G-stream V
Image: Globat Jet, courtesy Flickr
A three-year, government-funded effort to track the movement of greenhouse gases throughout the atmosphere has yielded surprising results that could help improve the accuracy of climate models.
Researchers used a specially equipped plane for a series of pole-to-pole flights to measure the concentrations of greenhouse gases and black carbon particles at different altitudes, different locations and different times of the year.
Scientists hope to use the data to better map sources and sinks of heat-trapping substances, including carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon.
"The program was intended to take a cross-section of the atmosphere, like you would slice through an orange and look at a cross-section of it," said lead researcher Steven Wofsy, a professor of atmospheric and environmental science at Harvard University. "This is actually something we haven't had up until now."
Scientists have long used ground-based monitoring stations, like the federal observatory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, to track greenhouse gas concentrations close to Earth's surface. More recently, they have developed satellites that can track carbon dioxide concentrations from space.
But Wofsy said the measurements his team collected using a Gulfstream V jet provide the most precise portrait of greenhouse gas movement through the lower levels of the atmosphere -- anywhere from 500 to 47,000 feet above the Earth's surface.
"It's like looking a chest X-ray from the '60s compared to a CAT scan today," Wofsy said of the data.
Significant methane levels found in Arctic
The project, known as "HIPPO," is scheduled to wrap up Friday, when the plane -- owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research -- lands in Anchorage, Alaska.
Sifting through the data it has collected over five long-haul flights will take several years, Wofsy said. But the project has already yielded some surprising results for researchers who study how greenhouse gases move through the atmosphere.
That includes the discovery that surface waters in the open Arctic Ocean are releasing heat-trapping methane gas into the atmosphere at a "significant" rate as the region's sea ice recedes, Wofsy said.
It's not clear where the methane is coming from, but the HIPPO measurements suggest the amount released by the ocean is "of sufficient size to be important globally," he added.
Britton Stephens, an NCAR scientist and the project's co-principal investigator, said HIPPO flights have collected the first large-scale measurements of carbon dioxide and oxygen cycling into and out of surface waters of the Southern Ocean. Microscopic ocean plants pull CO2 out of the atmosphere to produce energy by photosynthesis, a process that also releases oxygen into the atmosphere.
"Half of all the CO2 we emit is taken up by land plants and oceans," he said. "It turns out that if you want to predict future climate, the largest uncertainty is what people will do. The second source of uncertainty is what plants and oceans will do."
By providing new data on how CO2 cycles through land and ocean plants, HIPPO will allow researchers to improve the accuracy of their climate models and reduce that uncertainty, Stephens said.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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68 Comments
Add CommentMethane from the Arctic ocean is very troubling. I knew that the increased temperatures mankind is causing would start melting the permafrost near the Arctic Circle, releasing Methane. However, discovering that it is bubbling up from the Arctic Ocean itself means that the methane clathrates at the bottom of the ocean might be disintegrating as well. Either that or there’s some OTHER source of methane at these high latitudes that we haven't discovered yet. Either way, this methane has 100x the global warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year horizon and could be one of the fast feedbacks that cause our estimates of climate sensitivity to be too low.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody knows exactly how the climate will change, but the more facts that come to light, the scarier the potential future climate scenarios look. Now that we know for sure that clouds won't save us, we'll have to start cleaning up our act!
Not wanting to believe in human-induced global-warming "just because" is just as bad or worse as believing in it. At least the believers are looking at data and not just ranting against "liberals".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as I can recall, they (global-warming articles) often have mentioned methane as being worse than CO2 for global warming. What this data should tell you is that whether the global-warming is human-induced or not, the environment is having a positive feedback effect (i.e. increase global warming via methane release). Interesting that the anti-global warming people are likely pro-Department of Homeland Security...another pie in the sky idea. Spend 57b per year (1 trillion since 9/11) to maybe prevent a terrorist attack that might not even be attempted. However, they (Republicans and their ilk) do not want to even consider that global-warming might be real and should maybe be dealt (prevention) with at least in some ways.
What in the world does this mean:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A source of uncertainty is what plants and oceans do when attempting to predict future climate conditions?"
Wow, I need to get some of that Kool-Aid that YOU'RE drinking!
The debate that you deniers try to gin up is the one concerning whether CO2 traps heat or not...or is it if humans are causing CO2 to build up in the atmosphere or not...or is it whether that CO2 will change the climate or not...or is it whether that climate change will be bad or not...
You see, the head-in-the-sand crowd can't even get their story straight and then they wonder why the people who ACTUALLY pay attention to the REAL science behind climate change don't take them seriously. All those debates that the deniers want to keep going to prevent any action that might endanger their master's (fossil fuel companies) profits were settled decades ago. Since they lost in the scientific arena, they have tried to change it to a political debate where it's much harder to debunk their lies to the average viewer.
The cost to prevent abrupt climate change is an order of magnitude or two lower than the cost of dealing with said abrupt climate change. Call it an insurance policy that gives you clean air and water along with lower healthcare costs and energy independence as a side benefit.
