Methane worse than CO2

[Sodafin]

. Interesting. Yet, as correlation is not causation, do you have a point?

I don't think it matters who many times you post that - if no one is saying correlation IS causation, I can't see the relevance.

The first thing has to be to ensure everyone understand what aspects of climate change have already happened, and what is happening now.

We know for a fact that glaciers worldwide are in steady decline, we know ocean levels are rising and that ocean ph is changing. We know the arctic ice is thinning dramatically. We know that these patterns have been steady from around the 1940s to the 1990s, when they began to accelerate.

Given all that - if this is not a result of CO2 and methane warming the atmosphere - how do you explain it?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Is Hawking a climatologist?

Where are his peer reviewed research papers on climate change?

And really what makes climate change sooooo bad?

People will adapt and the polar bears will not die.

Firstly, Hawking is not a climatologist - but as you may be aware, much of climatology is based on physics, an area Hawking is probably one of the worlds most highly respected authorities on.

Until you explain why he is wrong - I'm going to take his word on this.

Why climate change is bad is startlingly obvious, and can be seen already in Spain, Australia, Holland, Bangladesh...you name it. There will be more droughts, more desertification, stranger and stronger storms, shifts in patterns of disease (imagine malaria hitting LA? It could happen) rising sea levels, and a chronic lack of water from people who rely on glacial melt for drinking and agriculture.

Yes, we'll adapt - but it might not be easy for countries who are 20 years behind the race to be ready.

You haven't been here long enough to get the peer reviewed remark I guess.

It's Old Rocks tag line when ever a paper is published that is skeptical of GW

And as I have said climate change is a constant it will always be.

There were times when now inhabited places were uninhabitable because of purely natural forces. There have been droughts and storms of varying intensity and severity as long as the earth has existed and guess what, there will always be such events.

 

[Si modo]

. Interesting. Yet, as correlation is not causation, do you have a point?

I don't think it matters who many times you post that - if no one is saying correlation IS causation, I can't see the relevance.
....

Given all that - if this is not a result of CO2 and methane warming the atmosphere - how do you explain it?

You seem to contradict yourself. First you accept the fact that correlation is not causation, then you imply that there is no other causation. Make up your mind.

 

[Sodafin]

And as I have said climate change is a constant it will always be.

There were times when now inhabited places were uninhabitable because of purely natural forces. There have been droughts and storms of varying intensity and severity as long as the earth has existed and guess what, there will always be such events.

Yes, of course, you are absolutely right. I have been to parts of the Sahara that were once forest.

But if you actually look at the real science of climate change - you realise that what we are experiencing now is critically, definitely different from those natural patterns.

In most previous cases we also know the root causes - local volcanic activity, earthquakes, sun spots, a shift in the earths axis, for instance. Most were changes which took place only in one region, or on one continent. None of those could explain why we now see 99% of the worlds glaciers all melting at almost the same rate, right around the world.

 

[Sodafin]

You seem to contradict yourself. First you accept the fact that correlation is not causation, then you imply that there is no other causation. Make up your mind.

Correlation is not causation - and I've never heard anyone rational say otherwise.

But given what we know for a fact is taking place - what do you think the main cause, or causes, are?

Present a case.

 

[Si modo]

You seem to contradict yourself. First you accept the fact that correlation is not causation, then you imply that there is no other causation. Make up your mind.

Correlation is not causation - and I've never heard anyone rational say otherwise.

But given what we know for a fact is taking place - what do you think the main cause, or causes, are?

Present a case.

Normal cycles, sun, gamma rays, CO2, etc. Let the science and the scientists sort it out. When the state of the science is in a position to make a claim one way or the other, I am sure the lay will know.

 

[Old Rocks]

Scientists have sorted it out very well. From the AGU conferance this month,

The Biggest Control Knob, CO2 in the Earth's History

The Bjerknes lecture from this page;


2009 AGU Fall Meeting: Featured Lectures

 

[Old Rocks]

Is Hawking a climatologist?

Where are his peer reviewed research papers on climate change?

And really what makes climate change sooooo bad?

People will adapt and the polar bears will not die.

Firstly, Hawking is not a climatologist - but as you may be aware, much of climatology is based on physics, an area Hawking is probably one of the worlds most highly respected authorities on.

Until you explain why he is wrong - I'm going to take his word on this.

Why climate change is bad is startlingly obvious, and can be seen already in Spain, Australia, Holland, Bangladesh...you name it. There will be more droughts, more desertification, stranger and stronger storms, shifts in patterns of disease (imagine malaria hitting LA? It could happen) rising sea levels, and a chronic lack of water from people who rely on glacial melt for drinking and agriculture.

