GAS UNCAPPED:
Because heat-trapping industrial gases spewed today will warm the earth for decades, researchers aren't sure how much of such emissions the planet can take and remain ecologically healthy.
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Last December world leaders met in Copenhagen to add more hot air to the climate debate. That is because although the impacts humanity would like to avoid—fire, flood and drought, for starters—are pretty clear, the right strategy to halt global warming is not. Despite decades of effort, scientists do not know what “number”—in terms of temperature or concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—constitutes a danger.
When it comes to defining the climate’s sensitivity to forcings such as rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, “we don’t know much more than we did in 1975,” says climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, who first defined the term “climate sensitivity” in the 1970s. “What we know is if you add watts per square meter to the system, it’s going to warm up.”
Greenhouse gases add those watts by acting as a blanket, trapping the sun’s heat. They have warmed the earth by roughly 0.75 degree Celsius over the past century. Scientists can measure how much energy greenhouse gases now add (roughly three watts per square meter), but what eludes precise definition is how much other factors play a role—the response of clouds to warming, the cooling role of aerosols, the heat and gas absorbed by oceans, human transformation of the landscape, even the natural variability of solar strength. “We may have to wait 20 or 30 years before the data set in the 21st century is good enough to pin down sensitivity,” says climate modeler Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Despite all these variables, scientists have noted for more than a century that doubling preindustrial concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere from 280 parts per million (ppm) would likely result in global average temperatures roughly three degrees C warmer.
But how much heating and added CO2 are safe for human civilization remains a judgment call. European politicians have agreed that global average temperatures should not rise more than two degrees C above preindustrial levels by 2100, which equals a greenhouse gas concentration of roughly 450 ppm. “We’re at 387 now, and we’re going up at 2 ppm per year,” says geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University. “That means 450 is only 30 years away. We’d be lucky if we could stop at 550.”
Goddard’s James Hansen argues that atmospheric concentrations must be brought back to 350 ppm or lower—quickly. “Two degrees Celsius [of warming] is a guaranteed disaster,” he says, noting the accelerating impacts that have manifested in recent years. “If you want some of these things to stop changing—for example, the melting of Arctic sea ice—what you would need to do is restore the planet’s energy balance.”
Other scientists, such as physicist Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, examine the problem from the opposite side: How much more CO2 can the atmosphere safely hold? To keep warming below two degrees C, humanity can afford to put one trillion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050, according to Allen and his team—and humans have already emitted half that. Put another way, only one quarter of remaining known coal, oil and natural gas deposits can be burned. “To solve the problem, we need to eliminate net emissions of CO2 entirely,” Allen says. “Emissions need to fall by 2 to 2.5 percent per year from now on.”
Climate scientist Jon Foley of the University of Minnesota, who is part of a team that defined safe limits for 10 planetary systems, including climate, argues for erring on the side of caution. He observes that “conservation of mass tells us if we only want the bathtub so high either we turn down the faucet a lot or make sure the drain is bigger. An 80 percent reduction [in CO2 by 2050] is about the only path we go down to achieve that kind of stabilization.”
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35 Comments
Add CommentThe negative economic consequences of the proposed reductions in CO2 emissions are enormous. Rather than turning their economic clock back to pre-industrial conditions, most nations will choose to continue to emit CO2 well beyond what the most conservative Climate scientists propose. The current accord at Copenhagen is going to be grossly insufficient and may not even hold together. Given political reality, we need to search for methods to temporarily abate global warming until technology and global politics advance sufficiently to globally control CO2 emissions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntentional release of aerosols into the upper atmosphere seems like a fundamentally sound strategy because it is adjustable, acts much more quickly than does CO2 to affect climate, and has a temporary impact. Burning of high-sulfur fuels in commercial aircraft only when operating at high elevations might be a feasible and inexpensive means to accomplish this.
When bacteria are placed in a petrie dish of food it multiplies, builds up, exhausts its resources and dies back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSubstitute the Earth for the petrie dish and humans for the bacteria. It may take longer but the result will be the same.
