Re: OT: go nuclear. Was: Detecting ETI via CO2

Martin 53N 1W wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote:

Martin 53N 1W wrote:

Matt Giwer wrote:

Martin 53N 1W wrote:

Matt Giwer wrote:

Martin 53N 1W wrote:

[...]

the Sahara becomes drier. Now that we are in the high hurricane part of the cycle the Sahara has been retreating. It is the same at it has been since people noticed its cyclic nature.

The example I'm thinking of is for the Sahel where airborne pollution shifted the rain pattern by a few hundred miles.

Different, yes. Better or worse? All change is not worse. But as the opinions of the science are always worse, it is better the cholera we know than the unknown dangers of bathrooms.

A good example of how just a small weather change has drastic effects. 

See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml
(Text snippet appended below.)

[...]

Seriously we know there are minima between the ice ages. We have no clear idea what the normal warm temperatures are between them. The earth has been losing species and getting warmer and drier within recorded history and long before the industrial revolution when the only burning was "renewable" wood and maybe some peat as half-way to fossil.

I am not saying what we have done has no contribution but as we do not have a baseline for changes without humans we cannot measure our contribution. We do know what is happening now cannot be distinguished from the trends before we could have had an effect. The most that can be said is we are accelerating pre-existing trends. And it is an odd assumption that everything we do increases pre-existing trends with none being being contrary to the trends.

We have Global Dimming due to certain types of pollution that /should/ act to slow the Global Warming effects. Worryingly, this also suggests that our actions encouraging Global Warming are far stronger than previously imagined. We are clearly shortening the present climate cycle from many thousands of years down to less than a century... The changes, aswel as being far quicker than normal are looking to be far greater than 'whatever normal' might be.

The growing season in many places has lengthed by a month. One can imagine in fifty years everyone adapted to the warmer earth and bemoaning the coming cooling as fossil power plants are replaced by fusion plants. What will people eat? Scotland will go back cold and dreary cutting into the tourist industry. Millions of acres of farm and forest land lost to returning glaciers. Eco-terrorists trying to ignite abandoned coal mines, cutting down trees, will the horrors never end?

Seriously it is inconceivable we will not have switched to something other than fossil fuel a century from now. But it is certain our grandchildren will be adapted to the world as it is in their lifetimes. And change will still be the bugaboo.

[...]

My only point is to look at the complete picture rather than jumping on fossil fuel is the root of all evil. You started posting to me on my premise of IF fossil is bad the we have to go nuclear. I would go nuclear even if we are not melting and such for all the other good reasons. The US Navy retires a few thousand trained and disciplined nuclear techs each year so the talent pool is there. We have a few tens of thousand of nuclear warheads for fuel which should be damned cheap. If we could get rid of the legal delays electric costs should be lower.

The story is not only 'fossil fuel' but our intervention with that is by far the greatest short term factor. There are other factors to the world's carbon cycle and we are breaking more than just one old balancing factor.

It takes a bit of digging to discover we cannot account for a full 1/3 of the carbon cycle. We are a percent or two of the artificial part of that cycle. A phytarium is a controlled environment for growing plants. The addition of CO2 increases the growth rate of most plants if the sales pitch I read was honest. That sort of suggests plants are carbon starved. As one wag suggested, maybe the green revolution is attributable to fossil fuels.

Warheads into cheap electricity is a very good idea. That idea also requires cooperative politics...

Lobby your politicians! 

From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

I read the first actual data from a ground measurements of decades was from Israel and said there was a dimming. Later I read of reports from other places saying there was none.

"NARRATOR: And when he looked at satellite images, Ramanathan found the same thing was happening all over the world. Over India. Over China, and extending into the Pacific. Over Western Europe... extending into Africa. Over the British Isles. But it was when scientists started to investigate the effects of Global Dimming that they made the most disturbing discovery of all. Those more reflective clouds could alter the pattern of the world's rainfall. With tragic consequences.

Notice the narrator's spin, "could alter" and "tragic consequences." That is fear of the unknown, of change.

NEWS REPORT - MICHAEL BUERK VOICE OVER: Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korum it lights up a biblical famine, now in the 20th Century. This place say workers here is the closest thing to hell on earth.

NARRATOR: The 1984 Ethiopian famine shocked the world. It was partly caused by a decade's long drought right across sub-Saharan Africa - a region known as the Sahel. For year after year the summer rains failed. At the time some scientists blamed overgrazing and poor land management. But now there's evidence that the real culprit was Global Dimming. The Sahel's lifeblood has always been a seasonal monsoon. For most of the year it is completely dry. But every summer, the heat of the sun warms the oceans north of the equator. This draws the rain belt that forms over the equator northwards, bringing rain to the Sahel. But for twenty years in the 1970s and 80s the tropical rain belt consistently failed to shift northwards - and the African monsoon failed. For climate scientists like Leon Rotstayn the disappearance of the rains had long been a puzzle. He could see that pollution from Europe and North America blew right across the Atlantic, but all the climate models suggested it should have little effect on the monsoon. But then Rotstayn decided to find out what would happen if he took the Maldive findings into account..." 

	But if this dimming is counteracting the CO2 then we have negative feedback so we want both.

And as sulphur compound are credited with increasing cloud reflectivity is it wise to swith to low sulphur coal and oil?

As to the effect on monsoons, go to drudgereport.com and find 37.1 inches in a single day. It is interesting talking about the 70s and 80s but cycles are cycles.

--
It is unnecessary to debate the meaning of torture when the
root cause is the power to imprison anyone for any reason
or no reason without public knowledge or accountability.
	-- The Iron Webmaster, 3473
 nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
 book review http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/willing-executioners.phtml a7
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: go nuclear. Was: Detecting ETI via CO2
    ... this also suggests that our actions encouraging Global Warming are far stronger than previously imagined. ... We are clearly shortening the present climate cycle from many thousands of years down to less than a century... ... You started posting to me on my premise of IF fossil is bad the we have to go nuclear. ... This draws the rain belt that forms over the equator northwards, ...
    (sci.astro.seti)
  • Re: October snow
    ... quote October 21st 'after rain and a little sleet,it began to snow ... hour and covering the ground:some rain followed. ... 22nd coldest in the list of winters with a value of +1.43°C. ... Anyway it looks like this is the down cycle. ...
    (uk.sci.weather)
  • Tumble Drying (was Re: fantastic tip for cycle commuters)
    ... > I don't choose to cycle in the rain, it just rains when I *have* to ... > cycle to work. ... > of jeans overnight is *far* easier in my flat the drying two. ... you shouldn't use a tumble dryer overnight or unattended. ...
    (uk.rec.cycling)
  • Re: Why we need bike paths.
    ... All that's needed for people to cycle more is facilities, ... hills, no rain, no sweat, shorter distances, and an actual ...
    (uk.rec.cycling)
  • Fossil Records Show Biodiversity Comes and Goes
    ... researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National ... Muller, and his grad student, Robert Rohde, presented their findings in the ... Muller and Rohde discovered the 62 million year fossil diversity cycle after ...
    (sci.geo.geology)