global warming: is it us, or is it the sun?

Henry Spencer wrote:

(And if it starts affecting the really big ice sheets, we've got serious
problems, like rising sea level. That *didn't* happen during previous
natural warmings -- some of the beaches the Vikings landed on, during the
last big warm spell, still exist, indicating that the sea level now is
much the same as it was then.)

I think something that is different are the night temperatures, which are
also rising much faster than the average.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article .net,
Rand Simberg wrote:
The human effect on atmospheric CO2 is well understood. The issues now
are the effect of this increased CO2 on climate.

Particularly relative to the effect of the solar cycle.

There is some room to argue about the relative sizes of the effects now.
But there's little room for doubt that if our CO2 emissions keep rising
along current trend curves, they *will* rapidly become the dominant
effect. Debate about the source of *today's* warming is an unimportant
side issue. Whether or not you believe that modest amounts of artificial
global warming are already present, there is no reasonable doubt that
adding tens of terawatts of fossil-fuel power will produce very large
amounts of it.


What are the effects of putting X amount of CO2 into the atmosphere?
I don't think this is well established. More CO2 will lead to
warming, other things being equal, I suspect, but how much warming?

It is not clear to me that warming is "bad". Sea level rises could be
disruptive to coastal communities, but a lot will depend upon the
magnitudes and the time frames involved. A slow rise over a century
is something that humans can adapt to.

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article .net,
Rand Simberg wrote:
...Whether or not you believe that modest amounts of artificial
global warming are already present, there is no reasonable doubt that
adding tens of terawatts of fossil-fuel power will produce very large
amounts of it.

That begs the question as to whether the effect is good, or bad...

Any sort of serious climate change is likely to be hard on agriculture,
among other things, in the short term, even if it turns out to be an
improvement in the long term.

Historically, warm periods have been times of gentle weather and plentiful
harvests... but those came about by different routes, and right now we
have no more than guesses on whether an artificially-induced one



Artificial? These are effects of life, nothing artificial about
humanity. I find it curious that intelligence is considered
a distortion of natural processes.

If there's one thing we're learning about Mars is that the
absence of life is the primary threat to a biosphere. Life
stabilizes, adapts and self-maintains.
http://www.calresco.org/perturb.htm

The only trend that is clear is that the evolution of intelligence
has dramatically increased the rate of change on this
planet. This trend will ultimately force the whole to
bounce faster around, and closer to, the optimum.

Human activity will find a way to prevent either catastrophic
extreme, freezing or drowning, from happening. We must
have Faith in natural processes, as they always
win in the end.

The trends of Nature are clear.

Democracy and freedom are 'natural' processes. As the
world continues moving towards those goals we are
returning to Nature. And with it the world.

Humanity is destined to swim in beauty, this is
a mathematical certainty. Check the math
for yourself.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quee0818/comp...omplexity.html






Jonathan

s




would be
similar. It's one hell of a gamble. A certain amount of it is likely
inevitable at this point, but there's much to be said for limiting the
size of the pot.

This is a technological problem, not a regulatory one: if we're going to
even contain this, then by mid-century, we need to be commissioning
perhaps a terawatt a year of CO2-neutral primary power sources. None of
the current ideas for how to do that is within current technology, if only
because of scaling issues.

I think that it could probably be accommodated with fission. That's
more a political problem than a technological one.

Unfortunately, likely recoverable reserves of U-235 are only around
300TW-yr tops, and you just can't base tens of TW of power on that. Doing
the job with fission requires either large-scale uranium extraction from
low-grade sources like seawater, or large-scale breeding from U-238 or
(better) thorium, and neither is off-the-shelf technology, not on the
terawatt scale. The breeding solution is probably feasible -- perhaps
with fusion-fission hybrid breeders, which are probably easier than either
pure-fission breeders or direct fusion power -- but needs a lot of work.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Jonathan wrote:

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

In article .net,
Rand Simberg wrote:

...Whether or not you believe that modest amounts of artificial
global warming are already present, there is no reasonable doubt that
adding tens of terawatts of fossil-fuel power will produce very large
amounts of it.

That begs the question as to whether the effect is good, or bad...

Any sort of serious climate change is likely to be hard on agriculture,
among other things, in the short term, even if it turns out to be an
improvement in the long term.

Historically, warm periods have been times of gentle weather and plentiful
harvests... but those came about by different routes, and right now we
have no more than guesses on whether an artificially-induced one




Artificial? These are effects of life, nothing artificial about
humanity. I find it curious that intelligence is considered
a distortion of natural processes.

