Moderated: Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by bobwtfomg

again here is the quote from the articlehttp://grist.org/article/the-climate-solution-got-cows/


I can see how you may interpret the bolded part to mean "annual emission rates don't increase" rather than stopping emissions as it is slightly ambiguous. But if we look at the figures, current levels of CO2 are 400 ppm, 120 ppm above pre industrial levels and the claim the article is making is that it's possible to sequester the equivalent of 2.5 ppm CO2 per annum and so it would take 48 years to get back to pre industrial levels if emissions are reduced to zero.
However current levels of emissions are roughly 2 ppm per annum so with no reductions in emissions it would take 240 years.

Of course this also assumes that it is actually possible to continually sequester carbon in 10 billion acres (which is almost a third of the world's land) I had a quick look at the references at the end of the article and found nothing to back this assumption.

It also assumes that emission levels are constant, which is not in evidence. Emission levels (globally) are currently increasing at 2.2% per year. Additionally, active management and sequestration at this scale is both labor intensive and expensive. Finally, this all assumes that no tipping points are surpassed as the full equilibration levels are reached, turning current sinks into active emission sources.

[Haig]

Originally Posted by CapelDodger

The subject is climate change, not why we have a climate at all. If the change in solar output is a few tenths of a percent, to claim it has a significant (that is, consequential) impact on climate does require an explanation. I don't see an obvious one. Do you?

Heat is heat. A forcing is a forcing. The claim that solar change of a few tenths of a percent exerts a greater forcing than AGW requires some explanation (CO₂ has increased by 40%, that's a few tenths, and not of a percent). I don't have one. Do you?

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?

Quote:

Of particular importance is the sun's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, which peaks during the years around solar maximum. Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more. This can strongly affect the chemistry and thermal structure of the upper atmosphere.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by Red Baron Farms

This may not be as scientifically presented as people like in this forum, but us farmers take it very seriously and behind the scenes it actually is all based on science.
...

I can't help but feel that your proposal may have helped our situation if it had been embraced globally around the middle of the last century. Currently, the rate of increase is too high, the expense too much, and the time frame of producing payoff too long. Another unfortunate side effect of this type of amelioration is that it and the conditions upon which it is prefaced have to be globally accepted and adopted to function properly, if major, impoverished nations do not fully commit to the effort and expense, everyone else is just spinning their wheels.

I would love for there to be a cheap easy solution that could be easily and universally adopted, but I just haven't seen anything that compellingly indicates that such exists.

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by jimbob

I have nothing against putting carbon back into the soil, where (in the form of organic matter) it is beneficial.

The problem is how to achieve that economically and at a sufficient rate.

Unfortunately it seems as if the natural carbon sinks are being overwhelmed, and I haven't seen enough to convince me that the carbon-sinking efficiency of any farming technique is adequate - or indeed whether it would be more area-efficient than some of the natural processes it would be competing against (farmland would have been forest, grassland or some other environment before being converted - this is especially true in the rainforest regions that are being deforested to make way for extensive farming)

OK A couple things. Right off the top you can empty the CAFO's and put the animals back on the land. That restores grassland. That also reduces the need for the majority of grain production (except rice). Right there alone by itself you turn an annual net increase of carbon into a net decrease. Various forms of MIRG out produce CAFO in terms of meat and other animal products produced per acre too, while restoring vast acreages to functioning carbon sinks.

But lets not stop there. That might not be fast enough. System of Rice Intensification is an organic or mostly organic method that actually outproduces even the best conventional rice production while adding significant organic material to the soil. (instead of depleting it)

BUT hey, even that might be enough all by itself. Sure it reduces total carbon in the atmosphere, but maybe levels wont drop fast enough. Let's not stop there. Lets be triple sure. There are after all still vast acreages in wheat, corn and other grains that are not fed to animals. We humans eat some too. Not as much as animals in CAFO's, but we like our bread too. So lets look at that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjI2zWf4uMI

Gee, you don't even have to be organic. Just incorporate organic techniques and poof, just like magic even conventional ag grain and soy fields turn into carbon sinks too.

But hey, maybe you want to be quadruple sure. What about biofuels? Disregarding the fact that biofuels made from grain are a huge waste of energy, and sometimes in a bad crop year don't even return as much energy as it costs to produce them, Biofuels made from switchgrass just so happens to produce 5 times the total biomass, sinks carbon in the soil, and uses far less energy to produce, making it a net gain in BOTH reducing FF AND sequestering carbon. And guess what? Cows just happen to be the keystone species of animal that makes switchgrass thrive. Those same cows that are now taken out of the CAFO's above. What a coincidence.

