Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[r-j]

He is an expert on physics, and accepts the physics, he is not an expert on climate, and does not accept that part of the science. So, what has he got to add to this debate as an authority?

That sort of reasoning could be applied to everyone here, making the entire conversation meaningless.

 

[r-j]

What happened? This topic isn't moderated anymore? I was counting on that anonymous group of editors to peruse my posts, saving me from much grief. Did I miss something?

Why no moderation?

 

[Pixel42]

Did I miss something?

Yes, you missed this post:

Since this thread has been pretty well behaved recently and not required much moderation at all, it is being taken off moderated status. Any return to the previous bickering and incivility, however, will be frowned upon.

Posted By: Cuddles

 

[r-j]

Thanks. I was on vacation and somehow new posts didn't work right.

I am so embarrassed now.

 

[bit_pattern]

Overall you giving the distinct impression of someone grasping for sources that can help prop up their belief system rather than someone looking for facts.

Like the drunk beneath the proverbial lamp post

 

[a_unique_person]

That sort of reasoning could be applied to everyone here, making the entire conversation meaningless.

Reread what I said. Dyson can say what he likes, but it's not much use to use him as an authority on the topic of climate.

 

[Dancing David]

We can control the CO₂ rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.

And the actual data on the biomass figures is how much vegetation and how much irrigation?

 

[Dancing David]

It is not so easy - as others have stated, much of the arable land is currently used for agriculture, and the conversion of forest to farmland continues at a rapid pace in much of the less developed parts of the world. The socio-economic conditions in the third world are such that stopping the deforestation would be difficult and expensive.

In many other areas, natural fire regimes cycle the carbon back into the atmosphere, preventing significant buildups of vegetative biomass.

In the drier areas of North America, there are significant, on-going reductions in fixed biomass as invasive, non-native annual grasses convert 50-500 year fire cycles into 1-5 year fire cycles. Essentially, the desert areas once dominated by blackbrush, Joshua tree, and other native woody brush species are being replaced by non-native annual grass; areas had no documented wildfire prior to 1990 have had four or five wildfires since then, as the grass comes into dominance. The lower treeline for Pinyon-Juniper forest is creeping up, as the lower elevations also fall victim to the brome grass induced changes in fire cycles. So, no biomass carbon sequestration there.

Recent publications are also describing the effects that short-term climate induced droughts have on forest types in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. They are documenting significant forest dieback, with associated fires like the ones that Colorado experienced earlier this summer.

In a nutshell - the climate is changing. Forest systems may eventually adapt as the various species shift their distributions to match the new climate. However, it is a slow process and an unfortunate first step in that process tends to be stand replacement wildfires. In much of North America, the conversion may not complete as invasive species interrupt the process and induce rapid cycling of wildfire, resulting in a net loss of biomass.

Welcome Crescent!

 

[Dancing David]

Malcolm,

We can compute the "natural" temperature of the earth if there were no atmosphere, and it would be around -18 C.

The earth is warmer than -18 C. In fact the mean temperature is around 15 C. Why is that?

-Ben

Underwear Gnomes

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Why do you keep bringing up Dyson?

Because some people represented AGW as a matter of "fundamental physics"...

...The Global Warming idea, however, is still with us thirty years later, the world is warming, the ice is shrinking, the fundamental physics is rock solid. The only question is, how warm is it going to get.

The crucial point.

or "basic physics"...

you don't even have a basic understanding of the Tyndall effect, nor even the basic physics behind absorption and emission (which is the simplest, most accessible part of quantum physics. Entry-level stuff for ten-year-olds).

...and if that "fundamental physics" or "basic physics" implies what AGW believers claim then someone who certainly understands "fundamental physics" and "basic physics" far better than anyone in this forum would agree with the believers. Dyson does not.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

A really great way to shoot yourself in the foot, Malcolm Kirkpatrick, by implying that the Permian/Triassic mass extinction was caused by climate change that happened over decades (the current situation)

Except I didn't say that and don't know what caused the Permian mass extinction. There's a good book, When Life Nearly Died, which reviews the history of Geology and assesses (inconclusively) suggested causes of the Permian mass extinction and suggested rates of onset. Massive volcanism and "rapid" (in geologic scale) appear to be the consensus.

 

[lomiller]

That sort of reasoning could be applied to everyone here,

Everyone here is actually here arguing their own positions and no one is trying to hold any of us up as an authority who's opinion holds any special significance.

When you point someone and say "here is what X thinks" it's valid and useful if and only if the person in question is an expert in the field and is saying something most other experts in that field would agree with. otherwise they really are just like everyone else here and our assessment of their case needs to be based on what they post here. Since Dyson is not posing here...

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

We can control the CO₂ rather easily because it is a question essentially of land management and the amounts involved in the vegetation are so large that if you merely just change some of the forest management practices or do a little more irrigation in some places it's quite likely you can absorbe all the carbon dioxide you want at a cost that is far less than stopping burning of coal and oil.

Rather easily, you say? Why, gosh! I'm surprised this isn't all over the news. I mean, you've solved one of the world's major problems!

That was actually Freeman Dyson: "We can...coal and oil."

 

[lomiller]

Because some people represented AGW as a matter of "fundamental physics"...or "basic physics"......and if that "fundamental physics" or "basic physics" implies what AGW believers claim then someone who certainly understands "fundamental physics" and "basic physics" far better than anyone in this forum would agree with the believers. Dyson does not.

