Is global warming even real?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Ilikeponies579, Dec 16, 2014.

  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Sadly "You ain't see the worst yet" as I foretold some years ago. Bigger still to come with their soot blackening ice, especially in Greenland, is strong GW positive feed back.
     
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  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The current heat waves in Iran hit wet bulb temperatures above 90, locally.

    This major city has good air conditioning: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-a...gang/files/2015/07/CLP6jGRUYAImdRt.png&w=1484

    and is used to it:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-iran-city-were-completely-normal-says-local/

    but it all depends on electricity to run air conditioners, which in Iran depends on heavy government subsidies for burning fossil fuel.

    This is part of the context for the nuclear power controversy in Iran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iran
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2015
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  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    * As I have noted several times, forest are in many cases now releasing more CO2 than they are absorbing. IE Forest are net CO2 sources. Often the main reason for this is drought in what is called a "rain forest." IE dramatically less absorption of CO2 by new growth has been more important that large fires, but that is rapidly reversing as fires become more frequent, more wide spread and much larger, each year.
     
  8. river

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    Really, Billy ;

    How specifically do Forests release CO2? Specifically.
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Forest are carbon storage facilities. Like all storge facilities, they can be in a "filling state" or in an "emptying state." In 2005, there was bad drought (probably true now too) and the Amazon growth slowed so much and the fires and just natural decay released more CO2 than US cars did!
     
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You may be working with old information.

    See here; http://uanews.org/story/dead-forests-release-less-carbon-into-atmosphere-than-expected

    But obviously they do emit stored carbon. But even that would be CO2 sequestered from the air. So it is a least a zero sum impact on the original total CO2 content in the air. Humans are the main cuse for "adding" CO2 into the atmosphere. The amount is staggering.
     
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for the reference. It focused mainly only pine beetles destroyed forests in high altitude regions where now warmer winter temperature do not kill off the beetles. They leave the wood standing for years, so yes the forest goes from a CO2 sink to a small CO2 source. (until it burn). Prior to it burning, I don't expect a "pulse" of CO2 release either. Here is part of the text from your link:
    "Since the soil microbes are still around, they are expected to release large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it is thought to accelerate climate change. "Surprisingly, we couldn't find a big pulse," said Moore, who is also a member of the UA Institute of the Environment. ...

    Large amounts of dead trees, it turns out, hold on to their carbon for a long time and prevent it from quickly being released into the soil or the atmosphere. According to Moore, this might be due to several reasons: First, while trees take up carbon dioxide during the day during photosynthesis, they release some of it at night when they switch to respiration. "Once the trees are dead, respiration by the trees goes away," Moore said. "In addition, if you cut off the carbon that a tree put into the soil while it was alive, you reduce the ability of the soil microbes around the roots to respire."


    "After five or six years, there is a buildup of some dead plant material, leaf litter and so on, and that seems to drive the rate of respiration up again. But it never recovers to the point it was before the beetles killed the trees, at least over the span of a decade," Moore said. Finally, the trees studied in this project grow at higher elevations, where cooler temperatures slow the decomposition process and thereby carbon-releasing respiration. "

    Even if the cold environment "respiration" /release of CO2/ never gets to be as fast as it was when the trees were living, it is still a net release of CO2 WITHOUT ANY STORAGE OF CO2, that was occurring when the trees were living. IE as I said, the forest, even without burning, switches to a CO2 source. Just not as large a one as if the living trees release of CO2 during the night was not known by who ever was "expecting a CO2 pulse."

    In the US west now thousand of acre of stored CO2 are now being released by fires. It would be interesting to see if these fires are a greater or lesser source of CO2, than the fossil fuel cars in the same area. My guess it that they are, but their CO2 release is only part of how they contribute to global warming. Their black soot falling on snow and ice, converting the albedo to much lower values, may be as important. It is a major reason why Greenland's ice sheet is melting faster than expected.

    Also interesting is the last line one reads if they "click to expand" your quote. It is:
    " Perhaps more concerning is the Methane released during decomposition in areas where moisture increases."
    Yes, more rain means more wet decaying bio-mass, making more CH4, which for more than a decade is >100 times as damaging from a global warming POV than an equal amount (mass) of CO2.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2015
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Keep in mind that burning of fossil fuels is merely releasing CO2 that was sequestered from the air. It can still be a problem.
     
  13. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    They burn and they rot.
     
  14. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    More on why the EPA & IPCC is underestimating even the direct effects (and grossly neglecting many positive feed-back mechanisms):
    Yes, but it is economics - doing what is needed would cut into profits.
     
  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Answer: many more Americans will need government funds to avoid starvation. There will be little left over even with that aid to pay rent and shop in stores.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Or they might have to eat less meat. O the horror.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Less meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, dairy, and so forth. And they will need government funds to buy their beans and flour and corn-based food product. Sugar will still be cheap.
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    No, just meat. (Dairy would help but isn't essential.) For every pound of beef you eliminate from someone's diet you could grow 58 pounds of potatoes with the same water. In fact, if we ended production of meat and dairy in California, we would cut our water consumption by HALF. And that means we'd have plenty of water - and food.
     
  19. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    Link please?
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    They won't be able to afford fruit, vegetables, nuts, and so forth, either. These all need money and water.
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Giving up meat and dairy will provide them with food, since by giving those things up California will have plenty of water. They will have money making the same things they always do - movies, semiconductors, watches and broccoli.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    My apologies - I had misunderstood the situation to be one in which the poor would be giving up what they could no longer afford, free market mechanisms being the means of regulation.

    But if we're talking government management of food production for the common good, to the point of forbidding meat and dairy from the agriculture of the region, of course more options become available.
     
  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think that would go over very well. Probably the easiest way to make that happen is to simply charge for water on an open market. Once alfalfa farmers have to pay what domestic users do during a shortage, they will suddenly discover they have an interest in growing low-water crops. The price of meat will increase, and people will choose boca burgers instead of Angus burgers.
     

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