CO2 emmissions make largest jump ever in 2010

Ignoring the CO2 and methane and other ecological damage im not sure if a rapid warming of northern Canadian or Siberian would be good in the short term. The permafrost will take a while to completely melt. Where the surface melts you get a swampy landscape as shown in the photo in verbose,s link.

From TerraNature

Higher air temperatures first create frost-heave, transforming flat permafrost into hollows and hummocks known as salsas. As the permafrost melts, water collects on the surface, forming ponds that do not drain because of the frozen bog beneath. The ponds combine into larger lakes until the last permafrost melts and the lakes drain underground

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http://terranature.org/methaneSiberia.htm


Good if you like insects in the summer. No good for farming in the short term.

G-max said:

...assuming that anyone has actually been harmed yet, or ever will, as a result of humanity's CO2 output, which has yet to be demonstrated.

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Here's a quote from a publication that's 10 years old:

A team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has calculated Massachusetts's loss of land to the rising sea as warming progresses. Using the rather modest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projections of sea level rise by 2025, they calculated that Massachusetts would lose from 7,500 to 10,000 acres (3,035 to 4,047 hectares) of land. Based on just the lower estimate and a nominal land value of $1 million per acre for ocean-front property, this would amount to a loss of at least $7.5 billion of particularly expensive property by then. Some of the 72 coastal communities included in the study would lose far more land than others. Nantucket could lose over 6 acres and Falmouth 3.8 acres a year.

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source: Earth Policy Institute, Plan B update, Nov. 15 2001

Your CO2 and my CO2 emissions are doing this. This is directly affecting people. To claim otherwise is to ignore the truth. It took me less than a minute from reading your quote above to posting this response. You don't have to look very hard to find people who are already being adversely affected by rising CO2 concentrations.

peter grimes said:

Your CO2 and my CO2 emissions are doing this. This is directly affecting people. To claim otherwise is to ignore the truth. It took me less than a minute from reading your quote above to posting this response. You don't have to look very hard to find people who are already being adversely affected by rising CO2 concentrations.

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It may come across as flippant to say "name one", but it's a reasonable request and one which needs to be made more often when the moral outrage starts clouding a debate. It's very easy to make vague claims that loads of people are affected while leaving out any specifics. Snag is it's completely unfalsifiable as well. The "name one" request isn't just being callous - if there really are loads of people harmed it shouldn't be that difficult to give one specific example. Frankly a few specific case studies would be far more convincing than any amount of hand-waving about people in general.

If you want to see an example of this with a little less moral outrage baggage attached to it, consider the link about land loss you've just posted. 10 years ago it was predicted that X amount of land in a specific area would be lost in the next 25 years. OK - but where's the other half of this argument if you're going to say harm has been done? Has land been lost - and where specifically? OK there's still 15 years to go, but you'd expect if you're going to lose all that land to slow sea level rise then at least some of it would have gone now. The scientist in me says put up two satellite photos, one from 10 years ago and one from now, and show the difference in the coastline and the exact areas of land that have been lost. That'd be a very convincing piece of evidence. What are the names of the people who now own several acres of seabed instead of coastal land? This is information that should be out there (and that this oceanographic institute should be collecting if they're really doing this scientifically).

Do you see what I mean? If you want to be convincing that harm has been done, give specific examples. If harm is occurring on a scale to justify the moral outrage, it really shouldn't be hard to find one unmbiguous case. Now I'll be interested to see whether the response to this is actual evidence or a complete non-response like the last person to make this request got.

For some effects, see references from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise suggests that the sea level is continuing to rise.

I don't think it's as simple as showing satellite pictures - the problem is that sea level fluctuates (obviously things like tides), so you have to take an average over a period of time. Flooding of land isn't going to be something that happens continuously at a uniform rate, because of things like flood barriers.

What exactly do you dispute? That average temperatures are increasing? Or the effects that increased temperatures will have?

