Milankovitch Cycles, Space Dust, Global Warming

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Buffalo Roam, Dec 16, 2009.

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  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Excuse me?

    Wong, again.

    The text I quoted was from the APL homepage, and was, you know, the mission statement.

    At the moment, you are literally,making stuff up.
     
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  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    What the HECK are you on about?

    Read what I said IE "Water Vapour is not a primary cause, but a significant feedback mechanism".
    Now, tell me how that contradicts what the article says.

    It's not saying that water vapour causes global warming, which is what you have repeatedly claimed (Should I dig through your post history and quote you?).

    It's saying it's a feedback mechanism that exagerates the effects of other green house gasses, such as cabon dioxide, that cause the warming in the first place.
     
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  5. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Here is the TIMED Mission Homepage

    The mission page, which I have linked to, includes the mission statement, which was the text that I quoted earlier, basically, to study solar and anthropogenic influences on the MLTI region of the atmosphere.

    Anything other than that and you are just making shit up.
     
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  7. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    According to this article, the Clausius-Clapeyron equation would suggest a virtually indefinite cycle of increasing water vapor and temperature, as it's a positive feedback mechanism. The article states that heat radiation into space is the primary negative feedback limiting the growth of water vapor and temperature. So at a minimum if I understand the article correctly (I have studied Clausius-Clapeyron as an undergrad, not going to pretend I remember all the details off the top of my head though), even without any substantial increase in CO[sub]2[/sub], it ought to be possible for a small shift in water vapor levels and other conditions to lead to a large and rapid cascade of climate change, as water vapor isn't in and of itself a self-regulating substance.
     
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    To put it in other words, again only based on my personal understanding, the growth of water vapor is not self-limiting, but rather the growth in temperature itself is self-limiting. Make a shift in the Earth's conditions (i.e. solar input, other gases and sources of climate change), and the concurrent rise in water vapor won't be self-limiting, but will rather continue until the Earth has warmed enough such that the increase in heat radiation creates a new balance.
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Right, but you're forgetting something here, increased water vapour in the atmosphere, and increased heat in the atmosphere lead to other things like increased cloud cover, and there are certain types of clouds (for example Cirrus) that are very effective at reflecting infrared radiation back out into space, and thus have a net cooling effect.

    This is the sense in which I suggest that water vapour in the atmosphere is ultimately self limiting.
     
  10. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Ok, but in that case I have to ask if such a reflecting effect is also adequately accounted for in current climate models. If I understand the gist of your argument, you're saying that water vapor fluctuations couldn't be a major source of climate change, because of the negative feedback from clouds reflecting sunlight back into space. Would such negative feedback not also limit the effects of CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions?
     
  11. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    Thank you CaptBork, your reference gave me some information that I was looking for, a more honestly reflection of who is contributing GHG's .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Role_of_water_vapor

    So as I read this China is producing 4 time the emissions for what it produces, than the U.S.?

    And U.S. is reducing it's GHG emissions, for what it produces.

    And the U.S. gets the blame.....interesting.
     
  12. noodler Banned Banned

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    Why do you suppose it might be that we have orders of magnitude more science and data in QM, or say, in the development of power grids, than we have on the climate?

    Why haven't we spent orders of magnitude more time and effort on climate science? How old is the science and how extensive is it today, compared with say, 1900? Isn't it true that we spend time and effort on "important things", and does that mean the climate isn't important (or at least, we can say it's "less important" than power grid development)?
     
  13. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Hundreds of years have been spent systematically studying the atmosphere (with increasing levels of sophistication), especially once calculus was invented. It's not a matter of lack of effort, it's simply that the Earth as a system is vastly more complicated than a simple collection of subatomic particles- orders of magnitude more inputs and outputs to try and track. QM might seem insanely complicated because of the profound underlying principles, but from a mathematical POV it's much easier to calculate how a small QM system works as opposed to what the Earth is going to be like in 20 years.