Not quite like bacteria. Excessive CO2 in and of itself is not harmful to humans. There will be areas worse off (if warming actually occurs) but there will also be areas that are better off. So, at worst it's a mixed bag. It's not the doom and gloom Hansen and other alarmists are predicting. There is no compelling reason that the earth's temperature should stay the same, or even would stay the same without human effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can't say that, Soccerdad. We don't know what a 2 degree change will do. Maybe that's enough to melt ice caps and raise the sea levels and flood California and other low lying areas. That would be very very bad. While small effects we currently see can be considered good or bad, the more we keep our current ways going the worse it gets. Like scratching a wound. Good to know we have some leeway (another hundred ppm) but I really hope our current baby steps towards fixing this issue are enough to prevent a potential catastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe answer is simple: 5 to 7%. Or the point at which CO2 becomes toxic to human life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Soccerdad: Not only that, the world's infrastructure is built around the current climate. Even if some areas will be "better off" (like, say, Siberia), the cost of reproducing the infrastructure in the now nicer areas will be enormous. You don't want to be wasting that kind of energy at a time when oil is getting harder to find.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat, and not all species can adapt fast enough to keep up with the changes where they live. They're getting sent running up mountains and migrating north. Many plant species aren't so lucky. Climate change is scrambling the whole ecological infrastructure of the world.
So yeah, if you don't care about human systems or natural systems, climate change isn't a big deal because the weather in St. Petersburg will be a bit nicer.
The sad part of all this is there is a practical and quick way out of this crisis with nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWarmists believe we are less than ten years away from a civilization ending peak oil and climate crisis, but also believe we are too dependent on oil imports, and dirty and deadly coal power production which kills and sickens hundred's of millions of people worldwide, while deniers will only agree that imports and pollution are problems.
A worldwide investment in 10000 new nuclear reactors would be paid for by and would end fossil fuel use, eliminate most air pollution saving millions of lives, end the global warming/ peak oil problem with a 100% elimination of GHG's within a ten year time frame, is a great investment making the economy more efficient, a wonderful job producing economy boost, requires only a small part of our industrial capacity, and pays for itself in less than three years.
Deniers and Warmists both could embrace it.
www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/add-a-gigawatt-a-day-to-k_b_261728.html
With mass production nuclear power costs drop to under $1B Gw much less expensive than coal or natural gas generation and 10% the cost of the cheapest renewable. Asian reactor builds now around $1.5 B Gw are trending to the $1B level.
Nuclear fuel supply and waste issues are resolved with already operating and well understood fast reactors.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/climate-bill-ignores-our_b_221796.html
A $2500B nominal investment in nuclear power paid for by and would end our $1000B annual fossil fuel bill. Unfortunately we are crippled by inefficient private power companies, a biased Nuclear Rejection Commission and corrupt and litigious political and legal systems, quadrupling nuclear costs and time frames.
To help us out, by rimming the border with reactors, Canada's very efficient public power companies could make $trillions selling the US nuke power at premium rates
The biggest problem is a nuclear conversion will put Big Oil out of business in less than ten years and they buy a lot of politicians with their campaign donations.
We need to calling up our politicians and demanding to know the reason for their inaction. Why are they wasting precious time and treasure on silly not so "renewable" projects and even dumber tax schemes like cap n'trade and green taxes.
Are their campaign donations so precious they are choosing to end civilization rather than get off Big Oil's gravy train.
The endless tiresome handwringing about the reality of global warming and the anxious speculation about the effects are beside the point. I am prepared to stipulate that the worst fears are valid. I and everyone else who believes we have a serious problem should be a advocating loud and tirelessly for a "man on the moon" national effort to convert a very large fraction of our electrical energy production to nuclear as soon as possible. I vote nuclear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't mean to be nitpicky, but the .75C temp rise that this fellow talks about is not the result of increased co2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Most of the rise occured as a rebound effect from the LIA. Take a look at the temp records.
2. The earth is still not even close to the warmth that happened during the Holocene Optimum. That happened about 8,000 years ago.
3. Even with the recent rise, we are a long term cooling planet. When you plot a graph for the past 12,000 years, it is very evident that we are cooling.
