The GW denialists are winning

[Pyrotex]

Here is my take. Al Gore is a professional politician. Politicians are not noted for telling the truth. Name one in recent memory. ....

Al Gore.

[maikeru]

My idea for an AGW experiment would be a massive release or sequestration of CO2. Similar tests have been done in the atmosphere with man made particulates. We'd be able to learn about climate feedbacks, if we could do this type of test.

 

That's wishful thinking on my part, as a second choice I'd like to see if we could increase CO2 emissions to push atmospheric levels of CO2 up to 500ppm before 2050. We might be able to do this if we had an energy policy that actually encouraged the use and production of energy.

 

I understand that CO2 has a greenhouse effect on temperature, I understand from experimental tests that doubling CO2 created a 0.5 C increase. The IPCC science amplifies this with a bunch of positive feedbacks, that I don't believe have ever been experimentally tested. Please let me know if there are any climate feedback experiments, I'm woefully ignorant of such.

 

If Siberia melts and the permafrost decays into CO2 and methane or the methane clathrates at the bottom of the ocean are released, you just might get your wish. :rolleyes:

[Michaelangelica]

If I wanted priests in robes who were above question,

The Liberal party wanted Costello as their leader. They have got Abbot, a right-wing, Catholic, ex-trainee priest.

I doubt he will be as funny without the other half.

 

I guess he don't see the Bible's Genesis as "just a theory"

[Michaelangelica]

Climate change and apocalypse fatigue

November 23, 2009

In the lead up to Copenhagen, it’s worth asking where public opinion is on climate change. And if it isn’t fully onside, what are the reasons? Are people simply overloaded with the warnings of disaster?

. . .

One interesting argument, coming out of Yale is that people simply have a case of “Apocalypse Fatigue”. The researchers say a threat in 20 years time or more is simply too far off and, perhaps, too awful to contemplate.

. . .

People have difficulty seeing a future more than 10 years away and scientists say that ability has been fading over the years. Maybe it has something to do with today’s culture of instant gratification. It doesn’t lend itself to long term thinking and analysis.

. . .

Then there is the question of whether people are switching off because they have been overloaded with disaster scenarios.

Climate change and apocalypse fatigue - Management Line - Executive Style - Sydney Morning Herald Blogs

[Cedars]

The Liberal party wanted Costello as their leader. They have got Abbot, a right-wing, Catholic, ex-trainee priest.

I doubt he will be as funny without the other half.

 

I guess he don't see the Bible's Genesis as "just a theory"

 

So why did he quit pursuing being a priest? Couldnt believe what was being taught? Not enough faith? What is your quarrel with him, other than he doesnt think cap and trade is a good idea for Australia? ( I believe thats his position).

 

Why doesnt he think cap and trade is a good idea? Is it because of the economic impact on Australia? Does he fear job loss? Is he worried about crumbling whats left of the Australian economy?

[BrianG]

Brian,

have you ever heard of a "calendar"? It's a simple device (often made of just paper) that allows one to pin down the date of occurence of an event. Very useful.

 

Had you pointed out that the data in question was disposed of in the 1980's and that the FOI request was twenty years LATER, then it would have been obvious that no malicious conspiracy was involved...

 

I didn't know the data was thrown out in the 1980's, do you have more information?

[Cedars]

If Siberia melts and the permafrost decays into CO2 and methane or the methane clathrates at the bottom of the ocean are released, you just might get your wish. :rolleyes:

 

What makes you think the permafrost will decay into C02? The permafrost turns into water when thawed. Water holds CO2. I doubt the existing permafrost is c02 saturated, meaning as it thaws it will hold more co2. Additionally, warmer soil provides better plant growth, and plants will absorb at least a portion of the co2 release.

 

So I wonder how much of the co2 release from the melting permafrost is speculation. Well I suppose all of it is.

[Michaelangelica]

Climate change data dumped - Times Online

 

Sorry, I'll do better at citations, I don't know what's been posted here before, I'm keeping up with this thread, but there are many others. I don't want to spam, but I won't post claims I can't back up.

The fact that the vast majority of the emails, many of which were sent by leading climatologist Phil Jones, are dull almost beyond comprehension suggests otherwise. Surely if the hack attack or leak was a concerted effort by climate change nay-sayers to discredit the whole concept of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW - the theory that the Earth is rapidly warming and it's all our fault) then they would have spent more time cherry picking the several emails that have really set tongues to wagging.