But hey, maybe you want to be quintriple sure. After all there are bound to be some non compliant farmers or countries somewhere. Got to make up for them too. No problem. We increased livestock production per acre, we increased rice production per acre, we turned conventional grain farms into carbon sinks without reducing productivity and reduced demand for conventional grains. That leaves a ton of land free to be reforested without reducing food production the least tiny bit. And what does reforesting do? You guessed it. Forests sequester carbon too. And just in case someone might complain about loss of food. Permaculture has a model called food forests that sequester carbon and improve the environment while at the same time producing tons of food per acre. If you know what you are doing, you can put them even in the deserts of Jordan, the barren lands of Ethiopia, all over the place. Deforested wet places like the rain forests are a piece of cake for starting permaculture food forests.

All of those solutions I mentioned actually improve the productivity of the land and produce income instead of costing multi mega gazzillions. Most even reduce FF use at the same time they sequester carbon.

All that is needed is for people to say enough is enough, quit squabbling over minutia like sunspot activity etc.. and just do it.

And let's say you are still a skeptic and think it still won't be fast enough. OK then that's when we are forced to implement the expensive multi mega gazzillion dollar high tech studies and projects. But maybe since a huge amount of carbon is already being sinked in up to 4,908 Mha of agricultural land, it won't cost quite so much? Hey?

Ever calculate how much even a 1% increase in carbon in one ha of soil amounts to? Do the Math yourself. You'll be stunned. Now multiple that by 4,908 Mha. and realize 5% is a very conservative AVERAGE of what can be done. And 4,908 Mha doesn't include currently barren land that can be restored.

[macdoc]

Quote:

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?

Haig - you need to read the conclusion of that article instead of implying it's a major overlooked factor in global climate change

Quote:

In recent years, researchers have considered the possibility that the sun plays a role in global warming. After all, the sun is the main source of heat for our planet. The NRC report suggests, however, that the influence of solar variability is more regional than global. The Pacific region is only one example.
Caspar Amman of NCAR noted in the report that "When Earth's radiative balance is altered, as in the case of a change in solar cycle forcing, not all locations are affected equally. The equatorial central Pacific is generally cooler, the runoff from rivers in Peru is reduced, and drier conditions affect the western USA."
Raymond Bradley of UMass, who has studied historical records of solar activity imprinted by radioisotopes in tree rings and ice cores, says that regional rainfall seems to be more affected than temperature. "If there is indeed a solar effect on climate, it is manifested by changes in general circulation rather than in a direct temperature signal."
This fits in with the conclusion of the IPCC and previous NRC reports that solar variability is NOT the cause of global warming over the last 50 years.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

If IF the variation is higher - it remains a magnitude below GHG and is regional and of more impact to rainfall.

Now in your court......what is your point?

[Red Baron Farms]

Originally Posted by Trakar

I can't help but feel that your proposal may have helped our situation if it had been embraced globally around the middle of the last century. Currently, the rate of increase is too high, the expense too much, and the time frame of producing payoff too long. Another unfortunate side effect of this type of amelioration is that it and the conditions upon which it is prefaced have to be globally accepted and adopted to function properly, if major, impoverished nations do not fully commit to the effort and expense, everyone else is just spinning their wheels.

I would love for there to be a cheap easy solution that could be easily and universally adopted, but I just haven't seen anything that compellingly indicates that such exists.

Well lets see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIMmIvY5m2o
Looks like impoverished nations benefit.


Maybe it is impossible in Western countries?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWYU...3WwjjiUxOJZ0Ee
Nope I guess not.

Sure but productivity per acre CAN'T be as good as CAFOs? Can it?
“40,000 lbs beef; 30,000 lbs pork;10,000 broilers; 1,200 turkeys; 1,000 rabbits; 35,000 doz. eggs all off of 100 acres. And at the end of the year; there is more biodiversity, not less; there is more fertility, not less; there is more soil, not less. This is NOT a zero-sum system!” Michael Pollan (Author of Omnivores delimna) discussing Joel Salatin

Oops I guess it can outproduce CAFO's after all.

But what about food crops instead of meat? Surely it would take a long time and be hugely expensive to sequester carbon in low tech third world agricultural countries like India with their billions to feed? Isn't that what you said?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-dev...ers-revolution

Oops. I guess it even works there too. Even dirt poor barefoot farmers without even electricity can outproduce the top scientists in the whole world! How? By sequestering carbon in the soil! Gee this can't be right? Can it?

Got to be more to it right?