4. The reason greenhouses inject co2 is to promote plant growth. Most plants evolved when co2 was considerably higher and are still in starvation mode.
5. Forget the Keeling curve. That has been reviewed and found not to be credible. CO2 was approx 420 ppm during the early 1800's. This shown from 2 studies published in 2009 coming to the same conclusion.
6. The economic benifits to mankind as a whole from warming are tremendous. Remember, the Holocene Optimum is called that for a reason.
7. The talk of floods, drought, etc are rather ludicrous. The earth has always had droughts, floods, etc. The climate is a chaotic thing, not a slab.
8. The GCM's are doing a rather lousy job of predicting. They were developed in a slab mode, but the climate is anything but a slab mode.
9. Referring to Alley etal 2000. From that short time span it is very easy to see large climatic shifts. The current increase in temps is not out of the ordinary for the Holocene period.
Sigurdur, you say the Keeling Curve is bunk but you don't site any sources to back up your contention. It seems much more likely that most or all of your points are useless since you fail to support them with any peer reviewed evidence. The Keeling Curve remains one of the premier lines of evidence that we are altering the atmosphere. You can do us all a favor and begin to educate yourself here... http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/program_history/keeling_curve_lessons.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDrill baby drill is going to become burn baby burn,and all that its going to take is one big volcano,and the mini Ice Age that follows, with a billion deaths due to starvation to put an end to all this talk about reducing CO2's.For those who think this can't happen,you need only look at the 1800's.Don't get me wrong mankind is affecting the climate,but if its a bad thing has yet to be deceided.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisselrachj:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo a search on Beck. That will take care of Mr. Keeling.
His measurements since the mid 60's are ok. His historical measurements are junk.
selrachj:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich of my points would you like to dispute? The knowledge is available for anyone who reads to verify my post.
Sigurdur:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The earth is still not even close to the warmth that happened during the Holocene Optimum."
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The Holocene Climate Optimum warm event consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near the North Pole. Northwestern Europe experienced warming, while there was cooling in the south. The average temperature change appears to have declined rapidly with latitude so that essentially no change in mean temperature is reported at low and mid latitudes. In terms of the global average, temperatures were probably colder than present day (depending on estimates of latitude dependence and seasonality in response patterns).
Sigurdur:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Forget the Keeling curve. That has been reviewed and found not to be credible. CO2 was approx 420 ppm during the early 1800's."
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Simply stating your OPINION without any citation or peer-reviewed publication, hardly gives you any credibility, whereas The Keeling Curve measures the progressive buildup of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere, and has been proven to be very credible.
The variations in CO2 over the past 400,000 years, based on reconstructions from polar ice cores shows your figures to be absolutely false. During ice ages, the CO2 levels were around 200 ppm, and during the warmer interglacial periods, the levels were around 280 ppm. The CO2 level today is around 387 ppm, higher than at any time in the past 400,000 years.
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/program_history/keeling_curve_lessons_4.html
Many people speak, here and elsewhere, of costs. Fearing costs is some kind of Shylock or the millionaire uncle of Donald duck view of economics, that caused some of the misery linked to socialist regimes that had a rationale based in a limited resources scenario not existing then, and that it isn't sure at all will be present in the future. Investments in energy saving technologies do stimulate economy and produce an economical environment free of many stresses, for example those inducing inflation. Anyway, it is not wise thinking about expenses done with a money that is not exactly your private property. Money is just paper or figures on a computer, its sole value comes from its general acceptation as legal tender for all debts, public and private, that make that it can be exchanged for goods and services that constitute the real economy and the strenght of countries. Numbers are for mathematicians to play with, although some of them reflect touchable realities
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArriving at an "ideal" or "safe" number for CO2 in the atmosphere is the modern equivalent to the Cardinals of Rome huddling to ascertain how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question that needs to be asked is: "If CO2 levels were significantly higher or lower in the past did it make any significant difference?"
The answer is obviously no, so why even bother with the hand wringing?
