Only thing missing is an AGW bible.

[lawrocket 3]

JackC1

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Interestingly, you chose something (emphysema) that can't be reversed. Once it's there, it's there, and the only treatment is prevent further destruction.

It's interesting because it's apt. Once CO2 is in the atmosphere, it's damned difficult to remove.

Indeed. Except for natural processes (vegetation and phytoplankton are pretty good at it. Now, if we would stop cutting down trees...) There's lag time associated with it. Some say 50 years. Some say 100 years. Some say more.

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So for all practical purposes the problem is irreversible.

Your saying the problem of CO2 in the atmosphere is irreversible. I get that. What I'm saying is that the problem CAUSED by excess CO2 in the atmosphere is very easily reversible.

This is a thread about AGW. Not too much carbon. AGW can be easily reversed and turned into AGC (Anthropogenic Global Cooling). We have the technology to geoengineer the climate. We can certainly affect albedo. A lot.

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Only a complete moron would want to do nothing until the options left are so drastic they could only ever be a last resort.

And here I am suggesting doing something. What the fuck? A $20 billion solution that's biggest risk is that it might work too well.

Compared to a solution $50 trillion solution over the next 50 years that scientists say will be pointless because it's irreversible now but we should do it anyway no matter how much the cost.

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Like I said, you miss the point. Deliberately I think.

It seems your point. I'm proposing a solution and you aren't even discussing the merits and demerits. In fact, you are calling it doing nothing. Are you THAT averse to a solution that does not involve completely changing human activity and won't work, anyway?

The only response you've had is pointing out that the solution actually doesn't involve changing anything other than the climate. TO me, that actually is a plus. Saving lives and property is good.

Like it or not, cutting CO2 to 1990 levels IS a drastic solution. It is. Period. That can be avoided by increasing albedo. Less SW in means less LW to be trapped by CO2 and H20 and CH4 and...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Amazon 7]

I am coming away from this with at least one positive outcome.. At least some of you are beginning to realize that something is going on..... I guess that is a step in the right direction.
Many of those Koch suckers on the far right with the very heavily laced on blinders do not see anything happening contrary to the news all around them.

What type of ecological nightmare would spraying that much sulfuric acid have on the already stressed food chain in the oceans???

Oh and taking the CO2 levels back to 1990 is not even a step in the right direction.. perhaps returning to 1890 might be a better goal

http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/images/sres_jan99/

[lawrocket 3]

Amazon

I am coming away from this with at least one positive outcome.. At least some of you are beginning to realize that something is going on..... I guess that is a step in the right direction.
Many of those Koch suckers on the far right with the very heavily laced on blinders do not see anything happening contrary to the news all around them.

What type of ecological nightmare would spraying that much sulfuric acid have on the already stressed food chain in the oceans???

Oh and taking the CO2 levels back to 1990 is not even a step in the right direction.. perhaps returning to 1890 might be a better goal

http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/images/sres_jan99/

As long as you're talking about "not gonna happen" stuff, then keep this up.

Now, let's look at some pragmatism (something remarkably absent from both sides of the discussion)

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Amazon 7]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events.html

Warmer temperatures cause mass bleaching of corals. However, even in a warmer world, deep ocean temperatures would still remain well below surface temperatures and there would be safe havens where cooler water upwells from the deep ocean. That's not to say meteorites or global warming played no part in coral extinction - both have been contributing factors at various times. But they cannot fully explain the nature of coral extinctions as observed in the fossil record.


What Veron 2008 found was each mass extinction event corresponded to periods of quickly changing atmospheric CO2. When CO2 changes slowly, the gradual increase allows mixing and buffering of surface layers by deep ocean sinks. Marine organisms also have time to adapt to the new environmental conditions. However, when CO2 increases abruptly, the acidification effects are intensified in shallow waters owing to a lack of mixing. It also gives marine life little time to adapt.

So rate of change is a key variable in nature's ability to adapt. The current rate of change in CO2 levels has no known precedent. Oceans don't respond instantly to a CO2 build-up, so the full effects of acidification take decades to centuries to develop. This means we will have irretrievably committed the Earth to the acidification process long before its effects become anywhere near as obvious as those of mass bleaching today. If we continue business-as-usual CO2 emissions, ocean pH will eventually drop to a point at which a host of other chemical changes such as anoxia (an absence of oxygen) are expected. If this happens, the state of the oceans at the end Cretaceous 65 million years ago will become a reality and the Earth will enter the sixth mass extinction.