BTW, the Republican stance is because the DHS is pro-military industrial complex and global-warming is "anti-business". We cannot risk reducing corporate profits by forcing them to reduce pollution after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry sault pay attention, that quote you seem to think is kool-aid drinking, is right out of this article. Perhaps you are unable to read the full context of a sentence. The article clearly reads that Britton Stephens, in his comment about predicting climate has two uncertainties, one is Human activity and the other is what plants and oceans do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClearly you libs are all about humans and what they do, the sole and only possible cause of global warming. I merely point out that we dont know everything as the scientist said in this article. What nature does with CO2 is probably something we should understand before we allow you liberal socialists to place yourselves in your ivory towers of plenty, while at the same time forcing the rest of us back to subsistence living with stone age tools.
Maybe you should read the article before commenting
The problem is the word believe. I have no interest in what is believed about something. When actual proof or reasonable facts show something exists or is likely then lets debate. Climate models based on assumptions and beliefs filled with cherry picked data does not prove anything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot sure who the republican is you are referring too but it is not me. Plus the republicans are not in power and have not been since 1929, so they are not relevant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am referring to the Republican political party in the United States. They have taken the stance that human-induced global warming is a sham or at best, unproven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/prehistoric-co2-double-up-gives-warming-data/
This article gives support to the idea that higher carbon = higher temperatures. However, the CO2 levels got to 1000-2000 ppm without human activity. You could also take the view that CO2 levels fell in the last 50 million years because it was converted to biomass faster than it was "burned" and now humans have reversed this trend.
Regardless of source, do we really want CO2 levels to return to 1000-2000 ppm? Do we want oceans that are 100 meters higher within the next 100 to 200 years?
Also, logically speaking, we know that petroleum is a long carbon-chain molecule formed by millions of years plant rot (exposed to heat/pressure). If the CO2 levels have fallen in the past 50 million years, the carbon went somewhere. It would appear that at least a very large chunk of the "somewhere" is coal and petroleum. If we burn the coal and petroleum, we are releasing that carbon. It doesn't drift out into space. If we clear cut land for cities and farms, we clearly reduce the amount of CO2 that can be bound by plants. So, we have increased the CO2 input into the atmosphere while at the same time reducing the biomass of flora capable of binding that carbon. It would seem to me that human-induced global-warming is a foregone conclusion. The only thing up in the air is the timescale. Perhaps we could replant more land...but then again the human population is growing fast. Maybe green-algae will thrive in the CO2 rich atmosphere and bind the excess? However, that might be offset by increased radiation levels due to a thinned ozone layer.
Does it really matter to humans if catastrophic climate change takes place in 50 years or 200?
Practically speaking, let's ignore climate change. What is the effect on future society if we do not switch to renewable energy (coal/oil reserves are not infinite)? It seems to me there are practical, concrete reasons to reduce fossil-fuel usage. It seems like energy resource conflicts already account for a large portion of global wars...how much worse will it be when oil reserves are half their current levels and the burn rate is twice as high?
I don't recall responsible scientists ever denying that there are other greenhouse gases produced that are influenced by human beings. However, CO2 is by far the greenhouse gas produced by humans in the greatest quantities, and the increases in those quantities over the past 200 years match the rate of increase of CO2 seen in the atmosphere, and increases in temperature over the same period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not a smoking gun, but it's pretty strong circumstantial evidence -- more than enough for any rational person to acknowledge the *possibility* that human-produced CO2 is at least an *influence* in the changes we are seeing. Anyone who believes differently is simply irrational.
Sorry... Don't buy your comment. If you'd like to say that human factors such as deforestation, agricultural practices and re-routing of river channels for navigation affect the environment, I'm with you, but CO2 is such a nickel and dime player that it is impossible for its effects alone to drive climate. AGW proponents need an amplifier to get CO2 on steroids and that amplifier has never ever been demonstrated in nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing I find most contemptible about the AGW is the malleability of it's views. When something is shown to be inconsistent with CO2 being a death driver to the planet, the AGW crowd simply ignores it and moves on to say some other way is ACTUALLY how it all works.
Pathetic and anti-science.
In other words, you thinks it's impossible that human-produced CO2 could have *any* influence on global warming -- and you think that's a rational conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, at least we all know that you have a true understanding of what "pathetic and anti-science" really means....
No, that isn't what I said. What i will stipulate is that the effect of CO2 is small, minimal, teeny-tiny. And this is based on the established fact that 80% of the heat trapping effect occurs in the first 20 ppm, after which it's effect drops off like a rock. That is why the AGW crowd needs to put it on steroids, it's a 98 pound weakling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking of irrational, does it make any sense whatsoever that CO2 levels were 1500 ppm in the past and life not only survived, but thrived, and now AGW cheerleaders try to dress up a moving from 300ppm to 350ppm as a planet killer? That is irrational.
And you're willing to bet the world on your absolute certainty that we understand the planet's climate with enough precision that we can all be certain -- based on imprecise understanding only a few of the conditions present many thousands of years earlier -- that *today's* climate conditions combined with *all* other known details make it *impossible* that CO2 could be influencing today's climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis *IS* what you're saying, no matter how you try to wiggle out of it.... What this says about why you insist on promoting your (or someone else's opinion) is up to other *rational* and scientific people to decide for themselves.
