Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

H-m-m-m. Justin prefers experiement to analysis, so he be awaiting earth's input.

Umm. Analyze is a transitive verb.

So unless you've got a weather-making machine in your mad scientist lair somewhere, we are kind of stuck waiting for nature to provide our data for us. It's one of the many unfortunate disadvantaged of not being omnipotent. Someone should get on that. I'm surprised you Boomers haven't yet...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

So unless you've got a weather-making machine in your mad scientist lair somewhere, we are kind of stuck waiting for nature to provide our data for us.

No you don't. You don't really know very much about this and you keep making sweeping statements that are just plain wrong. Climate science is not economics. It is not a "black box" study in which we have to observe the results of natural perturbations in order to back out what is happening. Climate follows natural laws that can (and have been) verified in the laboratory.

For example, climate scientists talk about how complex oceanic chemistry is. If you think that is complex how about the chemistry of fermentation broths in industrial fermentations? The buffering agent used in industrial fermentations is pulverized limestone (its cheap). In one of our (former) antibiotic fermentations we adjusted the pH to 7.7 after sterilization and then inoculated. As the culture grew out the pH fell from 7.7 to about 6.7, then rose to 6.9, at which point we began pH control using glucose as acid.

Now glucose isn't an acid--yet we used it to control pH as if it were an acid. Now nobody really knew how glucose can work as an acid. We got the process from the Italians and they didn't know how it worked either. The microbiologists who developed and improved the process simply assumed that addition of glucose caused the culture to make organic acids which reduced the pH.

I decided to do a study to figure out how this mechanism worked. It was entirely driven by the CO2-limestone equilibrium. I was able to use simple undergraduate acid-base chemistry to explain the behavior of the control mechanism including "glucose fatigue", a phenomenon discovered by one of our fermentation operators (these are high school educated technicians who because they word closely with the process are highly skilled process observers--"practical scientists if you will). She noted that glucose works great to control pH, but that it is not possible to effect pH changes much greater than 0.1 unit with glucose. So when the pH probe is recalibrated and the value changed more than 0.1 unit, the set point should be adjusted to within 0.1 unit of the value and then gradually moved back to the correct value in 0.1 unit increments every four hours.

I was able to show that the controlling equilibrium in glucose pH control was CO2-CaCO3. This model explained glucose fatigue. It also explained the initial pH shift of one full pH unit after inoculation. These fermentations are aerated by sparging air through them. As a result of microbial respiration CO2 is evolved and the CO2 level in this sparge gas rises from about 0.04% (that of air) to about 1.5%. This 35-fold increase in acid CO2 should result in a log(35) = 1.5 pH unit drop, but because of the buffering effect of the limestone in the fermentor the effect is 2/3's of this or about 1 pH unit. This 2/3's effect follows from simple acid-base chemistry.

My point is simple scientific relations worked even in the extremely complex environment of an industrial fermentor,

This CO2-CaCO3 chemistry is the same chemistry that dominates the pH behavior of the oceans. Now granted, I did not need to calculate the exact value of the pH as a function of CO2. All I needed was to use the acid-base theory to obtain the form of a suitable model equation and then fit experimental data to it.

But there is no reason why one could not do the experiments needed to determine all the model parameters for the system of interest and then one could calculate the behavior directly. Particle physicists do this all the time, and they get highly accurate results and can often assess their theories with astronomic observations (i.e. w/o experimentation). And when they do use experimentation they don't actually observe the results, but rather consequences that are related to their results by a complex theoretic chain.

Climate is simple enough that one can use the particle physicist's approach and do de novo calculations. I have only been at this (part time) for about six months but I can now understand a goodly deal of this climate science stuff. A lot of your critiques are simply not very relevant to the actual system under study

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Umm. Analyze is a transitive verb.

So unless you've got a weather-making machine in your mad scientist lair somewhere, we are kind of stuck waiting for nature to provide our data for us. It's one of the many unfortunate disadvantaged of not being omnipotent. Someone should get on that. I'm surprised you Boomers haven't yet...

