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Black Soot May Be Aiding Melting In the Himalayas
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Dec 21, 2009 08:05 AM
from the not-yeti dept.
from the not-yeti dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Himalayas, home to some 10,000 glaciers, are the main source of replenishment to lakes, streams, and some of the continent's mightiest rivers, on which millions of people depend for their water supplies. Since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has declined by more than 20 percent with a rate of warming twice the global average over the past 30 years. Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases — may be causing much of the rapid melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. 'Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate,' says James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. 'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.' The circulation of the atmosphere in the region causes much of the soot-laden air to 'pile up' against the Himalayas. The soot mixes with other dust from nearby deserts, creating a massive brown cloud visible from space that absorbs incoming solar radiation. As this layer heats up in the Himalayan foothills, it rises and enhances the seasonal northward flow of humid monsoon winds, forcing moisture and hot air up the slopes of the mountain range."
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!millions (Score:3, Informative)
It is more like hundreds of millions.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:!millions (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re:!millions (Score:5, Funny)
Oh come on, even Americans know there are more than two people in India! There are at least four doing tech support alone! Unless 'Jeff', 'Brian', 'Mike', and 'Tim' are all the same person...
Parent
Disingenuous or just dim (Score:2)
(A + !B) != (A + B)
Uh oh (Score:3, Funny)
How long until the Abominable Smog Man evolves?
"massive brown cloud visible from space" (Score:5, Insightful)
...which links to a god damn diagram, not an actual picture from space of a massive brown cloud. Way to fail submitter.
great satelite image (Score:4, Funny)
i wasn't sure to believe until i saw the proof:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/himalayan_glaciers_h.jpg
Should not be a surprise (Score:4, Informative)
We have already noticed problems with soot [nytimes.com]. In fact I recall reading books about terraforming where soot was sprinkled on an ice cap, so the idea is pretty old.
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We have already noticed problems with soot [nytimes.com]. In fact I recall reading books about terraforming where soot was sprinkled on an ice cap, so the idea is pretty old.
The article you are referring to is HERE [denisdutton.com]. It was in response to Global Cooling, which as we all know was false and THANK GOD we didn't do anything about it. Regardless of our arrogance back then, science in the 70's was no where near where it is today. If we had acted on our ignorant assumptions, it surely would have led to an enormous disaster today.
I wonder what we'll be saying about Global Warming in 35 years.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is.. isn't...
Either way, Many of us are already doing our part regardless while continuing to be skeptical. I, myself, have reduced my carbon footprint to a mere fraction of one of the more prominent GW-action advocates, former US vice president Al Gore, Jr! That includes all of the goods and services I consume as well, and I did it all without buying any bullshit "carbon offset" scams.
Re:Should not be a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
In any case, while I'm inclined to agree with climate researchers who are experts in their field and have formulated their models on the scientific method, which is itself based on rational thought...
First, "scientific method" involves welcoming peer review of your work. As we now know, many of the leading climatologists working in AGW research have refused to publish their work in scientific journals that post criticism of their work.
Would you listen to Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences? He said:
"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy – almost throughout the last century – growth in its intensity...Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated...Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."
How about Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences:
"We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But – and I cannot stress this enough – we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future... [T]here has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas – albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed."
Oh, and $40 trillion was a global figure from HERE: [reuters.com]
This finding was based on a groundbreaking research paper by renowned climate economist Professor Richard Tol, who showed that a high, global CO2 tax starting at 68 dollars could reduce world GDP by a staggering 12.9 percent in 2100—the equivalent of 40 trillion dollars a year – costing many times the expected damage of global warming.
Or do you consider the work of 5 Nobel laureates to be credible?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah. And someone who is paid by anyone but them, including by entities that expressly want to see them destroyed, are, of course, entirely neutral and without any agenda whatsoever.
Taxes do not reduce GDP. After all, that money has to go somewhere
Are you that obtuse? Taxes suppress the activities that are taxed. People do less of the thing that is taxed. If that thing is "commerce with each other," then that's exactly what you
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the scientists who are asked by an energy company to study something don't have an agenda to kill polar bears... despite what people doubting their credibility seem to continually imply. Right? Hmmm?