I'm sorry, but there is this little thing called the Arrhenius Equation you might want to look at. This is based purely on the basic physical characteristics of CO2, which are known to a precision far in excess of anything required to predict its warming effect at a given concentration. These facts have been known for OVER 100 years. Thus by your very comment you have betrayed a lack of understanding of basic science that can be demonstrated for $20 worth of equipment in a high school classroom. Yet you want us to take your opinion seriously... Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Nobody needs any 'booster for CO2'. I can't even imagine where you guys get this kind of 'information' from, but if you paid for it I'd advise you to ask for your money back!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can not believe what I am reading in the commentaries!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe tone and lack of scientific argument is unbelievable. Will sarcasm and political rhetoric be allowed to take a position of intolerance alongside scientific data collection and observation? This discourse is akin to citizens of Troy arguing over who and what was responsible for allowing the Trojan Horse inside the city walls. Every Earth Scientist knows what has transpired in the Atmosphere since the advent of the Atomic Bomb, Rockets, and accelerated burning of fossil fuels into the thin layer of air we breath around the planet. I worked for Accu-Weather in 1980. But, these people who throw word bombs instead of responding with scientific debate, have probably never even read " Silent Spring " by Rachel Carson. Nor have they read " Nature's Economy " or " GAIA " by one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, or know of Dr Lovelock's contributions to NASA and the defense Industry.
My personal research and observations are inclined to understand that the North Sea water temperatures have not risen sufficiently to cause methane melting on the Ocean floor. The rise in temperatures of the Artic tundra do relate to Permafrost melting and therefore, the Methane is being released there.
Polar, Glacier, and Greenland Ice melts will accelerate as fast as other related components in the past 50 years, which leads to the inevitable fact that we will
see the same observations in the next 50 years. Our legacy to our children for our laziness and our cowardness to stand up to these morons who argue in favor of economic GREED. Because, we can invent, manufacture, and build a new world order not based upon Oil, Gas, and Coal.
I think it is far from certain (or even stated in the article) that this methane that was detected is anything abnormal. It is perfectly possible it is simply something that always goes on. This doesn't diminish the importance of the observation though. Every additional bit of detail gained on the overall carbon cycle and its various parts increases the amount of detailed prediction that can be done and tells us a bit more about the exact timing and magnitude of the changes that are happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yeah, needless to say, the level of ignorance of basic science, logic, etc is pretty unimpressive. Though I must say, I was never particularly impressed by Lovelock either...
The problem is that this is not the case; there is solid science backing these models, and what this article details does not derail their conclusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy should climate change be considered catastrophic? Remember the Sahara was not a desert in warmer times. It was fertile. The vast interior of Australia was a Garden of Eden, not the semi desert it is now. Northern Europe, Alaska, Siberia, Patagonia, The huge Antarctic continent,all these areas were vastly more life supporting in warmer times. The earth has always renewed itself via change. Next people will be blaming human activity for tectonic plate movement. Oh sorry, the chairman of the IPCC already does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile much of what you say is correct, don't conclude that plant biomass is declining just yet. Perhaps because of increased Co2 concentrations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/forests-flourish-human-co2
The best explanation for why the Sahara shifts from desert to savanna and back again is ACTUALLY the Earth's tilt in relation to the sun. When the axial tilt is higher, the monsoon bands move farther away from the equator. This process takes something like 20,000 years which is MUCH slower than we are changing the climate with CO2. If we jack up the temperature with our emissions but those monsoons don't come, then all we're doing is making a hot and dry desert even more hot and dry. The same thing goes for Australia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last time Antarctica was lush as you describe, it was a bit farther north than it is now. In addition, sea levels were 300m higher, so you could pretty much kiss ALL the world's coastal cities goodbye if you think Antarctica melting would be a good thing.
Please look at these articles so you'll learn how dangerous your mindset is:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming-intermediate.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/extreme-weather-global-warming.htm
In the grand scheme of things? You're right, climate change may not be catastrophic to the Earth, but it is all a matter of perspective. If you don't mind having most of the world's great cities underwater, vast disruption of all agriculture, and extinction of a very significant fraction of the species on this planet in the next 150-200 years, then it is no big deal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course all of that will cost us 10' to 100's of trillions of $. Or we can spend maybe 2-5 trillion and prevent that. Hell, the US would have already been there with the money burned in a useless and unjustified war in Iraq, 3 times over. The anti-science and anti-common-sense crowd simply has such horrible bad judgment and feels such an utter lack of responsibility for mankind that it is really sad.
20 million years from now? Yeah, the traces of our stupidity will have faded, but what about NOW? On a human scale it IS a big deal.
Another unknown variable yet global warming cultists have embraced climate models as 'proof' of whatever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's 2011? Odd, back in 1995 these modeels only gave us 10 years 'to act or else'.
Cults throughout history have preached doom and gloom to those who refuse 'to believe'.
Where do you get these myths from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd also like to point out that just because some random idiot makes some claim doesn't make it a part of a CONSENSUS. RIGHT NOW there is a consensus, and RIGHT NOW we have good data and a good idea of what is happening. In 1995? I don't know who was talking about 10 years, but I can guarantee you 99 out of 100 people with the knowledge and expertise to have a claim to a factual opinion weren't saying that.
So what do we have now? 99% of the people with a claim to a factual opinion roughly agree about what is going on, and the other 1% are trying to foist models on us that don't obey the basic laws of thermodynamics and have no explanation for anything because they just basically amount to "more clouds are forming for some mysterious reason we refuse to try to explain and that's the answer" lol. I KNOW who's story stinks to high heavens to me.
