Environmental Issues

[Gibson]

Just to clarify a point by oscaraustin:

As for tilt, the Earth does wobble, but it takes thousands (maybe it was hundreds, but a long time nonetheless) of years for its tilt to change. So, as far as we're concerned the tilt is always ~23.5º.

The earth's axis is always tilted at 23.5º, but the direction in which it points changes over time. This is called precession. A simple example of this is a top. As a top spins, the direction in which it points changes, but this change occurs very slowely compared to the speed at which it spins. The earth will go through a full precessive cycle every 26 000 years. In about 13 000 years, the tilt will point towards the star Vega, making it the new north star instead of Polaris.

 

[cableguy]

gowar, that is a wonderful question... the same question can be asked about ddt... answer one, and you have answered them both... oh, if you want the short way with no research, the answer is political pressure from "environmental" groups, who really care far more about altering behavior than saving anything...

there is a bit more info available on the ddt thing than there is on cfcs, at least to my knowledge... the reasoning and procedure for banning behind both were rather similar--create a scare, use political leverage, silence the opposition, and under no circumstance let facts get in the way of a good story... environmentalism is the new communism... the stated goals are the same, the lack of tolerance for opposing views is the same, and even the people involved are the same... it isnt about the environment, it is about changing "unfair" behavior..

****EDIT****

i decided to make your life even easier by providing a nice concise story on the banning of ddt, and the resulting 87+ MILLION deaths from malaria, many of which could likely have been avoided... here are the links, again from one of my favorites...

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm
http://www.junkscience.com/malaria_clock.htm

 

[endymion]

I'm totally on the side of being concerned about global warming, but I do agree that without the data of THOUSANDS of years, it's impossible to tell what kind of impact we have on the environment. A few days ago, a small fossilised mammal, the size of a possum, was found with the remains of a small dinosaur in it's stomach. So scientists, who never thought that mammals really got down against the dinos, now have a shitload of new ideas to play with, because the fossil is millions of years old. If we had 23 billion years of data, maybe we'd be able to predict if we should be worried or not.
Iceberg, do you believe what a lot of scientists have said about our time now actually being the end of an Ice Age? I know it's a well-touted theory, would like your opinion.
Another question quickly for the crew - Do you, as I do, believe in the theory of evolution?

 

[Gowar]

Its interesting that you bring up DDT because i read an article for my AP BIO class concerning how People were fed raw DDt and absoultely nothing happend. And also all those bird eggs that were becoming weak due to DDT may have been because of poor polution control and as a result acid rain that ate away the shells. What is rachel carson thinking now? (yes i have read "Silent Spring")

 

[cableguy]

the folks still alive in hitlers concentration camps in the waning days of ww2 were actually BATHED in the stuff before being allowed to wander about... the thing to keep in mind above all else is that while there a noble few who believe the right thing needs to be done, and believe the supporting evidence to whatever their case may be, the majority of folks in the inviro-movement simply want higher density housing, fewer, if any, cars and trucks, a more "fair" wealth distribution, etc... it truly is the new face of communism...

welcome back, endy, you have been missed!!

 

[Iceberg]

Back to the climate change issue. Here's an excellent broadcast on NPR about the issue:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4615721

 

[mindido]

I kind of wondered if this would ever get started again. Anyway, there is also an excellent 4 part series on PBS from National Geographic called "Strange Days on Planet Earth". I've seen the first two about invasive species and climate change, both very informative. You can find more info here,

http://www.pbs.org/strangedays/index_flash.html

Highly recommended.

 

[Iceberg]

Here's the "smoking gun" that human activities are causing climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=148

The GHGs that are on the rise are increasing as a result of our energy use, and this increase is causing an increase in atmospheric temperature. No other factors have been cited and can be cited as the primary cause for this warming.

The study can be found here:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/HansenNazarenkoR.html

The PDF file is here:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_HansenNazarenkoR.pdf

The dataset is here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/imbalance/

 

[Duke E. Pyle]

"The recent paper in Science Express by Hansen et al (on which I am a co-author)"... :lol: 1st sentence, and that is as far as i got.

 

[Iceberg]

Duke, he's a scientist, not a propagandist. If you would read it you may actually learn something about the climate system, rather than being fed by the propaganda BS being put out by public relations directors of the fossil fuel industry.