Well, no. It isn't necessary to change something in order to understand it. There is no lack of data if one looks at the historical record.

In the 30 year temperature record, we have a volcano aggravating global dimming, a small one, but we have several bigger ones in the recent past that also allow evaluation of the factory soot man is also adding to the atmosphere. One can see a string of El Nenos, big and small. If one looks at the 5 year average curve, the El Nenos get filtered out, and you can see the 11 year sunspot cycle rolling along. Given we know how the solar and cosmic flux are changing, the 11 year cycle allows one to calibrate the weight of the longer term shifts. Then there is the long term warming trend commonly attributed to greenhouse gasses, which can be calibrated against the known increases in greenhouse gasses.

On other longer term charts, one can see the effects of Milankovitch cycles, continents moving towards or away from the polar regions, stellar arms, the Antarctic ice cap melting, sudden releases of greenhouse gasses from natural sources, and so much more.

There is data out there. Including, as Mike, myself and others have repeatedly noted, that the long term solar and cosmic ray levels have been steady since 1950, excepting the 11 year cycles visible on the 30 year chart.

And yet, when you looked at the recent temperature record, you saw solar forcing causing a downward trend in temperature. I can only say you have a very active imagination. There is no reduction in long term solar forcing and no downward trend in temperature. The 1998 temperature peak was an El-Nino and the 11 year solar cycle hitting together. If the longer term solar cycle theories are correct, solar forcing is not due to drop off in the long term for another 40 years. The longer term solar cycles are more regular than El-Nino / La Nina, but they are hardly clockwork regular.

The problem is not a lack of boomer omnipotence. The problem is your unwillingness to consider anything but solar forcing as significant. You have apparently made up your mind what data to cling to. If the data provided by the professionals isn't to your liking, you seem willing to create stuff out of thin air with no references.

And that is truly problematic.

Whoops. Mike seems to have beat me to it, in his way...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

H-m-m-m. Justin prefers experiement to analysis, so he would be awaiting earth's input.

... So unless you've got a weather-making machine in your mad scientist lair somewhere, we are kind of stuck waiting for nature to provide our data for us. It's one of the many unfortunate disadvantages of not being omnipotent. Someone should get on that. I'm surprised you Boomers haven't yet...

We have, but we're saving it as entertainment in our Xer-financed retirements.

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19916091/:

Study: Humans to blame for changes in rain
First time 'human fingerprint' on precipitation detected, authors report
Reuters

Updated: 1:39 p.m. ET July 23, 2007


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WASHINGTON - Human activities that spur global warming are largely to blame for changes in rainfall patterns over the last century, climate researchers reported Monday.

The report was released as record rains caused severe flooding in Britain, China and Indonesia.

Human-caused climate change has been responsible for higher air temperatures and hotter seas and is widely expected to lead to more droughts, wildfires and floods, but the authors say this is the first study to specifically link it to precipitation changes.

"For the first time, climate scientists have clearly detected the human fingerprint on changing global precipitation patterns over the past century," researchers from Environment Canada, that country's environmental agency, said in a statement.

The scientists, writing in the journal Nature, found humans contributed significantly to these changes, which include more rain and snow in northern regions that include Canada, Russia and Europe, drier conditions in the northern tropics and more rainfall in the southern tropics.

Manmade climate change has had a "detectable influence" on changes in average precipitation in these areas, and it cannot be explained by normal climate variations, they wrote.

Weather experts in Britain raised the possibility that the current rains there may be related to climate change.

"The global climate models indicate a future for the UK with drier summers and wetter winters, but storm events in the summer are predicted to be more frequent and more intense," David Butler of the University of Exeter said in a statement. "So it may well be the case that we will have to learn to live with more flooding.

Nick Reeves, executive director of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management in Britain, said that "extreme events such as we have seen in recent weeks herald the specter of climate change and it would be irresponsible to imagine that they won't become more frequent."

Numerous studies and reports by a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations have reported with increasing certainty that human activities — notably the burning of fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases — have contributed to global warming in the last half-century and that the effects of this are already evident.