 

As it is, sorting through the 176MB of data to find damning items of evidence has been left to newspaper journalists, or more likely an army of minimum wage junior research monkeys.

. . .

Of course it is possible that the hacker - or disgruntled insider as some have suggested - was smart enough to bury a couple of smoking guns within the massive pile of innocent witterings. It doesn't take a criminal genius to fake a few convincing looking email headers, if armed, as they apparently were, with hundreds of genuine ones. Nobody at the UEA has come forward to confirm or deny the authenticity of the data, which is totally unsurprising. If the emails do turn out to be genuine, the very least the red-faced writers can expect is to be subjected to a series of increasingly embarrassing inquisitions at the hands of the world's press, the government institutions that fund their research activities and the British taxpayers who ultimately pick up the tab.

Emails expose the global warming conspiracy - The Inquirer

[Michaelangelica]

So why did he quit pursuing being a priest? Couldnt believe what was being taught? Not enough faith? What is your quarrel with him, other than he doesnt think cap and trade is a good idea for Australia? ( I believe thats his position).

sex (hetrosexual, paedophillia /homosexual he would have no doubt stayed) My quarrel? i don't like closed minded, hypocritical, ignorant, dishonest, religious bigots who proscribe to others..

 

Why doesnt he think cap and trade is a good idea? Is it because of the economic impact on Australia? Does he fear job loss? Is he worried about crumbling whats left of the Australian economy?

I have no idea, but some Comments thown about by his party include "no-one else is doing it" (untrue) "we need more time" (under discussion for 10 years now)'it won't make any diffence" (maybe, so lets all lie down and die). "i don't believe in global warming" (it is no longer a matter of "belief". The facts are clear.)

The cynic in me thinks he sees a golden opportunity of getting more power and perhaps becoming PM on a GW ETS scare campaign.

[Cedars]

The cynic in me thinks he sees a golden opportunity of getting more power and perhaps becoming PM on a GW ETS scare campaign.

 

omg. You guys did have a costello before this abbot. Too funny.

 

OK I looked up a bit on abbot and understand why you dont like him.

 

With politicians, it seems to always be about power.

Me I just want the money. :)

[BrianG]

I've been asking people, "Have you heard about Climategate? It sounds like the biggest science scandal since Piltdown Man on steroids." but only one out of ten have the vaguest notion of what I'm talking about. I find this kind of behavior reprehensible, I think there should be investigations, hearings, trials, firings, fines and jail for the guilty. I want to see some of our taxpayer money given as science grants, returned.

 

I want to see heads roll, I'm angry. Science shouldn't work this way.

[Zythryn]

What makes you think the permafrost will decay into C02? The permafrost turns into water when thawed. Water holds CO2. I doubt the existing permafrost is c02 saturated, meaning as it thaws it will hold more co2. Additionally, warmer soil provides better plant growth, and plants will absorb at least a portion of the co2 release.

 

So I wonder how much of the co2 release from the melting permafrost is speculation. Well I suppose all of it is.

 

There are measurable, and large amounts of methane present in the permafrost. Many people also link permafrost melting with the methan hydrates frozen in the sea melting and releasing more methane.

This methane is what will 'decay' into CO2 (I believe in 10-20 years on average).

[REASON]

There are measurable, and large amounts of methane present in the permafrost. Many people also link permafrost melting with the methan hydrates frozen in the sea melting and releasing more methane.

This methane is what will 'decay' into CO2 (I believe in 10-20 years on average).

 

Here's a Wiki article that discusses this.

 

Arctic methane release is the release of methane from seas and soils in permafrost regions of the Arctic. Whilst a natural process, it is exacerbated by global warming. This results in a positive feedback effect, as methane is itself a greenhouse gas.

 

The Arctic region is one of the many minor natural sources of the greenhouse gas methane. Global warming may accelerate its release, although atmospheric levels have been stable over the past decade. Large quantities of methane are stored in the Arctic in natural gas deposits, permafrost, and as submarine clathrates. Permafrost and clathrates degrade on warming, thus large releases of methane from these sources may arise as a result of global warming.[1][2] Other sources of methane include submarine taliks, river transport, ice complex retreat, submarine permafrost and decaying gas hydrate deposits.[3]

 

Arctic methane release - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[BrianG]

The GW denialists are winning. What can be done?

...

George Monbiot

...

