Rusted Sky

Or, I'm starting to become a believer in man-made global warming. Yes, I know I've been saying all along that I thought the time scale we've been looking at has been way too short. And that other factors may well be part of the problem - as evidenced in

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change-News-UK-TimesOnline

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. ... The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

So the world warms and cools - and it's difficult to determine from a short time frame just where we are in regards to global warming or cooling. (And if you're in certain sections of NY this week, I think you'd be pretty skeptical on the Global Warming thing, personally, as you look at ten, twelve feet of snow outside your window.)

Richard A. Lovett has written an article for Analog SF Magazine called "The Ice Age That Wasn't", which postulates that human action has indeed changed the climate... that if it wasn't for the invention of agriculture about 12,000years back, the precessions of a 41,000 year cycle, a 26,000 year cycle, and a 100,000 year cycle would have us in a pretty chilly situation right now. Agriculture started really bumping up the amount of methane in the atmosphere 5000 years back, according to a source article by William F. Ruddiman. (I'd link directly to the Analog article, since the source article is heavy wading, but it's not available for free on-line.)

Through ice core reading, methane peaks and valleys were found - with the peaks caused by an abundance of rotting vegetation. Methane levels fluctuate with the 100k, 41k, and 26k year cycles. The last peak was about 11k years back... but about 5000 years ago, the drop turned around and started going up, way before it could have normally. The abstract of the article kind of lays it out -

The anthropogenic era is generally thought to have begun 150 to 200 years ago, when the industrial revolution began producing CO2 and CH4 at rates sufficient to alter their compositions
in the atmosphere. A different hypothesis is posed here: anthropogenic emissions of these gases first altered atmospheric concentrations thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 and CH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began an anomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago. (2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases based on natural forcing can be rejected based on paleoclimatic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago. In recent millennia, the estimated warming caused by these early gas emissions reached a global-mean value of ∼0.8 ◦C and roughly 2 ◦C at high latitudes, large enough to have stopped a glaciation of northeastern Canada predicted by two kinds of climatic models. CO2 oscillations of ∼10 ppm in the last 1000 years are too large to be explained by external (solar-volcanic) forcing, but they can be explained by outbreaks of bubonic plague that caused historically documented farm abandonment in western Eurasia. Forest regrowth on abandoned farms sequestered enough carbon to account for the observed CO2 decreases. Plague-driven CO2 changes were also a significant causal factor in temperature changes during the Little Ice Age (1300–1900 AD).

...

The hypothesis advanced here is that the Anthropocene actually began thousands of years ago as a result of the discovery of agriculture and subsequent technological innovations in the practice of farming. This alternate view draws on two lines of evidence. First, the orbitally controlled variations in CO2 and CH4 concentrations that had previously prevailed for several hundred thousand years fail to explain the anomalous gas trends that developed in the middle and late Holocene.

This is a theory of global warming that I can live with. It takes in long-term geophysical cycles, short term population trends, and covers objections and anomalies sufficiently well that it appears pretty comprehensive.

There's one big problem with it. It ain't politically correct, and IF through some wierd crash program we were able to sequester significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, we'd see temperatures drop like a freezin' rock. As laid out in an article he did for Scientific American... Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?

The consequences of these surprising rises have been profound. Without them, current temperatures in northern parts of North America and Europe would be cooler by three to four degrees Celsius--enough to make agriculture difficult. In addition, an incipient ice age--marked by the appearance of small ice caps--would probably have begun several thousand years ago in parts of northeastern Canada. Instead the earth's climate has remained relatively warm and stable in recent millennia.

This is science the way it's supposed to be - come up with an end state, make theories, and find facts to fit the theory, not the other way around. It's a thick read, but I think it's worth the time expended....

J.

I tend to believe global warming is real. As readers of this blog know, I've looked at a lot of the science behind it, and am pretty well convinced by Ruddiman's article that it's real, and it's been going on since the beginning of human agriculture. And given the cyclical nature of climate change, it's managed to stall off a significant cooling trend that would leave Canada in the grip of glaciers.

