site. Not proof of an impact, but suggestive. Some day, researchers will dig down through the several kilometres of ice covering the anomaly and prove it one way or another.

Another mass extinction that has nothing to do with warming was that caused 3 million years ago by the drift of North and South America together. Once the two land masses touched, there was a flow of new predators in both directions, which resulted in extinctions of prey species.

Anyway, I think that the idea that all mass extinctions are caused by warming is pretty much a crackpot theory, regardless of how eminent the theorist is. Some may have been caused that way, but all of them??????

Originally Posted by sculptor

iceaura: if you think you can control exxon or the big coal companies or the growing Chinese industrialists: Then, I say GO FOR IT And I will wish you luck

What I think is that your shift from controlling the climate, which nobody is trying to do, to controlling industrial powers, which is the actual goal of the global warming folks, is well taken.

Your argument then is that we can't limit or curb Exxon or Chinese industrialists anyway, so we may as well just rely on luck and humble acceptance of whatever comes our way from whatever they decide to do. That's a reasonable argument, and I have no confident answer to it.

But I think those making it should also, in the spirit of clarity and honesty it introduces, acknowledge the scale and probabilities of the risks we are taking thereby.

Originally Posted by sculptor

This biom has lived through much higher CO2 levels in our past,

No, it hasn't. The last time CO2 levels and their associated effects were at what we are approaching, the biome was considerably different - partly in consequence. It remains to be seen whether and what can handle what's coming to us, but the idea that the world will be pretty much the same, or even similar, with a climate and chemistry forced under this much CO2 added this rapidly, is one of the least likely possibilities.

There is even a school of thought that suggests that the actual cause was an impact.

Golly gee whiz. Why didn't I think of that?

You'll notice a couple of the items listed actually refer to such explanations. There are others but some are among the ones I omitted behind paywalls where the abstract didn't give a full picture.

I said all but one - the last one. But I realise that the snowball earth event wasn't listed - now there's an extinction event for the trophy cabinet.

or the oxygen emission extinction event - probably the biggest one of all.

Merely steps in the same dance - can't have one without the other.

Great Oxygenation Event - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You may have missed my other example, Adelady, since I added it as an afterthought edit in #88.

What? The Gulf Stream and the Americas?

I've never seen that referred to in the literature as a mass extinction event. Might keep an eye out for that.

Far too many people overlook it in climate discussions. They rattle on about how certain things did or didn't warm or cool 10s or 100s of millions of years ago when atmospheric gases were doing funny things - never bother to look at a map to see where the continents and mountain ranges were and what the ocean currents might have been doing. Still, those sorts of people tend not to look at the same things now. Hence all the witless mutterings about the Antarctic when a discussion is about the Arctic.

Adelady

It was a mass extinction locally.
Obviously, it did not affect any place other than the Americas. But it illustrates that warming is not needed.

Originally Posted by adelady

...OK. You don't want a brief summary overview.
And my judgement of what might and might not be relevant is apparently unreliable. ...

NOoooo, Please share a brief summary overview, or, even a long summary overview.
Your judgement matters and is relevant, even if i don't always agree with it.

when i read: " ...

expect drought, superstorms, poison–belching oceans, mass extinction of much life, and sickly green skies

. "
a huge glowing sign appeared over Ward's head, reading NUT JOB.... Or someone who is hoplessly mired in hyperbole. Jeez what kind of sane self respecting scientist would actually talk like that---science is a dicipline, and requires a diciplined mind... maybe he shoulda invested in studying english literature with a masters in science fiction.

You, on the other hand, seem reasonably rational(most of the time)

iceaura: I do not know that we cannot control the industries listed, And if you are up for that fight, I'm in your corner.
Personally, I do know what I can control, and what is good for the environment is always uppermost in my decision making process. So that is what I do and what i preach. I have known people who fought and demonstrated for my rights and safety and this biom, and I have enough respect for them to forgive all their foibles. One got quite wealthy collecting source point polution evidence on rivers and streams, and claimed a percentage of the fines levied on his evidence---he also got shot at a few times.

I had thought that everyone knew that the closing of the gap between north and south america was early on assumed to be the cause of this ice age, but now looks more coincidental. And, when Panama rose up(joining the continents and blocking a connection between the atlantic and pacific), the island of marsupials that had been south america quickly was overrun by modern mamals including preditors. And the traffic went both ways,-speaking of which, a young possum has moved into my woodshed and claimed a couple of short planks that were on the floor(move 'em and (s?)he shows his/her teeth)

NOoooo, Please share a brief summary overview, or, even a long summary overview.
Your judgement matters and is relevant, even if i don't always agree with it.

