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Re: Man made global warming

Before I get going, I just want to make one thing clear.  I am a physicist with an open mind, but I am still a physicist with a physicist's knowledge.  I am not a "climatologist"; I am not trained/brainwashed to think one way or the other and thus have no vested interest in supporting or denying one argument or the other.  Instead, I have considered the evidence I have been exposed to (and sought out) and come to the considered conclusion that the Earth is not in its natural state of equilibrium.  Humankind is the most obvious cause for this perturbation.  Even if you do not believe humankind to be behind global warming it would be foolhardy to sit comfortable in your armchairs with your fingers in your ears going "la la la la laaaaaaaaaaa la la!"  when there is clear evidence that the earth is increasing in temperature. 


First and foremost... I'm quoting what follows largely from memory.  I do have notes somewhere behind me in my stacks of lever arch folders and if someone so desires I can dig them out.  However, I hope people will be more interested in basic physics and physical effects, rather than care about getting all of the numbers accurate to 20 decimal places; if you zoom in too far you're in danger of missing the bigger picture. wink  Also, I am quite happy to be challenged and even corrected.  However, I will not respond to people who just simply flame and hurl abuse for whatever reason.  Talk and I will listen; abuse me and I

To those who understand I extend my hand; To the doubtful I demand to take me as I am.

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27 Reply by The Yell (edited by The_Yell 12-Dec-2009 01:25:24)

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Re: Man made global warming

Earth does not have a uniform albedo, and volcanic eruptions are not singular localized events.  Pinatubo put ash globally for a year.  Anarctic ozone wasn't measured before 1954.   Ocean currents weren't measured globally prior to 1855. 

When we ask NOAA to show the data points, they lost them in a move.  NASA won't share.  Instead we get nicely processed computer images of red pastels chalked over a global map.

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Man made global warming

No, the albedo isn't uniform across the whole of the earth, and it actually varies with photon energy too.  However, you can calculate a global and frequency averaged value which is entirely appropriate. 

I have just googled for Pinatubo and found the wiki page.  The eruption looks to have lasted about 6-8 months or so and did spew out an awful lot of sulphuric dioxide and ash, which ultimately did cover the globe.  But that eruption was a one off.  The St Helen's eruption happened 11 years previously and was less intense.  You also have to go back to 1883 to the eruption of Krakatoa to find the next most explosive volcanic eruption.  Moreover, you apparently have to go back over approximately 500 years for the last known eruptive activity of this volcano.  Finally, the estimated time until the effects of the volcano were over: about 3 years. 


I think a suitable analogy with equilibrium phenomena would be to do with drinking habits.  Your body can handle a certain quantity of alcohol in any given period.  You can binge quite a lot one night - down shots and pints with a fervent passion - then feel rough as a badger

To those who understand I extend my hand; To the doubtful I demand to take me as I am.

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Re: Man made global warming

Interesting read Lateralis, but can you please answer my questions from
the my last post? (Post #25).

I am sKoE
Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command.

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30 Reply by Matrix (edited by Matrix 12-Dec-2009 13:00:21)

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Re: Man made global warming

"AND can anyone confirm or deny the north polar ice cap has been
the size of the continental U.S. for 3 million years? And that 40%
has already melted?"

I can confirm that it has the size of the U.S the last hundert years tongue
last million years.. hmmm weren't there some ice ages tongue means it should have been much bigger at some point.  so i have no clue

and that 40% has melted?  melted might be the wrong word.. since the artic ice is growing and shrinking each year.. but recently there is less ice in the winter.. around 30-40%
http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html has some date to read

@Lateralis
nice post

but
"Even now, decades after CFCs were banned, a hole exists over Australia"

though there is just a big one over the anartica?
do you have any data about it?
because we had that subject last week in one of my courses in uni..
and the prof didn't mentione a hole above Australia at all tongue

Tobi

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31 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 13-Dec-2009 03:09:12)

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Re: Man made global warming

Lateralis, when you are taking into account the temperature the earth should be emitting, you mention the warmth we receive from the sun, but you ignore the warmth we get from below the earth's crust... tremendous heat is generate underneath our feet and some of that radiates to the surface....

i also have a problem with saying the earth is at a fragile equilibrium... the earth itself isnt alive. it contains living beings. certain being can survive difference climates. i dont see how an unnatural change in climate is any more devastating then a manmade one... for example a large meteor hits the earth and results in significant climate change for a prolonged period of time. its not like that drastic change threated to kill all life on the planet. a change in climate promotes a change in life... not the end of life...

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Re: Man made global warming

I can't reveal my sources, but gnomes told me global warming is just a natural occurence. It happened before and nature will solve it.

If you think what we do on this planet actually affects all of that that much, you're an incapacitated greenpeace... person.

And because they made a small film about it, doesn't mean it's true.

That's all I'm saying... morons have been shouting out a lot of things... they also claimed Y2K would be our doom. And 2006-6-6 would be the end of the world once again.
So, get out there, Morbo! Get out in the streets with your sign saying "De end is nigh". Yes, I know I misspelled, but you can't rule out stereotypes.

This forum is stupid.

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Re: Man made global warming

disregarding, all that has been said (i haven't read it).
i can't help but believe in God, but i don't believe in it the way the organised church has corrupted it.
that is most peoples problem with believing in God, is that they look at the rules that the church has determined to be Godly, and chased away most of the true believers.
God is everything we are and more, the church makes God out to be something that has no sense of humor or patience, or love for even those that think they hate God.... all of this is an absolute lie.
also God is not male or female.... God made human kind in God's image, not just man, meaning male.
and the only place to truely find God is in yourself, if you don't then mercy on your eternal soul.

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Re: Man made global warming

@ Morbo.