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False analogy. Those hired by an energy company do have an interest in findings which support the energy company's bottom line, namely that no restrictions on fossil fuel use are necessary. Whether polar bears are killed are incidental to that.
So, what you are saying is:
Those hired by politicians via governmental grants do have an interest in findings which support the politicians expansion of power via energy regulation, namely those that control the people and businesses that use energy and the ability to decide which entities the restrictions should apply. Whether businesses are killed are incidental to that.
If it works one way, it works the other way as well. You can't discredit scientists who work for oil companies who have something to ga
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I believe we've had this discussion before. If not with you, I've had with someone else. Now, who is National Science Foundation? Or to be more accurate, who makes up the National Science Board? The list can be found HERE [nsf.gov]. Surely these guys are not biased. Surely their daytime jobs would not be affected by AGW research, right? Let's look at a member, shall we?
Dan E. Arvizu became the eighth Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on January 15, 2005. NREL, located in Golden, Colorado, is the Department of Energy's primary laboratory for energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC (Alliance). He is President of Alliance and also is an Executive Vice President with the Midwest Research Institute, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.
Hmmm... Director of the US Dept of Energy's Renewable Energy Laboratory. Gee, I wonder what would happen to his funding if we found out
Wow - a new low of spin-doctoring (Score:5, Insightful)
'Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest.'
Becomes:
Now Live Science reports that tiny particles of pollution known as 'black carbon' — and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases (...)
Quite shameless. I am almost impressed by the gall of the submitter...
Seems Familiar (Score:2, Funny)
Don't all apocalypse movies start with ominous scientific discoveries in remote geographical locations?
I hereby predict that within 4 or 5 years the UN will unveil a scheme to Save Mankind from, ummmmmmm, a passing neutron star. The scheme will feature a 1000 MT hydrogen bomb, spaceships, and short wave radio. Nicolas Cage, some hot babe, and a cute kid will survive...on Mars!
Prehistoric water reserves? (Score:2)
I'll admit I didn't read the article, but I don't understand how this is supposed to work.
If glaciers are responsible for the water supply, then if they don't melt, would these regions end up with no water at all?
Shouldn't these areas be depending on current precipitation for their water?
Or to put it another way, if these regions are depending on glacier melt from water accumulated hundreds of thousands of years ago, aren't they going to be screwed sooner or later? Either the melt isn't high enough and the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Galciers are essentially a water battery. There is very heavy seasonal precipitation high in the mountains. This precipitation becomes glacier ice, which slides downward and melts.
The sliding process and melting however happens perennial, and thus turns high seasonal percipitation into a dependable perennial water source. Without glaciers, all the water simply comes gushing downhill - which can be very damaging on its own, and leaves the people without a dependable water source for the rest of the year.
Ther
here we have a nugget of scientific observation (Score:5, Insightful)
underneath we will have a shitstorm of politically biased comments
so i offer a third option, to climate change doubters and climate change believers:
1. who fucking cares whose fault it is
political recrimination gets us nowhere. its cold in the house because someone left the window open? ok, so you're going to sit there and scream at each other over who opened the window? here's a new idea: how about someone demonstrating actual responsibility and instead actually stand the fuck up, walk over, and close the fucking window: NO MATTER WHO LEFT IT OPEN
2. who fucking cares if we are heating up or cooling down or not changing
the fact is, we live here, and we are interested in controlling the thermostat. if it gets too cold, do something to turn it up. if it gets to hot, do something to turn it down. we are homo sapiens, this what we do: we do not adapt to our environment, we adapt our environment to us. we do not grow fur, we make clothes. we do not enter torpor at midday, we invent air conditioning
if you say we shouldn't mess with the weather, you are by extension denying the fact that we already are having an effect on the climate. so we might as well get involved with twiddling with the environment ON PURPOSE, because the notion that 6.5 billion humans can magically have no effect at all is a completely absurd premise on your part
this environmental attitude is the engineer's approach. fuck all of you capitalists, politicians, activists and hysterical whiners. the engineer will prevail here, because only we have the solution to what the rest of you simply bicker about
we need scientifically, factually sound well-researched methods for forcing change on our planet on purpose. and then we'll fix your fucking problem. something like seeding the dead zones of the ocean with iron
lets put it this way: make believe, for the moment, for the sake of argument, regardless of your beliefs, that
1. the earth is actually heating up
2. it is doing so because of nature, not man-made reasons
ok, well what are we supposed to do, just accept rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the sahara desert growing 25%?