Carbon Heat Trapping: Merely a Bit Player in Global Warming
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisby Richard J. Petschauer, Senior Member IEEE, Private Publication
Abstract
New calculations show that doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) will increase average global temperature by only about 1F (degrees Fahrenheit) or 0.55C (degrees Centigrade), much less than the range of 2C to 4.5C estimated by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These new calculations are based on NASA supported spectral calculations available on the Internet relating to greenhouse gases.
I can understand why you would prefer Arhennius' work. It fits your preconceived notions.
Right, 'new calculations' by a guy who has no qualifications in climatology, has never written a peer-reviewed paper that I can find, and seems to basically post 'papers' on climateclash.com. He's non-existent in the literature. Doesn't have credentials that indicate he's qualified in the field, and in fact AFAICT doesn't hold an advanced degree of any kind at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know the guy, have no idea how smart he is etc, but a quick reading of his papers tells me a couple of things. First of all his conclusions are at variance with actual observation, and he makes a couple of rather strange claims about reradiation/atmospheric thickness that right off strike me as quite dubious.
Note that the Arrhenius calculation isn't subject to ANY question whatsoever. It is the basic relation between CO2 concentration and transparency of the atmosphere to longwave blackbody radiation. You can question it all you want, but it is like questioning the value of G, you'll get nowhere because it can be trivially measured by anyone. Some simple facts believe it or not really are beyond doubt. Again, failure to understand this level of basic facts is in and of itself ample reason to discount a source of information.
Great. Then it should be easy for you to disprove his work. Have at it. BTW, did anyone mention to you that Arrhenius' work incorporated numerous assumptions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are confusing his chemical activation energy research (which is correct) and his CO2 work which was highly speculative.
But that's OK. Common mistake.
Further to your comments: If Arrhenius' was right, why does the AGW establishment feel the need to spend $billions on computer models? There should be no need to re-invent the wheel, should there? You shoukld be able to solve his equations on a napkin, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless, of course, Arrhenius missed something? Hmmmm...
Well, we know that CO2 traps heat and we've been pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere each year. The models take those physical principles we know and use them to project what effects the warming we are causing will have and what locations will be affected. Just like you can derive climate sensitivity with the radiative properties of CO2 and some paleoclimate data, you can make some general predictions with Ahhrenius' equations. However, to plan adaptation strategies and to make it clear that mitigation is 10% or even 1% of the cost of adaptation, we need climate models to paint a geospatial picture of climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease tell me where we've spent billion$ on computer models because anybody who spends that much on making a model shouldn't be doing it. You can't say "well, the IPCC cost a billion dollars because the man on the talk radio said so." Yes, the IPCC has been functioning for many years and may have spent close to $1 billion during its lifetime. But to say that the entire budget of the IPCC went to make a single climate model shows how willing you are to distort facts to argue for your biased opinion.
There is no credible indication that sea level rises are occurring at any greater rate now than they have been in recent centuries. At present in fact, the rate of increase is declining. Regardless of what humans do, the Earth will change. Humans have had to adapt in the past & will in the future. The rate of change is the real issue & that also has varied historically. The catastrophic rate of change that the alarmists warn about is simply not credible. There have also always been doomsayers also. Another constant. They also tend to be remarkable in their ability to adapt. Global warming becomes climate change for example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comments are an excellent example of how AGW supporters have perverted science. They make grand sweeping emotional statements and state that the "cause" is so important that it's OK to discard scientific principles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience ain't a popularity contest. It boils dowwn to testable, repeatable and falsifiable evidence and AGW strikes out on all three. Sorry, AGW does not get a free pass because you have cute pictures of polar bears (which would rip you limb from limb if you ever ran across one).
This is so typical. You don't even understand the issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis guy you quote, some part time tinkerer that doesn't publish his stuff so it can actually be criticized by the oh, 1000 or so other guys that are infinitely more qualified to have an opinion on the subject, is claiming that CO2 doesn't hold in heat as we KNOW it does. That's what Arrhenius calculated. We KNOW it is correct. Your guy is simply dead wrong and if you're going to believe him over 1000 vastly better qualified people on basically 1+1=2 no amount of detailed refutation I waste my time on is going to have the slightest impact on you.
The REAL issues, the ones that are worth talking about, and the reason there is climate research, have to do with several totally secondary issues.
1) what is the dwell time of CO2 in the atmosphere? This is important because it tells us how much we need to cut back to get a given reduction.
2) What positive and negative feedbacks are there when the temperature INEVITABLE goes up as the laws of thermodynamics say it must? Does that make the situation better or worse?
We have actually a pretty decent handle on both of those questions, but there is always quite a bit more valuable information we can gather. For instance if we know what carbon sinks exist we can avoid destroying them and maybe even make them work better. If we understand feedbacks better we can make more accurate long-range predictions about what we need to do, and again there are mitigation possibilities we can uncover.
Then there is the 3rd question, which sault touched on above, we really need to know the DETAILS of what increasing temperature is going to do to the world. It makes no sense to simply say "gosh, we know it will be 1 degree C, OH NO!" We'd like to know for instance what the cost to society of that change would be. Given that we're intending to be reasonable and responsible we'd want to know what the cost/benefit equation is.
Of course YOU'VE got it all figured out because hey it is all a big conspiracy and your buddy there in his spare time has effortlessly disproven the whole thing, but the rest of the scientific world apparently are pea brains that just can't understand his genius. Or maybe you're just wrong but it is too much to admit that or admit that maybe we need to be more responsible. That would be MATURE, and people wouldn't want to actually act all grown up, that would be no fun...
