Water Vapor Causing Climate Warming 434
karvind writes "According to BBC, new studies suggest that water vapor rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming. The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise. This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2. Even though 2005 will probably be warmest year, climatologists still differ in opinion"
At least its a dry heat? (Score:4, Funny)
Um... duh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Um... duh? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, this is not some groundbreaking new assertion. In fact it is things like this - feedback mechanisms (both positive and negative) that make climate change modelling so hard. If it was a simple matter of "C02 creates more warmth" we'd have figured it all out a while ago. More warmth can produce more water vapor, but depending on what type of clouds are formed you can end up with trapped heat, or more solar radiation reflected and a cooling effect. There are many other feedback mechanisms that I simply can't recall and many more I've never heard of. How and when they respond, and how they interact makes for a very difficult and complex problem indeed.
Jedidiah,
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
So what can we do then? (Score:5, Funny)
1. Stop drinking water
2. Stop breathing
3. Stop taking showers (note: this doesn't apply to some countries such as France and Mexico)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
But don't expect the Australi
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
I once attended a talk about the greenhouse effect, and this guy told us that even if we stop emitting CO2 totally from now on, the temperature of the atmosphere will still rise
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
millions upon millions more people are suffering and dying from not enough money
Aaah yes. And how many will die due to global warming? I somehow think it'll be a bit more then the amount of people dying due to not enough money. Global warming will not only cause the oceans to rise, but it will cause hurricanes and tornadoes to become even MORE common, droughts and floods will also become more common, which will hit hard for farming communities which will ca
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for me I always look at the car. If a guy is drving a fice year old honda or a subaru (or even biking) he is more likely to tell me the truth then if he is driving a brand new BMW or a Mercedes.
Yes I know both BMW and Mercedes make junky cheap cars too now but you get the idea. Ta
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
> warming. People are still arguing about whether or not it exists
Okay, let's suppose, hypothetically, for the sake of argument, that it does exist, and then we can get on to arguing about whether we *should* do anything about it. We'll have to settle that before there's much point in discussing *specific* actions...
I mean, *why* should we try to stop global warming? We know from paleontology that the earth
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2)
France will already be contributing enough steam once they put out all those fires...
what always needed to be done... (Score:2)
Title and Summary are misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a story that undermines or changes the prevailing scientific view. This may allow some fine tuning of the models. Some skeptics had argued with the results of the models because they didn't believe the contribution of water vapor. This may force them to reevaluate their view. (Yeah right).
Re:Title and Summary are misleading (Score:2, Informative)
Twice as much water is produced in typical hydrocarbon reactions than CO2
C(N)H(2N+2)+[(3N+1)/2]O2-->(N)CO2+(N+1)H2O
Re:Title and Summary are misleading (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Title and Summary are misleading (Score:5, Funny)
Title and Summary are Wrong. Feedback != Forcing (Score:5, Informative)
But this vapor is just a feedback effect, not an atmospheric forcing. This is due to the incredibly short residence time of water in the atmosphere of ~10 days. This means that even if you could somehow instantly cause the earth to have 0% humidity everywhere, things would stabalize back to "normal" within about 20-30. True forcings like CO2 have residence time of decades, which makes them the greenhouse gas to worry about.
Everyone posting here should first read this article [realclimate.org] for the full explination. The site in general is excelent.
Re:Title and Summary are misleading (Score:2)
You are incorrect. [libertarian.to]
Look for yourself. [google.com]
Duh ? (Score:2)
Secondly Scien
Re:Duh ? (Score:2)
Actually scientific method is based on making assumptions, taking data, and generating a model. As for "Mercilessly dropped" based on data, much of physics can't describe all data collected (eg disconnect between quantum physics and relativity). You don't always drop theories, you use the model that best fi
Re:Duh ? (Score:2)
Quantum physics and relativity are the two most accurate theories physical science has ever had. What data do you have in mind?
Re:Duh ? (Score:2)
Re:Title and Summary are misleading (Score:2)
Welcome to ten years ago (Score:5, Informative)
Accepted facts about global warming are as follows:
a)We are putting more greenhouse gases into the air than ever before.
b)Greenhouse gases trap heat.
c)The earth is getting warmer.