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated temperatures would rise 3.2 to 7.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100, leading to more hunger, water shortages and extinctions.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

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For discussion purposes, Wired proposes that Climate engineering is doable, as long as we never stop.

Climate scientists Damon Matthews of Concordia University and Ken Caldeira of Stanford ran the numbers on atmospheric geo-engineering through a climate simulation and found that while cranking out carbon dioxide at business-as-usual rates we can geo-engineer our way back toward pre-industrial temperatures in short order, reaching 1900 levels in about five years. Not only that, it would be fairly cheap and easy to do.
Pumping 20 to 25 liters of aerosols per second to keep enough particles in the stratosphere would cool temperatures, causing the planet's carbon sinks to suck more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

"That kind of flow rate can be handled by a single fire hose," said Caldeira. "For something like $100 million a year you could probably keep a hose in the stratosphere suspended by an array of balloons with pumps along the way."

The problem is what happens if we stop short or screw it up.

Bring the geo-engineering process to a halt, and those sun-warmed carbon sinks spit the carbon dioxide right back into the atmosphere. The rebound warming, to temperatures that would have been reached without the geo-engineering, would be 10 to 20 times the pace of today's global warming. The rapid warming, up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, would wreak havoc on the planet and threaten civilization.

One sees this proposed from time to time. Basically, we can boost soot to increase global dimming to balance against the global warming greenhouse gasses.

It isn't entirely a neutral process. Boosting global dimming would reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface. This would have some impact on plant life. While we might reasonably balance the average temperature out to a given level, I wouldn't be surprised by local effects.

But many people think geo engineering should be a last resort.

Note, other approaches such as fertilizing algae growth to take CO2 out of the air have been proposed. I also saw a proposal to orbit a bunch of umbrella satellites, as another way to dim the sun.

I don't know if the scientists proposing the above are Boomers and / or omnipotent...

I have completed my analysis of CO2 solubility in seawater.

It completely negates the "soda pop" analogy. The idea that rising temperatures over the last century could produce the CO2 rise instead of the reverse is wrong.

The detailed model I present here agrees with literature results and can be used to obtain an estimate for the depth of the surface layer of the ocean at 300 meters. Previously using a simplified model I obtained a value of 125 meters. I then made a mistake in implementing a more sophisticated analysis and arrived at a false conclusion that the depth was insensitive to pH changes over time. This is not true and the more exact analysis presented in the above link is the correct description of CO2 solubility in seawater.

I ran into an article discussing Lake Superior. The water level has been going down, and temperatures have been rising. I was a bit amused by various explanations, and concerned that no one is really sure as to causes or future trends. For discussion purposes...

Puffing on a pipe in a Grand Marais pub, retiree Ted Sietsema voiced a suspicion not uncommon in the villages along Superior's southern shoreline: The government is diverting the water to places with more people and political influence -- along Lakes Huron and Michigan and even the Sun Belt, via the Mississippi River.

"Don't give me that global warming stuff," Sietsema said. "That water is going west. That big aquifer out there is empty but they can still water the desert. It's got to be coming from somewhere."

That theory doesn't hold water, said Scott Thieme, hydraulics and hydrology chief with the Corps of Engineers district office in Detroit. Water does exit Lake Superior through locks, power plants and gates on the St. Marys River, but in amounts strictly regulated under a 1909 pact with Canada.

The actual forces at work, while mysterious, are not the stuff of spy novels, he said.

Precipitation has tapered off across the upper Great Lakes since the 1970s and is nearly 6 inches below normal in the Superior watershed the past year. Water evaporation rates are up sharply because mild winters have shrunk the winter ice cap -- just as climate change computer models predict for the next half-century.

Yet those models also envision more precipitation as global warming sets in, said Brent Lofgren, a physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. Instead there's drought, suggesting other factors.

Cynthia Sellinger, the lab's deputy director, said she suspects a contributing factor could be residual effects of El Nino, the warming of equatorial Pacific waters that produced warmer winters in the late 1990s, just as the lakes began receding.

