Environment gets Bushed

[I'm Cleo!]

Seriously, Ziggy: just watch the video if you want to know.*

Cleo

*Cf.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Oh wait, that's not what I meant. This is:

 

[Simple Simon]

So watch it when you get home.

Why should I? You want to make a point in a text-based forum, you post a text. Or is the content to complex for you to summarize?
Moderator Action: The final part of the sentence is unnecessary.

Other people do post videos to make points. Its not unheard of.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Why don't you tell us what those vids are about? Not all people can watch youtube videos during work!

And not all people can get youtube videos to work at all without several minutes of twiddling settings on a browser that isn't particularly youtube-compatible. And not all people have good enough speakers/ears to discern the crappy sound quality - though I don't know whether that's youtube's or these specific videos' fault. And even then, it's hard to reply unless we transcribe what's being said or refer to it very generally.

So I have a better suggestion: skadistic, why don't you make an argument and use videos to back it up? If you default to youtube videos, I'll respond by defaulting to the scientific consensus, which has much higher credibility.

Anyway, here's a Cliffs Notes of the first three minutes, for anyone who cares.

[shiny background of color-coded worldmap]
Recent Evidence for Reduced Climate Sensitivity
Roy W. Spencer, PhD

"I'm going to try to put [tie?] to the claim that no real [climate?] scientists publish evidence that doesn't agree with the idea that GW is a [?] problem. Now, being ex-NASA, I'm in favor of [?] of planet earth..." [generic-sounding talking]
Recent Research Supporting Reduced Climate Sensitivity
(negative feedback, or reduced positive feedback)

* Spencer, Braswell, Christy & Hnilo, 2007: Cloud and Radiation Budget Changes Associated with Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations, Geophysical Research Letters, August 9.
- A composite of the 15 strognest intraseasonal oscillations during 2000-2005 show strong negative cloud feedback (Lindzen's "infrared iris")

* Spencer & Braswell, 2008: Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration, J. Climate (conditionally accepted)
- Daily random cloud cover variations can cause SST variability that "looks like" positive cloud feedback

[caption:] Recorded at the International conference On Climate change , New York , March 2008

Natural Climate Variability Gives the Opportunity to Investigate Climate Sensitivity (1/feedbacks)
Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere*
(Jan. 1979 - Jan. 2008)
[picture of a graph that is unreadable due to resolution crap, but it has a zigzagging blue line and an upwards-going black line that's probably a trend line.]

[Guy talks about how NASA Terra satellite has been providing data since 2000]
[arrow bounces around graph in the manner of a PowerPoint presentation made by a 12-year-old]
[Guy talks about how he was involved with NASA Aqua satellite]
"Now for me, the big question when we ask how much global warming we're gonna see from extra CO2, is: How sensitive is the climate system? ..." [guy talks about how IPCC reports focus on positive feedback, then goes on to discuss somewhat abstruse-sounding feedback mechanisms]

Climate Sensitivity ~ 1/feedbacks
so, Positive or Negative Feedbacks?
*With zero feedbacks, 2xCO2 => 1 deg. C warming (yawn)
*Climate Modelers say Feedbacks Positive, possibly strongly positive (tipping points, etc.)
-Positive water vapor feedback (natural greenhouse effect)
-Positive LW cloud feedback (natural greenhouse effect)
-Positive SW cloud feedback (albedo effect)
-Negative lapse rate feedback (warming incr. with height)

"LW is long wave, SW is short wave..." [talks about clouds and how they emit, absorb and [track?] short and long wave energy stuff]

 

[History_Buff]

Nope. It won't. I've been through college-level chemistry, and I've seen the formulas.

When fuel burns poorly, it produces less CO2, more carbon monoxide (which has different effects on global climate than straight-up CO2), more nasty carcinogens, more solid soot--and also leaves more of the fuel unburned. When a car is running poorly, a goodly portion of the crap coming out of the tailpipe is unburned gasoline.