Sorry, no chance. You've blown it for at least a few days.

I'm sick as a dog. I specifically avoided scientific stuff in my first reply because you seem to dislike numbers and probabilities in favour of general good feelings. You can just as easily find non-scientific type articles for yourself. I'm not in the mood for getting some serious material together for a game of Aunt Sally ( Aunt Sally - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) where I disappear in a cloud of feathers from exploding pillows.

Better health, more sleep and a better mood and I might be up for it again in a while. Anyway. You need some time to at least look at some of those references I've provided. I didn't make them up. They are relevant and they might give you something to think about.

If you'd rather other people do the work for you ..... try this lot. No reading required unless you choose to (or you want to refute something, in which case a lot of reading, a lot of numbers, good logic and some probability calculations are required.)

A video postcard from Eaarth « The Cost of Energy

Sorry, no chance. You've blown it for at least a few days.

It seems, that ofttimes, my mouth starts up before my brain has a chance to kick in some dampers. oops.

Do get well, and i've been reading your links, thanx.

The first extinction of the Precambrian, which largely affected stromatolites and acritarchs, has been correlated with a large glaciation event that occurred about 600 million years ago. This event was of such severity that almost all micro-organisms were completely wiped out.

The advancement of the theory of glaciation as the predetermining agent for the Cambrian extinctions has been developed by James F.Miller of Southwest Missouri State University. Through research undertaken by Miller, evidence of early Ordovician sediment of glacial origin has been uncovered in South America. Miller suggests in his hypothesis that this evidence of continental glaciation at the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary is responsible for a decrease in global climatic conditions. Such a decline in temperature is implied by Miller to destroy Cambrian fauna which are intolerant of cooler conditions, producing a mass extinction of mostly warm water species. He also suggests that a significant continental glaciation would bring large amounts of ocean water onto the land in the form of frozen glacial ice. This trapping of ocean water inevitably results in the decrease of sea-level and the withdrawal of shallow seas. Miller implicates that this reduction in sea-level would produce reduced habitat for marine species as continental shelves are obliterated.

The Ordovician mass extinction has been theorized by paleontologists to be the result of a single event; the glaciation of the continent Gondwana at the end of the period. Evidence for this glaciation event is provided by glacial deposits discovered by geologists in the Saharan Desert. By integrating rock magnetism evidence and the glacial deposit data, paleontologists have proposed a cause for this glaciation. When Gondwana passed over the north pole in the Ordovician, global climatic cooling occured to such a degree that there was global large-scale continental resulting in widespread glaciation. This glaciation event also caused a lowering of sea level worldwide as large amounts of water became tied up in ice sheets. A combination of this lowering of sea-level, reducing ecospace on continental shelves, in conjunction with the cooling caused by the glaciation itself are likely driving agents for the Ordovician mass extinction.

Evidence supporting the Devonian mass extinction suggests that warm water marine species were the most severely affected in this extinction event. This evidence has lead many paleontologists to attribute the Devonian extinction to an episode of global cooling, similar to the event which is thought to have cause the late Ordovician mass extinction. According to this theory,the extinction of the Devonian was triggered by another glaciation event on Gondwana, as evidenced by glacial deposits of this age in northern Brazil. Similarly to the late Ordovician crisis, agents such as global cooling and widespread lowering of sea-level may have triggered the late Devonian crisis.

Although the cause of the Permian mass extinction remains a debate, numerous theories have been formulated to explain the events of the extinction. One of the most current theories for the mass extinction of the Permian is an agent that has been also held responsible for the Ordovician and Devonian crises, glaciation on Gondwana. A similar glaciation event in the Permian would likely produce mass extinction in the same manner as previous, that is, by a global widespread cooling and/or worldwide lowering of sea level

The End-Cretaceous mass extinction has generated considerable public interest in recent years, in response to the controversial debates in the scientific community over its cause. The more prominent of these new hypoteses invoke extra-terrestrial forces, such as meteorite impacts or comet showers as the causative extinction agent. Older hypotheses cite earthly mechanisms such as volcanism or glaciation as the primary agent behind this mass extinction.