I haven't read your post.  Maybe I will do at some point. tongue

@ Avogadro

"Lateralis, when you are taking into account the temperature the earth should be emitting, you mention the warmth we receive from the sun, but you ignore the warmth we get from below the earth's crust... tremendous heat is generate underneath our feet and some of that radiates to the surface...."

The earth's core does generate a large amount of heat - although in truth, no one fully understands what happens in the earths core. 

That aside, the earth's core is undoubtedly very hot.  Some of that heat will enter the earth's crust, but here's the thing.  The earth's crust isn't a conductor of heat and is between 40 and 70 km thick.  It isn't a thin sliver of conducting material through which heat is easily transferred.  I don't have a calculation for how much energy will radiate through to the earth's surface from the core - I don't know what the specific heat capacity is of continental or oceanic crust - but I believe it will be insignificant.  If I can find some numbers then I will try and calculate something. 

Moreover, the temperature of the earth's core and mantle has (probably) remained constant for hundreds of thousands of years as it is a closed system.  So even if we do assume that the core does significantly contribute to the temperature of the earth's surface, that contribution has remained constant.  What is important in this discussion is the change in mean global temperature and its rate of change.  Constant offsets are just that. 




"i also have a problem with saying the earth is at a fragile equilibrium... the earth itself isnt alive. it contains living beings. certain being can survive difference climates. i dont see how an unnatural change in climate is any more devastating then a manmade one... for example a large meteor hits the earth and results in significant climate change for a prolonged period of time. its not like that drastic change threated to kill all life on the planet. a change in climate promotes a change in life... not the end of life..."


If a large metor were to strike the earth, climate change might be the last thing to worry about!  A metor striking the earth is what is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs.  I'd rather something like that didn't really happen! 

Aside from that, I'm not quite sure what your point is?

To those who understand I extend my hand; To the doubtful I demand to take me as I am.

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35 Reply by The Yell (edited by The_Yell 13-Dec-2009 21:20:31)

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Re: Man made global warming

>>No, the albedo isn't uniform across the whole of the earth, and it actually varies with photon energy too.  However, you can calculate a global and frequency averaged value which is entirely appropriate. <<

Not when you're trying to predict the global average temperature to within a tenth of a degree.

I mean, look at what you're approximating: global currents, albedo, photon bombardment, volcanic activity, ozone. And then they guess the fluctuation of all of them put together is less important than human emissions.  Sure it could work--if you fall into the logical fallacy that the last 50 years are determinative simply because they're the period we had the best observations.  If 1500-1900 were more representative of normal climate, then what?  What was ozone 1870-1930?  The Gulf Stream isn't where it was in the age of Columbus, where was it?

Skoe

Al Gore wrote "Earth in the Balance" in 1992, so I guess they're counting the 90s and 00s as the decades of his blah.  If you weren't aware his schtick was that old, thank God for your ignorance.

I dunno about the polar ice caps...except that 70 million years ago they were so small that Alaska was prairie and grazing dinosaurs swarmed it like buffalo, and 15,000 years ago it was so fat it reached to Chicago.  From this I conclude that a vast petrochemical civilization burnt itself out some 60 million years ago.

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Man made global warming

@Lateralis

Read my post!

@MrBlonde

I'm trying to be unbiased. In actual fact, you've misread my post. Please
Read my post!

@Chris

So you're saying Al Gore has profited from "global warming"? Interesting.

And yeah in 1992 i was 5 tongue. In my eyes i had only heard of Al Gore when
his "group" lost the presidential vote. Straight after that, it seems, he started
to go on about how we were all going to die...

I am sKoE
Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command.

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Re: Man made global warming

> [TI] Lateralis wrote:

> If a large metor were to strike the earth, climate change might be the last thing to worry about!  A metor striking the earth is what is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs.  I'd rather something like that didn't really happen! 

Aside from that, I'm not quite sure what your point is?


yes, a large meteor is thought to be what has wiped out the dinosaur's, but even that did not wipe out life on the planet. To say that the comparatively slow climate change of manmade global warming is going to threaten a fragile equilibrium is bs. Life is resilient and those species that cant adapt will simply leave space for new species to evolve...  to claim that a slow raise in global temperatures is gonna threaten to destroy the earth, is a bit far-fetched imo.

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Re: Man made global warming

"Life is resilient "

What you mean is that 90% of the species die instantly while a small percentage by sheer luck manages to stay alive. In that sense, life is resilient.

Not many people know this, but I own the first radio in Springfield. Not much on the air then, just Edison reciting the alphabet over and over. "A" he'd say; then "B." "C" would usually follow...

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Re: Man made global warming

Al Gore has made millions in stock of companies that traffick in "Carbon credits" -- you "cancel out" your company's USA pollution by buying a "carbon credit" from a Gore company, and they plant a tree in Brazil. Promise! of course they can't bother to point out what tree...go geta  subpoena...if you can...

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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40 Reply by avogadro (edited by avogadro 14-Dec-2009 09:04:47)

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Re: Man made global warming

> [RPA] Arocalex wrote:

> "Life is resilient "

What you mean is that 90% of the species die instantly while a small percentage by sheer luck manages to stay alive. In that sense, life is resilient.


10% is a significant percentage.... and its obvious the changes man made global warming would cause would be drastically less and considering that if the meteor didnt hit, the human race would likely not exist; the meteor birthed new life; and so would man made global warming.... ofcoarse with our specie's brain size and current technology it is unlikely we would be one of the species extinct from man made global warming...

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Re: Man made global warming

> if the meteor didnt hit, the human race would likely not exist

Bingo!

I am sKoE
Do you know what the chain of command is here? It's the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who's in command.

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