[Geology2] Re: your opinions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is putting out a draft of  another in its series of reports on climate change, hardening their certainty that man is causing it, and pegging possible sea level rise at 3 feet.  It's in the New York Times Science section  today.

Vic

--- In geology2@yahoogroups.com, Allison Maricelli-Loukanis wrote:
>
> I hear you Eman. I understand that there are many variables in the climate and in the earth forces ( volcanism, quakes, whatever) that are out of our control. You mentioned New Orleans... that is a city I am very familiar with. It is below sea level. I can stand on the levee and watch a ship go by over my head. So yeah.. it may be sinking. I hope it is many years though before that happens. A country with out New Orleans would be a sad place indeed. But ... this forum is always interesting. Thanks. Alliso
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: MEM mstreman53@...
> To: "geology2@yahoogroups.com" geology2@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 6:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [Geology2] Re: your opinions
>
>
>
>  
> Hello Allison
> As to what you said--Maybe, maybe not. 
>
>
> My fears are multi-fold:
> Wishy-washy, politicized science turned religion is and has disillusioned segments of the public such that when the wolf is really at the door no one will believe it. Can you say Solendra? Lots of treasure -- public and private has been squandered by misled governments and the business community has a longer memory than the public.  We may not have the will nor the money to change things when we truly do have solutions to "control" the temperature.
>
>
> I believe that with the availability of super computers we will have valid models come online within the next ten years which will integrate a large number of significant "normal" climate cycles where we can then make sound adaptation decisions. China has just announced a super computer that can do more calculations per second than atoms on earth.  But it takes 3 billion bicycle-0wered generators to run it(lol)
>
> Focus on CO2 reduction alone is misguided even if Humans were 100% responsible for CO2 levels doubling if CO2 is lost in the noise level of syncronizing climate cycles which cumulatively overwhelm the current balance of feedback loops and up and down cycles make human activity miniscule in comparison.
>
> Be mindful that we are at the mercy of "climate drivers" anyway regardless of CO2.  "Knowing" with a validated, highly accurate model that we will have super bad winters 11, 22, 33 years in advance  allows policy makers to better deal with them. I doubt we will be able to "control or prevent them".
>
>   Knowing that a delta will disappear in 50 years regardless of human effort changes ( in theory) where we allow people to build in wetlands.  New Orleans is already doomed in the long run and CO2 has nothing to do with the fact that it was built on a slipping , sinking underground slope with unusual curved faults. Sea level rise has noting to do with NOs sinking it will sink even if sea level remains the same. "Sea level rise" is being blamed for the situation of Venice Italy's buildings being inundated in the press and by the IPCC.  The fact the the lagoon it sits astride has been filling with sediment for several hundred years of the life of Venice and has a reduced capacity to deal with tides and storms is not a CO2 issue so CO2 solutions for Venice are not going to be effective.  Hence and again my admonition that adaptation and remediation are the most prudent uses of capital and effort while we are looking at methods of strategic heat
> mitigation.  Maybe we find that building science fiction-sized terra-formers which convert excess heat into microwaves we beam into space is more effective than "controlling" CO2 levels which ultimately we find only contribute to10- 20% of the temperature rise.
>
> No model is fool-proof that can practically factor every possible impact.  China last century lost 200 million people to flooding and there was hardly a word about it is the press.  Suppose 10 years of drought wipes out 400 million of the population of India; or the Island of La Plama's volcano landslides creating historically verified tsunamis can which kill 1-2 billion seaboard living humans.  The foregone consumption of energy for those that survive makes the CO2 reduction issue go away.  There are  many catastrophe scenarios which can't be predicted even if we can model them.  Climate is a  roulette game-- place a safe bet or place a wild one and spin the wheel as to when an otherwise consistent trend gets slammed with a hammer.
>
> Eman
>
>
>
> >________________________________
> > From: Allison Maricelli-Loukanis allison.ann@...
> >To: "geology2@yahoogroups.com" geology2@yahoogroups.com
> >Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 11:34 AM
> >Subject: Re: [Geology2] Re: your opinions
> >
> >
> >
> > 
> >So what you are saying here is that because there is no current way to predict the behavior of CO2 because of the nature of the "open" system of its forcers and feedback, we are at the mercy of an unpredictable and fluctuating climate which could in the future turn into an Ice Age or a tropical sort of climate with searing temperatures, like perhaps the one in which the dinosaurs thrived in with no polar ice caps. We are, in effect, in car with no driver at the wheel. Lovely. Allison
> >
> >
> >
> >________________________________
> > From: MEM mstreman53@...