If you want to learn something about the climate system, you would be better off consulting something written by a climatologist (a scientist who studies the climate system) rather than by an economist (who studies the economy) or a geologist (who studies the terrestrial environment). Economists and geologists, while being educated about their chosen fields, know nothing about the climate system compared to a climatologist, which Dr. Gavin Schmidt can call himself.

This is similar to this situation: if you had a medical condition and wanted to know more about it, you would consult a medical doctor rather than an English teacher.

 

[cableguy]

really, the ONLY question that we need the answer to remains "what temperature, taken where, is what the correct temperature SHOULD be???"

 

[Iceberg]

really, the ONLY question that we need the answer to remains "what temperature, taken where, is what the correct temperature SHOULD be???"

Well, as previous RealClimate threads have illustrated, for the few centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution (c. 1850) and after the Medieval Warm Period, the global climate was experiencing a cooling trend, which appeared to have supposed to be continuing for the next couple of centuries (at least). Due to the Industrial Revolution and exponential increases in population since then (and the accompanied increase in fossil fuel consumption, leading to exponential increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations leading to an exponential increase in global temperatures), this cooling trend has completely and suddenly reversed.

As for what "the correct temperature SHOULD be," it doesn't matter what the number "SHOULD be." What matters is how much less it should be compared to what it is today. To achieve climatic equilibrium, we would have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the point where a) the global mean temperature would stabilise, and b) manage somehow to reduce the temperature to where it was (under the same planetary conditions, i.e. biological, chemical, and physical) prior to the Industrial Revolution.

To answer your question, though, the "correct [global mean] temperature," as indicated by several textbooks I have used for university climatology courses, "SHOULD be" about 15 C (or about 60 F). However, today this number is not accurate, since over the last century-and-a-half, the global mean temperature has risen about 0.6 C (or just over a degree F), but is forecast by climate models (which are far more accurate and perform many different operations than the weather models, which skeptics seem to like to villify) to rise another 1.4 C to 5.8 C (or about 2.6 F to 11.4 F) by the end of this century, primarily due to human activities.

 

[war|forever]

Hey Iceberg, what's gonna happen when you melt into the oceans due to increased global warming? You might have to change your name to "High-Ocean Level". Not as catchy, I'll admit, but something to think about.

 

[Iceberg]

A great article by the great, Pulitzer-prize winning, Ross Gelbspan:

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:110479

 

[cableguy]

i am glad to know that the earths temperature is supposed to be a constant, never changing thing... i was unaware of this, and thank you for the information... i guess all i have read about climate cycles, ice ages, inter-glacial periods, and anything else indicating any temperature change at all is complete crap...

yesterday, i took random samplings from four places in my yard... they were all the same!!! the thing that really scares me, though, is that between 7am and 4pm, there was an increase in the global temperature of about 20 degrees!!!! if this trend continues, we will all be dead within a month!!! WHY DIDNT I LISTEN TO YOU EARLIER????

or, alternately, this is all normal, and supposed to happen... i direct you once again to http://www.junkscience.com for a factual, scientific representation of why the concept of global warming is questionable, and if it does exist, it might be a normal cycle... there is also a fascinating counter on exactly what the kyoto disaster will do in 50 years, and what it has done to the global temp to date... you will LOVE that one...

iceberg, go ahead and by a scooter or a spec, put all the corn syrup in your gas tank that you want to, build a windmill in your yard, eat tofu if you want, but please keep your speculative theories away from my lifestyle and livlihood... here is an interesting writeup on ice ages that you might want to peruse... it comes from the university of north carolina, and as it is a government funded university, it can generally be counted on to disagree with me... not this time...

http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/win2000/rial.htm

i have a new challenge for you, iceberg, as you have still been unable to come up with the correct temperature that the earth SHOULD be, SHOULD have been, or SHOULD be in the future... find me something that says we will never have another ice age unless the evil humans are stopped... if you are right about global warming, there should be a lot of things out there about this... if not, the numbers seem to be falling between 10.000 and 40,000 years or so until the next one.. if nothing is done about global warming, your people believe the sky will fall, life will end, and earth becomes a barren desert wasteland... i believe that everything you see now is normal, or close to it, and that the planet and its climate are self correcting... life will go on, you and yours will always be paranoid about something, in direct relation to whatever party is in control in dc... (when a democrat is president, there are no homeless people, the sky isnt falling, the rest of the world isnt out to get us, etc...)

