Time for Volume 5




Thread part 4 found here



Added link to part 4 /tomazkid

Last edited by tomazkid on 11-Oct-2009 at 03:11 PM.

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"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@Interesting

Quote:

Interesting wrote: Time for Volume 5

May not have had to happen yet, but no harm making the new thread. I've locked #4 then.

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Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

DUNE for real?

"In Frank Herbert's famous 1965 novel Dune, he describes a planet that has undergone nearly complete desertification. Dune has been called the "first planetary ecology novel" and forecasts a dystopian world without water. The few remaining inhabitants have secluded themselves from their harsh environment in what could be called subterranean oasises. Far from idyllic, these havens, known as sietch, are essentially underground water storage banks. Water is wealth in this alternate reality. It is preciously conserved, rationed with strict authority, and secretly hidden and protected," according to the Sietch Nevada project description.

Underground City Envisioned in Nevada

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"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@Interesting

I did not see you had started one already so gave up waiting so repost here: somebody delete now redundant thread please.

20 million year CO2 record

It is 14 million years since CO2 levels were as high as they are now a report published in Science says, story here:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/last-time-carbon-dioxide-levels-111074.aspx

Global temperatures were higher by several degrees, sea-level higher by 22 to 36 metres.

Study of the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae, obtained by drilling sea bed sediments, enabled an accurate determination of CO2 levels back 20 million years to an average uncertainty of only 14 parts per million. Previously the 800,000 year ice core record provided the only reliable pre instrumental data on atmospheric CO2 . The technique used in this current study accurately reproduced the ice core record.

Noel

@Interesting

Quote:

Underground City Envisioned in Nevada

Bring on the trogs! Sounds like the ultimate survivalist dream - my observation of idealised communities that cut themselves off from the general community is that they eventually fail.

Noel

Sudden warming of Antarctica 15.7 million years ago

This comes from a core drilled in ocean sediments under the Antarctic ice:

Quote:

Among the 1,107 meters of sediments recovered and analyzed for microfossil content, a two-meter thick layer in the core displayed extremely rich fossil content. This is unusual because the Antarctic ice sheet was formed about 35 million years ago, and the frigid temperatures there impede the presence of woody plants and blooms of dinoflagellate algae. "We all analyzed the new samples and saw a 2,000 fold increase in two species of fossil dinoflagellate cysts, a five-fold increase in freshwater algae and up to an 80-fold increase in terrestrial pollen," said Warny. "Together, these shifts in the microfossil assemblages represent a relatively short period of time during which Antarctica became abruptly much warmer."

http://www.lsu.edu/highlights/2009/10/antarctic.shtml

Noel

Empirical proofs of Anthropogenic global warming

Skeptical Science has taken the trouble to pull it all together. The article is fairly short but includes a lot of links to the substance. In conclusion it says:

Quote:

So we have multiple lines of empirical evidence for CO2 warming. Lab tests show CO2 absorbing longwave radiation. Satellite measurements confirm that less longwave radiation is escaping to space. Surface measurements detect increased longwave radiation returning back to Earth at wavelengths matching increased CO2 warming. And of course the result of this energy imbalance is the accumulation of heat over the last 40 years.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-do-we-know-CO2-is-causing-warming.html

There is a substantial discussion following.
Yet another recent web page attempting the same job but with a different emphasis is here:
http://akwag.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-speaks-on-global-warming-what-you_22.html

Noel

Acceleration of Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica over past 7 years measured.

A paper just published reports a doubling of ice loss in both places in the last few years, more than doubled, and gives the acceleration. Abstract is here:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040222.shtml

Greenland:
mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002-2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007-2009,
i.e., an acceleration of -30 ± 11 Gt/yr2 in 2002-2009.

Antarctica:
mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002-2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006-2009,
i.e., an acceleration of -26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002-2009.

The story, providing some more information and perspective is here:
http://sciblogs.co.nz/degrees-of-change/2009/10/12/polar-ice-keeps-melting-%e2%80%93-at-a-faster-and-faster-rate/

Noel

@NoelFuller

Quote:

Sudden warming of Antarctica 15.7 million years ago

And the history repeats itself, so really nothing new under the sun.
I wonder if they blame that warming on the CO2 as well.

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@tomazkid

Quote:

And the history repeats itself, so really nothing new under the sun.

Well . . . yes and no. What is the same as at present but was not mentioned in the story I linked to, is a 100 ppm rise in CO2. What is different is the well proven fact that we are the present cause of the current rise, showing little sign yet that we are stopping the rise continuing well beyond the current level. In spite of many claims, there is no evidence of any "natural" source of the current rise and anyone claiming there is has to then show that the measured and identified anthropogenic CO2 emissions have no effect on global warming - there are no credible arguments that way so far, nor will there be.