If there's one thing we're learning about Mars is that the
absence of life is the primary threat to a biosphere. Life
stabilizes, adapts and self-maintains.
http://www.calresco.org/perturb.htm

The only trend that is clear is that the evolution of intelligence
has dramatically increased the rate of change on this
planet. This trend will ultimately force the whole to
bounce faster around, and closer to, the optimum.

Human activity will find a way to prevent either catastrophic
extreme, freezing or drowning, from happening. We must
have Faith in natural processes, as they always
win in the end.

The trends of Nature are clear.

Democracy and freedom are 'natural' processes. As the
world continues moving towards those goals we are
returning to Nature. And with it the world.

Humanity is destined to swim in beauty, this is
a mathematical certainty. Check the math
for yourself.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quee0818/comp...omplexity.html





Go to google.

Do a search on the the term "Mass Extinction"

"Jonathan" wrote in message
...

Historically, warm periods have been times of gentle weather and
plentiful
harvests... but those came about by different routes, and right now we
have no more than guesses on whether an artificially-induced one

Artificial? These are effects of life, nothing artificial about
humanity. I find it curious that intelligence is considered
a distortion of natural processes.

depends on what that intelligence is used for. There is nothing natural
about refined fossil fuels (gasoline and diesel do not occur in nature, and
raw crude oil does not naturally occur aboveground). There is nothing
natural about comcrete and asphalt and roofing tiles, which take up an
increasing share of the Earth's surface. There is nothing natural about
toxic waste. There is nothing natural about clearcutting vast swathes of
rainforest and turning it into agricultural land. There is nothing natural
about contamination of rivers, lakes, oceans and groundwater frmo overuse of
pesticides and sewage dumping. Etc., etc.

If there's one thing we're learning about Mars is that the
absence of life is the primary threat to a biosphere. Life
stabilizes, adapts and self-maintains.
http://www.calresco.org/perturb.htm

The only trend that is clear is that the evolution of intelligence
has dramatically increased the rate of change on this
planet. This trend will ultimately force the whole to
bounce faster around, and closer to, the optimum.

either that, or "the whole" will keep getting bounced around so much by a
constant stream of new stressors that equilibrium (there is no such thing as
"optimum" in nature, that's a human conceit based on our short lifespans)
becomes much harder to attain and maintain.

Human activity will find a way to prevent either catastrophic
extreme, freezing or drowning, from happening.

Repeated studies have shown that, even if we cut greenhouse gas emission
rates in half immediately across the globe, the long-term effects of all
that current CO2 and the population growth rates and the CFCs that are still
bouncing around up there, eating ozone molecules for the next fifty years
mean that the Earth's climate *will* heat up for at least the next fifty
years, regardless of whether the Earth is or is not moving into another Ice
Age.

I live in Atlanta, which has hot dry summers, warm rainy spring/fall, and
mild dry/rainy winters. But over the last five years we've started moving
steadily towards a "Florida" climate of hot summers with frequent
thunderstorms, hot dry spring/fall, and warm dry winters. So I'm having to
rethink my landscaping under the assumption that I'm not living in
Jacksonville instead of Atlanta. And I've resigned myself to being in this
kind of climate for basically the rest of my life.

So while it is true that Mother Nature can change the Earth's climate in
ways more powerful and widespread than anything that we could ever dream of
doing, humna beings still can and do have dramatic impact on the climate.

We must
have Faith in natural processes, as they always
win in the end.

The trends of Nature are clear.

you do realize that the rapidly-changing climate of the last 100 years is
radically different than the climate 500 years ago, which is readically
different from the climate 10,000 years ago, which...

Democracy and freedom are 'natural' processes. As the
world continues moving towards those goals we are
returning to Nature. And with it the world.

LOL. Tell that to the Haitians who have cut down pretty much every forest on
their half of the island for firewood, or the Hondurans who are being forced
to clearcut their mahogany to make up for the loss of revenue from
discontinued banana production, or the countries in North Africa that keep
getting more and more of their cropland swallowed by the Sahara, or...

Humanity is destined to swim in beauty, this is
a mathematical certainty. Check the math
for yourself.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quee0818/comp...omplexity.html

LOL. The four most inherently false words in teh English language are
"scientists now know that..." That's not a knock on scientists, that's just
an indication that nature is a hell of a lot more complex and fickle and
resilient than we can possibly know at any given time.

There's also the not-inconsequential consideration of corporate and
governmental self-interest trumping any long-term considerations. People and
corporations tend to think and act with a short-term focus. There's nothing
we can do (short of watching extreme, catastrophic climate change occurring
before our eyes) that will ever change that.

--
Terrell Miller


proudly keeping alt.music.yes all-to-**** since 1996

Fred K. wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article .net,
Rand Simberg wrote:
The human effect on atmospheric CO2 is well understood. The issues now
are the effect of this increased CO2 on climate.

Particularly relative to the effect of the solar cycle.