Austin, the Minnesota-Duluth professor, said he's concerned about the effects the warmer water could have.

"It's just not clear what the ultimate result will be as we turn the knob up," he said. "It could be great for fisheries or fisheries could crash."

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I ran into an article discussing Lake Superior. The water level has been going down, and temperatures have been rising. I was a bit amused by various explanations, and concerned that no one is really sure as to causes or future trends.

The cause is simple. We aren't getting as much precipitation. Less rain in summer, less snow in winter. Its so obvious you don't need statistics

I have the newest version of my climate model up on the net

http://my.net-link.net/~malexan/Climate-Model.htm

I found a stupid error in my earlier version I sent out to Justin77 and Dave Krein. It changed a few things and so I have put in the necessary changes.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I have the newest version of my climate model up on the net

http://my.net-link.net/~malexan/Climate-Model.htm

I found a stupid error in my earlier version I sent out to Justin77 and Dave Krein. It changed a few things and so I have put in the necessary changes.

Stop Global Warming! Save the Commonwealth of Tuvalu!

Checking out our fundamental datsets.

You know, Science...

...just in case anyone recognizes it anymore...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Checking out our fundamental datsets.

You know, Science...

...just in case anyone recognizes it anymore...

So, in other words, we're still doomed.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

So, in other words, we're still doomed.

Yep.
But I'm one of the ones who'd like to see it coming rather than just be caught completely unawares.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Yep.
But I'm one of the ones who'd like to see it coming rather than just be caught completely unawares.

I see. What kind of jacket will you be wearing?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

I see. What kind of jacket will you be wearing?

A much more authentic bad-ass one than the ones you poseur kids will be wearing.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

A much more authentic bad-ass one than the ones you poseur kids will be wearing.

Hey! We're just trying to form our identities! Fake hippies and fake X'ers are better than nothing.

Right?

More on what Justin posted about

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-and-all-that/

Thanks, Mike. I figured something would come out on that in fairly short order.

Science isn't about poll-taking, but about constant challenge and checking. It's gratifying to see that this still takes place.

Just highlighting a few paragraphs of from the article Mike posted.

Sum total of this change? A couple of hundredths of degrees in the US rankings and no change in anything that could be considered climatically important (specifically long term trends).

However, there is clearly a latent and deeply felt wish in some sectors for the whole problem of global warming to be reduced to a statistical quirk or a mistake. This led to some truly death-defying leaping to conclusions when this issue hit the blogosphere. One of the worst examples (but there are others) was the 'Opinionator' at the New York Times (oh dear). He managed to confuse the global means with the continental US numbers, he made up a story about McIntyre having 'always puzzled about some gaps' (what?) , declared the the error had 'played havoc' with the numbers, and quoted another blogger saying that the 'astounding' numbers had been 'silently released'. None of these statements are true. Among other incorrect stories going around are that the mistake was due to a Y2K bug or that this had something to do with photographing weather stations. Again, simply false.

We do have to fact check. We also have to watch for political biases. People with agendas will misrepresent what the data is saying, and make up stuff to score propaganda victories. One should do one's homework and not get caught up in the latest wave of wishful projections.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Wrong.

Fake anything sucks.

Tell my friends, will ya?

Northwest Passage Open...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...d=networkfront

http://www.economist.com/world/inter...ory_id=9660012

Heard this on Morning Edition this morning and thought I'd post it here.

Nations and corporations are jostling for a share of the Arctic — a seemingly barren region that everybody wants to own. Seems like some people figured out that there is money to be made with climate change.

The climate is changing, and so is the business climate, which is evident even when visiting a remote spot north of the Arctic Circle.

Lindstrom says that's one more factor driving interest in the Arctic.

"The fact that there are concerns about global warming, the fact of increased commercial traffic that could be possible because of the receding ice edge, the mineral rights — those kinds of issues have come together and raised the visibility of many people here in the Arctic," Lindstrom says.

A lot of business could be done on top of the world.

For the full article, post here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=14092469 .

Threads sink fast in this category. This is just to keep this thread up as I will have more to add in the future.