no, we artificially introduce methods for cooling the earth down. we do this, #1, for selfish reasons, but also for #2: a preservation of current species and ecosystems, as a side effect. are you going to let the amazon dry up because you don't like the idea of man fiddling with the environment?
yes, the planet could continue to evolve new species without human intervention. but what is really going to happen is that this planet is going to become a museum, under human supervision, of the current catalog of species and ecosystems that have evolved so far. why? because we want to fucking live here, that's why
so, for the deniers in opposition to supposition #1 above: if you don't believe the earth is heating up, you still have to admit the earth has had historic swings in climate, and that we earthlings will have to intervene at some point, correct?
and for the believers in man-made change in opposition to supposition #2 above: you believe that climate change is caused by man, you have to admit that to fix the problem we have to do it PROACTIVELY. please don't try to sell me the moronic bullshit that 6.5 billion humans can live on this planet like ghosts. this is a different kind of denial than those who deny climate change, but no less foolish
imagine that: no pointless recriminations and blame games, no living in denial and sticking your head in the sand
commence with the retarded partisan bickering anyway. meanwhile, us engineers will roll up our sleeves and will actually go and fix your fucking problem while you political assholes do nothing but bicker
more action, less "hot air"
Re:here we have a nugget of scientific observation (Score:4, Interesting)
Bad example. It's not who left the window open, it's determining that the problem is an open window, as opposed to for instance running the air conditioner in winter. Because fixing the problem the right way (closing the window, or shutting down the AC) is much easier than doing it the wrong way (adding heaters for instance).
If the problem is too much CO2, then it's very possible the easiest fix is to reduce the amount of CO2 instead of starting some sort of planet-wide engineering project.
How is your engineer going to fix the problem without knowing what it is? The solutions to "too cold", "too hot", and "not changing when it should" are different. And depending on the amount of change the scale of your engineering project is going to change quite a lot.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"ok, well what are we supposed to do, just accept rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the sahara desert growing 25%?"
Yep. Like much in real life, you accept it, deal with it, and move on.
How many problems (environmental, for example) have been made WORSE by someone just trying to do "something" (for dogmatic or political reasons) without understanding the how, the why, or the details?
Ultimately, no, I really DON'T care.
Oh no, the glaciers are melting...does that affect me? Nope.
Oh no, the polar bears
this type of response always amused me (Score:3, Insightful)
that is, a post that has to loudly and voluminously announce how much they don't care
paraphrasing shakespeare: methinks the lady doth protest too much
hey, genius, if you didn't care... YOU WOULDN'T POST
proof of not caring is not commenting, not being here
there really are people who don't care about this debate. those people are playing videogames or twiddling on facebook right now. if they saw this thread, they wouldn't even roll their eyes (too much caring in that effort), they'd just click away, truly uni
we have in our power right now (Score:3, Interesting)
the ability to plunge the entire planet into winter: just detonate all of our nuclear warheads
we won't do that. i'm simply countering your supposition that the earth is large and we are small. we WERE once so small as you believe. we aren't anymore
we're simply not going to accept the next ice age or the next sahara age. we're going to actively prevent it. when the amazon is drying up, and the taiga is melting, and the streets of london and shanghai are as venice, we will find the industrial, scientific and
lol (Score:3, Interesting)
"And if solar cycles are the cause, there's not a darn thing humans can do about it except adapt."
you really believe that?
if climate change threatens our economic well being, you rest assured that century or two of focused scientific innovation and politically supported engineering and industrial policies will, without a doubt, counteract natural changes, like a cooling or a heating solar cycle cause
nuclear detonations at volcanic regions to cool things down under cloud cover (study factual little ice ages
mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
the link says it all
there are engineers who get stuff done, and there are whining ignorant morons who take up space. that's pretty much the entire human race
technical universities: start assembling the geoengineering major programs of study now, to get a jump on the upcoming scholastic trend
liberal arts universities: start a program on reality tv programs. pffft
Satellite Imagery (Score:5, Interesting)
Aerosal pollution over India and Bangladesh--2001 [nasa.gov]
Haze over China--- 2003 [nasa.gov]
Haze along the Himalaya Front Range --2004 [nasa.gov].