[JackC1 0]

lawrocket

I'm proposing a solution and you aren't even discussing the merits and demerits.

...

The only response you've had is pointing out that the solution actually doesn't involve changing anything other than the climate.

Then you have not understood a single word I wrote. Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting.

[Amazon 7]

JackC1

***I'm proposing a solution and you aren't even discussing the merits and demerits.

...

The only response you've had is pointing out that the solution actually doesn't involve changing anything other than the climate.

Then you have not understood a single word I wrote. Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting.

This is something that people really should read. The short sightedness of those who do not give a rats ass about the future of their offspring is really saddening.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805092994/ref=pe_773230_113066150_pe_epc__1p_0_ti

[lawrocket 3]

JackC1

Then you have not understood a single word I wrote. Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting.

I understood exactly what you wrote. And I understand exactly the consequences (remember mentioning acidification, etc?)

New science actually says that we don't need to put aulfur aerosols in the stratosphere. Because the earth and developing nations are already doing it. This came out yesterday: http://m.livescience.com/43588-volcanoes-global-warming-pause.html

It even described the solar minimum as causing the "pause."

So when you say, "Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting" I actually thinnk I do. According to this study, we're seeing the consequences of what I am suggesting RIGHT NOW. For the last 16 YEARS we've been seeing the consequences of what I propose.

Frankly, I expected the consequences to be a bit worse. (Note: volcanoes has been previously accounted for. I'm interested in reading the study itself because major eruptions preceded the other pauses of the late 19th through late 20th centuries.

Amazon: you mentioned coral bleaching. Want to prevent it? Aerosols! There was a study some years back finding that aerosols protect corals by lowering solar irradiance.

On the other hand, bleaching isn't well understood. Plenty of researchers think that bleaching is an adaptive event that helps ensure lont-term survival. The coral ejects the symbiotic algae and can replace it with another one better adapted for the conditions.

I think a lot of people link "bleaching" with "coral death." It can - but what happens is that if the old coral dies, new coral grows in its place. Some people don't like the idea that organisms respond and adapt to changing environments and have done so for billions of years.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Amazon 7]

lawrocket

***

Then you have not understood a single word I wrote. Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting.

I understood exactly what you wrote. And I understand exactly the consequences (remember mentioning acidification, etc?)

New science actually says that we don't need to put aulfur aerosols in the stratosphere. Because the earth and developing nations are already doing it. This came out yesterday: http://m.livescience.com/43588-volcanoes-global-warming-pause.html

It even described the solar minimum as causing the "pause."

So when you say, "Nor do you understand the consequences of what you are suggesting" I actually thinnk I do. According to this study, we're seeing the consequences of what I am suggesting RIGHT NOW. For the last 16 YEARS we've been seeing the consequences of what I propose.

Frankly, I expected the consequences to be a bit worse. (Note: volcanoes has been previously accounted for. I'm interested in reading the study itself because major eruptions preceded the other pauses of the late 19th through late 20th centuries.

Amazon: you mentioned coral bleaching. Want to prevent it? Aerosols! There was a study some years back finding that aerosols protect corals by lowering solar irradiance.

On the other hand, bleaching isn't well understood. Plenty of researchers think that bleaching is an adaptive event that helps ensure lont-term survival. The coral ejects the symbiotic algae and can replace it with another one better adapted for the conditions.

I think a lot of people link "bleaching" with "coral death." It can - but what happens is that if the old coral dies, new coral grows in its place. Some people don't like the idea that organisms respond and adapt to changing environments and have done so for billions of years.

Uh currently we are not in a solar minimum.. denoted by a lack of sunspots and solar flares.... We are at a solar MAX.. lots of both of those AND CME as well as almost constant aurora.

The RATE at which change occurs is highly important. Given time to adapt most organisms do just fine.. the rate of the changes we as a species have subjected the other species of plants and animals to on this planet has been catastrophic... hence the 6th Extinction that humans.. the first time that a single species (US) and not a catastrophic event has killed off large numbers of species.

[JackC1 0]

lawrocket

I understood exactly what you wrote. And I understand exactly the consequences

Yes I'm sure you believe that you do.

People sometimes ask me what I do for a living and when I tell them I'm a physicist, I am often met with a certain kind of attitude that is really rather depressing. Invariably from people with little or no formal training who have tried to learn their science from the top down, often motivated by a need to justify a strongly held belief. They're often incredibly well read on their pet subject but because they have not taken the time to rigorously understand of the basics, the number of misconceptions they hold is truly staggering. Their hallmark is saying things like "yeah, I understand that but..." and then proceeding to show that they haven't understood a damn thing. Alas they have usually invested so much time and energy acquiring their mistaken knowledge that their belief in the correctness of it unshakable. These are the people for whom the phrase "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch" was coined. They are a lost cause and are best avoided.