> >To: "geology2@yahoogroups.com" geology2@yahoogroups.com
> >Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 11:46 PM
> >Subject: Re: [Geology2] Re: your opinions
> >
> >
> >
> > 
> >Fossrme--For a lack of a better name owing to unsigned posts penned
> >>In the long run, I don't see how the global temperatures can do anything but continue to go up as the amount of CO2 increases. Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation - it can be easily demonstrated in the lab by shining a beam through a CO2-filled container and measuring how much of the infrared passes through. It is established science.  So the question for me has always been, how can the atmosphere not heat up as CO2 levels rise? 
> >> CO2 is both an IR(infra-red) absorber and re-emitter redirecting a band of IR wavelength photons in all directions such that, statistically, in each cycle something like 1/8th gets directed back to the ground where it is absorbed and heats the ground and the atmosphere where a portion of it in the next cycle gets redirected to the ground and so on.  Angles and latitudes effect the sum total of the effect and this is overly simplistic but one can get the drift.  What is important to take away is that CO2 gives a second and third pass at the same IR photon getting absorbed by the surface.
> >>
> >>Some of the spectrum of wavelengths( IR,Red-Far Red, Visible, UV) reaching the surface are absorbed and re-emitted via photon radiation, some is reflected outright, some is absorbed with
> excess over heat transfer rates
> heating the surface and the atmosphere by convection.  Much is converted to non-CO2 absorbable IR wavelengths so CO2 is moot for that portion of solar radiation cycle.  More on this below:
> >>
> >>Of the IR radiation reaching the ground without CO2/GHGs( Green House
> Gases) a certain amount is absorbed and a certain amount is reflected
> according to the "albedo ratio"-- whatever that value is for Earth.  Now, without GHGs, the Earth would be about 60°F cooler on the whole and would see
> swings in temperature like the moon has (about 400-500°F?).
> >>
> >>The problem with the "lab experiment"- and for which the example of "global warming" has been debunked --is that non-thorium/clear glass blocks all IR photons so nothing escapes-- it is a CLOSED system ( Note certain visible wavelengths pass into the jar where CO2 converts them to IR wavelengths--same principle on Ultra Violet(UV) fluorescence and being IR energy can't pass back out).  In the lab you don't see the mix of conditions and components that this open can play out in a manner closer to the real world.
> >>
> >>Whereas the atmosphere is an OPEN system, those other components effect the outcome.  Through a chain of reactions with other gases, the wavelength of the IR emitted by CO2 is shifted into shorter IR wavelengths which is directed into space. As those aren't the wavelength CO2 absorbs, CO2 is no longer a part of that dynamic.  Some of the CO2 emitter IR is
> absorbed by water vapor.
> >>
> >>Ergo at present there is no "constant( as in mathematical value)" which can be "fit" to a curve of simple temperature vs CO2 level values.  Once again, the interaction of forcers and feedback aren't accounted for in a way that we can make predictions.  For one thing, as atmospheric temperature goes up, so does water vapor and so does albedo and more solar radiation is reflected back into space and the temperature moved down: this IS established science and is an example of a "feedback loop". Generally loops--of which there are many in climattology do not come into play in the lab.  Hence my previous statement that simple CO2 in the lab/closed experiments does not yield the same outcome in the atmosphere.  I don't think I can be any more emphatic that one can't just jump to that assumption with any validity. An important concept to understand is "climate sensitivity"  We are working on it but as of
> today we still haven't determined CO2 concentration's climate sensitivity  or rather vice versa when we look at the whole system's behavior.
> >>
> >>One of the measurement problems and hence the conflict is that early satellite sensors were not "full IR spectrum" so all the input and output energy wasn't being measured. As I understand it there was a mix of sensors generating different sets of data which even failed to match each other on common wavelengths. Each side looking at a different set of values to make their point.  I believe lots of folks are trying to resolve standards for future arrays.
> >>
> >>I realize having said this many ways before that it is getting old but focusing on CO2 alone is akin to treating a patient by looking at blood gases or x-rays alone and a Doctor cities away proclaiming they he knows everything possibly there is to know about the patient's health status.
> >>
> >>As to Fossrme's other conclusion of fact--I can
> easily see how the Northern Hemisphere can reenter a full blown ice age in a few decades regardless of the CO2 levels-- so as to "knowing" which direction and how much the climate will migrate we'll have to disagree.  Lets get our holograms together in 50 years and see how things played out, Shall we?
> >>
> >>Eman
> >>
> >>
> >>
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