    As far as the extent of our progress in climate science over the last century, it's been absolutely tremendous. The introduction of computers capable of doing billions of calculations every second has made a world of a difference, allowing scientists to solve problems with a level of precision they could have never dreamed of solving by hand. There have been improvements in our understanding of the Earth, the dynamic interplay between various atmospheric components, and of course only in the last few decades have we had the ability to look at this stuff from orbit, but I'd say computers have by far been the biggest difference.

    The problem is that the fluid dynamics calculations used to describe Earth's climate grow exponentially more complicated as you add tiny levels of sophistication- in fact, research in this area is what led to the discovery of Chaos Theory. Hence scientists are reduced to treating the Earth as a bunch of liquid and gaseous smears, blotches and point sources/sinks, hoping that the resulting calculations have some reasonable correspondence to what actually happens. Try to get much more accurate than that, and suddenly you need more computing power than is available over the entire planet. That's why I take issue with anyone saying man-made global warming is a proven fact beyond any dispute- we need to make direct observations in the field and won't know the results for many decades at best, and the question that should be asked is how much risk are we prepared to take in the meantime.
     
  14. noodler Banned Banned

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    Right, so the argument goes: "it's complex, and we don't have the computing resources, since we can't be sure we should wait".

    Like I said, we will wait, like we always have. I think the earth will decide, like I said too, regardless of how much time or effort we spend tracking the effects of progess. Ok, there's a possibility we will have a definite prediction that states categorically that we have to stop burning fossil fuel.

    We will simply ignore this because fuel is a more immediate concern than some future climatic catastrophe (if it's coming). Or, sure, everyone stops driving cars around overnight (yeah... right).

    And right now we have a "tentative" result which more or less says we have to stop burning fossil fuel (at least) or there will be deep shit.
     
  15. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    That's not what I'm saying at all.
    I'm saying that on the one hand, and this is the main point, that the levels of water vapour in the atmosphere are not free to vary, they're pretty much fixed in stone by the laws of thermodynamics, and I'm saying on the other hand, that I would expect that, some what obviously, that it's almost a tautology that under normal circumstances, there are feedback mechanisms which limit the temperature, and I gave cloud cover as a single example of this. As I had thought I made clear, this is only one feedback mechanism. As it turns out, only certain kinds of clouds, specifically, clouds containing certain kinds of ice crystals, for example cirrus clouds, have a net cooling effect. Others can have a net warming effect, depending on the exact cloud type. Now, I call the self limiting a tautology, because, obviously the earth is habitable. If there was no greenhouse effect, it would be uninhabitable, if it wasn't self limiting, the earth would be uninhabitable.

    This is not the only feedback either, CO[sub]2[/sub] has feedbacks, for example, as BuffaloRoam just loves to point out, increased ppCO[sub]2[/sub] => increased plant growth => Increased carbon sequestration in the rainforests. But there's a problem with that, we're currently clearing our rainforests at how many hectares a day? Deglaciation is another negative feedback for the carbon cycle. Increased deglaciation => increased exposure of bedrock => increased chemical weathering => increased carbon sequestration, ultimately in the oceans.

    To the best of my knowledge, climate change models do include both the positive feedback, and negative feedbacks associated with cloud cover.

    Allow me explicitly restate (and perhaps BuffaloRoam might finally begin to get the dimmest glimmer of realization as to why I take this stance) my stance on the issue.

    My stance on the issue is that the fact that CO[sub]2[/sub] must cause some warming is as set in concrete as the motion of pendulumns, it's governed by the same physics, masses on springs. CO[sub]2[/sub] absorbs infra-red radiation, it's a simple fact of life, there is no way of possibly avoiding it.