No one disagrees on these facts. The only legitamite disagreement is on how much warmer the earth will get, and this is because we don't know where the water vapor sits in the atmosphere. Supercomputers estimate the temperature increase will be between 1.5 and 11 degrees celcius in the next 50 years. At the low end we are seriously screwed. At the high end it is the end of civilization as we know it.
Re:Welcome to ten years ago (Score:2)
Does it have to be the sole reason? Can it be a significant reason?
By the way it has been proven the humans put more CO2 into the air then all the volcanoes put together by orders of magnitude. You really should read up some of the research.
Re:Welcome to ten years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Volcanic activity is likely to provide a cooling effect, so it is unlikely to be that.
Second, what temp. is the correct temp. for the Earth?
The question you should ask is not what the correct temperature is (there isn't one) but how a change in climate will affect the world, or more specifically you. If it means that there will be a rise in sea level and you live in a coastal area it might affect to adversely. If you live in a frigid area and it turns it into a lush garden, good for you. What it will likely do, though, is require change in human activity to cope with the changing geography on the world which may impose additional costs on the economy above any possible additional advantage for some nations (and vice versa for others).
Dihydrogen Monoxide (Score:2, Funny)
Here's the Deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Our climate changes- it has for billions of years and it will for billions of more years.
Our climate is *incredibly* complex, so accurate prediction either way is nigh impossible (and I think it's arrogant to imply we know enough about our climate to even try to control it).
Global warming *is* happening, but factually only in the sense that our planet has been getting warmer- the debate is over whether or not man is to blame. Keep in mind, we just came out of an ice age several thousand years ago, so global warming is basically a given until we enter the next ice age.
There is NO consensus on whether or not man-made global warming is happening- anyone who claims to have "climatologist" friends who say it most definitely is or isn't real and that all the real scientists agree are just pulling stuff out of their ass (and it's pretty obvious, too, so don't even try to do it).
Not everyone who believes global warming is caused by man is a crazy hippy and not everyone who believes it isn't caused by man is some money-grubbing republican. It's that kind of black and white approach to this and other topics, both by the people and especially the media, that has trivialized the issue at hand.
Please try to keep this in mind.
-Moses
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, there is a consensus, among scientists.
The debate over global warming has essentially been one with scientists on one side, and ideological conservatives and their paid pressure groups on the other. This is neatly demonstrated by the way in which people trying to brush off the scientific evidence invariably do so not by responding to the scientific evidence in a scientific way, but by relying on non-scientific, philosophic
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
it's always useful to apply Fisher's deduction:
"The more issues a person attempts to shoehorn down into an artificial liberal/conservative dichotomy, the more certain you can be that the person is an American."
Debate about climate change is a debate in the US because the whole issue is deconstructed and soundbitten into a pair of simplistic politicised extremes with nary a scrap serious reasoning left. If you actually read the IPCC reports, and the peer reviewed criticisms (as opposed to the op-ed pieces) there's a lot less debate than you might think, and neither position is anywhere as extreme as the soundbites and op-eds make out. The climate is warming, we have some decent ideas as to what factors are causing it (and they are many and diverse), and it seems human actions are somewhat of a factor. Don't take my word for it though, actually do some reading on your own.
Jedidiah.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Jedidiah.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't dispute that, since about 1800 it has. But there is a problem, which I've never seen adequately addressed, with the IPCC Hockey Stick curves. This the controversy with Mann et al. We do know from historical evidence that there actually was a Medieval Warm period, and the evidence is that it was hotter than now. There was also a cool period in around 1700. Both of these vanish from the record with the IPCC hockey stick curves. Then, if you get into how these curves were derived, lets say just that the derivation is very remote from any observational evidence.
So two things trouble one. First, the rewriting of history without apparent reason. Second, the lack of any explanation of what caused the Medieval Warm period. Not human activity, that's for sure - or at least, not the industrial revolution. And what caused the decline after it?
