An inconveniant truth for the Tree huggers?

[Juan Albion]

I read recently that scientists are saying there is a 50/50 chance that there will be no ice at the North Pole in September.

Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent

 

[Guy Fawkes]

99% of climatologists are convinced. The only people who remain unconvinced are in the main right wing idiots who have as much grasp of science as I have of Keira Knightley.

All reputable scientists acknowledge the climate is changing and the VAST majority of them say that man is influencing that. It is now only idiots and the uneducated who stand against that view quite frankly.

Methane is a relatively potent greenhouse gas with a high global warming potential of 72 (averaged over 20 years) or 25 (averaged over 100 years).[1] Methane in the atmosphere is eventually oxidized, producing carbon dioxide and water. As a result, methane in the atmosphere has a half life of seven years (if no methane was added, then every seven years, the amount of methane would halve).

The abundance of methane in the Earth's atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion, up from 700 ppb in 1750. In the same time period, CO2 increased from 278 to 365 parts per million.

Methane in Earth's atmosphere

Methane concentrations graph
Computer models showing the amount of methane (parts per million by volume) at the surface (top) and in the stratosphere (bottom).Early in the Earth's history—about 3.5 billion years ago—there was 1,000 times as much methane in the atmosphere as there is now. The earliest methane was released into the atmosphere by volcanic activity. During this time, Earth's earliest life appeared. These first, ancient bacteria added to the methane concentration by converting hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane and water. Oxygen did not become a major part of the atmosphere until photosynthetic organisms evolved later in Earth's history. With no oxygen, methane stayed in the atmosphere longer and at higher concentrations than it does today.

In present times, due to the increase in oxygen, the amount of methane has decreased. The average mole concentration of methane at the Earth's surface in 1998 was 1,745 ppb.[11] Its concentration is higher in the northern hemisphere as most sources (both natural and human) are larger. The concentrations vary seasonally with a minimum in the late summer mainly due to removal by the hydroxyl radical.

Methane is created near the surface, and it is carried into the stratosphere by rising air in the tropics. Uncontrolled build-up of methane in Earth's atmosphere is naturally checked—although human influence can upset this natural regulation—by methane's reaction with hydroxyl radicals formed from singlet oxygen atoms and with water vapor.

Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 25 over a 100-year period. This means that a methane emission will have 25 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 72. The Earth's methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases

- This would tend to point to methane being a bigger problem than carbon, and the short life cycle would explain the lack of continued temperature rises and the possible short term blips that have been witnessed since global warming has been studied by scientists.

If Methane is the problem, should man take preventative measures and slaughter large amounts of cattle, a major cause of methane production worldwide?

(quote from Methane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

[GNF on Tour]

Global warming - total myth

The Complete Badger has a brain - total myth

 

[readingstockport]

- This would tend to point to methane being a bigger problem than carbon, and the short life cycle would explain the lack of continued temperature rises and the possible short term blips that have been witnessed since global warming has been studied by scientists.

If Methane is the problem, should man take preventative measures and slaughter large amounts of cattle, a major cause of methane production worldwide?

(quote from Methane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

2 things.

1. I agree methane has very high effects and if what has happened in the past happens again when the sea level temperature rises and the stored methane rises to the surface there will be mass extinctions.
2. I'm a veggie and don't contribute to the meat trade anyway.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

99% of climatologists are convinced. The only people who remain unconvinced are in the main right wing idiots who have as much grasp of science as I have of Keira Knightley.

All reputable scientists acknowledge the c.limate is changing and the VAST majority of them say that man is influencing that. It is now only idiots and the uneducated who stand against that view quite frankly.

If only that were the case, then we woiuldn't be having this discussion. 99% of climatologists are not convinced, there is a minority admittedly, but still significant group of climatologist who have questioned the current paradigm.

I'm not saying they are corrrect (although the solar angle is intruiging), but there is nothing wrong with people challenging 'accepted' thinking.