The answer, sadly enough is because it's difficult for Greedpiece and the IPCC to line their pockets on something productive and measurable, like fighting AIDS, infant malnutrition, or providing clean water.
There just isn't any money in it. So the numerology continues.
SCIAM is only one letter away from SCAM. Editorial staff, shame on you.
The argument about whether any climate change is human caused or simply a normal fluctuation in temperature is superfluous. The ignored question is: How many humans can the planet support in relative comfort in the worst case scenarios?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery auto emission control or gas mileage standard ever set has been overwhelmed by increasing numbers of drivers and cars. This pattern is also seen in housing, flying or any other consumptive human activity. If the world had 1/3 the population it has now, like after WWII when I was born, I think we would have way less than 1/3 of the environmental or social problems we have today.
So what are we going to do? The Pope and the Republican Party say we will breed ourselves out of the problems. So we're stuck with this insane strategy as long as our economy is based on growth.
"Flying Spaghetti Monster, help us."
Hermit
If we all work together in reducing CO2 emissions, in a few years we might notice the difference and global warming might not be as big a problem, We don't want to damage the ozone layer much more and add to the problem as it protects the earth from the sun. If we can leave it safe for all life on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLakota:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are also asserting opinion on co2. I am asserting measured co2 from the 1800's onward.
A paper published this year showed that ice core co2 is not an accurate proxy. The paper proved it by the isotope method.
As I said, Keeling is ok after the 60's. Prior to that time frame, his references are useless.
See Beck etal.
It's amazing. More than six weeks after some of the lead climate scientists at the CRU, Penn State and elsewhere were proved to be frauds by their own "hide the decline" admissions, Scientific American mindlessly continues to perpetuate the illusion that anthropogenic global warming is a threat to...well...everything. I'm not sure if the editorial staff of SA is a group of, ahem...deniers...or if they are in cohoots with the myriad of other "peer reviewed" publications that have been poisoned by these charlatans, but it's time to wake up. Hey SA, your credibility's at stake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW - I don't expect that you'll bother to publish this. A tad critical of the scientific consensus. Even so, better run it past Phil Jones first if you have second thoughts.
Cheers, Phil!
SCIAM is well on it's way to becoming the laughingstock of the science community for it's slavish devotion to AGW.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://sppiblog.org/news/scientific-american’s-climate-lies
Anybody remember when Penthouse Magazine decided to publish their version of sci-porn called "OMNI"?
SCIAM is headed down that same road.
Note to SciAm Editors: When I'm really trying to ignore something, I close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and mutter "LaLaLaLaLaLaLa..." until it goes away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust trying to help...
Sigurdur. Some of your statements make sense (p. 2 & 3). Unfortuately you cripple your own argument by not supporting your statements with references. It might seem boring and excessively sceptical to you, but some of us hide-bound conservatives still like our science laced with the spice of peer reviewed evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould you be prepared to provide references to the extensive literature on CO2 enhancement of plant growth before glibly asserting that plants that have adapted to survive under present low CO2 conditions would somehow be able to take full advantage of vastly enhanced CO2? As I understand it about 500ppm is the limit for many plants. When CO2 is no longer a limiting factor for growth, the plant closes its stomata in order to save water. A little CO2, like nitrogen fertilizer, goes a long way. Too much is not helpful, and incidentally, has catastrophic effects on other 'growing conditions', like temperature, rainfall, and winds. These factors may even out over millions of years, but we humans need a constant supply of food from fixed farming operations - we can't wait for adapatation.
Points 7 and 9 are not consistent with points 2 and 3. If you were really familiar with the climate records for the past 10,000 years, or indeed for the past 500,000 years you would know that temperature and CO2 anomalies like those since the 1900s are unprecedented in the timeframe - by an order of magnitude.