So when Al Gore comes in like a prophet, insisting that we must change how we're doing things, but refuses to take a pledge to cut his own energy use, that just doesn't cut it. He's attempting to turn the entire subject of global warming into a religion, complete with indulgences, that HE is the high priest of with the implication that he is infallible and cannot be questioned. You must accept that Global Warming is real, that Al Gore is the only person with a clue on what to do, and you must do what he says or we're all gonna die.

My Way News - Gore Implores Congress to Save Planet

Fresh off a triumphant Academy Awards appearance in which his climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a "true planetary emergency" if Congress fails to act. He said addressing the problem is a moral issue and should not be a partisan or political.
But Gore faced a more skeptical reception than the warm embrace he received from Hollywood as Republicans questioned the science behind his testimony.

"You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as he challenged Gore's conclusion that carbon dioxide emissions cause rising global temperatures. Barton and Gore's exchange grew testy at one point - Barton demanding that Gore get to the point and Gore responding that he would like time to answer without being interrupted.

"Global warming science is uneven and evolving," Barton said.

Gore insisted that the link is beyond dispute and is the source of broad agreement in the scientific community.

Perhaps a poor choice of words? Trying to save the planet? A true planetary emergency? Somehow, I wouldn't cast Gore into the role of humanity's savior on this issue, primarily because I wouldn't trust the man as far as I could throw him.

It doesn't help when he comes up with stuff like this...

Gore advised lawmakers to cut carbon dioxide and other warming gases 90 percent by 2050 to avoid a crisis. Doing that, he said, will require a ban on any new coal-burning power plants - a major source of industrial carbon dioxide - that lack state-of-the-art controls to capture the gases.

He said he foresees a revolution in small-scale electricity producers for replacing coal, likening the development to what the Internet has done for the exchange of information.

"There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis," Gore said. "Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination."

I wonder if he'd force the same controls onto China or other developing countries?

A WARMING WORLD / China about to pass U.S. as world's top generator of greenhouse gases

Far more than previously acknowledged, the battle against global warming will be won or lost in China, even more so than in the West, new data show.

A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

This information, along with data from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based alliance of oil importing nations, also revealed that China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together.

It also doesn't help that Al Gore cofounded a company that sells carbon offsets - which he promotes as a way to atone for your carbon-using sins.

Trading and or purchasing carbon offsets is an emerging business, and CNSNews is also pursuing an investigative story into whether Gore or his company are making money from these offsets. It’s quite possible, for example, that GIM’s offsets actually produce financial benefits for the Gores either through tax deductions or even business profits.

A Gore spokesman refused to shed light on the personal net financial impacts to Gore, instead telling CNSNews that Mr. Gore, "as a private citizen, does not release his private income.”

So, the high priest of Global Warming can ease his conscience by writing himself indulgences for energy use. And by selling them to others, can make a tidy profit on the side. After all, just because he's doing good doesn't mean he can't do well, right?

Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news

Environmentalism: Gore's carbon footprint may be the size of Godzilla's, but he eases his conscience with 'carbon offsets.' He buys them from himself. And every time someone else buys them, Big Al gets richer.

So is it safe to say that Global Warming has become a religion? It's got a high priest, it cannot be questioned or disagreed with, has practices you must adhere to and sacrifices you must make or be considered a 'heathen', but if you slip in your carbon use you can buy indulgences to allow you to sin without bothering your karma. It promises impending doom (but not immediate, and strangely variable depending on who you talk to) and the chance of salvation.

And Al Gore will gladly sell you a nebulous, unverifiable way to atone for your sinful emissions. Saviour or con man? You decide. Like I said, I think global warming's real. There's also indications that the sun's output is a bit higher than it was, so things are open to interpretation - it's hard to lock down a particular course of action (if there even is one) about what to do about Global Warming.

But I think L. Ron Hubbard coming up with Dianetics was a piker in comparison to the scam Al Gore's running on the world.

Carbon offsets to relieve global warming, sold to you by the guy who is promoting the idea that global warming is a threat and we must act NOW, with no hesitations, no questions, because it's a planetary emergency...

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

J.