Yes, we'll adapt - but it might not be easy for countries who are 20 years behind the race to be ready.

You haven't been here long enough to get the peer reviewed remark I guess.

It's Old Rocks tag line when ever a paper is published that is skeptical of GW

And as I have said climate change is a constant it will always be.

There were times when now inhabited places were uninhabitable because of purely natural forces. There have been droughts and storms of varying intensity and severity as long as the earth has existed and guess what, there will always be such events.

Of course, and there have been times of extreme climate change as well. Times when such changes caused major extinctions. And we know the causes of most of these changes now. Very rapid increases or decreases in CO2. Just because we are the present causitive agent in the present very rapid increase in CO2 and other GHGs will not excuse us from the inevitable physics of such an increase.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Yes, increases in CO2 causes more solar activity! Of course! How could i have missed that?

 

[Old Rocks]

Climate change has been a constant in earth's history and will remain a constant.

To think that we can control climate is hubris of the worst sort.

That being said, I am all for less pollution and more environmentally friendly energy but as I have said before and will say again, it is not the the responsibility of government to spend our tax dollars on it.

If government wants to spur growth in these industries of greener energy then the best thing it can do is get out of the way. Rather than taxing people and businesses and making it less likely that we can afford to upgrade, government should be giving massive tax credits to businesses and individuals that design, produce and implement green energy systems of any sort.

These industries should by definition need very little government oversight as they should be less polluting than current energy production there again saving the taxpayers money and allowing more people to avail themselves of the newer technology.

I see. A technological specie changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere and the acidity of the ocean cannot have impact on climate and life on earth.

Has it occured to you that a very small non-technological organism completly changed the atmosphere of the earth two billion years ago?

We are a democracy. Therefore, the people are the government. And if we decide that we wish to government to sponsor energy that does not emit GHGs, and is non-poluting, then we will do that. And those of you that wish to remain in 1910 can piss and moan, just get the hell out of the way of the majority of us.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

"CO2 keeps inserting itself..." Is this a fucking joke?

 

[Old Rocks]

Oh and Soda was looking for proof of corruption in green energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/world/europe/14wind.html

The town of Santa Lucía Tirajana, host to the annual Grand Slam windsurfing championships, was struck this year with gale force. A yearlong investigation by the Guardia Civil — the Spanish gendarmerie — turned up irregularities in a plan to build a new wind park. Now the mayor, five town officials and two wind park developers are fighting criminal charges that include influence peddling, misuse of public office, misappropriation of land and bribery. The motivation? Up to €40 million in European Union subsidies.

The authorities say it is impossible to quantify the level of fraud in public spending on wind energy because investigations are scattered across different countries among the regional and fiscal police. But critics say the available riches and patchy controls are luring a rogue’s gallery of corrupt politicians and entrepreneurs trying to literally create money out of thin air.

Life lesson:

Wherever large sums of government (taxpayer) money are used for large scale projects, there ye will find corruption.

Ah yes. Since greed is the driving force of capitalism, one must have buku regulations surrounding public funding to prevent Conservative businessmen from ripping off the public. As an example, look at Rick Scott and Medi-care. 1.7 billion in known fraud. And he is the head of the Conservatives for Patient Rights.

Typical Conservative logic. A Conservative rips off the government and taxpayers for huge amounts, and the Conservative blames the governemt and calls for less regulations on the Conservative businessmen.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

"Volcanoes put out CO2..." So why aren't we outlawing volcanoes?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

LOL

"CO2 takes 1/2 million years to work...." from the presentation.

Why do people take Warmers seriously?

I guess ManMade CO2 is Super CO2

 

[Old Rocks]

First, addressing the subject of the thread.

CO2 and CH4 are not seperate issues. As the increasing heat in our atmosphere melts the permafrost and yedoma, a form of permafrost containing a huge amount of water, enormous amounts of both CO2 and CH4 are emmitted. In fact, some lakes now in the yedoma have spots that never freeze in the winter because of the bubbling of the methane.

As the CO2 in our atmosphere has warmed the oceans, including the Arctic Ocean, the shallow clathrates in the Arctic Ocean have began to emit CH4.

Now CH4 is not just 20 to 25 more times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2, it is at least 30 to 60 times as powerful as CO2, because, when it oxidizes, it forms CO2 and H2O. In the upper atmosphere, the latter is especially effective.