I personally see nothing wrong with global warming, it is just a natural process. Conflating globl warming and pollution is stupid, since they are two different things.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/research/CLOUD-en.html

This is interesting research into climate modelling, since rather than rely on CO₂, it is showing the vast effect that cosmic rays are having on our climate. The numbers are exiciting in that they are showing the massive effect the sun is having on our climate.

classical_hero said:

I personally see nothing wrong with global warming, it is just a natural process. Conflating globl warming and pollution is stupid, since they are two different things.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/research/CLOUD-en.html

This is interesting research into climate modelling, since rather than rely on CO₂, it is showing the vast effect that cosmic rays are having on our climate. The numbers are exiciting in that they are showing the massive effect the sun is having on our climate.

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And the exact same effect it had on climate when the temp was a lot cooler. And the exact same effect it will have when the temp is a lot higher. The temp is changing independently from the change in the sun and cosmic rays.

classical_hero said:

I personally see nothing wrong with global warming, it is just a natural process.

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Extinction is a natural process too. But that doesn't mean we're not causing/influencing it. After all, humans are natural creatures and we wouldn't be the first organisms to influence climate change.

classical_hero said:

This is interesting research into climate modelling, since rather than rely on CO₂, it is showing the vast effect that cosmic rays are having on our climate. The numbers are exiciting in that they are showing the massive effect the sun is having on our climate.

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This is so frustrating. CLOUD is a proof-of-concept experiment of something that was already believed (or suspected) already. It's why it was allowed to run, because we thought we knew the answer already. But, it's just a seed of an idea, and there's not been sufficient correlation between those rays and temperature change to explain the change.

When you look for changes in a system, you filter out the known cycles, and see what's left. Day and night are massive changes, but we account for them. Seasons too. The El Nino/La Nina. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Sunspots. All of these are cycles, that have measurable (or estimatable) influence. The correlations with the cosmic rays are just not powerful enough to explain the rising temperature. It's like you've noticed that your kettle has excess heat, and are using it to explain the increase in temperature in your house. Yes, the kettle has excess heat, yes it can cause warming. But no, it's not why your house is warming. It's because you've turned on the furnace

As an aside, it's frustrating when someone who rejects 90% of science will cling to a pilot study in order to justify people's pollution. It's a classic cognitive bias. IF you reject the majority of science, then you have NO way of determining whether something is true or not.

MrCynical said:

It may come across as flippant to say "name one", but it's a reasonable request and one which needs to be made more often when the moral outrage starts clouding a debate. It's very easy to make vague claims that loads of people are affected while leaving out any specifics. Snag is it's completely unfalsifiable as well. The "name one" request isn't just being callous - if there really are loads of people harmed it shouldn't be that difficult to give one specific example. Frankly a few specific case studies would be far more convincing than any amount of hand-waving about people in general.

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Yes, I agree with you completely here. That's why I bothered to look in the first place.

consider the link about land loss you've just posted. 10 years ago it was predicted that X amount of land in a specific area would be lost in the next 25 years. OK - but where's the other half of this argument if you're going to say harm has been done? Has land been lost - and where specifically?

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Again, I agree with you - and that's one of the reasons I linked that specific article. It made a prediction that can be verified without having to go to Greenland or Kilimanjaro. It's got a robust real estate market, and I imagine a search of local media and business publications can help sort out an answer. I rejected linking to an article about Tuvalu trying to relocate 11k people to New Zealand because I wasn't able to find any corroboration. At least in this case corroboration should be (i hope) simpler.

I hope I don't come across as morally outraged. I'm not, for the most part. But I do find a selfish attitude of 'I'll do what I want until you can show me examples that my actions are hurting other people' to be a recipe for a failing society. In game theoretical terms this is the stance of a cheater. Successful populations of individuals can't tolerate too many of them before they collapse. It's not moral outrage, it's self interest

El_Machinae said:

This is so frustrating.

[...]

As an aside, it's frustrating when someone who rejects 90% of science will cling to a pilot study in order to justify people's pollution. It's a classic cognitive bias. IF you reject the majority of science, then you have NO way of determining whether something is true or not.

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What's also frustrating is that this isn't the first time this has been pointed out. What's also frustrating is that drive-by poster has dropped what it perceives as a bombshell, and walks out without seeing if there is feedback, thinking he got the upper hand having dropped the bombshell link. Cycles you say? Well there's one. Every Global Warming debate the argument has been made. Every Global Warming thread it has been debunked. Next Global Warming thread the same argument will be used and so on, and so forth.