 

I like that George wants Phil Jone's head on a platter, throw him under a bus and let the B-Team take over, but we need to dig deeper. There's bad science happening here, we need to get to the bottom of it. We need to put bad scientists out of work, so this stuff doesn't happen. I rely on good science, and we haven't seen much of that.

[Cedars]

There are measurable, and large amounts of methane present in the permafrost. Many people also link permafrost melting with the methan hydrates frozen in the sea melting and releasing more methane.

This methane is what will 'decay' into CO2 (I believe in 10-20 years on average).

 

Heres an interesting article on some of this (sea features). Key points:

 

*Previous studies have suggested that pingo-like features are pingos that formed on land but were submerged when sea level rose following the end of the last ice age, over 10,000 years ago.

 

*First, sound waves bounced through the pingo-like features showed that they were not built up from layers, but consist of a jumbled mixture of sediment and small nodules of fresh-water (rather than salt-water) ice. Carbon-14 dating of organic matter in the sediment at the crests of several hills showed that this sediment was deposited before the last ice age, thousands of years before sediments on the surrounding seafloor.

 

*This seemed possible because the seafloor in this area has been gradually warming over the last 10,000 years, after being flooded as sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age. Although within a few degrees of freezing, the seawater in this region is at least 10 degrees Centigrade (20 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than permafrost-filled soil. Thus, when the ice sheets from the last ice age melted and the ocean flooded the continental shelves, it caused the seafloor sediment to become warmer.

 

*In either case, Paull's data suggest that pingo-like features are growing in response to warming that started thousands of years ago. Thus, their growth is not a result of human-induced global warming.

 

MBARI News Release - Methane bubbling through seafloor creates undersea hills

 

USGS

 

Maps indicate this is primarily a coastal feature.

 

Methane gas is released from swamps all over the world, each and every day. To assume there will be a sudden release of overwhelming gas amounts due to the seasonal tundra thawing (even enhanced, its still cyclic and it still works its way south to north, coast to inland) seems a little far fetched and journalistic alarmism.

 

Heres one talking about it:

 

Linking continental-slope failures and climate change: Testing the clathrate gun hypothesis — Geology

 

"In contrast, sediment failures during the Preboreal period and the majority of the Holocene occurred in the high latitudes, suggesting either isostatic rebound–related earthquake activity or reduced hydrostatic pressure caused by isostatic rebound, causing destabilization of gas hydrates."

 

Rebounding is still occurring over the canadian shield area of the various domes from the hudson bay, north south and east (and maybe elsewhere), but I dont think there would be much build-up, being as this is one area that the Laurentide scraped down the bedrock.

 

Thinking about the variables as a non-expert, just off the top of my head, one would think if the issue of methane was problematic inland, evidence would be seen in the hudson bay area, being as the two main ice domes met almost in the middle, which is where lots of pushing and pressures would have occured and the ensuing deposits during retreat. Maybe aggazi draining averted any real danger of buildup.

 

Hope this makes sense.

[Zythryn]

Cedar, very interesting information about Pingos. But they have nothing to do with methane storage from what I have been able to find.

Interesting, but why did you bring them up?

And yes, just as the biosphere has a seasonal increase and decrease in CO2, it also releases Methane more at certain times of the year.

 

Same answer though, is there too much at any point? Since I take some vitamin C each day, 200,000 times the daily does certainly won't hurt me, will it?

 

So we have swamps emitting some methane each year, should we add lots more if we can prevent it?

[Cedars]

Cedar, very interesting information about Pingos. But they have nothing to do with methane storage from what I have been able to find.

Interesting, but why did you bring them up?

Because I can find absolutely no info on continental methane deposits (except in russia). Its existence (in any quantity) is speculated. The confirmed areas of methane deposits are continental shelf areas.

 

So I went with what there was info on.

 

 

Same answer though, is there too much at any point? Since I take some vitamin C each day, 200,000 times the daily does certainly won't hurt me, will it?

Speaking of irrelevant

So we have swamps emitting some methane each year, should we add lots more if we can prevent it?

You cant prevent it. Its natural. Its the same go forth and conquer attitude, still wrapped in the cloak of "its good for you".

 

I do note you ignore:

"In contrast, sediment failures during the Preboreal period and the majority of the Holocene occurred in the high latitudes, suggesting either isostatic rebound–related earthquake activity or reduced hydrostatic pressure caused by isostatic rebound, causing destabilization of gas hydrates."

 

with supporting link.