Smog over the bay of Bengal-- 2006 [nasa.gov]
Shoddy PR at work (Score:4, Insightful)
The linked diagramm is a dead giveaway that this is more of a PR stunt than usefull scientific research. No matter what the verdict, fact is: we are putting to much polution into the atmosphere and we need to stop. That's a fact, and no lobbying otherwise will change it.
Global Warming may be (less than correct)? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thoughtful people are slowly, slowly awakening to the idea that the climate alarmists predicting doom for the planet's climate may be less than completely right. Previously, the melting of the himalayan glaciers was positively, definitely, absolutely, without doubt, guaranteed attributable 100 percent to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. The simple fact is that nothing technical that supports the AGW theory that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from "pre-industrial" levels to the current level has caused (or even contributed to) any measurable amount of planetary warming. Similarly, there is nothing to support the popular idea that some arbitrary co2 concentration is necessary to maintain our current planetary climate conditions. Our current knowledge of the things that might affect the Earth's climate, and the magnitude of their effect, is primitive, and dominated scientifically by the equivalent of 15th-century flat-earthers. Go to the NSIDC (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) website and read their 'news and analysis' to see how they spin every little uptick in the arctic ice cover. Would you trust agenda-driven people like that to tell the unvarnished scientific truth about...anything? They are the technical equivalent of eugenics people excavating an african anthropological site. If the Earth's climate continues to cool (as it has for the last two years) they will keep spinning it as validation of their models, right up until their funding dries up and they have to pull the power plug on their computer and website. Anyone (Al Gore comes to mind) who claims to know all, or even any, of the answers to global climate change is being blatantly dishonest. It was hysterically funny to see record low temperatures and snow visit Copenhagen at the same time that planetary leaders were meeting there to discuss global warming.
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Re:Some nice backpedaling there, bud (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Some nice backpedaling there, bud (Score:5, Informative)
Calling it melting is prejudicial (because it implies melting due to warming), it's termed glacial retreat and in most cases, there are valid reasons for this not associated with "Global Warming". For instance, the glaciers on Kilimanjaro are retreating because the rain forest at the bottom was destroyed which drastically reduced the amount of precipitation on the mountain's slopes. Less precipitation == less liquid to freeze, so the water lost to the summer temperatures was simply not replaced.
Interestingly, the cost of replacing the stoves causing the Himalayan pollution (it is believed that most of the soot is not from large scale generation, but from household stoves - individually they're not that significant, but there's a hell of a lot of people in that part of the world) has been estimated at $15 billion. This seems like a good use of resources to me, rather than fantasy schemes like cap and trade.
Parent
Re:Some nice backpedaling there, bud (Score:5, Insightful)
Cry me a river about lost corporate profits.
Says he who doesn't realize that Eeeeevil Corporate Profits are what
Or are you too young to remember why the Iron Curtain fell, and why so many (non-union) citizens welcomed (nay, screamed for) government privatization: government bureaucracies do an absolutely suck-ass job of providing services.
Parent
Re:Some nice backpedaling there, bud (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations != the free market. I am not in favor of communism, I am in favor of taking power away from huge corporations and reducing their role in government.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am in favor of taking power away from huge corporations and reducing their role in government.
As am I, but in a globally-connected world I see this as a prisoners' dilemma: all countries must do it together, or some countries corporations will gain the advantage.
And that's not even counting countries like the PRC, where most large corps are owned by the gov't (usually in the form of the PLA) and thus want these companies to have a lot of power...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's where common sense disappears completely. The ONLY power a corporation has comes as a result of YOU buying their products. If you don't want them to have power stop buying their stuff.
You won't do that though, because you cannot live without the conveniences they provide for you, but keep crying a river about people having money and power YOU voluntarily gave to them. If you truly hated corporations then you would change your lifestyle to one not completely dependent on them.
