Global Warming

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-17 05:16am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Well, if you need more studies...

And CO2 changes lead temperature fluctuations.

Wrong, if any of the studies I have looked over mean anything. It's the complete opposite hence the interest in other GHGs that may be accounting for it instead of solar activity.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-17 05:23am

Admiral Valdemar wrote: Wrong, if any of the studies I have looked over mean anything. It's the complete opposite hence the interest in other GHGs that may be accounting for it instead of solar activity.

What do I know? I just do this for a living.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-17 07:37am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote: Wrong, if any of the studies I have looked over mean anything. It's the complete opposite hence the interest in other GHGs that may be accounting for it instead of solar activity.
What do I know? I just do this for a living.

Well you didn't exactly make this known and I have studied it a fair bit myself given the thing is part of environmental applications. The CO2 crowd seems to be getting their stuff mixed up a lot.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-17 11:53am

Chewie has on several occasions pontificated on things such as the little island in the atlantic which will bring about death-waves for most of the U.S. east coast, etc. and the great yellowstone killer caldera. Did you miss his explanations? they are quite good. I personally, am frightened of mass destruction in general.

Chewie, are you published and if so, where? Or have you written anything on the effects of eruptions on global climate and so on and so forth and all of these things [/governator]

I should like to see examples of either.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-17 12:49pm

Chardok wrote:Chewie has on several occasions pontificated on things such as the little island in the atlantic which will bring about death-waves for most of the U.S. east coast, etc. and the great yellowstone killer caldera. Did you miss his explanations? they are quite good. I personally, am frightened of mass destruction in general.

Chewie, are you published and if so, where? Or have you written anything on the effects of eruptions on global climate and so on and so forth and all of these things [/governator]

I should like to see examples of either.

Thank you for those kind words, Chardok. Unfortunately, the biggest thing I've ever written, a fractal analysis of Martian cratering, was a degree thesis and not picked up by any of the journals. I'm still fairly young in my field, still working on my doctorate, so most of my papers and publishing credits have been as "contributing works", which means I do half the work and a tenured professor takes the credit. Currently my name is only in 2 scientific journals, actually 3 because someone actually cited a paper I worked on.

Other subjects I've written on are:
Magnetic Induction on Europa
Deep-Mantle sources of the Yellowstone Plume
A Status paper about Titan (I'm excited about Cassinni this fall)
The effects of caldera eruptions on global weather

I'm really proud of the Europa paper, and its funny because I did it a year ago and I'm almost positive it was used as a source on Space.Com for a large article they did. Given the nature of my original arrival on this board, as well as the malevolent and/or "1337 hax0r" abilities of some of the board members I do not wish to post my name or any of my work. Besides, the Journal stuff is password-protected on their archives, so I think I could get sued. You'll just have to settle for my oft-obtuse paraphrasing.

Death Waves... I like it.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-17 12:53pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Well you didn't exactly make this known and I have studied it a fair bit myself given the thing is part of environmental applications. The CO2 crowd seems to be getting their stuff mixed up a lot.

Sorry, meant to address this. You're right, there is a fair about of controversy over global warming (no duh) and I didn't mean to insult you, but most (not all) of the data I've seen indicates that rising CO2 is a driver of climate change, not an effect.

Of course, most of my work does with large eruptions, so that's a bit more dramatic than your average fossil-fuel influx.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-03-17 02:36pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Other subjects I've written on are:
Magnetic Induction on Europa
Deep-Mantle sources of the Yellowstone Plume
A Status paper about Titan (I'm excited about Cassinni this fall)
The effects of caldera eruptions on global weather

I'm really proud of the Europa paper, and its funny because I did it a year ago and I'm almost positive it was used as a source on Space.Com for a large article they did. Given the nature of my original arrival on this board, as well as the malevolent and/or "1337 hax0r" abilities of some of the board members I do not wish to post my name or any of my work. Besides, the Journal stuff is password-protected on their archives, so I think I could get sued. You'll just have to settle for my oft-obtuse paraphrasing.