[lawrocket 3]

[Quote]Alas they have usually invested so much time and energy acquiring their mistaken knowledge that their belief in the correctness of it unshakable.

This is kinda what deniers have been saying about alarmists, isn't it? And what alarmists say about deniers. No matter what the observations show, they belief in the correctness won't be fazed. Understandably - some have staked their careers on a certain theory. Other staked their reputations. And when the results don't match the predictions then there will be defensiveness. Who wants to be proven wrong?

In a sense I view the effects of AGW like the vacua of string theory. There sure is a lot there that is interesting and makes sense, but there are so many effects that anything can be attributed to it such to make it non-falsifiable.

Maybe it's my own viewpoint that devastating AGW is being treated more like an axiom - that it's truth is apparent and need not be proven. I am no physicist. I am no chemist or statistician. But I think just about anybody is qualified to ask questions. Some are a bit more hard hitting. Some are ignorant. But plenty of people actually seem to have decent points. For example, sea level is rising. But it's linear sea level rise. [Url]http://sealevel.colorado.edu/[/url]. This is contrary to the models that predict acceleration of sea level rise. The median prediction by climate scientists is a 40-60 cm (28cm to 98cm range) rise in sea level by 2100. The trend is right about 25 cm per century. So they're banking on an exponential increase in the next 85 years of perhaps more than doubling the average rate. We also know that sea level always rises in and interglacial period.

So we observe. We look at NOAA's tides and currents page and see what sea level is doing according to tide gauges. And we can look at satellite altimetry and gauge that. And we see the differences and wonder why they are different. And the geologists tell us that land masses are static and interglacial rebound explains that the ocean isn't rising more quickly in New Orleans and causing inundation. Rather, the ground is sinking like a ship under the ocean. And we ask, "how much of a role do humans play in it?" And we hope for a signal to eventually show through.

Since I have started to actually study climate change I have changed my views from "outright denier" to believing that it is happening. Humans can and do effect albedo and temperature forcings. Fifty years ago we believed the sun was static. Now we know that the "S" in S/4(1-a) is as variable as the "a" is.

Issue is that I think that global warming will be mild and within natural variability and well within human ability to adapt. Because that's what the past 150 years have shown. I also think that injecting sulfur aerosols will cause more harm than they will prevent, because I don't think the present and near-to-mid term prospect is bad enough to warrant this inexpensive and highly effective global warming mitigation strategy.

If global warming was a cancer, sulfur aerosols would be the 100% effective chemo. Yes, chemo is poison that has other bad effects but if a chemo was guaranteed to get rid of the cancer then most would be able to justify the bad effects. Right now I can't justify those effects. Maybe in 30 or 50 years AGW will take off and it will warrant the use of such a strategy.

Just my thoughts. We wouldn't give chemo to treat a cold. That, to me, is the issue.

As an aside, I've been following that the APS has been reviewing the 2007 Statement on Climate Change. Back in 2010 the APS did respond to the criticism of the statement that the science is "incontrovertible."

I think the APS is going to step back and depoliticize the Statement and focus more on the science. And I suspect that the APS will greatly scale back and identify controversy in the science. Physicists closing the door on discussion just doesn't happen much, does it?

[airdvr 200]

In the immortal words of Hillary, "What difference does it make?". As a country we won't do what's needed to change things, and even if we did, we won't have enough of an impact. China and India are the major polluters now. Do you think they'll just stop?

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[Amazon 7]

airdvr

In the immortal words of Hillary, "What difference does it make?". As a country we won't do what's needed to change things, and even if we did, we won't have enough of an impact. China and India are the major polluters now. Do you think they'll just stop?

I think you will see a major shift in the next 10 years when the cancer rates and other diseases caused by massive pollution spike drasticallyand adversly effect large numbers in the people of those countries

[Amazon 7]

Food for thought... I have long said... that many of those who deny that things are changing, just do not have the experience to make those judgment's that nothing is happening.

Having travelled extensively for over 50 years now.. I have seen things change drastically in my lifetime. The one thing that has had the most impact on our planet is US

http://www.businessinsider.sg/biggest-global-changes-2014-2/#.Uw9i1F2YY09