    The range of partial pressures in the atmosphere of CO[sub]2[/sub], according to every NIR spectroscopy calibration curve I have ever looked at, is in a region where the absorption of IR radiation varies linearly with ppCO[sub]2[/sub], in other words, doubling the amount of CO[sub]2[/sub] will double the amount of IR Radiation absorbed by the CO[sub]2[/sub][sup]1[/sup]. The modes of absorption are rotational, and translation, they're bending and stretching modes, in other words, that extra IR energy is being stored as heat energy in the system. In a world with no weather, and no feedback mechanism, that can only have one outcome, warming, however, that's not the world that we live in, and so the ultimate result of that additional heat energy could be a series of feedback that result in no net warming (I can, if you want, link to several posts where I have essentially stated this). It's the results of that additional heat energy that is where the debate begins (or should begin anyway) because everything up to that point is founded in experimentally verified rock solid physics. Beyond that is entering the realm of predictive modelling and speculation.

    I don't believe we can indefinitely fuck with the composition of the atmosphere and escape results. Oh sure, ultimately there's probably enough carbonate in the oceans to completely neutralize all of the CO[sub]2[/sub] we can produce burning oil, but do you know how long that will take to re-establish equilibrium? I believe it's the oceanic turnover time, which seems to be on the order of 10[sup]4[/sup]-10[sup]5[/sup] years, and I can pretty much garauntee that it wouldn't be the equilibrium we enjoy now. Storing more CO[sub]2[/sub] in the ocean, requires a higher partial pressure in the atmosphere, so temperature might peak, and then decrease, but they wouldn't return to what we currently have.

    And yes, nobody denies that even in the instance where we create warming through CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions, that negative feedbacks will come into play to limit the warming, some of which I've mentioned, however the key questions there are "By how much?" and "How long will it take?"

    Those two questions, especially the first, are areas of ongoing research by groups such as the IPCC, NASA, APL, JPL NOAA WoodsHole etc, etc...
     
  16. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Quite, and this specifically is one of the points that I have repeatedly tried to make to the likes of buffaloroam.
     
  17. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    And trippy, The Capt, has stated quiet well what I have been trying to get throught to the likes of you.
     
  18. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Yet more proof that you haven't understood a damn thing that i've said.
     
  19. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    Actually it's proof that you haven't understood a damn thing that I've said.
     
  20. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Wrong again!
    (And I'm still waiting for those answers).
     
  21. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Just to prove my point.
    You claim to understand this point, and to have been trying to make it to me:

    However over here we have you saying the following:

    My response was:
    Your reply:

    Even in this very thread:
    Post #24
    Post #31
    Post #35
    Now, that's TWO SEPERATE OCCASIONS where I have endeavoured to explain to you that the differences between models, and the differences between runs of the same model are due to the chaotic nature of the system being analyzed, and that it's not that the system is neccessarily particularly complicated, it's just the the required data volume to do what you're demanding MUST be done in the way you're demanding it MUST be done is exceedingly large, not to mention the fiscal, technological, and time constraints.

    Finally, over in this thread we have me discussing with EntropyAlwaysWins about the merits and flaws of using such a 'large' grid size to simplify computational requirements.

    So you don't get to accuse me of having not understood anything, because I've been saying the same damn thing as Captain Bork.
     
  22. Buffalo Roam Registered Senior Member

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    When you back your ego down a few notches and stop the berating post just maybe, I could understand you a bit, I had no problem understanding the Capt.

    And the Capt. blew holes all through the CO2 connection, and feed back, and your contention that water vapor is;

    "It turns out that the proportion of water vapour in the atmosphere is not free to vary in the same way that CO[sub]2[/sub]"

    Ref;

     
  23. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Oh bull shit, you just don't like it because right from the get go i've taken precisely zero shot from you.


    More transparent bullshit.

    Here, he precisely agrees with what I said.
    The only point of disagreement is that I suggested that water vapour might ultimately be self limiting, which works in your favour, and he's saying that he doesn't think it is.

    I'm not the one emotionally invested in the argument.
    I'm also not the one that feels the need to lead off with insults and comparisons to religous institutionalism.
     
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