What else is different is that geologically speaking the amiga computer is new, er . . relative to 15.7 million years ago :)

Quote:

I wonder if they blame that warming on the CO2 as well.

Have you read the article? There was no attribution in it apart from a reference to that peak being already known (Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum). What was surprising was the Antarctic being warm enough to grow a bit of vegetation. If a rise in global temperature is driven by CO2 it has to have a source. One credible source is a really massive volcanic event such as those described here:
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/earth_sciences/report-83435.html
Such volcanic eruptions as this planet has experienced recently hardly raise a blip in the CO2 record, though their short lived cooling effect due to aerosols is pronounced.

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 14-Oct-2009 at 01:26 AM.

@tomazkid

Quote:

tomazkid wrote: @NoelFuller Quote: Sudden warming of Antarctica 15.7 million years ago And the history repeats itself, so really nothing new under the sun. I wonder if they blame that warming on the CO2 as well.

That is exactly what they do. They of course forgot to check if CO2 raised before temperature though. Other studies found that co2 increased after temperature.

It is no secret that arctic was warmer some million years ago. Even Svalbard at 80degrees north had once tropical vegetation including palm trees even though it is was at around same latitude back then.

Quote:

Millions of years ago, Svalbard experienced much warmer climates and was forested, even though it was located at around the same latitude as at present. For a phase of several hundred thousand years at the boundary between the Paleocene and Eocene (55 million years ago), Svalbard experienced subtropical temperatures with palms and alligators. Although not generally as warm as this, Svalbard remained mild enough temperatures for forest through most of the Cretaceous and early Tertiary period up until at least 30 million years ago. In February 2008, the University of Oslo announced the discovery of the largest dinosaur-era marine reptile ever found — a pliosaur estimated to be almost 15 m (50 ft) long.[17]

All it has now is tundra and ice....

Last edited by Tomas on 14-Oct-2009 at 07:05 PM.

@Tomas

Quote:

of course forgot to check if CO2 raised before temperature though. Other studies found that co2 increased after temperature

You make this sound like a binary selection of that's it's either one way or another. What that sort of approach discounts is the relationship may well be more complex. Instead the relationship is highly interactive with temperature pushing CO2 and sometimes CO2 pushes temperature.

Either way what we know of the present situation is the contribution of CO2 in the atmosphere from humans. It is not simply a natural event of the planet but one we are contributing to.

Last edited by BrianK on 14-Oct-2009 at 07:13 PM.

middle Miocene climatic optimum

I had a look about. An abstract of a 2002 paper is here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUFMGC61A..05S

It concludes:
Quote:

This suggests that warming during the middle Miocene climatic optimum was due to elevated atmospheric pCO2 and that climate change and CO2 levels were coupled for this interval.

A 2008 paper concludes:
Quote:

Our model suggests that to maintain MMCO warmth consistent with proxy data, the required atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 460-580 ppmv, narrowed from the most recent estimate of 300-600 ppmv.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL036571.shtml

The Andrill core which provides the basis of the story I linked to above (#6) was finished drilling sometime in 2005. It looks like it will tie down some of the uncertainties in other papers.

The larger story is that this climatic optimum was simply a bit of a bump in a gradual decline in CO2 and temperature which tends to be attributed to greatly increased weathering of silicates resulting from the uplift of Tibet, burial of organic material from erosion of the same and in the later Miocene to the dessication of the Mediterranean many times over, as it shut, evaporated, then flooded again.

A fairly comprehensive story is here - really interesting reading, with maps, if you have not looked into this already. Some may have enjoyed Julian May's fantasy on that era "The Saga of the Exiles" running into several volumes.
http://web.me.com/uriarte/Earths_Climate/Miocene.html

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 16-Oct-2009 at 07:19 PM.

Book review: Climate Cover-Up

A book review on the climate change denial campaign begins:
Quote:

"This is a story of betrayal, a story of selfishness, greed, and irresponsibility on an epic scale." That's how James Hoggan opens his newly published book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Hoggan initially thought there was a fierce  scientific controversy about climate change. Sensibly he did a lot of reading, only to find to his surprise that there was no such controversy. How did the public confusion arise?  There was nothing accidental about it. As a public relations specialist, Hoggan observed with gathering horror a campaign at work.