There is some room to argue about the relative sizes of the effects now.
But there's little room for doubt that if our CO2 emissions keep rising
along current trend curves, they *will* rapidly become the dominant
effect. Debate about the source of *today's* warming is an unimportant
side issue. Whether or not you believe that modest amounts of artificial
global warming are already present, there is no reasonable doubt that
adding tens of terawatts of fossil-fuel power will produce very large
amounts of it.


What are the effects of putting X amount of CO2 into the atmosphere?
I don't think this is well established. More CO2 will lead to
warming, other things being equal, I suspect, but how much warming?

More CO2 will also lead to more CO2 being released - not just by virtue
of warming either - from natural non-atmospheric reserves of CO2.


It is not clear to me that warming is "bad". Sea level rises could be
disruptive to coastal communities, but a lot will depend upon the
magnitudes and the time frames involved. A slow rise over a century
is something that humans can adapt to.

Look at say for example what the night temprature increases are doing to
yields of rice and some other crops.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
Moreover, preventing this -- or even restraining it enough to offer some
hope that climate effects will be modest -- is really hard; trying to
regulate it away, e.g. Kyoto, is like ordering the tide not to come in.
Already, 80% of annual CO2-emissions growth is in developing nations in
Asia, not in the industrialized Western world.

Yes - though Kyoto (and other regulations) are having the effect of
pushing technology, an example of a regulatory force creating a host
of technological solutions. (though still no "killer solution")

This is a technological problem, not a regulatory one: if we're going to
even contain this, then by mid-century, we need to be commissioning
perhaps a terawatt a year of CO2-neutral primary power sources. None of
the current ideas for how to do that is within current technology, if only
because of scaling issues.

I would say no solutions are both within current technology and
economically viable. SSP for example is within current technology. (or
at least technology we could easily develop).

"Alex Terrell" wrote in message
om...

I would say no solutions are both within current technology and
economically viable. SSP for example is within current technology.
(or at least technology we could easily develop).

I am a little more optimistic.

Sooner or later we will have to develop a degree of active climate
control, (nature can not be trusted forever). This is the real task at
hand, not stopping global warming.

There are many more effective methods of directly controlling global
temperature than by atmospheric CO2, (search google), also, we should
only be treating the detrimental symptoms. Increased atmospheric CO2 is
otherwise highly beneficial for global biomass and biodiversity. One of
the things that causes ice ages is the natural accumulation of fossil
fuels, (reduction in atmospheric CO2), which an ice age stops, until the
slow rate of natural CO2 release eventually restores the balance.

One of the best ways of controlling sea level is to slow wind and ocean
currents and ice flows in and out of the polar regions. This results in
the accumulation of ice at the poles, this also results in increased
reflection of sunlight back out into space, and a reduction in global
temperature.

Dam the ice flows, one method might be to use long 1000 ton spectra
ropes, as used for pulling ships, with ice harpoons at each end. Drop
them from helicopters to prevent ice flows from breaking up and floating
away to warmer climates, this could be quite cost effective.

Power generation from ocean currents is almost economic now, (wind power
is), increasing the scale of such by a couple of orders of magnitude
basically gives us the capacity to partially influence wind and ocean
currents, and also solves our energy problems. With such a system we
could directly control sea level, and even influence temperature and
precipitation at a regional level, assuring the likes of the gulf
stream. This could be economically sustainable, especially if one could
economically incorporate the climate control benefits. The agricultural
and catastrophe prevention benefits alone could be in the trillions of
dollars.

Pete.

(Henry Spencer) :

Unfortunately, likely recoverable reserves of U-235 are only around
300TW-yr tops, and you just can't base tens of TW of power on that. Doing
the job with fission requires either large-scale uranium extraction from
low-grade sources like seawater, or large-scale breeding from U-238 or
(better) thorium, and neither is off-the-shelf technology, not on the
terawatt scale. The breeding solution is probably feasible -- perhaps
with fusion-fission hybrid breeders, which are probably easier than either
pure-fission breeders or direct fusion power -- but needs a lot of work.

Now Henry, you should know that is not true. The Japanese have already shown
that low cost recovery of using nothing more than polymer beads in seawater.
Are you saying that large scale production of a polymer is not off the shelf
technology?

Earl Colby Pottinger
--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

"Paul F. Dietz" :

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

If human's production of green house gasses are less than the natural
production swings then we have very little say in the global warming
trends.

And if the earth is flat, we can launch the shuttle by pushing it off the
edge.

The human effect on atmospheric CO2 is well understood. The issues now
are the effect of this increased CO2 on climate.

Really then show me some solid figures comparing human production of
greenhouse gasses vs natural sources.

Earl Colby Pottinger
--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp