There is one thing that is missing out of the computer generated climate models: precipitation; which cools the atmosphere. If nature’s cycles didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist; the earth’s surface temperature would be too hot.
Excuse me for posting out of turn, but NOBODY PUT ANYTHING UP YESTERDAY.
I will be happy to give credit for this article if I knew where it came from, I would supply a link, but the subject matter is so important, I couldn’t resist putting it up. I might have to take it down later, though. This was sent to me through email. All emphasis in this article is mine.
NOT THAT SIMPLE
GLOBAL WARMING: WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
By ROY W. SPENCER
Roy W. Spencer is principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala. He is also U.S. team leader for the AMSR-E instrument flying on NASA’s Terra satellite.
February 26, 2007 — REPORTS on the global-warming debate have now become part of our daily diet of news. Actors, musicians, politicians, columnists and even the occasional climate scientist all weigh in on how soon planetary disaster will strike, who’s to blame and what we should do about it. With claims that manmade warming is anywhere from an undeniable fact to a hoax, anyone can be excused for feeling a little bit confused.
The media is, almost by definition, most interested in extreme views on the issue, so reporting seldom reveals that broad scientific uncertainty still exists. In fact, a silent majority of scientists still think that global warming could end up falling anywhere between a real problem and a minor nuisance: They can see reasons for it going either way. Call them the global-warming moderates.
How can different scientists look at the same atmosphere and yet come to such a wide variety of conclusions? It all depends on their level of faith in our understanding of the atmosphere. We put equations into a computer that describe the basics of how we think the atmosphere works, and then we expect the computer to predict how much warming we will get when we turn up the greenhouse gas “knob.”
The Earth’s natural “greenhouse effect” traps infrared (heat) radiation because of water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide and methane. You have probably heard that the greenhouse effect keeps the Earth “habitably warm.” So if burning of fossil fuels keeps adding more of a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide (CO2), the Earth should keep on warming up, right?
Well . . . it’s not that simple.
CO2 concentrations - now running at 380 parts per million (ppm), up about 40 percent in the last century - are indeed one possible explanation for our current warmth. But we also know that our climate is a nonlinear, dynamic system - which can go through sizeable gyrations all by itself.
Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world - possibly none - have a sufficiently thorough, “big picture” understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem.
Here, for example, is an insight that even many climate scientists are unaware of: The one atmospheric process that has the greatest control on the Earth’s climate is the one we understand the least - precipitation.
Over most of the planet, water is continuously evaporating, humidifying the air to form the Earth’s dominant greenhouse gas: water vapor. Climate scientists will tell you that the extra CO2 we are putting in the atmosphere causes a “warming tendency” at the surface, which will evaporate even more water, which will amplify the warming. This positive water vapor feedback, so the theory goes, ends up turning the relative benign direct warming effect of CO2 - only 1 degree of warming late in this century - into a much more serious problem.
But surface evaporation is not what determines how much water vapor, on average, resides in the atmosphere - precipitation systems do. These not only control the water-vapor portion of the greenhouse effect, they directly or indirectly control most of the next most important greenhouse ingredient: clouds.
These systems continuously recycle the Earth’s air, and so exert strong controls over the entire climate system. For instance, the rising air in precipitation systems is what causes the sinking, cloudless air over desert areas. Vast oceanic areas of stratus clouds form below a temperature inversion that is also caused by air being forced to sink by precipitation systems, usually thousands of miles away.
So, what does all this have to do with global warming? Unless we know how the greenhouse-limiting properties of precipitation systems change with warming, we don’t know how much of our current warmth is due to mankind, and we can’t estimate how much future warming there will be, either. To solve the global-warming puzzle, we first need to learn much more about the precipitation-system puzzle.
What little evidence we now have suggests that precipitation systems act as a natural thermostat to reduce warming. For instance, warm, tropical systems are more efficient at converting water vapor to precipitation than their cool high-latitude cousins. Hurricanes are believed to be the most efficient of all.
I believe that negative feedbacks such as this are the only way to explain the relative stability of our climate. Computerized models of our climate have had a habit of “drifting” too warm or too cold. This because they still don’t contain all of the temperature-stabilizing processes that exist in nature. In fact, for the amount of solar energy available to it, our climate seems to have a “preferred” average temperature, damping out swings beyond 1 degree or so.