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a fairly strong claim. I think you'll find that Mann recognises medieval warm periods and cooler periods in the 1700s. The medieval warm period just isn't warmer than present temperatures in his reconstruction based on proxy data. In fact, that's the case for most reconstructions based on proxy data from a wide variety of sources. There are differences in the different reconstructions, but in general there's a reasonable amount of agreement. Don't take my word for it though, here's a plot with 10 different reconstructions [wikipedia.org] along with full citations of the source papers for each so you can check the methodology on each of them. Given the variety of methods used for derivation amongst those reports, from glacier records to tree rings, it's at least resonably convincing.
As to alternative views - the only evidence I've seen for a significantly warmer medieval period is derived from exactly the same data as Mann's, in roughly the same manner, so if you think one is suspect... What we do have is one report by two Canadians, one an economist the other a businessman, claiming radically different results from everyone else using different slightly techniques. I'm not writing them off, but I would be interested to see a little more work on the issue, especially when there are discussions of issues with their techniques [realclimate.org] (and nice simplified versions [realclimate.org]) that seem quite reasonable.
None of this is to say that McIntyre and McKitrick are wrong, but one has to ask why you believe them and dismiss the ten other reports by different people that generally agree quite well.
Jedidiah.
what are you saying? (Score:2)
Re:what are you saying? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, that's where you are mistaken. The historical record is irrelevant to determining whether action is necessary. CO2 emissions must inevitably lead to a change in the absorption and emission of radiation from earth. Furthermore, CO2 that we emit today will be around for centuries, so whatever we do today, we are going to be stuck with for a long time.
The only uncertainty is whether the consequences of those changes will be serious or not. That depends on complex feedback mechanisms (water vapor, oceans, plants, ice cover, etc.) that nobody understands yet. Those can kick in at any time, and very quickly. If we wait until we understand them, it can be too late.
People with vested interests have been trying to reframe the debate as if we needed empirical data demonstrating anthropogenic warming in order to justify action. That approach is potentially suicidal. Whether we can demonstrate anthroprogenic warming is largely an academic question.
Say someone claims an asteroid is about to hit the earth, and we should all get together and establish world government to deal with it. Well, you might feel that world government and getting together would be fine, but still look askance at the trajectory calculations. That's where I am coming from.
That's a bad analogy. Whether an asteroid is going to hit earth is an all-or-nothing proposition, our options are limited, and mentioning "world government" is a scare tactic,
For global climate change, it's a question of degree (barely detectable to devastating) that we can expect in the future. And the options for preventing it are simple: increase energy efficiency, something that is technologically trivial and economically beneficial to everybody except current energy producers. Dealing with global warming does not require "world government". Quite to the contrary, fighting global warming effectively amounts to ridding ourselves of "world government" and dominance of the political process by fossil fuel producers, and instead focuses on efficiency, technology, self-sufficiency, and local generation. True Conservatives should be all for it.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:2)
The elevated tempratures were the result of mass burning of forests in order to make land suitable to agriculture. After a while the burning activity stopped and agriculture went into production and the CO2 levels stabilized or reduced by being absorbed into the ocean. CO2 levels started going up again as a result of increased population, more burn offs of forests, the industrial revolution and of course the internal combustion engine.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:2)
Of course, there is a consensus on whether man-made global warming is happening; it is basic physics that if CO2 concentrations go up, the temperature goes up, and CO2 concentrations have gone up. The debate is about what fraction of global temperature increases are caused by man-made CO2 emissions and how severe it's going to get in the
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:2)
Recently there was a study conducted on ice cores that tracked the amount of CO2 in the atm
Sorry, but you're wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
There is NO consensus on whether or not man-made global warming is happening- anyone who claims to have "climatologist" friends who say it most definitely is or isn't real and that all the real scientists agree are just pulling stuff out of their ass (and it's pretty obvious, too, so don't even try to do it).
Well, here I go pulling stuff out of my ass (and by "my ass" I mean "the positions of the most influential bodies in the field") [my bold].
From the Position Statement [agu.org] of the American Geophysical Union:
Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.
From the Position Statement [ametsoc.org] of the American Meteorological Society:
* The theory of how greenhouse gases directly interact with atmospheric radiation is not controversial. If no other factors counter their influence, increases in their concentration will lead to global warming.
* A steady rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases began over 200 years ago and is continuing. Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, has increased from pre-industrial concentrations of 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume) to over 367 ppmv in 2000, an increase of more than 30%; methane has increased from 0.7 to about 1.8 ppmv, an increase of more than 150%; nitrous oxide has increased from 0.27 to over 0.31 ppmv, an increase of 16%. Tropospheric ozone is estimated to have increased by 35% since the industrial revolution...
The first line of the National Academy of Sciences 2001 report titled "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions" [nap.edu], performed at the request of President Bush:
Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.
In short... there is no controversy. Yes, there are a handful of very loud people who are attempting to create one, who are assisted by the media's dedication to "balance," which consists of giving equal weight to totally unequal positions. Really, though, in the scientific community, anthropogenic warming is considered to be a fact.
Now, to be clear, this doesn't mean that we should necessarily do anything about it. The existence of a phenomenon is not de facto support for any particular policy position. But let's not screw around-- the "controversy" over whether global warming is at least partially anthropogenic is manufactured and does not reflect the views of the scientific community.
worst summary ever (Score:4, Insightful)
So greenhouse gases are causing the earth to get warmer, thus increasing the rate of evaporation of water above previous levels.
And somehow its the water vapor that is released from this evaporation, from increased heating, that is warming the earth?
If I hit my tumb with a hammer, and it starts bleeding. It would be like saying it is the blood that is causing the pain.
Worst article summary ever!
Re:worst summary ever (Score:2)
But what's the solution?
A. Soak up the blood temporarily untill it bleeds back out causing more pain again.
B. Stop hitting your fingers with a freakin' hammer.
Why none of it matters at all (Score:2)
I think it's time to admit that we're all in a race with each other to use fossil fuels.
The fact is most of the coal and petroleum will be burned, one way or another. The question is, who gets the benefit?
Those that race to burn it first get the benefit. Anyone that reduces their consumption suffers with a competitive disadvantage.
It's a classic tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org] situation.
Re:Why none of it matters at all (Score:2)
No. The cost of many of these items is increasing. There may well be a significant advantage to reducing consumption of oil to alternatives that are cheaper or more stable price-wise in the future. Some OECD economies that are doing well now (at least in terms of headline growth, the figures for real terms GDP growth are different) are quite oil dependent, for example the USA which uses 50% more oil per unit GDP than the average
If this is true, what about hydrogen fuel cells? (Score:2)
Re:If this is true, what about hydrogen fuel cells (Score:2)
Enough already (Score:2)
Therefore, I'm sticking with the eminently reasonable position that global warming is caused by Republicans.
It was so warm in London yesterday... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It was so warm in London yesterday... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
I have been telling ppl this for years (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of this is probably due to a lot of land at high elevation. This causes a cooling because water vapour falls out at high elevation and cannot trap the incomming solar radiation. Furthermore we get a high reflection off the snow and ice as well.
In all likelihood the cooling from the Miocene was caused by mountain building with the himalyan plateau being the latest addition. The Rockys and Andies, Pyrannies, Alps and 2 Hellenic ranges appeared before the Himalain plateau was pushed up. In North America we have the Colorado Plateau.
As part of this cooling Antarctica froze over and that locked the planet into the current snowball earth. Prior to this freeze over Antactrica was cold - but still had significant amounts of water vapour which trapped solar energy falling during the Antarctic summers. After the freeze over, Antarctica became the dryest continent on the planet - with a huge increase in the loss of solar energy falling on Antarctica. So this is a powerful positive feedback mechanizm that locked us into the current snowball earth phase.
Since then a lot of erosion has taken place which my have moved us past the equilibrium point. Still - the ice on antarctica and the glaciers at high elevation have kept us locked into the snowball earth phase.
I suspect that irrigation is causing a warming. It makes a great deal of sense. But offsetting this is the distruction of the rain forests.
CO2 is negligable. During the ordovician levels of CO2 were 13x to 19x higher than now and the earth cooled.
Some have pointed out correctly that the sun was not as strong back then. While that is true - there was a fair amount of mountain building during the ordovician (taconic orogany) and this may have been what tipped the planet from the hot house into the snowball phase. The sun was also weaker when the planet came out of the snowball phase a few million years later.
For over 80% of the last 540 million years the earth has been about 22 degrees warmer on average than now. So it makes sense that the earth will warm up - we just do not know when.
Another thing is that we have had about 22 ice cycles in the last 2+ million years and typically with a frequency of about every 100,000 years or so. 5 million years ago there were trees north of the Arctic circle in Canada. This is probably true of Russia as well.
Since we have had a number of ice cycles (the last was at peak about 50,000 years ago) it would make sense that we will have another. If so then we may be within a few 1000 years of another ice age developing.
It really will depend on where the equilibrium points are and I don't think anyone has any real idea.
One thing that is really instructive is to look at a globe of the earth that has actual mountains on it. There is one at the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta. When you look at this globe and see just how thin the atmosphere really is - 2/3 of it lies below 30,000 feet for instance (Mount Everest) - it becomes very clear that a lot of solar incident energy is simply reflected off into space.
Get rid of the mountains and you gain a very effective H2O blanket.
In the tropics at sea level and 35C the absolute H2O vapour in the atmosphere is over 8% (80,000 ppm). This is in contrast to CO2 levels of 365 PPM.
H2O is a stronger absorber than CO2 by far - in all wavelengths.
So I frankly do not think CO2 is even a factor to be honest. The models used by the IPCC do not take into consideration that water vapour levels may be changing. When your most significant variable is not handled properly then your model isn't very believable.
From a paleoclimate standpoint - CO2 can change climate. It did several times in the Precambrian. The thing is that in order to do this the CO2 levels had to climb to many 1000 PPM. This occurred back then because so much of the earth froze over that even the oceans may have frozen r
Very interesting but (Score:3, Interesting)
You have negleted to mention one thing: greenhouse gasses only act as such at certain wavelengths depending on their absorption spectra. Therefore, there is a point at which adding more of any greenhouse to the atmosphere does not change the absorption spectra of the atmosphere since the absorbable light from the sun is already being fully absorbed.
I was unable to find a website explaining this or giving examples, but I remember being told at one point by a professor (2 years ago) and shown the data/grap
Re:Very interesting but (Score:3, Interesting)
Water vapour above about 15,000 feet is practially non-existant. I'm not sure of the boundry and of course this is a continous function.
If your prof said this then he was thinking of some specific areas. I would expect that is subtropical to tropical SE asia that H2O absorption is 100% effective. THere is probably a surplus.
This will explain why global warming will affect
Well Established Science (Score:5, Informative)
1. The fact that most of the warming associated
with global warming is directly forced by water
vapor is well established, going back at least
as far as Arrhenius's 1895 paper often credited
with "discovering" global warming.
(original paper at:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/PS134/arrheniu
)
i.e. this result is CONSISTENT with our understanding
of global warming.
2. Increases in atmospheric water vapor are tightly tied
to temperature. The saturation specific humidity
(the amount of water air will hold) increases
exponentially with temperature (an implication of the
Clasius-Claperyon relationship). Thus when you increase the
temperature of the atmosphere by dT (by, for example, adding
some CO2), more water vapor evaporates into the atmosphere,
amplifying the warming.
3. This effect, known as the water vapor feedback, has been in
our climate models from the beginning (at least as far back
as 1895), and produces results consitent with observations.
4. The cited Geophysical Research Letters paper uses observations
to estimate the strength of the water vapor feedback and
finds that it is strong (even stronger than most models
predict). It is also a step in the process
of understanding climate change on a regional level.
Z
As usual, the posters suck. (Score:3, Insightful)
Water is a "feedback", not a "forcing" (Score:3, Insightful)
The important point to remember is that in the lingo of the climate scientists, water is a "feedback" rather than a "forcing". CO2 is considered a forcing because you can affect the climate by adding to or removing it from the environment -- the levels of CO2 in the environment are not affected much by climate processes.
Water is completely different: there is so much water available on the surface of the earth that adding extra water to, or removing it from, the environment -- say, by building big condeners that feed storage tanks, or by building pumps that spray water into the air -- won't make much difference, at least once you turn the pumps or condensers off.
You can read all about it here [realclimate.org].
Nukes and paranoia (Score:4, Funny)
When I was a kid the world was going to be destroyed by nukes. Either WWIII would happen and MAD would do us all in or a nuclear reactor would go out of control somewhere and destroy everything. Pay attention kids, that's really the way it was for us. They taught it to us in school, it was the theme of many of our Saturday morning cartoons, it was in every magazine and book and all over the TV.
That myth was slowly shattered over time. The Soviets had a couple of nuke reactor problems and so did we. Life went on. Then the USSR fell and the idea of MAD went away with it. Suddenly nukes didn't seem so frightening. People started to wake up to the fact that life was even going on in the cities that the US had nuked in WWII.
So what do we do without the threat of nukes? Without the fear of nuclear death we would have to accept the fact that the fate of every living thing might be in the hands of a higher power or, worse yet, not in the hands of anyone at all. As humans we can not accept that. Something or someone must be in control and we like it best if we can imagine it to be us as we had imagined it with nukes.
So now there is some data that can be stretched to imagine that the climate of our planet will kill us all. That's even bigger and more scary than nukes. Children can be taught to fear that with ease. Better yet, our ego will allow us to believe that we can control it, that we caused it. And most of us can accept as fact that although we caused it there is nothing we can do to correct it.
Yes, we're all going to die.
And to REPEAT the question I've been asking... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of extra water vapor.
A little water is good for you. A lot of water will kill you.
A few cards using hydrogen are probably good for us. All cars using hydrogen needs to be investigated to see if it puts out significantly more water vapor than our current gasoline cars (which also put out water as a part of burning the fuel).
"The Hydrogen Economy" is a sham (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of extra water vapor.
Moderation fails again.
This isn't insightful. It's pretty much wrong (or was maybe meant to be humorous). This is like saying that if it rained more we'd all get killed (by the intense global warming that would results from all that water vapor! Clouds!). Water is a cycle that's basically at equilibrium. We aren't gaining or losing any to/from space (except tiny, tiny, insignificant amounts). We aren't going out of our way to find, dig
Re:Thinking about global warming... (Score:2)
Yet another reason to keep pot illegal.
Re:What if.. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in order to "mine" the water vapor out of the atmosphere, you would need some way of condensing the vapor. Any sort of heat exchanger would work, but the laws of thermodynamics dictate that, in the end, you would just be heating the atmosphere up more than accomplishing anything else. This does assume that the control volume for the system is the earth itself, and you're not using space as your 'cold reservoir'--doing that gets into all sort of pesky heat transfer issues as space is rather non conductive. There is something to be said for radiation, but it would only really be effective if shielded from the sun. Anyway, since the most likely mediums for heat rejection would probably be either the atmosphere (you lose), the ocean (you lose again), or the terrestrial bits of the earth (you lose still), all you would be doing it heating the atmosphere up more and putting more water vapor into the atmosphere in the long run.
Re:What if.. (Score:2)
However, if this leads to more energy absorption from the atmosphere/space I couldn't say.
Re:What if.. (Score:4, Informative)
Water evaporates when it gets hotter. The fact that more water is evaporating indicates that the Earth's system has gained heat (from the sun), even if that's stored when the water vaporizes. And water is a greenhouse gas. Much moreso, in fact, than CO2. That's presumably (without reading the article) the feedback loop.
Re:What if.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, I could have sworn not too long ago I was reading sites that attacked the anti-global-warming pposition because these people (those that dispute global warming) were saying that water vapor was a much more significant greenhouse gas than CO2 and there's much more H2O than CO2 in the atmosphere than CO2; the logical conclusion being, "Why try to make massive cuts in CO2 o
Re:What if.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it means that the *atmosphere* is changing, not the entire Earth. There's a reason it's called the "solar constant" because it very nearly is (and a good thing, too, or we'd not be here to argue about it
If the atmosphere heats up, it's capacity for holding vaporized water increases...
SB
Re:What if.. (Score:4, Informative)
If 1 gallon of water in the atmosphere over 1 year retains an extra, say, 10 thousand calories of heat, and your device only expends 5 thousand calories to condense and trap a single gallon of water (I have a dehumidifier sitting right next to me so I could probably work up some better numbers, but feh, whatever), then you've broken even in 6 months, and get a bonus 5k every 6 months thereafter.
~Lake
Re:What if.. (Score:2, Troll)
Rather, mining the atmosphere for water is done by capturing water that woudl have condensed anyway, and preventing it from re-evaporating, which is what happens to most dew.
here are some examples [rexresearch.com]. The "dewponds" of Britian are the most well known.
Sorry about the bad formatting of the lass almost (Score:2)
Your two conclusions preclude each other. If the statement "Climatology will never provide reliable conclusions is true, then we cannot conclude that humans are not responsible for global warming, since the the latte
Re:Sorry about the bad formatting of the lass almo (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:5, Informative)
Thousands. They list glaciation, ocean variability, plate tectonics, solar variation, orbital variations, magnetic field changes, vulcanism as some of the natural causes of climate change.
And there's really not anything we can do to affect it, or stop it.
Since the industrial revolution the burning of fossil fuels has increased the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide to about 1.5 times the level it was in the early 1800s. By 2100 we are expected to be at double the 1800s level, resulting in a temperature increase of about 2 to 5 degrees celsius. So yes, we can affect the global temperature.
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:3, Informative)
Whoa whoa, those are big numbers we're throwing around. First, carbon dioxide was at what level in 1800? I hunted down some sources images for long term CO2 concentration
MOD PARENT UP^^ (Score:2)
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:2)
Somethings going on and it's better to go "Hey maybe we're the problem" than to go "screw it, lets see what happens".
But that doesn't take into a
Re: IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:2)
Are you suggesting that we couldn't cause global warming even if we tried to?
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. All of them. Find an atmospheric science textbook. It's in there.
and there's really not anything we can do to affect it, or stop it.
You're asking whether atmospheric scientists, people who study the atmosphere and its behavior, think that the manner in which earth's chaotic, multi-factored atmosphere behaves over time is fixed, unchanging, and can never be effected by anything.
No, none of them think that. The cycles themselves, which are quite erratic, demonstrate that changes can happen: For one thing, the cycles obviously happen for some kind of reason. For another thing, the cycles to which you refer haven't always happened. Further back in the past the climate's cycles operated differently. [scotese.com]
The way in which the atmospheric cycles have operated for the last 2 billion years or so-- long stable periods followed by slowly increasing, then sudden and dramtic shifts-- suggest not that climate is some preplanned externally determined thing, caused by the hand of God moving a knob on a thermostat somewhere. What they suggest is the idea of the earth's atmospheric state having a number of equilibrium points, and we are moving back and forth between those equilibrium points. This is exactly what the article slashdot links here is about-- feedback mechanisms. The idea is that as you move further away from a stable equilibrium point, positive feedback mechanisms come into play which move you further and further away from that equilibrium point, and negative feedback mechanisms which were keeping you stable at that equilibrium point shut down. Once you nudge things away from the place where they were, the more the mean temperature rises the more the mean temperature is inspired to rise further, and the more the CO2 concentration rises the more the CO2 concentration is naturally inspired to rise even further. The lesson to take away here isn't to blame the cycles; the cycles themselves need that nudge to start. The lesson to take away is, you don't want to nudge the atmosphere out of that stable state, because once you start it may be too late to nudge it back.
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:2)
Re:Isn't this like saying: (Score:2)
Re:Isn't this like saying: (Score:2, Funny)
A bullet fired from a gun does not cause death! It's the injury that causes death.
If the injury happens to be caused by a bullet, that's the injury's fault. But just firing bullets does not kill people.
Some bullets cause injuries that cause death, but some bullets cause injuries that don't cause death.
Also some injuries caused by things other than bullets do cause deaths, and some deaths happen without injuries.