Next article: The sun coming up in the morning and going down in the evening has a profound effect on global warming, respectively warming and cooling the Earth. Except in Australia, where it's the other way around.

Except in Australia, where it's the other way around.

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This touches on something I've been curious about - Why does it seem that there are a disproportionate number of climate change deniers from Australia?

- Is this just an illusion, and are there not really that many more than here?
- Australia is a major exporter of Coal, which we all know has a terrible CO2 : BTU ratio...
- Australians have among the highest per capita CO2 footprint

I really don't want this to become a 'pick on an aussie' discussion, but I'm curious if any of the above may be relevant (assuming, of course, that my observation is even correct!)

It's weird because Australia was one of the places on Earth most bummed in the gob by the Ozone layer thing. Short memories...

I read in Super Freakonomics if we had 2 pipes at certain areas of the globe we could funnel Sulphur up through the pipe right into the stratosphere (12 miles high iirc) and due to strong winds the sulphur would be dispersed entirely around the stratoshere of Earth and that would cost something like $20million and reverse all CO2 caused climate change. Plus we would only need a few % of total sulphur we emit right now (the sulphur we do emit only goes up 700feet so doesn't have the same effect). Anybody know any more about this? It's based on a volcano which erupted in the Far East which dispersed an enormous amount of sulphur into the stratosphere and reduced ground tempreture by a few degrees.

Quackers said:

I read in Super Freakonomics if we had 2 pipes at certain areas of the globe we could funnel Sulphur up through the pipe right into the stratosphere (12 miles high iirc) and due to strong winds the sulphur would be dispersed entirely around the stratoshere of Earth and that would cost something like $20million and reverse all CO2 caused climate change. Plus we would only need a few % of total sulphur we emit right now (the sulphur we do emit only goes up 700feet so doesn't have the same effect). Anybody know any more about this? It's based on a volcano which erupted in the Far East which dispersed an enormous amount of sulphur into the stratosphere and reduced ground tempreture by a few degrees.

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It wouldn't do anything to help ocean acidification, which is proceeding to make shellfish extinct and drastically destabilize the world's food chain. Nor do they consider that acid rain will have vast damaging effects on plant life worldwide.

Hmm, but is that a worse outcome then global warming?

El_Machinae said:

This is so frustrating. CLOUD is a proof-of-concept experiment of something that was already believed (or suspected) already. It's why it was allowed to run, because we thought we knew the answer already. But, it's just a seed of an idea, and there's not been sufficient correlation between those rays and temperature change to explain the change.

When you look for changes in a system, you filter out the known cycles, and see what's left. Day and night are massive changes, but we account for them. Seasons too. The El Nino/La Nina. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Sunspots. All of these are cycles, that have measurable (or estimatable) influence. The correlations with the cosmic rays are just not powerful enough to explain the rising temperature. It's like you've noticed that your kettle has excess heat, and are using it to explain the increase in temperature in your house. Yes, the kettle has excess heat, yes it can cause warming. But no, it's not why your house is warming. It's because you've turned on the furnace

As an aside, it's frustrating when someone who rejects 90% of science will cling to a pilot study in order to justify people's pollution. It's a classic cognitive bias. IF you reject the majority of science, then you have NO way of determining whether something is true or not.

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That is just the beginning of the research for that experiment. But here is the problem that you have is that every time the IPCC has come up with a forecast for the future, it has failed to be true. Also some of the things you are describing are localised weather events and these experiments are not about localised events, but about the climate. There is a difference between the two.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-observatory/3702-cern-finds-qsignificantq-cosmic-ray-cloud-effect.html

This is a first step and the research is an important proof of principle showing that the basic process does occur in an artificial environment. The Cosmic Ray hypothesis has not been refuted here. We already know that the principal source of ions in the Troposphere are Cosmic Rays.

This research is an important first experimental step in understanding the influence that Cosmic Rays may have on climate. It is important because the experimental results do not rule out the idea. Opponents of the hypothesis are not denying this, but are instead looking to other data and models to explain why the effect could not work in real life.