minor extinction events:
Triassic: Labyrinthodont amphibians, conodonts, and all marine reptiles(excluding ichthyosaurs) were eliminated and mammal-like reptiles, thecodonts, brachiopods, gastropods, and molluscs were severly affected by this event. The causes of the Triassic extinction are not well known, but popular explanations for its occurrence include global climatic cooling, extra-terrestrial impact, or comet showers. This extinction event is particularly important because it allowed the dinosaurs to radiate into terrestrial niches that were previously unavailable

Two extinction events are speculated to have occurred in the Jurassic. The first of these events is recognized in Pleinsbachian age strat from Europe. This extinction eliminated more than eighty percent of marine bivalve species, along with various other shallow water species. The second crisis occurred near the end of the Jurassic, by an event that severly affected ammonoids, marine reptiles, and bivalves. Dinosaurs were also severly affected as stegosaurs and most types of sauropods did not survive into the Cretaceous period. This event is not well understood so few hypothese have yet been proposed for its occurrence.


The early Oligocene extinction event was triggered by severe climatic and vegetational changes, and drastically affected land mammals. At this time, the world experienced a global cooling that shuffled many of the existing biomes. Tropical areas, such as jungles and rainforests, were replaced by more temperate savannahs and grasslands. This change in biomass forced dramatic changes in the distribution of Oligocene flora and fauna. Typically, forest dwellers declined as forested habitat became less abundant, and in their place, hoofed animals flourished due to the growing number of temperate grasslands. A number of predators also became extinct at this time, due primarily to the faunal changes. Major mammal groups that perished included mesonychids and creodonts.
Six major pulses of extinction have occurred since the beginning of late Miocene time. The first occurred about nine million years ago, and the most recent occurred only about eleven thousand years ago. This last crisis was restricted exclusively to large mammals, eliminating thirty-nine genera. Among the species eliminated were saber-toothed cats, mastodons, wooly mammoths, huge ground sloths, short-faced bears, and dire wolves. Causes for this extinction are also widely debated. Hypotheses for this extinction include global climatic cooling

All the above may be old school, but beat the hell out of the new wave science that wants to blame everything on global warming, even when the facts do not support the conclusions, and then blame global warming on us. Some people seem so full of self loathing, that they need to project this mental illness on all of our species, claiming, "we destroyed the earth" etc.etc...........we, as a species, make a lot of mistakes, but as long as we keep learning from those mistakes we will have positive progress, for ourselves, and for our shared co-evolutionary biom. The self loathing lunatics do little to advance science, but they seem expert at hypocracy and bigotry. Do not fall victim to their idiocy.
(just my opinion)

new wave science that wants to blame everything on global warming,

There's nothing new wave about global warming. It's just simple radiative physics of gases. Fourier started it 2 centuries ago. It's older than germ theory, plate tectonics, relativity and just about any other non 'new wave' science you can think of.

The warming calculations and predictions were done 115 years ago by Arrhenius - and they've turned out absolutely spot on as far as atmospheric temperature increases following the increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations are concerned. This is a nice presentation of CO2 changes over the last 800000 years. History of CO2_Inception.wmv - YouTube (I had a nice paper which lined up all the various classic models and calculations for temp v. CO2 but it went to crashed computer heaven. When I find it I'll refer it.)

The only thing that is really at issue is what effect those temperature rises will have on various planetary and atmospheric phenomena - how soon, how fast, how bad, how reversible. Clearly the effects on the cryosphere have been severely underestimated - the decline in the Arctic sea ice is running about 40-60 years ahead of the modelled impacts. Severe/extreme weather looks to be running about 30-50 years ahead of earlier modelling. We'll know more when we've had a few El Ninos and ENSO neutral years rather than a run of La Ninas as we've done recently - by the end of this decade maybe.

Of course, this overlooks global warming's ugly big sister - ocean acidification.

If you've taken some time with the ice ages / climate maxima history the recent paper by Sato & Hansen gives some really interesting reasons for revisiting what we can learn from them. I always print off the graphs first so I've got them alongside while I struggle through the paper. Milankovic (I read through it a few times when they first put it up on the site weeks and weeks ago while preparing for publication.) Pubs.GISS: Hansen and Sato 2012: Paleoclimate implications for human-made climate change Click on the full pdf. It takes a couple of readings to work out why they reckon we should change our estimates of maximum temperatures in previous episodes.

But it's worth it to understand what they're getting at.