But the difference won't substantial, when you start talking about billions of vehicles all averaging out. Some will do worse than baseline, others worse.


It all comes down to the part where nothing is ever known exactly. Somethings are easier than others to measure, and yes there are uncertainties associated with measuring any quantity like this. But that doesn't validate you throwing the entire number away.

Uncertainty and systematic biases are inescapable, and are an accepted part of science.

 

[El_Machinae]

The fuel efficiency doesn't really matter, because market conditions cause fuel efficiency to increase. We all want km/l out of our cars, India included, and so their efficiency will rise over time.

And where is that mystery extra biomass that takes up nearly all of your additional CO2? That is the reason why we should not worry about burning fossil fuels? I ain't seeing any!


Indeed. reactive, and minimal.

And the additional biomass would what? Accumulate on the ocean floor? Be moved into subduction zones long term?


If it was only so simple!

I'm sorry, are you saying that biomass doesn't increase under increased CO2 ppm levels?

Where did I say that we shouldn't worry about CO2? We can use biomass to sequester CO2, but it's only a response to increasing CO2 levels. Each year, the biomass does some sequestering, but it doesn't change the fact that CO2 levels are rising also.

 

[skadistic]

So I have a better suggestion: skadistic, why don't you make an argument and use videos to back it up? If you default to youtube videos, I'll respond by defaulting to the scientific consensus, which has much higher credibility.

Thanks for you suggestion. You do what ever you need to.

 

[Simple Simon]

I'm sorry, are you saying that biomass doesn't increase under increased CO2 ppm levels?

Not to the extent BasketCase originally suggested, i.e. to the extent that it takes up all the additional CO2 from fossil fuels. In theory, it could, but that would mean that we would have to see a massive increase in biomass, and I was asking him where it is.

Where did I say that we shouldn't worry about CO2? We can use biomass to sequester CO2, but it's only a response to increasing CO2 levels. Each year, the biomass does some sequestering, but it doesn't change the fact that CO2 levels are rising also.

Exactly my point: a little additional growth may happen, and a little additional sequetration (but are we sure that sequestration is higher than it would be without fossil CO2?), but BY FAR not enough to catch up with the CO2 that we are adding.

 

[shadowplay]

This is an episode of Penn and Teller's TV show ". .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .!" that some people here might find interesting. They do a pretty good job of summing up the position of the global warming skeptics:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=8917946
Warning: Mild language.

 

[El_Machinae]

Not to the extent BasketCase originally suggested, i.e. to the extent that it takes up all the additional CO2 from fossil fuels. In theory, it could, but that would mean that we would have to see a massive increase in biomass, and I was asking him where it is.



Exactly my point: a little additional growth may happen, and a little additional sequetration (but are we sure that sequestration is higher than it would be without fossil CO2?), but BY FAR not enough to catch up with the CO2 that we are adding.

Ah, I see.

Well, of course it's not enough. That's why CO2 ppm is rising each year. There's no expectation that biomass will sequester more than the CO2 increase, since it's reactive.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

 

[Simple Simon]

Ah, I see.

Well, of course it's not enough. That's why CO2 ppm is rising each year. There's no expectation that biomass will sequester more than the CO2 increase, since it's reactive.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

No need to be sorry - the initial claim by BC was never to be found in THIS thread, so you could not know what I was addressing

Theoretically, biomass COULD sequester more than the CO2 increase, albeit with a delay. We might see, for example, a significant increase in the ability to sequester CO2 in swampy areas and moors, which might need a few centuries to build up - however, nothing of that sort is happening, despite the fact that the anthropogenic CO2 rise is relatively old news (~5000 years).

 

[History_Buff]

This is an episode of Penn and Teller's TV show ". .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .!" that some people here might find interesting. They do a pretty good job of summing up the position of the global warming skeptics:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=8917946
Warning: Mild language.

I'm only 6 minutes in, but this video seems to target the anti-corporate 'save-the-rainforest' type environmental protesters. Which is not really the argument happening here.