Actually the statement you tied to dispute was that "the fundamental physics is rick solid and all that remains is to calculate how much warming will result". After much correction and pinning down your moving goalposts you finally conceded that Dyson doesn't dispute the physics and isn't qualified to dispute the quantification that arises from that physics.

So again why do you keep bringing him up as if his name alone gives some form of support to your position?

 

[lomiller]

Except I didn't say that and don't know what caused the Permian mass extinction. There's a good book, When Life Nearly Died, which reviews the history of Geology and assesses (inconclusively) suggested causes of the Permian mass extinction and suggested rates of onset. Massive volcanism and "rapid" (in geologic scale) appear to be the consensus.

Did your book cite any peer reviewed research or explain to what the mechanism was that allowed volcanism to have that type of impact?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

So the ocean CO2 sequestration is now discarded and we have the new improved idea - da, da - Land management...
...
...
So no, it probably won't work in the first place, it is not as easy as you try to make out and it would be useless anyway. But on the bright side, it is nice to note that you now accept that atmospheric CO2 generated by mankind is a real problem.

Discarded? Hardly. Funny that you mention ocean sequestration. "Land management" and ocean sequestration are two methods of biological sequestration.

Can you guess what happens to the CO2 when it gets "stored" in the ocean?

Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk.

Wrong, but thanks for playing....

But the other fun news is that, since less carbon is exported to the deep, the CO2 partial pressure increases, limiting the absorption of atmospheric CO2, that was already limited by the increase in temperature.

You mean those chalk beds, like the coal deposits, have lain there since Creation?
Did Adam have a navel?
Did the trees in the Garden have annual rings?

Your inability to read your own language is noted.
The chalk beds were laid in shallow seas under vastly different conditions from the present. I didn't ask you what happened to the CO2 absorbed by the ocean in the Cretaceous, I asked you what happens to it now.
You obviously didn't know what happens, so I tried to educate you. Like so many before in this thread, I appear to have failed.

You mean, where marine organisms once made shells from calcium carbonate, they now use titanium?

Yes, that the conditions are not the same as the ones that conducted to the creation of the chalk deposits means that the organisms no longer use calcium carbonate
However, if ocean acidification gets serious enough, coccoliths will no longer produce plates, so then chalk deposits will definitely be off the menu...

...

What's there to explain? Forams exist, they form shells, of different types. So? You were talking about chalk deposits, which are predominantly formed by coccoliths...Yes, one experiment reported increase in calcification. Most show a decrease in calcification. That's biology for you, the same exact group can make two identical experiments and come out with different results. However, my position stands: from what we know, with enough acidification, coccoliths will stop producing shells....
I will refrain from further superfluous comments. I will however thank you if you start paying attention to what I write, instead of creating strawmen.

So
(Megalodon): "Can you guess what happens to the CO2 when it gets "stored" in the ocean?"
(Malcolm): "Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk."
(Megalodon): "Wrong, but thanks for playingWrong, but thanks for playing"?
is now...
(Megalodon): "Yes, one experiment reported increase in calcification. Most show a decrease in calcification. That's biology for you".

...@Megalodon
Would you be so kind as to edit that wiki article and write what Iglesias-Rodríguez et al really concluded?

...Sorry, I don't do wiki.

He'd also have to edit numerous other articles and diagrams of the oceanic carbon sysle, such as this which shows carbon entering the oceanic carbon cycle as CO₂ and precipitating as CaCO₃.

 

[BenBurch]

Did your book cite any peer reviewed research or explain to what the mechanism was that allowed volcanism to have that type of impact?

 

[jimbob]

Malcolm,

Do you agree that the greenhouse effect can be important in determining average surface temperature? Your earlier posts suggested that you didn't.

 

[Dancing David]

Because some people represented AGW as a matter of "fundamental physics"...or "basic physics"......and if that "fundamental physics" or "basic physics" implies what AGW believers claim then someone who certainly understands "fundamental physics" and "basic physics" far better than anyone in this forum would agree with the believers. Dyson does not.

Except Dyson said that he disapproved of the modelling that he was aware of 30 years ago. So your statements are pointless.

Dyson did not contradict the basic physics nor the fundamental physics as applied in the theory of AGW, he said that the models thirty years ago were not to his liking.

 

[Megalodon]

Snipped cherry-picking

The newly introduced CO2 doesn't precipitate as CaCO3. Also, forams do not form chalk deposits. They can be found in chalk deposits, but that is not the same. CaCO3 precipitation enhances ocean acidification by removing alkalinity from the upper layers of the ocean. All of this information was offered to you, all of it you ignored in favor of a clumsy cherry-picking.

Depressing...

He'd also have to edit numerous other articles and diagrams of the oceanic carbon sysle, such as this which shows carbon entering the oceanic carbon cycle as CO₂ and precipitating as CaCO₃.

No, it has CO2 entering as the ocean as CO2, reaching an equilibrium with carbonates, which then get precipitated as calcium carbonates. This is a correct simplification of the system, as understood before ocean acidification. The introduction of CO2 decreases the pH, which means that, for all intents and purposes, the new CO2 will exist either as dissolved CO2 or carbonic acid, and will not increase the concentrations of either carbonate or bicarbonate. In fact, it will decrease them. Unless you introduce new sources of alkalinity, the equilibrium we observed for millenia will continue to shift quite rapidly to more acidified conditions.
The carbonic acid (the newly introduced CO2) will be incorporated in the soft tissues, and that is the only way to remove it from the upper layers. I seem to remember writing a long post about ocean fertilization and carbon sequestration, which you also decided to ignore.

Overall, you continue to insist in being wrong, and are proving to be a waste of everyones' time.