Point 5 is seriously out of left field. 420ppm in early 1800s! You need to provide some pretty convincing evidence to support that pearler. The record is pretty clear. CO2 fell steadily from the Holocene maximum to the mid 1800s. When did your 'anomalous' rise, which is almost one and a half times the 'post industrial' rise, begin? What caused it? And since the present CO2 level is only 387, having been directly measured to have risen from less than 35oppm in the 50s. where did the excess CO2 go? Why haven't those superb sequestering systems been able to soak up the relatively modest increase since the beginning of the 20th Century? Ah, what a tangled web we weave... Were it true, nearly the whole edifice of 'Climate Change', from estimates of CO2 forcing to the analysis of ice core, tree ring, and lake sediments would collapse, coincidentally destroying most of the science that you rely on yourself. Alternatively, you might be making it up.
Science Daily published a report showing research has proven there has been no fractional change in atmospheric carbon in the past 160 years. Now I wonder if Scientific American will publish the report or hide it in it's editioial sandbox?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince Phil Jones of the UN's IPCC was forced to resign because he 'adjusted' data to support his Global Warming Theories and Professor Mann of Penn State is under investigation for his role in manipulating GW data and sabatoging dissenting views in publications will Scientic American be the last publication standing that refuses to publish all GW research, even that which does not fit the Al Gore 'Panic Now, the Sky is Falling' propaganda??
@ All the Deniers who swallow fossil fuel propaganda without question. You have just scored an own goal. Again, in regards to the "no fractional change in atmospheric carbon in the past 160 years." lie that all of you are peddling. I am going to do that radical step of reading the research published in the Geophysical Research Letters. I am going to put in capitals key words and phrases for the hard of learning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml
From the first sentence of the Abstract:
"Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started loosing part of their ability to SEQUESTER A LARGE PROPORTION of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions."
So right from the start the article is talking about the ability of the ocean and land to absorb that portion of CO2 put into the atmosphere by humanity. It is not talking about a lack of "fractional change in the atmosphere".
Keywords here are:
Sequestration
Terrestrial
Ocean
Next sentence:
"This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of THOSE EMISSIONS HAVE STAYED in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change."
Notice that:
A. The assumption that Climate Change is real.
B. The stated fact that 40% of anthropogenic emissions are remaining in the atmosphere.
Stating that 40% of human emissions remain in the atmosphere is irreconcilable with the assertion that "no fractional change in atmospheric carbon in the past 160 years."
"This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the TREND in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found."
So the TREND is talking about the portion of CO2 being SEQUESTERED by the TERRESTRIAL and OCEAN systems.
Key Word: TREND
The fear my scientific ignorati is that the ability of the of earth systems to absorb atmospheric CO2 will or has been decreasing. That would be very bad news because all we need is for less CO2 to be absorbed. This study finds that it can detect no such trend.
You people need to seriously reconsider your sources.
Trent1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say PO-tay-to, I say PO-tah-to. Your yawningly mindless assumption that your "peer reviewed" papers are more superior means that your arts degree is showing again and that that your view of science is both shuttered and massively egocentric.
If you understood anything about weathering of rocks, (like what they teach in ROX4JOX 101) you would realize that mother nature has these massive built in CO2 sinks called basalts. These rocks are capable of (and have since the beginning of time) de-constructing unimaginable amounts of CO2 and sequestering it (permanently, I might add, without a whiff of human "geo-engineering) as the mineral magnesite.
And where did she put them?
She lined the oceans with them. Smart thinking Mom! And she keeps making more as MORB's (Mid Ocean Ridge Basalts) and undersea volcanoes.
Buffering of CO2 is done through natural systems; that's the way God designed it, that's the way Mother Nature implemented it and that's the way that Gaia likes it, and it's worked out pretty good so far.
This gamble might be worthwhile, though less so than other geo-engineering schemes, if it held any hope of reversing the CO2-caused ocean acidification. It does not. Until such a scheme addresses both warming and acidification, and is economic, it displaces attention from greenhouse gas management for no good reason.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone supporting Global Warming read the weather reports. China, Europe, South America and our own USA have experienced record cold temperatures barely weeks into winter. 1550 cities in the U.S. have recorded record breaking cold temperatures. 740 have recorded record breaking snowfall. How can we keep breaking records of cold and snow when this hightly efficient trace gas, Carbon Dioxide, is warming the planet at such an alarming rate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGo outside occasionally. Quit reading the reports put out by the likes of Professor Mann or NASA's Hansen or the UN's former weather guru Phil Jones who are experts at manipulating data to suit their theories. Look at what is actually happening in the world before your ass freezes.