EDIT: Oh, and here they go with the old DHMO thing, which has failed countless idiots, regardless of political or environmental views.

 

[BasketCase]

No, actually you do not have to measure what comes out.

Yes, you do. You refuse to do so. Therefore your claims are bullcrap.

Human consumption of oxygen is going up. This should cause planetary oxygen to go down--but it's not. Planetary oxygen is not changing. How do you explain this?

If you fail to produce an explanation, then my explanations stand. I've produced two already: either world plant biomass is increasing, or current plant biomass is producing oxygen at a higher rate. I am not required to provide any further proof at all; via existence proof, it is fact that one of my two explanations MUST be occurring.

Either that, or provide a third explanation. There is at least one. Can anyone find it?

If not, then I'm right.

Well, of course it's not enough. That's why CO2 ppm is rising each year. There's no expectation that biomass will sequester more than the CO2 increase, since it's reactive.

Sorry for my misunderstanding.

Here's the thing people are misunderstanding in here: yes, the absorption of CO2 by plants is reactive; when CO2 levels go up, it's some time before the plants start gobbling it up. Now, here's the part people are missing--when CO2 levels go DOWN, it is some time before the CO2 consumption by plants goes down.

The only reason plants haven't caught up to our increased pollution already is because our emissions keep going up. Eventually the world's plants are likely to catch up to us--and then keep growing. This happens with all spiecies frequently; a bountiful food supply causes a species to grow like wildfire, consume the surplus food supply, then starve.

This is exactly the basis of one of the many hypothetical Doomsday scenarios listed on the Exit Mundi web site. CO2 levels go up, causing plants to grow faster. Then human beings reduce their emissions--but the plants are still there and eat up most of the CO2, reducing CO2 levels to near-zero levels. End result: Ice Age. Some of the scenarios on Exit Mundi border on science fiction (and a few ARE science fiction!) but this one is entirely possible.

 

[Cutlass]

When the oceans absorb a lot of CO2, shellfish die and leave a gaping hole in the food chain. Coral also, and reefs dissolve.

 

[BasketCase]

But the difference won't substantial, when you start talking about billions of vehicles all averaging out.

And the average is.....what?

Six and a half billion people buy X amount of fuel--and then, where does that fuel go? How much is used driving at five miles an hour? How much at fifty miles an hour? How much escapes from the engine without being burned? How much is used to clean up oil stains in the driveway? How much evaporates from the gas can stored in your garage?

How much ends up as CO rather than CO2? Yes, the one will fairly quickly turn into the other, but that process in itself produces a wide variety of warming effects--after the CO turns into CO2, you have a different global warming input than you would have gotten if the gasoline had all turned straight into CO2. So no dice there either, guys--you have to measure carbon monoxide output.


There is strong evidence that human beings were producing significant global warming effects six thousand years ago--when there were very few humans alive on Earth compared to today. In fact, of all the humans who have EVER lived on planet Earth, more than five percent of them are alive at this very moment.

You have to measure for realz in order to know. And if we don't currently have the means to do so (and we don't) we need to build one. There was some company somewhere that proposed a set of orbital satellites to measure and track worldwide plant biomass, and I think that's a really good idea.

Plus, the fact that somebody is proposing a system to measure plant biomass means that we don't yet have a system to measure plant biomass.....

 

[BasketCase]

[MANDATORY E-SARCASM TAG] I theorize that the moon landing was a hoax because "it was a hoax" is the simplest explanation, and making up fake broadcasts is easier than sending people to the moon.[/MANDATORY E-SARCASM TAG]

Mmm hmm. So, then, how do you explain why radio and television receivers on Earth were picking up radio transmissions FROM THE MOON....?

We know they came from the moon because their origin could be triangulated in three dimensions. You can't fake that with a transmitter on Earth or in orbit.