/starts hunting full-text archive searches courtesy of my University

(j/k)

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-17 02:54pm

Those aren't the exact titles, pal, and if you do a subject search by date, you'll get more than you bargained for

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-17 04:14pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Well you didn't exactly make this known and I have studied it a fair bit myself given the thing is part of environmental applications. The CO2 crowd seems to be getting their stuff mixed up a lot.
Sorry, meant to address this. You're right, there is a fair about of controversy over global warming (no duh) and I didn't mean to insult you, but most (not all) of the data I've seen indicates that rising CO2 is a driver of climate change, not an effect.

Of course, most of my work does with large eruptions, so that's a bit more dramatic than your average fossil-fuel influx.

No problem. I was, just this week, arguing the exact opposite of what I said before on another forum until a physics major linked to some journal publications showing the total opposite to what I was going on about.

I long since found that the whole climate change debate is one fraught with frauds, those with agendas and, if you can find them, those that may just be speaking the truth.

Maybe we should just wait a while and see if it gets sunnier or colder. It's at least simple.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-17 04:55pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:<snippage>
Maybe we should just wait a while and see if it gets sunnier or colder. It's at least simple.

Which is unfortunate. It is that "Wait and see" Attitude that humans are famous for that will bring about our downfall, in my humble opinion. 3 miles of irradiated iron falling through the atmosphere at terminal velocity suddenly makes social security reform a bit silly, doesn't it?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-03-17 04:59pm

Chardok wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:<snippage>
Maybe we should just wait a while and see if it gets sunnier or colder. It's at least simple.
Which is unfortunate. It is that "Wait and see" Attitude that humans are famous for that will bring about our downfall, in my humble opinion. 3 miles of irradiated iron falling through the atmosphere at terminal velocity suddenly makes social security reform a bit silly, doesn't it?

I'm placing bets on HIV eradicating us, but I don't know whether that's admiring the ingenuity of the virus or the stupidity of man.

Symmetry · Post by **Symmetry** » 2004-03-19 12:54am

yahoo wrote:The administration of former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) signed the Kyoto Protocol, but President Bush (news - web sites) withdrew the U.S., which currently emits about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, from negotiations over Kyoto's implementation.

Hmm...Clinton signed, Bush stopped negotiating... Normally when one agrees to a treaty, one is bound by it even if one is no longer negotiating it... Oh yeah, the Senate failed to ratify it in a vote of 95 to 0. Funny how the pro-Kyoto article fails to mention how bi-partisan the opposition to it is.

Alan Bolte wrote:I just read a big SciAm article on global warming. It said that we should be cooling right now, and the fact that we're still warming is what is principly interesting.

It also spent a lot of space on glacier melt and how we could have the oceans up several meters in the next few centuries if we don't make some changes. Several meters = trillions of dollars worth of coastline infrastructure underwater worldwide.

First, glacial melt won't account for the majority of any possible rise in sea levels, the thermal expansion of the oceans is far more significant. Second, to get the "trillions of dollars" estimate you have to assume that the sea level rise happens quickly and catches everybody by surprise. If people have time to, say, build dikes the damage estimates go way down.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-03-19 01:36am

Alyeska wrote:Technicaly Earth is still in the middle of a 2 million year Ice Age. This Ice Age will end only once all the ice of the planet has melted completely.

BTW, you should feel lucky. At one point in Earths history the entire planet was convered in ice. Snowball Earth as it was called. It took a random luck to get us out of the ice age. There was a series of massive eruptions that occured in the Siberia area, a very large lava field. This was sufficent to raise the planets temperature by 5 degrees. That was 5 degrees short of the temperature required to get out of the snowball earth. While these eruptions occured a meteror struck Earth and raised the temperature by another 5 degrees or so.

You have no idea what you're talking about. There's always been some kind of polar ice cap, and it never even reached either the tropics, much less cover the whole world. Stop getting education from the Discovery Channel.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-03-19 01:46am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:You have no idea what you're talking about. There's always been some kind of polar ice cap, and it never even reached either the tropics, much less cover the whole world. Stop getting education from the Discovery Channel.

There's always been some kind of polar ice cap in modern history, but we're talking almost a billion years ago here. As in, when the only organisms on the planet were single-celled creatures.

See: 1999 Harvard paper by Hoffmann, Schrag
Wikipedia on topic

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-03-19 01:51am

Guess the materials I read discussing the fact that the Earth was never totally covered only referenced the post-Cambrian periods. Sorry Alyeska.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-19 02:28am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Guess the materials I read discussing the fact that the Earth was never totally covered only referenced the post-Cambrian periods. Sorry Alyeska.