Given the unknowns and uncertainties and not forgetting the surprises thrown up in this experiment, perhaps a more humble approach would be better. Science has a way of humbling those who are too certain about things, especially when they are complex and poorly understood…like clouds.

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The bit in bold is important to understand about this study, is that there is more to go in understand how clouds are formed and so far the results have been surprising and we are still to see what the effects are in our atmosphere, but you should be more cautious about saying about accepted science, since that often get overturned when better evidence comes along and shows the previous understanding to be wrong.
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/

A graph they'd prefer you not to notice. Tucked away near the end of online supplementary material, and omitted from the printed CLOUD paper in Nature, it clearly shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules (“particles&#8221 that in the real atmosphere can grow and seed clouds. In an early-morning experimental run at CERN, starting at 03.45, ultraviolet light began making sulphuric acid molecules in the chamber, while a strong electric field cleansed the air of ions. It also tended to remove molecular clusters made in the neutral environment (n) but some of these accumulated at a low rate. As soon as the electric field was switched off at 04.33, natural cosmic rays (gcr) raining down through the roof of the experimental hall in Geneva helped to build clusters at a higher rate. How do we know they were contributing? Because when, at 04.58, CLOUD simulated stronger cosmic rays with a beam of charged pion particles (ch) from the accelerator, the rate of cluster production became faster still. The various colours are for clusters of different diameters (in nanometres) as recorded by various instruments. The largest (black) took longer to grow than the smallest (blue). This is Fig. S2c from supplementary online material for J. Kirkby et al., Nature, 476, 429-433, © Nature 2011

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It's completely a red-herring.

Finding additional cycles is always welcomed. Getting a paper published in Nature is very much not the same thing as getting suppressed.

Secondly, this has nothing to do with whether carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. There's a cosmic ray component to climate, but if you match the cosmic ray cycle with climate, you'll see that it's got its own influence, independent of GHGs.

It is currently unknown whether clouds will form positive feedback cycles or negative feedback cycles with increased warming (for either warming or climate change). There've not been any positive indicators published so far, but there's not enough negative indicators to assume a trend. If clouds are influenced by cosmic rays, then that's great that we find out. But that doesn't change the effect of CO2 on climate.

Quackers said:

I read in Super Freakonomics if we had 2 pipes at certain areas of the globe we could funnel Sulphur up through the pipe right into the stratosphere (12 miles high iirc) and due to strong winds the sulphur would be dispersed entirely around the stratoshere of Earth and that would cost something like $20million and reverse all CO2 caused climate change. Plus we would only need a few % of total sulphur we emit right now (the sulphur we do emit only goes up 700feet so doesn't have the same effect). Anybody know any more about this? It's based on a volcano which erupted in the Far East which dispersed an enormous amount of sulphur into the stratosphere and reduced ground tempreture by a few degrees.

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It's called climate engineering. The approach is to think beyond limiting CO2 emissions (which have steadily increased despite all efforts) and see if we can offset the climate effect of CO2 by other means. There are several proposals, some of them seem to be feasible, others not. However there are a few issues with all of these proposals:

- If you mess with the climate on a global scale, you want to be really sure to know what you are doing. You want to make sure that there are no unintended consequences that could make the situation worse. But as we have no second earth to experiment with, the only possibility is to model it. But there is always the question how good those models actually are.

- Once you know what you are doing, there are ethical concerns. Should one do this if the calculations says that it will help region X, but hurt region Y? There might be a solution, where the industrial nations will benefit, but some poor countries will suffer. Can we say we sacrifice region Y, because the world as a whole will be better off?

- Who gets to do it? Whoever controls the process will have the power to alter the climate of the whole planet. How do you regulate such a thing. And it has to be regulated, as we cannot have everyone altering the climate as he wants. In the worst case you would get a climate war, where multiple entities try to counteract each others measures with unforeseeable consequences for the planet.

- And if the belief spreads that there is a quick fix, even if this isn't really the case, less effort might go into avoiding the problem in the first case, i.e. limiting CO2 emissions.


There are scientists looking into this and my prediction is that we are going to hear more in this direction when the effects of climate change become more evident.