So, you would have me believe that a whole bunch of people (from everywhere on Earth, not just the U.S.) were bribed/coerced by the government to fake and lie about Apollo 11's transmissions? You're talking about the U.S. government contacting EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, who picked those transmissions up.

Your "simple" explanation just got a lot more complicated. Same reason the movie "Contact" was kind of bogus. Astronomers on Earth would have known right from the get-go that the alien radio signal was actually from Vega simply by pointing two radio antennas in different parts of the world at it, and triangulating. Hell, even I've got the mathematical know-how to do that (though I'm short a couple of antenna dishes.....)

 

[History_Buff]

So, you would have me believe that a whole bunch of people (from everywhere on Earth, not just the U.S.) were bribed/coerced by the government to fake and lie about Apollo 11's transmissions? You're talking about the U.S. government contacting EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, who picked those transmissions up.

And you (or more properly, Skad) would have us believe that a whole bunch of people (from everywhere on Earth, not just Europe) were bribed/coerced by a government to fake and lie about indicators of climate change? You're talking about some organization contacting EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, who saw those indicators.

Quite frankly, I trust the scientists when they tell me they've done their best to calculate the effects AGW will have.

 

[Simple Simon]

BasketCase, I've had it with your posts constantly NOT bringing anything but yadda-yadda of the 'I am right' version.

You suggested that plant biomass increase will cancel out or additional CO2, a claim you just repeated here:

Eventually the world's plants are likely to catch up to us

So, for the last time I am asking you: If that was the case, and humans have been adding CO2 for 5000 years now, where is that added biomass?

It is not in forests - we are cutting them down.
It is not in swamps - we are drying them out.
It is not in prairies - we are turning them into deserts.
It is not in steppes - we are turning those into desert, too.
It is not in the ocean - we do not see a massive increase in phytoplankton.

WHERE IS YOUR MYSTERY PLANT MASS????????????

There seems to have been a slight increase, but in the last 50 years or so we have done our best to REDUCE plant biomass, especially in tropical forests. So where is it?

So far, all you have provided is a PREDICTION that it exists, but you have not shown where it is. Do so, and I will take you seriously. Don't, and , wel.......

 

[ainwood]

BWHERE IS YOUR MYSTERY PLANT MASS????????????

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/surprise-earths-biosphere-is-booming-co2-the-cause/

The SeaWiFS instrument aboard the Seastar satellite has been collecting ocean data since 1997. By monitoring the color of reflected light via satellite, scientists can determine how successfully plant life is photosynthesizing. A measurement of photosynthesis is essentially a measurement of successful growth, and growth means successful use of ambient carbon. This animation shows an average of 10 years worth of SeaWiFS data. Dark blue represents warmer areas where there tends to be a lack of nutrients, and greens and reds represent cooler nutrient-rich areas which support life. The nutrient-rich areas include coastal regions where cold water rises from the sea floor bringing nutrients along and areas at the mouths of rivers where the rivers have brought nutrients into the ocean from the land.

See an animation of the Earth;s Biosphere: 512×288 (30 fps) MPEG-1 10 MB. More here at NASA SVS

Included article:

In praise of CO2

With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green
Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post, Don Mills, Ontario
Saturday, June 07, 2008

Planet Earth is on a roll! GPP is way up. NPP is way up. To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.

GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere –the amount of new plant matter on land. NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe’s production. Biomass is booming. The planet is the greenest it’s been in decades, perhaps in centuries.

Until the 1980s, ecologists had no way to systematically track growth in plant matter in every corner of the Earth — the best they could do was analyze small plots of one-tenth of a hectare or less. The notion of continuously tracking global production to discover the true state of the globe’s biota was not even considered.

Then, in the 1980s, ecologists realized that satellites could track production, and enlisted NASA to collect the data. For the first time, ecologists did not need to rely on rough estimates or anecdotal evidence of the health of the ecology: They could objectively measure the land’s output and soon did — on a daily basis and down to the last kilometer.