During much of the Tertiary (dinosaur times) there was no polar cap. A similar thing happened during the Devonian-Permian.

The total glaciation you're thinking of is the "Snowball Earth" Hyposthesis put forth by Hoffman and Schragg. Don't worry, it can't happen in modern times due to the sun being hotter now than it was then.

Alyeska is getting the Snowball Earth event confused with the Permian/Triassic extinction. Snowball earth ended because CO2 levels built up over several million years, not all at once. The P/T extinction was caused by a meteor strike occuring at the same time as a prolonged period of basaltic eruption in Siberia. These two things caused the sulfur-rich bottom water of the ocean to mix, and killed off anything that laid eggs in shallow water.

Oh, and Snowball Earth wasn't a billion years ago, it was 700-550 Billon years ago

There may have been an impact at the end of that, but the big factor in ending it was CO2 levels thirty times modern levels, which we know because of very thick carbonate deposits from that era.

And hey, don't knock the Discovery channel, IP

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-19 09:30am

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Snowball Earth wasn't a billion years ago, it was 700-550 Billon years ago

Umm....earth only 4 billion years old....

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-03-19 09:31am

or was that what the smiley was attempting to convey....

Perhaps....perhaps I should learn to shut the hell up....

Yes...yes I think I shall...

QUICK! EVERYONE POINT AND LAUGH AT CHARDOK'S INABILITY TO SPOT AN OBVIOUS JOKE!

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2004-03-19 01:48pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Guess the materials I read discussing the fact that the Earth was never totally covered only referenced the post-Cambrian periods. Sorry Alyeska.
During much of the Tertiary (dinosaur times) there was no polar cap. A similar thing happened during the Devonian-Permian.

The total glaciation you're thinking of is the "Snowball Earth" Hyposthesis put forth by Hoffman and Schragg. Don't worry, it can't happen in modern times due to the sun being hotter now than it was then.

Alyeska is getting the Snowball Earth event confused with the Permian/Triassic extinction. Snowball earth ended because CO2 levels built up over several million years, not all at once. The P/T extinction was caused by a meteor strike occuring at the same time as a prolonged period of basaltic eruption in Siberia. These two things caused the sulfur-rich bottom water of the ocean to mix, and killed off anything that laid eggs in shallow water.

Oh, and Snowball Earth wasn't a billion years ago, it was 700-550 Billon years ago There may have been an impact at the end of that, but the big factor in ending it was CO2 levels thirty times modern levels, which we know because of very thick carbonate deposits from that era.

And hey, don't knock the Discovery channel, IP

I am confusing Snowball Earth with nothing. I already know that Snowball Earth occured before life forms were out of their infancy, that it happened around the billion year mark. I did watch the Discovery special on the thing and they pointed out how very old this event was.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-03-19 01:50pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Oh, and Snowball Earth wasn't a billion years ago, it was 700-550 Billon years ago

I'll assume you meant "750-550 million years ago" instead of 750-550 billion years, since the entire universe is only 15 billion years old.

Post by **Edi** » 2004-03-19 02:24pm

A couple of thoughts:

First off, in my first post, I mentioned the Pleistocene era, should have talked about Devonian and the other dinosaur eras, but that happens when one posts off the cuff.

Second, Chewie, you said we'd need to get rid of the polar continent, but that in itself won't solve the cold problem without the ocean conveyor. We've got a polar ice cap in the north as well, and there wasn't a continent there the last time I checked, so apparently the positioning of the continents as they now are is a big factor (namely, preventing an Equatorial conveyor current, while allowing the southern polar one).

Otherwise, not much to add.

Edi

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2004-03-19 02:34pm

The polar continent is what causes the ocean thermal conveyor by allowing the formation of cold bottom water. While there isn' a continent in the North pole, there was a sort of undersea ridge which trapped water and only recently allowed the polar bottom water to start circulating. To my knowledge there has never been a situation without polar continents or a circumequator current, so there's some debate over how that would turn out. I think that even if you could have one, you'd have to start the formation of arctic and antarctic bottom-water.

And yes, it was supposed to be million, not billion. There's no edit feature in this forum.