Does anyone supporting Global Warming read the weather reports. China, Europe, South America and our own USA have experienced record cold temperatures barely weeks into winter. 1550 cities in the U.S. have recorded record breaking cold temperatures. 740 have recorded record breaking snowfall. How can we keep breaking records of cold and snow when this hightly efficient trace gas, Carbon Dioxide, is warming the planet at such an alarming rate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGo outside occasionally. Quit reading the reports put out by the likes of Professor Mann or NASA's Hansen or the UN's former weather guru Phil Jones who are experts at manipulating data to suit their theories. Look at what is actually happening in the world before your ass freezes.
Subject: WEATHER REPORT...................
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen , Norway . Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by
moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.
I sorry, I neglected to mention that this report was from
November 2, 1922 as reported by the AP and published in The
Washington Post.
What followed was severe winters, record cold and snowfall.
The Arctic ice recovered and the seals and Polar Bears came back to live.
It seems to me that people are frequently working the wrong issues when it comes to global warming. Isn't the # 1 issue that all environmentally concerned people should be pushing to help protect planet earth from environmental problems; is to control the human population. The growing number of humans on the planet will inevitably lead to problems, but we never hear about this issue being pushed globally from an environmental perspective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that people are frequently working the wrong issues when it comes to global warming. Isn't the # 1 issue that all environmentally concerned people should be pushing to help protect planet earth from environmental problems; is to control the human population. The growing number of humans on the planet will inevitably lead to problems, but we never hear about this issue being pushed globally from an environmental perspective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat clearly needs to be done is transform our present carbon society into a hydrogen one. This means seperating carbon from hydrogen in hydrocarbons and carbohydrates before burning them. The technology to do this exists, it is called Pyrolysis and is economical and is beginning to be commercially applied. (See www.eprida.com). The waste products are water and charcoal (which can go to landfill sites). So pollution and climate change can be beaten.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDefining a "safe" amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide is tricky. Since the entire carbon dioxide question revolves around its supposed ability to cause greenhouse warming of the world we should ask what it has done so far to warm the world. The answer is nothing at all. But this is not what you hear in the press or in the global warming literature. We are told, for example, that there was this "late twentieth century warming" in the eighties and nineties and that it continues to this day. In the middle of it, in 1988, James Hansen testified in front of the Senate that global warming had started and that its cause was carbon dioxide in the air. He also had computer projections that showed a catastrophic increase of global temperature by 2020 if nothing was done to curb the emissions before that. His testimony gave a kick-start to the global warming movement and his computer projections became the motivation behind Kyoto and Copenhagen proposals. But they all make sense only if what Hansen said about the warming is true. And unfortunately it is not true. Satellite observations show that there was no global warming in 1988 when he spoke, just a continuing multi-year temperature oscillation, up and down by half a degree, that lasted for twenty years. There were five such cycles within a twenty year period and they trace out the warm El Nino and cool La Nina periods of the ENSO system in the Pacific. These have existed since the Isthmus of Panama rose from the sea and are expected to continue in the foreseeable future. But there are irregularities and the super El Nino of 1998 is one of them. It was caused by a storm surge in the Indo-Pacific region that dumped much warm water at the beginning of the equatorial counter-current, in the western Pacific. Flow of the counter-current then brought it to South America. And as it hit the shore it produced the observed super El Nino. This is not a carbon dioxide effect and does not belong on the global warming curve. It's warm water lingered near shore and caused an aftermath - the twenty-first century high, a string of six warm years. Again, no thanks to carbon dioxide. All this finally came to an end with a real La Nina cooling in 2008, the one that Kevin Trenberth could not understand. It signifies the return of the oscillating climate of the eighties and nineties. The computer warming predictions are thereby canceled and the next scheduled El Nino is almost here. And the warming reported by NASA, NOAA, and the Met Office? Cooked. As in falsified. Read "What Warming?" to learn how.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this