Some years ago it was disclosed that satelite observations showed vast plumes of methane were being released from jungle areas such as The Amazon. Live trees, not decaying vegetation were releasing methane. There was no scientific explanation of this process though German scientists conducted an experiment that showed it did occur. I have read nothing of it in recent years. This report was quick to release information about the Arctic. What about the Amazon & other jungle areas or are we again going to see only selective release of information?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to think that climate research is only there to prove that there is global warming or that Arrhenius was definitely right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou forget that climate research is done for a million different reasons and that one of the results seems to show that the planet is warming and that the climate is changing somewhat rapidly compared to other times in the past.
Besides that result we have learned and continue to learn an awful lot of things about the climate which you never seem to mention.
The cliches you use are very worn out. Yes there is perhaps no need to reinvent the wheel according to you but I can assure you that we have invented very many new and different kinds of wheels and that we will keep reinventing the wheel very many more times.
Nor could you do Arrhenius' calculations on a napkin he needed at least one year and judging by your statements you would need very many years if not an eternity.
Finally, Arrhenius did not miss anything. He was well aware of his limitations and he knew that his effort was only a first crack at the problem. You would do well in considering your limitations in an equal manner.
I suppose you have missed all the articles that describe the emission of methane from various swamps marshes jungles etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe expect there to be methane over the Amazon jungle because it is a rainforest and during the rainy season can be almost considered as one big swamp. I am sure they saw this in the data as expected.
The surprise was the arctic ocean. From this article which you obviously have not read either with any kind of understanding:
"Sifting through the data it has collected over five long-haul flights will take several years, Wofsy said. But the project has already yielded some SURPRISING RESULTS for researchers who study how greenhouse gases move through the atmosphere."
Yes, methane from the arctic ocean is a surprise. Methane from the Amazon is not.
"Pathetic and anti-science." This is the correct closing statement to describe your comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody claims that CO2 effects alone drive the climate.
I did not know that AGW has any views whatsoever and certainly not malleable ones. It would be good if your views were somewhat more malleable.
The great destruction, that is coming, will cause an ice age ( nuclear war )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, well, the rate of increase of sea level rises is presently declining. Not just the sea level rise but the rate of sea level rise. We will need some calculus to figure out if this statement is true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt present, of course, we are approaching the equinox and the northern hemisphere is allready receiving less sunshine so the melting ought to be slowing down on the other hand the southern hemisphere is just ending it's winter and there is almost no melting.
Yes, you're right, at present the rate of sea level rise is definitely decreasing.
You ought to try something original. For example: for a given amount of ice melting there will be a given increase in sea level.
Except that as sea level rises there is less and less land to submerge.
The surface of the ocean grows bigger and bigger and the given melted ice has to spread out over a larger area thus adding less to sea level rise.
So year after year for the same given amount of ice melting there will be less and less sea level rise. Until of course you run out of ice.
Nevertheless when you run out of ice the sea level will be ~ 70 meters higher.
Go and tell that to your friends. It is another invalid argument.
And by the way increasing temperatures do change the climate for the simple reason that temperatures are part of the climate just like rain wind snow and hail and a million other things. No ingenuity is required to understand that.
I specifically stated, Not As A Result Of Decaying Vegetation. (I.e. swamps) You obviously did not read or understand my post. Even the discoverers later were apologetic about their discovery & tried to downplay its significance. Just as you & those like you no doubt will. Now why is that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Forgotten Methane Source
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg make a surprising discovery: plants themselves produce methane and emit it directly into the atmosphere
January 11, 2006
Your knowledge of scientific research is as stunning as your very own theorising. Not. You remind me of a dog I had once. Used to chase his tail. Sometimes he would catch it & give it a bite. Then he would yelp & look at me grinning at his own stupidity. You lack this last capacity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApril 7, 2011
Sea Level Rise: Still Slowing Down
Filed under: Climate Changes, Sea Level Rise —
Back in the summer of 2009, we ran a piece titled “Sea Level Rise: An Update Shows a Slowdown” in which we showed that the much ballyhooed “faster rate of sea level rise during the satellite era” was actually slowing down. http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/04/07/sea-level-rise-still-slowing-down/
To the best of my recollection plants (trees and other greenish life forms) have been around for quite some time. Unless there's been some kind of big evolutionary change in the metabolic processes of plants, I'll wager that their output of methane has been more or less constant over geologic time scales; that is to say that phytomethanogenesis should be considered as a background condition and therefore not contributing any more or less to the current climatological aberration than they ever have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, but if we plant more trees we will add to the methane output as well as only temporarily storing Co2. What is never talked about in the tree hugging manual is that carbon sequestration in forests reaches saturation point after about a hundred years. After that Co2 uptake is balanced by Co2 being released from decay. If this were not the case, old forests by now would be one solid block of wood. Only if the trees are preserved in some way do they retain the carbon. Milling selected trees actualy extends the carbon sequestration but many in the green movement are trying to stop all loging in old growth forests. People & companies trading in carbon credits using projected carbon uptake on a continuing basis from a forest are once again fraudulently conning us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not suggesting that we should not manage the worlds forests or where practical, plant more but so many things are not as they seem. The tendency to look the other way when confronted with contra evidence is rife in this movement & has lead to Billions of dollars being wasted.
