Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (3266)	12/2/2008 1:26:49 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86352

The ice core data is part of what establishes the fact that CO2 is warming the atmosphere and the planet. Wow. Carbon follows temperature in the Vostok Ice Cores In the 1990’s the classic Vostok ice core graph showed temperature and carbon in lock step moving at the same time. It made sense to worry that carbon dioxide did influence temperature. But by 2003 new data came in and it was clear that carbon lagged behind temperature. The link was back to front. Temperatures appear to control carbon, and while it’s possible that carbon also influences temperature these ice cores don’t show much evidence of that. After temperatures rise, on average it takes 800 years before carbon starts to move. The extraordinary thing is that the lag is well accepted by climatologists, yet virtually unknown outside these circles. The fact that temperature leads is not controversial. It’s relevance is debated. It’s impossible to see a lag of centuries on a graph that covers half a million years so I have regraphed the data from the original sources, here and here, and scaled the graphs out so that the lag is visible to the naked eye. What follows is the complete set from 420,000 years to 5,000 years before the present. NOTE 1: What really matters here are the turning points, not the absolute levels. NOTE 2: The carbon data is unfortunately far less detailed than the temperature data. Beware of making conclusions about turning points or lags when only one single point may be involved. NOTE 3: The graph which illustrates the lag the best, and also has the most carbon data is 150,000-100,000 years ago. The bottom line is that rising temperatures cause carbon levels to rise. Carbon may still influence temperatures, but these ice cores are neutral on that. If both factors caused each other to rise significantly, positive feedback would become exponential. We’d see a runaway greenhouse effect. It hasn’t happened. Some other factor is more important than carbon dioxide, or carbon’s role is minor. joannenova.com.au --------------------------------------------- we are interrupting that interglacial, and melting the ice caps, raising ocean levels The ice caps aren't melting and ocean levels aren't rising any faster than they h/b for 300 years or so. ------------------------------------------------ Increases do follow warming. They also precede some warmings. What the people who cite this miss is that there are forcings and there are feedbacks. And apparently we don't know what is what. Though some pretend otherwise. Consider what happened about 55m years No, lets not change the subject to 55M ya but stick to the period covered by the ice core data. What explains the lag remarked on earlier? ------------------------------------------------------- That is why CO2 is important today. It is the thing that is being added in massive amounts that is upsetting the balance that is leading to the added warmth and climate change. Is it? I think its a simplistic assumption. The world has been warming for a few centuries now. But most of our CO2 addition to the atmosphere has occurred in the last half century. Six of the top 10 hottest years occurred before 90 percent of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions during the last century occurred. eteam.ncpa.org ------------------------------------------------------ What we ought to be doing if we could actually control our energy usage is saving our fossil fuels for the time when the glacial stage of the ice age returns, and put enough into the atmosphere to warm things up--i.e., keep the level of CO2 in the atmosphere in the high 200s ppm--that would maintain conditions to make earth generally livable for humans and the species that we are comfortable with. Doubtful. Irrelevant anyway. Humanity isn't going to "control its energy usage". ------------------------------------------------------ What makes CO2 important today is that we are adding large amounts of it to the atmosphere. it is the forcing that is destabilizing the climate. Where is evidence the climate is becoming more unstable?

To: Sam who wrote (3266)	12/2/2008 9:52:36 AM
From: Eric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86352

Sam A very good read which is basically what conclusion that I've come to also. The one big thing I'm worried about now is the global dimming phenomenon that has been confirmed recently. That has masked the GHG emission effects on temperature. When the jets in North America were grounded for a few days after 9/11 we discovered that temperatures jumped by a few degrees over what they should have been. By comparing ground solar radiation measurements from the 1950's to those recently we have seen up to a 25% reduction in that energy reaching the ground in some areas of the world. PBS's NOVA series did a great show on it about a year ago. When we finally do clean up these particulates.. Look out for a quick rise in atmospheric temperatures.