In fact you are right. There is more to it. The information age. Now farmers all over the world can find out and use the new systems thinking models that previously would take lifetimes to disseminate. AND Not one of those guys buys one drop of Monsanto (et al) pesticides. They bypassed the conventional Ag stonewall completely. So there is a lobby by big Ag in government to restrict it as much as possible with regulations. And there is an advertising campaign to try and discount it as much as possible. It's not a conspiracy theory. It is how companies work. If you have a product, you want to sell it. If you don't sell it, you loose profits. Loose profits long enough and you go out of business. So you spend time advertising and lobbying to prevent that as much as possible. You lock farmers into contracts so they have no choices but to "play ball". Just good business practices for any large corporation. Agriculture is now dominated by big AG companies with a vested interest in the status quo.

But there comes a time when people have to say thanks for the help to those big Ag companies for getting us out of a pinch following WWII. And move on to the new biotechnologies that are now available. No reason for to kill the planet and us with it, because we became the new 21st Century Luddites.

I mean which really is more important? Displacing a few chemical company employees who fear for their jobs? or restoring the health of the planets ecosystems (carbon is a major player in that) and feeding our growing population at the same time? To me it is a no brainer. Much easier and cheaper to retrain those chemical company employees.

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by Haig

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?


http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

Total insolation is ~1400W/m²

the entire UV portion of the solar emission = ~100W/m²

100/1400 = 7% of the solar insolation

Extreme UV = < 5% of the UV spectrum

EUV = an average of < 5 W/m^2

EUV fluctuations are short-term and of such low intensity (proportionally) that they simply cannot account for climate change effects being seen. They may well be a part of the 15% of total solar forcing signature that climate science observes and recognizes in the current climate change picture, particularly in evidence in the climate signal in the first half of last century.

Unless you can demonstrate a clear and strong correlation of UV variance with global temperature variations, there simply is no clear evidence compellingly suggesting that current AGW theories and data are not the best available accounting of the current global climate change event.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by batvette

As compared to WHAT time period?

Has the solar output decreased against merely the 1975 peak? Or has it decreased against what could be determined to be NORMAL solar output over the last 400 years?

As compared to the time it takes for a change in solar activity to be fully felt on the earth.

You've been told many times already is only a few decades, not the hundreds of yours you are suggesting.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Haig

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?


http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

UV is only a tiny part of the Suns energy output. For it to have a climate impact you would need a mechanism that magnifies this tiny energy change enormously.

-No sufficiently large mechanism has been demonstrated
-The change in the Suns UV output doesn't match the change in the earths climate over the last 100 years
-the things we already know about greenhouse gases don't hinge on this so we would also need an explanation of why the science of the last 120 years is wrong.

[CapelDodger]

Originally Posted by batvette

As compared to WHAT time period?

Not as compared to anything. Decreasing. Becoming less.

Quote:

Has the solar output decreased against merely the 1975 peak?

That it has decreased since the 1975 peak while the climate has been warming is the point.

Quote:

Or has it decreased against what could be determined to be NORMAL solar output over the last 400 years?

What do you regard as crucial about the period 400 years? Why not 1000? Or a billion?

I realise you are convinced that the Maunder Minimum is contributing to current climate change via a mathematical construct knows as an "average", but in truth its effects wore off centuries ago. A 400 year lag to solar influences is, as Pauli might have said, not even incredible.

Current climate change is caused by AGW, and if anything the Sun is acting in the opposite sense.

[CapelDodger]

Originally Posted by Haig

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?


http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

Interesting but not fascinating (for me, that is; we all have our pet interests). In relation to climate, UV is mostly absorbed in the stratosphere while climate is predominantly a tropospheric phaenomenon, so any interaction is likely to be slight. With such a preponderance of solar variation being in UV (and therefore not reaching the surface) there's even less variation in the energy which does enter the climate system, and hence even less likelihood of a sensible impact.

[Haig]

Originally Posted by macdoc

Haig - you need to read the conclusion of that article instead of implying it's a major overlooked factor in global climate change

macdoc I've read all the article and if you read it again you may just see that it's NASA doing the implying.

Quote:

Now in your court......what is your point?

NASA could hardly make it clearer

Originally Posted by NASA

a dawning realization among researchers that even these apparently tiny variations can have a significant effect on terrestrial climate. A new report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), "The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate," lays out some of the surprisingly complex ways that solar activity can make itself felt on our planet. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

When will the dawning happen here?

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by CapelDodger

Interesting but not fascinating (for me, that is; we all have our pet interests). In relation to climate, UV is mostly absorbed in the stratosphere while climate is predominantly a tropospheric phaenomenon, so any interaction is likely to be slight. With such a preponderance of solar variation being in UV (and therefore not reaching the surface) there's even less variation in the energy which does enter the climate system, and hence even less likelihood of a sensible impact.

True, higher absorption means that only a very small fraction is emitted as IR in a direction that may prove climatically relevant.