Agreed, so we continue to do research and it would seem like the prudent course of action would be to increase the pace of that research by some reasonable amount and move forward as quickly as we can to get off of fossil fuels, right? So why is it what we see ACTUALLY happening is that the budget for things like Earth observation satellites, alternative energy, etc is being gutted? Do you find this to be an intelligent response to the current situation? Or can we agree that 'monumental stupidity' is a pretty good summary of the current direction things are going in?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of any debate about the details of various scientific observations and theories is there really any legitimate reason any of us should be seriously debating what to do RIGHT NOW?
Yes there is. Continue honest research but strip out the hostility towards those who look for alternative to mainstream explanations for what is observed. In the end this is how truth is established. At the moment it is more like a court case where only the prosecution is allowed to speak. This can only lead to avoidable failure to find the truth. Thousands of scientists can be wrong. The hadron collider looks likely to show generations of scientists wrong about the Higgs Boson.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRushing to implement policies that do not stack up from an engineering or scientific perspective ill only harm further public support for research. The rush to implement bio fuels, wind & solar have all lead to disastrous failure to meet stated goals. Hold those engineers & spruikers personally responsible for failures that can be shown to have been easily predictable from previous experience to fail & from known engineering & scientific data. The public is tired of the lies & failures.
Seeing as how a goodly fraction of the world's historical forests have been converted to agricultural, urban and other non-forest uses, I put no stock in the argument that planting trees is deleterious to our environment. If anything, an increase in forested acreage serves to help return us to a historical norm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe clearly need to harvest forests - society runs on forest products. However, logging the remaining tiny fraction of true old growth forest is foolhardy. Profitable for an equally tiny fraction of people in the short run, yes - but foolhardy nonetheless. Harvest second growth forests and tree farms all you want, but leave the old growth climax forests alone.
We should recycle as much cellulosic material as we can and catch and use the methane that is formed during the decomposition of forest products that find their way into landfills. This can be done profitably and in converting methane to carbon dioxide helps in some small way to slow global warming.
I was merely pointing out unintended consequences. Also I was advocating that selective harvesting of old growth forests not be excluded across the board.. Encouraging regrowth is a healthy thing if managed responsibly. Fire, cyclones, tornados & hurricanes all destroy forests, all are important to the overall health of a forest. If you want to cause unintended consequences, give control to those who think they know it all even if they have never had first hand experience. Particularly those who are not prepared to recognise the views of those who have spent a lifetime in the particular field.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wish I could be as scientifically literate as Ban Ki-Moon. He went on record yesterday in a Sydney newspaper urging AGW skeptics to quit fighting as we'll just end up with more climate change catastrophes like the Aral Sea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomething about that statement seemed wrong, so I Googled it. Apparently, the Aral Sea drying up is the result of decades of Soviet Russian water diversion. The rivers that used to run into it have been dammed and routed else where.
Sorry guys, the head of the UN doesn't even know what he is talking about wrt "climate change". So, you AGW True Believers out there, are you happy about saddlin' up and following this bozo into battle?
Me, not so much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes and Dr Rajendra K Pachauri,the chief of the inter-governmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims humans are causing earthquakes & tsunamis. Therefore we are causing tectonic plates to move. How can the world be so stupid as to follow these ignorant people.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-14/coimbatore/28687815_1_harmony-green-drive-renewable-energy-sources
"I was merely pointing out unintended consequences."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat unintended consequences would that be? That trees produce some methane? If that's the case then by your line of reasoning we should kill off all plants because they all respire. Respiration produces carbon dioxide. Oh, I forgot, carbon dioxide has no effect on climate - but methane does... Wait, What?
"Also I was advocating that selective harvesting of old growth forests not be excluded across the board.. Encouraging regrowth is a healthy thing if managed responsibly. Fire, cyclones, tornados & hurricanes all destroy forests, all are important to the overall health of a forest."
"Encouraging" artificial regrowth in a climax forest is NOT a good thing. Even selective harvests in true old growth forest involves a lot more than just having a few selected trees magically appearing at the mill. There are skid trails, yards, cable ways and haul roads. The surface hydrology, humidity regime and nutrient cycles are disrupted. The biota is disrupted. 90 to 95% of US climax forests have been harvested. Let's leave some for the future, shall we? Or is greed the only value left in your circle?
"If you want to cause unintended consequences, give control to those who think they know it all even if they have never had first hand experience."
Not sure who you're referring to here. Research scientists, who've spent their lives quantitatively studying their field, perhaps?
"Particularly those who are not prepared to recognise the views of those who have spent a lifetime in the particular field."
Just who would that be in this context?
You already know everything, so obviously I can not teach you anything. How terrible it must be for you. Someone who knows so much, surrounded by those who know so little. Your teachers must be so proud.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExperience is a great, if sometimes cruel, teacher...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExperienced in forestry management are you. I was cutting timber with my father in old growth forests in the 1950s using axes & cross cut saws, drawing the smaller timber out with horses & the larger logs with a bullock team. I went back to visit the area about 10 years ago. It was very difficult to even see that the area had ever been logged. The area had become a national park & until I showed them some surviving stumps the young (to me) rangers believed it had never been logged. Their modern management even banned horse riding let alone fire management. Then we had a wildfire a couple of years ago. The fire had been started by lightening & unlike previous fires that had been promptly extinguished; this one was unable to be controlled & killed virtually everything in its path. Trees & wildlife. Those who controlled the park had refused to listen to the old timbermen who time & again had advised the rangers to conduct fuel reduction burning in the cooler months. After all the old timber cutters were not academically educated. Now as you said. Experience should have taught the rangers a harsh lesson. But no, the same misguided practice continues because every attempt to reverse the policy is met by screaming outrage by the green lobby.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow I know this particular ignorance does not occur everywhere but misguided policies initiated by academics are increasing not decreasing in many fields in the environmental arena.