The rest of the review can be read here:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/climate-cover-up/#more-3281

Noel

Relation of Solar cycles to Global Climate

Quote:

Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, new research led by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Nina and El Nino events in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The research may pave the way toward better predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the Sun's cycle, which lasts approximately 11 years. The total energy reaching Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the solar cycle. Scientists have sought for decades to link these ups and downs to natural weather and climate variations and distinguish their subtle effects from the larger pattern of human-caused global warming.

It appears to me that here is a far more substantial connection than those made for cosmic radiation which are, after all, hypotheses of causality founded on correlations with the same solar cycles. The effects are still "subtle", and trendless compared to the human induced CO2 influence. The rest of the story can be found here:
http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09071663-solar-cycle-linked-global-climate

Noel

Big Dog eco-paw print twice that of an SUV !

Depends what you feed it maybe, but add the depredation on local wildlife too. Cat poo is toxic, - a parasite washing into the rivers then the sea is causing brain disease in sea otters and also affects dolphins and whales. This and more is told in a NewScience review of a new book:

Quote:

SHOULD owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale, two architects who specialise in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In their new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living, they compare the ecological footprints of a menagerie of popular pets with those of various other lifestyle choices - and the critters do not fare well.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427311.600-how-green-is-your-pet.html?full=true

The article does not mention the difference in echo-footprint between vegan, vegetarian and flesh eating humans compared to the pets which would be of interest, surely. I've read somewhere that a vegetarian requires only a third of the land area of a meat eater.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Quote:

I've read somewhere that a vegetarian requires only a third of the land area of a meat eater.

It depends upon what sources one is talking about. Tofu uses far far less resources than beef. Pre-processed Veggie burgers use about the same amount of resources as chicken, both still much less than beef. Fish, is probably the best resource animal based product and is below veggie burgers.

@BrianK

Hooray! I thought I was just talking to myself!

I've found the relevant answer right on cue if not in the same terms. It seems that as a vegan I'm compensating rather well for my 1.5 tonne shopping trolley. This story has got some wacky headlines and a good deal of spluttering on various sites from people who do not know what to make of it but this seems a more useful take:
http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2007/04/vegans-vs-hybrids.html

Quote:

Which has the greater impact, changing your car or your diet? Going from a Mad Meat Eater diet to a Vegan diet saves 6.5 tonnes of CO2 a year while going from a Hummer to a Prius saves 6.4 tonnes. Given a margin of error on the values, I call that a tie. If you switch from the Avg American Diet to being a vegan that saves 2 tonnes very similar to the 2.1 tonnes saved switching from a Camary to a Prius. Going from the Avg American Diet to a Lacto-Ovo vegetarian diet saves 1 ton a year, about 1/2 the savings of going from a Camary to a Prius. In looking at their overall impact, the average American diet emits 2.19 tonnes which is almost the same as the 2.1 tonnes for the Prius. The Mad Meat Eater Diet emits 6.7 tonnes, halfway between a Camary and a Hummer. A vegan diet at .19 tonnes is less than 1/10 that of a Prius. In general, for the average American, the impact of their car will be greater than the impact of their diet.

The author defines his assumptions and reservations and adds quite a few values for various foods.

Noel

p.s. written from Firefox in Ubuntu on a 2.4GHz Celeron with a Korean bios, found on the side of the road after my A1 died. I'm back on a borrowed disused A1 temporarily but it is nice to have two machines going at times with different capabilities (doubling my carbon footprint in computing at the least but I hate having to dive all over the net to implement some capability in Linux and still not succeed - yet.

@NoelFuller

The area of the USA has been cool this summer and especially where I am. We didn't run a/c on our house at all this year. The couple of hot days we used fans. This is not a reflection of the world. On the radio today they talked about 2008 being the 8th hottest year on record. 2009, assuming it doesnt take a big nose dive, will end up about the 6th hottest year on record.

Further they (don't recall who 'they' were perhaps someone here knows) provided the #s of global temperatures to statiticans. They asked them to calculate the next numbers in the sequence (aka predict 2010 temps). All 4 statiticans predicted the sequence results in 2010 to be hotter than 2009 and shy of hottest yet. It'll be interesting to see the results of this approach.

2008 and now 2009 disprove the Anti-GWers who try to claim a Global Cooling trend.

Last edited by BrianK on 28-Oct-2009 at 02:08 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

2008 and now 2009 disprove the Anti-GWers who try to claim a Global Cooling trend.

Uh?? How would that disprove anything? The skeptics that believe sun is one of the main driver dont expect temps to cool so suddenly. It is expected to take around 10~ years after a prolonged minium/weak cycle before temps start dropping noticeable. This was also the case during previous prolonged/grand minimums.

Climate wont just magically cool over night...