You can't tell, by just looking at
Re:Isn't this like saying: (Score:2)
LK
Re:Isn't this like saying: (Score:2)
Re:Eh... (Score:2)
Venus [bbc.co.uk].
fixed link (Score:2)
Venus. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:It's not God sneezing (Score:2)
We call it "Intelligent sternutation."
I just knew it there was a catch! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not a surprise. Vostok and other core data show two very telling things: 1) Global temperatures are extremely tied in to CO2 levels, and 2) barring natural catastrophes (such as major volcanic events), this is among the fastest climate changes in recorded history. You then factor in the fact that the balance of CO2 outflux to influx is computable and we're very obviously putting out CO2 faster than it can be consumed (and while higher CO2 levels increase CO2 consumption, that capability is limited), and factor in climate modelling... well, it's no real surprise that the ratios are so extreme.
Correlation is not necessarily causation (Score:3, Insightful)
This could also be written to imply the opposite of what you intended: CO2 levels are extremely tied to global temperatures. How do you tell which caused which?
Anthropogenic Warming == Hubris (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, as far as CO2 levels are concerned, correlation != causation. For example, it is not out of reason to speculate that naturally warming temperatures might disrupt the ability of phytoplankto
Re:Anthropogenic Warming == Hubris (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a very outdated view. The anthropogenic nature is no longer much disputed. There have been major climatic swings, before but they have rarely occurred so fast. The only reasonable causative factor for this one is CO2 increase in the atmosphere. Recently, the only other sensible possibility - solar activity changes - has been shown to have some contribution to global warming, but insufficient to explain more than a fraction of it.
So, there is global warming co-inciding with a major CO2 increase which is almost all due to human activity. This is compelling evidence.
The Intergovernmenal Panel on Climate Change says "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".
Recorded human history is merely a blink of an eye in geologic terms. Recorded *climatic* history has only started in the modern times (last 500 years). Our frame of reference is short.
No. Recorded climatic history goes back a very long way. Ice cores show a huge amount about climate and give information over thousands of years.
As for your statements about CO2 release and plankton, this just doesn't fit. Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen over a long period matching the increase in human output. The Solar Dimming effect has been over too short a period.
Re:magic fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
- is in one place (a small number compared to the amount of cars)
- can be monitored more exactly
- can be improved at any time without having to replace every car
- can be filtered more effectively (carburetors are only effective after being warmed up for about 10 minutes, which is a shorter time period than many journeys)
- can be polution free (see iceland)
- moves polution from population centers thus improving health
I'm sure i could go on / get sources for all these statements, but i can't be arsed
Re:Repent! Global warming is nigh (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, of course. The system has been going on for billions of years. And what we know of it gives us a timescale for natural changes that also happen to be millions of years. This makes an unprecedented change in a timescale of a hundred years hugely significant. Obviously, in a few millions years time, GW effects might calm down. But our models aren't dealing with geological spans of time, but the sort of timescales that human civilisations operate on. In which case, our data is certainly sufficient to give at least some conclusions.
Sure, everyone has heard that one major volcanic eruption vents more carbon dioxide than all the cars ever constructed by man combined, but that can't really be right, because we are more important than some stupid volcano.
The IPCC models incorporate the effects of volcanic eruptions. Scientists aren't stupid. You can see some of the code they used at http://climatechange.unep.net/jcm/doc/jcm/mod/rad
In any case, your 'everyone' is wrong, dead wrong.
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/cl
Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons/year, whereas other sources contribute about 10 billion tons/year.
The argument against global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Weather is complicated. The models aren't perfect.
2. No matter how much of a scientific consensus there may be, there will always be a few guys who don't agree.
Conclusion: We don't really know anything about climate or global warming.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
The wonderful thing about these arguments is that no matter what we may discover in the future about climate, they will remain valid (well, as valid as they are today), so you can safely trot them out any time anybody dares to suggest that you should be inconvenienced in any way to reduce global warming.
That's Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, so geology, plate tectonics, evolution , et cetera are all bunk. Each is characterized by relying on direct observations dating back about 200 years or less-- all