And I find the statement about only idiots and uneducated being against the concensus view as highly insulting... I am educated (in this field in fact) and I don't beleive I'm an idiot... and yet, I'm still willing to explore the causes of the previous warming (and current plateau) in global temperature... are you?

Papa

 

[Papa Lazarou]

- This would tend to point to methane being a bigger problem than carbon, and the short life cycle would explain the lack of continued temperature rises and the possible short term blips that have been witnessed since global warming has been studied by scientists.

If Methane is the problem, should man take preventative measures and slaughter large amounts of cattle, a major cause of methane production worldwide?

(quote from Methane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The 2 biggest greenhouse 'gases' are Methane and water vapour... Co2 is 40 times less affective than methane for example.

There are huge reserves of Methane Hydrides under the oceans and polar permefrost - some estimates the energy locked up in methane hydrate deposits is more than twice the global reserves of all conventional gas, oil, and coal deposits combined.

One possible side effect of a rapid increase in global temps would be the release of these deposits, which would create a massive rise in global temperatures.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I read recently that scientists are saying there is a 50/50 chance that there will be no ice at the North Pole in September.

Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent

Hhmm.. not sure.. the current position is still well above last year's levels.. as per here.

However, we still need to see if the new (single year) ice will persist for much longer.

 

[1234andcounting]

I am no expert, but I believe that the environmentalism debate is wider than just the causes and impact of global warming. It has to do with the use of non-renewable resources (not just oil!), the impact of man-made chemicals on things other than the average global temperature of the planet (eg animal, including human, fertility), and on a smaller-scale, but more likely to have a short-term impact on our lives (ie those of us living in SE England), simply a lack of space in which to put the rubbish generated by a society predicated on the current economic model.

I suppose one's views on global warming might be determined by whether you think it is worth the risk or not.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

If only that were the case, then we woiuldn't be having this discussion. 99% of climatologists are not convinced, there is a minority admittedly, but still significant group of climatologist who have questioned the current paradigm.

I'm not saying they are corrrect (although the solar angle is intruiging), but there is nothing wrong with people challenging 'accepted' thinking.

And I find the statement about only idiots and uneducated being against the concensus view as highly insulting... I am educated (in this field in fact) and I don't beleive I'm an idiot... and yet, I'm still willing to explore the causes of the previous warming (and current plateau) in global temperature... are you?

Papa

I think it is right that people questioning any commonly held belief, If no-one had ever challenged the experts in the past, we would still believe that the world was flat, and that the Earth is the centre of the universe, with the sun and all the other planets etc, revolving around it. (all were commonly held truths until proved wrong, even if those who did dispute it were forced to renounce their works, eg. Galileo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s )

 

[Trufflehound]

I think the the term "global warming" itself is partly to blame for giving those who are in willful denial something to latch onto and use as an excuse to "carry on regardless".

"Climate change" is more accurate than warming I believe, and I don't need IPCC statistics to tell me that something is out of balance. I only have to look out of the window to know that recent years have been far windier than others I have known, and spring is arriving earlier and earlier and winter coming later, if at all. Whether the root cause of this is us, or it's a natural cycle, is open for debate (but only just, since the damning evidence seems to mount daily).

 

[Trufflehound]

On the subject of statistics, there are of course lies, damned lies and statistics.

Any figures can be manipulated to give any result, depending on who commissioned the study, so take EVERYTHING with a pinch of salt until you've read between the lines. Greenpeace and Ford could both carry out separate investigations into the impact of SUVs on the planet, and they would probably both end up with the same numbers. But with a bit of spin, Ford's report would say "no problem, having two cars each is good for the environment", while Greenpeace's would say "We're all going to die thanks to these evil global corporations - let's kill all the bosses". No matter what the figures actually say, Ford are not going to turn round and go: "Oh hang on, you're right, maybe we should drive less."