There is no known economical way to use the CH4 that is bubbling out of the lakes, the same goes for the ocean clatherates.

We have added 40% more CO2 to the atmosphere. We have also added 250% more CH4. At no time in the last 15 million years have the GHG levels been this high. Then we have also added industrial gases.

The talk of keeping the CO2 level below 450 ppm is misleading. For, counting the effects of methane and industrial GHGs, we have already reached and surpassed that in equivelant heating effects.

Given the dishonesty of the people regarding the effects of AGW, such as the people we see on this board, I do not see us even making a real attempt to get a handle on the CO2 until it is well past 600 ppm, and the world is losing population from the effects. Not that it makes that much differance, because I think that we have already gone past the tipping point where sometime in this century, the stored carbon in the sinks of the permafrost and clathrates will contribute far more than mankind.

PERMAFROST - POTENTIAL CLIMATE BACKBREAKER - Reversing Climate Change - Zimbio

Scientists Sergei Kirpotin of Tomsk State University, Russia and Judith Marquand of the University of Oxford (I could not find a publication by them on this; this is from an issue of New Scientist) have discovered that permafrost in the western Siberian sub-Arctic region is experiencing relatively rapid thawing due to the extremely rapid warming in the region (~3°C in 40 years). Siberian permafrost differs from North America and Europe because they are underlain by yedoma, an organic-rich Pleistocene-age loess permafrost with ice content of 50-90% by volume (Walter et al., 2006). The rapid warming in western Siberia has exposed much permafrost to thawing and the creation of thermokarst yedoma lakes.

Walter et al. (2006) and Walter et al. (2007) have described the uncertainties in estimating the budget of atmospheric methane production from Siberian and other high latitude lakes because most methane is released through ebullition (bubbling), which is spatially and temporally variable. However, through a new technique of mapping bubbling point sources, they have been able to estimate that Siberian yedoma lakes emit ~3.8 teragrams (trillion grams) of methane annually, increasing previous estimates of methane released from the lakes by 58%. Because yedoma lakes are only a fraction of northern lakes, ebullition measurements in other lake regions would probably further increase methane emission estimates.

That's all well and fine.

However, it is also irrelevant. There is no solid science indicating that anthropogenic CO2 is causing warming, thus the irrelevance. As a reminder, correlation is not causation.

And you are totally full of shit. The science is and has been well established for over a century.

Such lies at this are the reason that I hold people such as yourself in total contempt.

Anyone with the slightest scientific education knows damned well that CO2 is the primary determinanent of the temperature on the earth.

At present TSI, without CO2, the Earth would be frozen all the way to the equator. With the CO2 level of Venus, lead would melt on the surface of the earth.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Greenland apparently has localized increases from CO2...holy fucking moly! You guys need to watch the presentation!

Localized! What the fuck? So CO2 apparently does not wonder too far from home in certain cases.

Again, we must produce Super, Fast-Acting, World-Traveling CO2

I wonder when he'll talk about the warming on Mars?

 

[Old Rocks]

However, it is also irrelevant. There is no solid science indicating that anthropogenic CO2 is causing warming, thus the irrelevance. As a reminder, correlation is not causation.

OK - then how do you personally explain the fact that, for instance, 99% of the worlds glaciers are in retreat?

How do you explain the fact that ocean levels are rising, and ocean ph changing?

It's one thing to say that it is not a CO2 issue - another to provide an alternative explanation.

glaciers advanced and retreated for billions of years before man walked upon the earth

That is correct. Right in step with the atmospheric CO2 of the time.

 

[Sodafin]

Normal cycles, sun, gamma rays, CO2, etc. Let the science and the scientists sort it out. When the state of the science is in a position to make a claim one way or the other, I am sure the lay will know.

Ok - and can you present any well regarded and reputable studies which suggest this is the root cause of climate change?

 

[Old Rocks]

LOL

"CO2 takes 1/2 million years to work...." from the presentation.

Why do people take Warmers seriously?

I guess ManMade CO2 is Super CO2

Frank, are you that stupid? Natural cycles of CO2, weathering, ect. take that long. As shown from the reaction of the feedbacks of CO2 from the Milakovic Cycles, the warming and cooling from CO2 occurs in a matter of years, not centuries or millenia.

 

[Si modo]

Scientists have sorted it out very well. From the AGU conferance this month,

The Biggest Control Knob, CO2 in the Earth's History

The Bjerknes lecture from this page;


2009 AGU Fall Meeting: Featured Lectures

What that has to do with AGW, debunking or supporting, remains to be seen.