Soft science reference:
http://www.universetoday.com/60065/r...-from-the-sun/

Harder science reference:
"Investigation of Short Time Scale Variation of Solar Radiation Spectrum in UV, PAR, and NIR Bands due to Atmospheric Aerosol and Water Vapor"
http://wwwsst.ums.edu.my/data/WASET_2013.pdf

Quote:

V. CONCLUSION
In this study, short time scale changes of solar radiation in ultra violet (UV), photosynthetic active radiation (PAR), and near infrared (NIR) wavelengths,for air mass ranges from 2 to 6were investigated. Ground-based method using spectrometer was used for data collection. In general, it was found that UV fraction to global irradiance varies the least, followed by PAR and NIR in this short time scale analysis. Detail inspection shows that UV and PAR fraction increases for decreasing air mass from 6 to 3 whereas NIR decreases for the same air mass evolution which is believed to be due to increasing in water vapors content (water vapors content increased as air mass reduced from 6 to 3). This observation is consistence with the mean bias difference (MBD) value in the Langley plot analysis where MBD value for NIR (865nm) on high turbidity day (which is corresponding to high water vapors content) is higher compared to on the low turbidity (corresponding to lower water vapors content) day. Beyond air mass 3 (between 3 to 2), PAR (550nm) was reducing (as the aerosol loading increases) and NIR was almost constant (as the water vapors content insignificantly varies) whereas UV was found to further increased (less affected by aerosol loading and water vapors content). Deviation ofMBDpattern in the Langley-plot analysis for almost all wavelengths for low turbidity day shows the dominant effects of the aerosol loading (aerosol effects).

IOW, exactly as you so succinctly stated!

Good to see you (and all the rest) still manning the watchtowers!

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by lomiller

UV is only a tiny part of the Suns energy output. For it to have a climate impact you would need a mechanism that magnifies this tiny energy change enormously.

-No sufficiently large mechanism has been demonstrated
-The change in the Suns UV output doesn't match the change in the earths climate over the last 100 years
-the things we already know about greenhouse gases don't hinge on this so we would also need an explanation of why the science of the last 120 years is wrong.

Excellent insight! This is what too many people who haven't spent much time in science focused environments seem to misunderstand. Science doesn't advance through the finding of flaws or gaps in current understandings near as much as it does through the development of novel correlating and supported understandings that explain more of the same evidences in a better (clear. logically compelling) fashion.

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by Haig

macdoc I've read all the article and if you read it again you may just see that it's NASA doing the implying.

NASA could hardly make it clearer When will the dawning happen here?

15% is, definitionally, "significant." And it is a fraction that we cannot easily diminish. The other 85%, due primarily to human activities and emissions, however, is within our capacity to influence and alter, through behavior alterations and technological application.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Haig

Seems that NASA are focusing more on the Sun's UV output and that varies much more than a few tenths. Could you give a view on this?


http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

Hi Haig,
Did you read the article or just copy and paste from some other source.

I wonder what it says?
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...an_sunclimate/

Quote:

Raymond Bradley of UMass, who has studied historical records of solar activity imprinted by radioisotopes in tree rings and ice cores, says that regional rainfall seems to be more affected than temperature. "If there is indeed a solar effect on climate, it is manifested by changes in general circulation rather than in a direct temperature signal." This fits in with the conclusion of the IPCC and previous NRC reports that solar variability is NOT the cause of global warming over the last 50 years.

Bolding mine.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by Haig

macdoc I've read all the article and if you read it again you may just see that it's NASA doing the implying.

NASA could hardly make it clearer When will the dawning happen here?

Apparently they could make it clearer because none of the things they are talking about have anything to do with global temperature. There are interesting correlation to regional weather patterns but no statistical correlation between solar cycles global temperatures has ever been identified. (There probably is one, just to small to rise above the noise)


One of the Scientists cited in that article was the lead author of the paper I linked earlier which showed that none of the current temperature change is attributable to solar activity. Both are among the 97% of publishing climate scientists who agree that current warming is caused by human greenhouse gases.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by Haig

NASA could hardly make it clearer When will the dawning happen here?

I'm struggling to understand what point you're trying to make with this. So there's some research which suggests that small variations in solar output may have a greater effect on the climate than previously thought. And? What has that got to do with the current warming?

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Doubling the amount of it in the atmosphere produces a forcing resulting in an average global temperature rise of about 1 degree C. Positive feedbacks triggered by that forcing are estimated to result in a total temperature rise of about 3 degrees C per doubling of CO2. We have so far increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 40% and at current rates of emission will have doubled it by the end of the century. Whatever other factors may or may not affect the climate does not alter these fundamental facts.