How about not electing go
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Yeah the bankers choosing the wrong algorithms to calculate risk on derivatives, a speculative real estate bubble, and no background check loans for houses had nothing to do with the crash right Curunir wolf?
All activities encouraged by government regulations, and backed up by risk mitigation such as Freddie, Fannie, and the Greenspan put
Note these actions were all chosen freely by market actors with no government coercion involved whatsoever.
Not true. At all.
I'm sure you understand how the CRA encouraged high-risk mortgage lending. Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families. With that to back them up, and no c
Re:That's trivially true for EVERYTHING (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations != the free market. There was capitalism before we became the corporate state we (the U.S.) are now.
But free market --> Corporations IOW capitalism kills itself. Thanks for admitting that.
You missed a step or two. Free market --> government intervention --> Corporations --> more government intervention --> Fascism.
And another comparison you may want to think about: decentralizing government --> more freedom vs. centralizing government --> tyranny.
Parent
Re:That's trivially true for EVERYTHING (Score:4, Insightful)
And please the IPCC is not a government in any sense of the word, nobody is trying to take the free market away. The word "market" in "free market" refers to a set of rules for exchanging goods and services (ie: government regulation [wikipedia.org]). The word "free" refers to the fact you are free to join if you play by the rules.
People want those rules changed so that unintended side effects such as AGW are minimised. But we have had this converstaion before and despite the wealth of cotra-evidence I don't expect you will change your extreme view of capitalisim that colours most of your posts and blinds you to every other issue.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So when we see scientists trying to come up with excuses for why ice packs are melting without a huge increase in global temperatures, we need to question both their motives and their data.
A few simple points that are (surprisingly, still) worth mentioning. Scientists are not coming up with "excuses" for the melting of ice packs. They are observing it and developing explanations based on models. You may personally believe that the melting of ice packs would require "huge" (conveniently unquantified) temperature increases to happen, but I'm willing to bet you personal beliefs in this matter are not based on rigorous observation and mechanistic explanations of the system. The questioning of the
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Hear, hear!
The sea level rises mentioned in the IPCC reports are measured in centimeters over decades in the worst case scenarios, which isn't exactly the end of the world.
Measurements (i.e. the instrumental record) of sea levels is 1.1mm per year steady for the last 20 years. The real dangers of melting glaciers is the effect of (probably localised) changes in the salinity of the water damaging ecosystems.
For myself, bollocks to "doom!" and "end of the world" predictions associated with climate change. The
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The primary dangers in sea-level rise are "tipping points" (a term I, for some reason, dislike) -- sharp nonlinear transitions. The simple progression of sea level rise gives you very little sea level rise, but if you cross a threshold where a lot of land-bound ice melts over a period of time, you can suddenly (in the climatological/geological sense of "suddenly") get substantial ocean rise.
The IPCC reports correctly point out that there are quite a few potentially negative tipping points (and a few positiv
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The right wingers will surely use this as "proof" that global warming is wrong.
AGW skeptics have known about Asian black soot for 2-3 years. (It's also been found in Arctic pack ice and in the Colorado Rockies.)
I'm just glad that the "mainstream" has finally "noticed" it.
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If this was presented as a pollution problem, you could get the right-wingers on board. After all, Edmund Muskie sponsored the Clean Water Act in 1971, and despite Nixon's veto it was overrriden and became law. Republican members pretty much have supported it. When the EPA gets back to pollution control, they will find many right-wingers willing to support these efforts.
Sadly, they will also find many right- and left-wingers unwilling to pretend that any pollution controls within the U.S. will solve any
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You mean like this [google.com]?
Oh, and as for soot: while it may be news here, it was widely covered by the IPCC. See AR4 WG1 Ch. 2 Sec 2.5.4, "Radiative Forcing by Anthropogenic Surface Albedo Change: Black Carbon in Snow and Ice". They cite five different papers. Evidence for forcing is classified as "B" (moderate), consensus "3", (insufficient consensus), level of scientific understanding is "Low". In the next IPCC report, given the sizable number of papers that have come out since that, that'll probably be bump