Noting that this discussion has gotten way off topic I'll be brief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't account for the vagueries of park management - or rule-making, but I can say this: You can't rebuild a climax (old-growth) forest in a few decades. No way. You can't even grow a decent sawlog in that space of time.
There's a hellufa lot more to an old-growth forest than just the number of trees per acre (2nd growth timber tends to have too many trees anyway - that's probably why your patch burned so thoroughly). Old-growth takes centuries to millenia to reform, depending on the dominant species.
By-the-by, I'm no academic. I've spent my time in the log woods - planting, thinning and cutting. Even spent some time skidding pondo out of a steep grove in the Sangre de Cristos behind a (half trained) mare before I went back to school.
So you know all about Eucalyptus forests do you. The world does not really begin & end in the USA despite what you might think. Especially not in New Mexico. I said there should not be a broad policy across the board banning selective harvesting, not clear felling. There are many forests in other countries across the world that the New Age Yank environmental evangelists think they know best how they should be managed. I own 1500 acres of Eucalyptus forest here in Australia by the way. I get endless advice on how the forest should be managed, by people who do not know what they are talking about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell now, let me reconsider the issue and apply the same selective quoting from various papers in peer reviewed scientific literature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI quote:
Many wetland plants (hydrophytes) transport CH4 produced by anaerobic soil microorganisms to the atmosphere through their roots and stems (Schimel et al., 1995).
This supposedly shows that emission of methane from life plants is ultimately due to anaerobic microbes who indeed live in marshes swamps and other relatively wet areas.
Or I quote:
Hence, UV radiation, rising temperature, physical injury, and hypoxia all stimulate CH4 emission from plant tissues, suggesting that environmental stress in general may increase CH4 emission from plants.
This only goes to show that the emission of methane from live plants is ultimately due to methanogenic microbes generating methane which then finds it's way through plant systems and gets emitted to the atmosphere.
It also somehow seems to show that your preconceived merits of invading forests with chainsaws may not be so beneficial to the environment as you seem to think in view of the fact that injured plants in general will emit more methane which will generate more global warming and thus more climate change.
Your fascination with papers that confirm your preconceived ideas about how nature functions seems to be without limit.
Indeed, I was well aware that you specifically stated that it was live plants who were emitting methane. It nevertheless has no bearing on the matter because I only stated that methane emissions from the arctic ocean were a surprise while emissions from the Amazon were not.
The research being conducted in the area of aerobic methane emissions is to put it kindly in it's infancy. While it may have ultimately a such or other impact on the whole methane production in the environment is yet to be determined. In other words, there is NOT as yet a scientific consensus about the importance of methane emission from life plants.
There is however a scientific consensus about global warming AND indeed climate change. No ingenuity is required to understand that.
So you keep at it. You do not know anything about forests or trees or shrubs notwithstanding the fact that you went with your father into the forest to harvest trees. That was in itself a commendable activity in view of the fact that we do indeed need the forest products that are so readily available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile it is generally true that harvesting trees is better than to let them decay within certain time frames it is not universally true. For example the redwood forests are notoriously good absorbers of CO2 and unlike their sister plants do not stop their absorption of CO2 in the long term (relatively speaking).
Tell me if you think that the sheriff who forcefully sprayed pepper into the eyes of arrested and handcuffed protestors who were opposing the cutting of the last few remains of the redwood forest was indeed justified in his actions.
Your argument that forests trees should not be replanted because they will only produce more methane is without merit at the present time.
There is ample evidence that growing forests produce more benefits than you can even think of. Indeed the forests like so many things in nature are of a complexity beyond our current understanding.
Nevertheless we will attempt to understand more and more of the complexity of forests as time goes on.
I go into the forest to see it's beauty complexity and everything else. You may go just to harvest trees. The approach is extra ordinarily different. It does not mean that there should be a conflict.
You might consider the old definition of a philosopher. A philosopher is a person who knows everything and nothing else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFortunately science is not philosophy and we know that we know very little while we know a lot more than we used to know. There is no contradiction in that statement.
Well, to a first approximation DR. XYZ is entitled to his share of mistakes that is, in general, the human condition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhether DR. UVW is right or wrong has no bearing on the person or on the question or the answer. We are only interested in the veracity of the statement regardless of the person.
I do not care whether Isaac Newton was right about his physics or wrong about his alchemy. He apparently wrote a million words about alchemy which were and are totally meaningless if not absurd according to current understanding of chemistry.
He equally engaged in theology with, what at best, can be described charitably as disastrous consequences.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding his fantastically erroneous pronouncements in the area of chemistry, sorry alchemy, and theology we do indeed think that his emanations in the area of mathematics and physics are beyond compare.
We admire the person for her accomplishments we ignore his shortcomings.
The fact that living plants generate methane was only revealed in 2005 & was as a result of an experiment conducted under controlled circumstances that excluded the possibility of decaying vegetation being involved. Your reference was from ten years earlier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe very fact that this is not widely known even in the scientific community is cause for considerable concern. Information contrary to the popular view does not get the same exposure as information that tends to confirm the popular view.