 

[mindido]

Cableguy,

One of these days your going to have to get your head out of your ass and wisen up. Why do you follow the Fox News quacks so blindly? I followed your link several months ago after you posted it and could not believe that you mentioned it. It has NO basis in anything other than furthering a political or business agenda. Don't believe me? Check out this site http://skepdic.com/refuge/junkscience.html from a scientist that actually knows something of what he is saying.

Remember what I said long ago about the old saying, "If you can't dazzle em with brilliance, baffle em with bullshit." Thats exactly what your junk science site is doing.

 

[Texan]

"The most recent glacial retreat is still going on. We call the temporal period of this retreat the Holocene epoch. This warming of the Earth and subsequent glacial retreat began about 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC)."

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html

Global warming is natural, deal with it.

 

[Iceberg]

i am glad to know that the earths temperature is supposed to be a constant, never changing thing... i was unaware of this, and thank you for the information...

I never said the Earth's temperature "is supposed to be a constant, never-changing thing." If you read my previous posts, you would have seen that I had said the mean global temperature was cooling before the Industrial Revolution.

I am saying that the current temperature isn't what it should have been if people didn't go and burn fossil fuels and cut down a gazillion trees. Had humans not done such significant things to damage the planet, we wouldn't be experiencing this warming trend we are forced to deal with.

The UNC article makes no real connection to the current warming we are experiencing. It has long-term climate implications, not the short-term change which we are observing today, so it is completely irrelevant. Solar variations have no part in what is occurring today.

"The most recent glacial retreat is still going on. We call the temporal period of this retreat the Holocene epoch. This warming of the Earth and subsequent glacial retreat began about 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC)."

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7x.html

Global warming is natural, deal with it.

Ummm...No. The current warming is far from natural. As I said earlier, the Earth was undergoing a cooling period before the Industrial Revolution, but has since warmed as a result of human activities.

The warming the planet experienced roughly 14,000 years ago had plateau-ed a few thousand years after the glaciers had melted. During this interglacial (the period between glaciations, after the glacial retreat and prior to the next glacial advance), the temperature should remain somewhat constant (plus or minus a couple degrees C) as a natural fluctuation, but the rate of change should not exceed about a half-degree C per century.

The current warming, however, is accelerating and had exceeded a half-degree C from 1900 to 1999. The next century, it is predicted to be between 1.4 and 5.8 C, with the higher number being more likely.

Please, for the love of God, read something by a real scientist (and not some lame-brained pseudo-scientist hack like Steve Milloy) before blabbing. The site www.realclimate.org would be a good start.

iceberg, go ahead and by a scooter or a spec, put all the corn syrup in your gas tank that you want to, build a windmill in your yard, eat tofu if you want, but please keep your speculative theories away from my lifestyle and livlihood...

This lifestyle is what is going to inundate Tuvalu, the Maldives, MIAMI, NEW YORK, BOSTON, and NEW ORLEANS!!! If people who lived this way would actually become unselfish, perhaps the people who have lived in these places would still be able to live there (where they have been for centuries) at some point a hundred years from now.

In a way, unconsciously or not, a crime against humanity is taking place.

 

[Duke E. Pyle]

More Scientist are leaning toward the belief of a "rapid climate change" for the explanation of the dinosaurs extinction as discussed on Discovery Channel. Could this also be "not natural"? Pick your scientist to support your own theory in dealing with any subject i suppose.

 

[Iceberg]

More Scientist are leaning toward the belief of a "rapid climate change" for the explanation of the dinosaurs extinction as discussed on Discovery Channel. Could this also be "not natural"?

It is not completely natural, necessarily, since one of the largest mass extinctions was caused by a giant meteor or asteroid which struck the Earth (around the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico). The object threw up so much debris into the atmosphere that a high percentage of the Sun's rays were blocked from reaching the surface, which significantly cooled the planet, making life inhospitable for the dinosaurs.

Other mass extinctions were caused by much higher-than-normal volcanic activity, which did the same, ejected great quantities of debris which blocked solar radiation from reaching the Earth's surface, again cooling the planet.

Also, have you noticed these events are all cooling events. None of these mass extinctions were warming events. Zero. Nada. So, the planet has yet (until now) to experience a potential mass extinction through warming. Hopefully this won't happen, but it looks like it is underway.