The results surprised Steven Running of the University of Montana and Ramakrishna Nemani of NASA, scientists involved in analyzing the NASA satellite data. They found that over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth’s vegetated landmass — almost 110 million square kilometres — enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines. When the satellite data zooms in, it finds that each square metre of land, on average, now produces almost 500 grams of greenery per year.

Why the increase? Their 2004 study, and other more recent ones, point to the warming of the planet and the presence of CO2, a gas indispensable to plant life. CO2 is nature’s fertilizer, bathing the biota with its life-giving nutrients. Plants take the carbon from CO2 to bulk themselves up — carbon is the building block of life — and release the oxygen, which along with the plants, then sustain animal life. As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: “Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century.”

From the 2004 abstract: Our results indicate that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally. The largest increase was in tropical ecosystems. Amazon rain forests accounted for 42% of the global increase in net primary production, owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar radiation.

Lush as the planet may now be, it is as nothing compared to earlier times, when levels of CO2 and Earth temperatures were far higher. In the age of the dinosaur, for example, CO2 levels may have been five to 10 times higher than today, spurring a luxuriantly fertile planet whose plant life sated the immense animals of that era. Planet Earth is also much cooler today than during the hothouse era of the dinosaur, and cooler than it was 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warming Period, when the Vikings colonized a verdant Greenland. Greenland lost its colonies and its farmland during the Little Ice Age that followed, and only recently started to become green again.

This blossoming Earth could now be in jeopardy, for reasons both natural and man-made. According to a growing number of scientists, the period of global warming that we have experienced over the past few centuries as Earth climbed out of the Little Ice Age is about to end. The oceans, which have been releasing their vast store of carbon dioxide as the planet has warmed — CO2 is released from oceans as they warm and dissolves in them when they cool — will start to take the carbon dioxide back. With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green, especially in areas such as Canada’s Boreal forests, which have been major beneficiaries of the increase in GPP and NPP.

Doubling the jeopardy for Earth is man. Unlike the many scientists who welcome CO2 for its benefits, many other scientists and most governments believe carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant that must be removed from the atmosphere at all costs. Governments around the world are now enacting massive programs in an effort to remove as much as 80% of the carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed. The second order effects could be dire, too. To bolster food production, humans will likely turn to energy intensive manufactured fertilizers, depleting our store of non-renewable resources. Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere also sound alarms. Carbon sequestration, a darling of many who would mitigate climate change, could become a top inducer of earthquakes, according to Christian Klose, a geohazards researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Because the carbon sequestration schemes tend to be located near cities, he notes, carbon-sequestration-caused earthquakes could exact an unusually high toll.

Amazingly, although the risks of action are arguably at least as real as the risks of inaction, Canada and other countries are rushing into Earth-altering carbon schemes with nary a doubt. Environmentalists, who ordinarily would demand a full-fledged environmental assessment before a highway or a power plant can be built, are silent on the need to question proponents or examine alternatives.

Earth is on a roll. Governments are too. We will know soon enough if we’re rolled off a cliff.

 

[Simple Simon]

ainwood, I know about upwilling areas, and I can also read satellite data, e.g. from the amazon era. Interestingly, there biomass is in a whopping DECLINE - with a reduction of photosynthesis rate and biomass of about 50% when primary rain forest is cleared. Sure, initially you will see enormous growth after the slash&burn, and the folks that wrote your nice propaganda article sure love that data - but what about the average seen over ten years? Same goes for African and Asian rain forests and Canadian boreal forests and and and. Sorry, the claim they make is not believable, simply because it appears to me, who has seen loads of data on deforestation, that they are high-grading the data: picking what they like, even if that makes their conclusions wrong.

Also, faster photosynthesis only reduces CO2 levels if the created biomass is there to stay, that means reproduced at a rate equal to its destruction. Certainly by far not the case when forests are cleared, certainly not the case when reefs die. The on average EXISTING biomass must go up to sequester CO2, the REPLACEMENT rate is irrelevant.