I have not advocated open slather harvesting nor suggested that trees should not be planted. Typically, what I stated is being misinterpreted. I have no objection to important areas being excluded from harvesting. My argument was & is that actions are being taken, like the push for bio fuel, that have unintended consequences & that those who claim that forests continuously take up Co2 is false. Once a forest reaches maturity the uptake is balanced by the release via decomposition or fire. This & the fact that live vegetation does emit methane are never mentioned by the snake oil brigade. This in no way advocates that we should not plant trees or look after our forests or set aside important areas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the same token, Carlyle, it would not seem to be your place to be extrapolating from eucalyptus forest to nearctic coniferous forest. They don't work the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still maintain that methanogenisis by plants should be considered a background condition unrelated to the release of methane from the Arctic Ocean.
I did not link the two other than to queried what other unexplained methane emissions were found. What proportion are the Arctic emissions compared to other emission sources? It is an interesting study & I am extremely keen to know the full results. For example does the study show methane plumes over vegetated areas that are not attributable to decomposition. Since the original discovery in 2005 there has been a dearth of information & no enthusiasm for follow up studies. If this finding had been something that could be attributable to AGW, millions of dollars would have been available to researchers. There is a reluctance to investigate anything that shows natural causes for Co2 or methane as well as weather variations caused by factors other than greenhouse gasses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it is plausible that methane emissions are a seasonal phenomenon related to methane hydrate evaporation during the warmer Arctic months. There are huge deposits of methane hydrate under the sea in the Arctic.
Sorry if I've misconstrued your intent - I skipped most of this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway, I recall reading somewhere of a study purporting to show that by far the greatest producer of CH4 is paddy rice production followed, as I recall, by the draining and agricultural exploitation of peat lands. I don't recall the source, but the gist was that the combined CH4 emissions from the two dwarfs current emission from thawing permafrost and seabed hydrates combined. Note 'current'.
Atmospheric carbon isotope analyses point the way to attribution of CO2 origins. I couldn't find the detailed discussion of carbon isotope ratios that I wanted, but these 3 cover the issue briefly and contain some references.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/natural-CO2-doesnt-add-up.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-emissions-correlation-with-CO2-concentration.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-fingerprint-in-global-warming.html
I will have a look at those links.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe methane from living plants discovery that I have been referring to was met by hostile denial by environmental scientists at the time. I was dismayed that the discoverers were apologetic about their discovery under the withering attacks they suffered. There was a second team that half-heartedly followed it up without clear results & I thought nothing had happened since. At the time some scientists did say that it could explain the large plume of methane that a satellite had observed over a jungle area that could not be attributed to decay. Since bringing the subject up I have done a further search & discovered that indeed it had been proven to be a real phenomenon. A link to the original announcement here: http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/jan06/WebExtra011306.html
Later confirmation & further information: http://www.mpg.de/568294/pressRelease200805272
Now did that research plane fly over jungle areas to test the extent of this effect or did they ignore it? It seems to me that you follow developments & research in matters to do with climate yet I am confident you knew nothing of this. The uproar that followed the original discovery has frightened others off. This avoidance of pursuit of knowledge that might run counter to mainstream or conventional views is disgraceful.
I would appreciate your comments after you have had a look at these links. You can still Google the subject & find links to the scornful dismissal the researchers received from other scientists at the time.
I have read the information at the three links you provided. There are plenty of fools on both sides of the climate debate. I agree with the first two links. That the majority of Co2 rise in the atmosphere is human caused to me is indisputable. The first two however fail to convince me of the third conclusion. I have no doubt that humans have an effect on the climate. I remain unconvinced that humans or C02 are the major drivers of climate variability. This does not mean that we should not do our best to reduce pollution or make sensible changes to reduce despoiling of the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recall reading about the findings of CH4 production by plants back when the results came out in press. I recall also the palaver on both sides of the climate 'debate', particularly the uninformed braying of a particular drop out draft dodging drug addict who has become some kind of ad hoc policy engineer for the wing nut right here in the US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read and noted the articles and moved on.
My conclusion? The production of CH4 by plants is a natural back ground condition.
I agree it is natural. The last link I gave you was later research by Germany's premier research facility. My point is that when people advocate tree planting as CO2 offsets, two factors are ignored. CH4 & the fact that mature forests are in balance so far as Co2 is concerned but continue to emit CH4. In other words the claims are dishonest in that they overstate the long term benefits so far as GHGs are concerned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forget where I saw it, but somewhere, either in the article above or in one of the links you provided, but it was clearly stated that the carbon sequestration benefits of forested lands surpasses the production of CH4. Even mature woodlands don't stop tying up carbon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGetting back to the actual subject at hand, I just found this:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JC007189.shtml
I have no doubt that the Arctic releases methane on a seasonal basis & that at times when the ocean bed is warmer where the hydrates are located that the release will be greater. The earth has seen many such cycles before. When you get down to it the earth has warmed by .8 degrees Kelvin in the past 150 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe the claim that mature forests continue to sequester carbon, where is it? These claims are easily made but if this was a fact, over millennia, ancient forests would have become a solid block of carbon thousands of metres high. It simply is not a credible claim & it does not matter who makes it. Show me the accumulated carbon.