It's like the old "95% fat free" bollocks on food packets. It sounds much more reassuring to declare that the planet is "80% fine" rather than that it's "20% f***ed".

 

[Curious Orange]

- This would tend to point to methane being a bigger problem than carbon, and the short life cycle would explain the lack of continued temperature rises and the possible short term blips that have been witnessed since global warming has been studied by scientists.

If Methane is the problem, should man take preventative measures and slaughter large amounts of cattle, a major cause of methane production worldwide?

(quote from Methane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Oo, does this mean we should also ban vegetarians too - they fart a lot!!!

 

[Guy Fawkes]

From New Scientist magazine -

YOU could be forgiven for thinking that our existence on Earth becomes more precarious by the decade. So breathe a sigh of relief - we may never have been safer.

Last weekend, experts gathered at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford to discuss the risk of global "mega-catastrophes". The idea was to leave aside slow-burn disasters such as climate change and global famine and focus on events that could wipe out hundreds of millions of people, threaten humanity's continued existence on Earth, or at least produce a total collapse of civilisation. The meeting drew contributions from physicists, sociologists, microbiologists and philosophers. Their conclusion: leaving aside scenarios that have yet to be imagined, we are at least handling the major concerns well.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Also - could we be harming the environment by going green?

How cleaning up America dried up the Amazon
18:00 07 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Mason Inman

We have all heard how a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon may cause storms in far off places. But it seems that environmental effects can go in the other direction too – reductions in air pollution in North America have led to severe droughts in the Amazon rainforest, according to a new study.

In 2005, the Amazon suffered one of the worst droughts of the past century. Rivers ran so low that they were unnavigable to shipping, and thousands of forest fires raged.

El Niño effects are usually suspected, but there was a problem – there were no El Niño effects that year.

Peter Cox of the University of Exeter, UK, wondered if changes in sulphate particles in the atmosphere could be responsible.

Falling pollution
Sulphates, largely produced from coal-burning power plants, are known to reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the land and ocean below, and counteracting some of heating from greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Levels of sulphates over North America rose until the 1970s, and then fell as increases in respiratory disease and acid rain led to tougher pollution controls.

What this also meant, Cox realised, is that some of the effects of climate change might have been underestimated in models, which have not traditionally included sulphates.

Cox and his colleagues looked again at the triggers of Amazonian rainfall, using a global climate model developed by the Hadley Centre in Devon, UK – one of the few that simulates the Amazon and the surrounding ocean fairly well. The researchers ran the model with and without emissions of the sulphate particles, or aerosols.

Only with realistic sulphate emissions included, both from human activity and from volcanic eruptions, did the model correctly predict the Amazon's rainfall over the 20th century.

Storm shift
"I thought [sulphate] aerosols were not a big player, but it turns out they are," Cox says.

By cutting back on sulphate aerosols, the greenhouse effect adds extra heat to certain parts of the ocean, the model showed. It also revealed that when the tropical North Atlantic ocean warms up more than in the tropical South Atlantic, then the ocean's storm tracks shift northward.

This shift, says Cox, extends the Amazon's dry season – and this effect will only grow stronger with rising greenhouse-gas levels and falling sulphate aerosols.

Most experts advise limiting CO2 in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million in order to avoid dangerous climate change, and the study suggests this target would be sufficient to protect the Amazon.

Amazon 'dieback'
"The model shows a catastrophic dieback [of the Amazon] by about 500 or 550 parts per million," Cox says. "As we clean up air quality, as we have to do, it is even more urgent to reduce CO2 emissions."

"This is first time the possible strong impact of sulphate aerosols [on rainfall] has been presented clearly," says Rong Fu of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US. The results "seem plausible", she adds.

Yadvinder Malhi of the University of Oxford in the UK says that, because of the masking effect of aerosols, we may have been underestimating how sensitive the Earth is to climate change. "If the projections for the Amazon are correct, that's quite severe," he says.