I believe that, through various negative feedback mechanisms, the atmosphere “decides” how much of the available sunlight will be allowed in, how much greenhouse effect it will generate in response, and what the average temperature will be.
Finally, remember that phrase, “the Earth’s greenhouse effect keeps the Earth habitably warm?” I’ll bet you never heard the phrase that is, quantitatively, more accurate: “Weather processes keep the Earth habitably cool.”
Were it not for weather, the natural greenhouse effect would cause the surface of the Earth to average 140 degrees. Wonder why we never hear that fact stated?
I believe that when the stabilizing effects of precipitation systems are better understood and included into the models, predictions of global warming will be scaled back.
Despite current inadequacies, climate models are still our best tools for forecasting global warming. Those tools just aren’t sharp enough yet.
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The more this “issue” is debated, I believe the more the emotional responses are being muted, as the science is showing, while humans have a role, it certainly isn’t the only factor, and, in fact, a small consideration, in the overall change in the climate.
In addition, the science being rolled out and quoted I think is overwhelming, as it shows this is a complex issue, well beyond what we as humans can comprehend right now. Those who are reacting as a cause to follow are seeing they can’t hold a discussion much longer.
Sidebar Note: It used to be actors becoming politicians, but now we see a politician becoming an actor. I prefer President Reagan myself…and not the other way around.
Keep swinging the hammer. The more truth, the quieter the opposition will become. Most likely, they won’t go away, they’ll just migrate to another “cause” to feel good about, like the new rage in lightbulbs (that contain mercury….and have to be recycled….)
Comment by xformed — 2/27/2007 @ 8:15 am
“The more this “issue” is debated, I believe the more the emotional responses are being muted.”
I wish I shared your optimism xformed. But it seems that the more we learn about the science the louder the voices are to deny that science any hearing in the debate.
In fact, talk about wanting to shut off debate, the global baloney zealots have decided, on their own, that the debate is over and it’s time for action.
They instantly dismiss any scientist who fails to accept the catechism of manmade global warming. Anyone who expresses a dissenting view is derided as being in the pay of the oil industry, or somehow “not a credible scientist.”
I can dredge up peer reviewed work and government reports all day long that question the underlying assumptions that the zealots cling to and they behave like children with their fingers stuck in their ears shouting “la la la la la” to avoid hearing something unpleasant.
Gore calls the issue a “moral” one, not “political” yet politics is at the heart of the zealots insistence that the issue is settled.
Their doom and gloom predictions have NEVER BEEN RIGHT and yet now we should listen to their forecasts on what MIGHT happen 100 years from now?
I don’t think so.
Comment by Mike's America — 2/27/2007 @ 11:34 am
Well either way, fossil fuels aren’t unlimited in source, so that new rage in ‘energy efficient’ lightbulbs might become handy. Don’t become paranoid about the problem, but don’t ignore it and hope it will go away.
Australia will ban incandescent light bulbs by 2010, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012. (That means the US’s output of pollutant is 30 million tons anually, because of ‘old-style’ lightbulbs ALONE.)That’s a lot of pollution.
As for the preschool myth on volcanoes, let me present the FACTS:
In total humans are pumping out 26 BILLION tons of carbon dioxide. Volcanoes produce around 200 million tons, which is actually less than 1 percent than the sum-total of man made emissions.
Am I educating you Xformed? “The more truth, the quieter the opposition will become.” Yes. Hopefully quite so. Now be quiet.
Comment by Goshdarnit — 2/27/2007 @ 12:02 pm
Did you know the new lightbulbs are HAZMAT because of the mercury, the stuff banned so we don’t drink or eat it?
About three miles from there is a thriving business recycling because of that issue.
Why inject HAZMAT?
Which part of the human experience are you suggesting created the CO2? Yes, we “out gas” that as a byproduct, as does every form of non-plant life. So, let me hear how you plan to mitigate this? Will there soon be a law for us to take 1/2 breaths only to reduce our CO2 “footprint?”
You still don’t have any serious solutions. Are you going to live fearing the next day, or are you going to do something to solve it (meaning some scientifically proven method/process) to get more clean water and the like?
Don’t forget, the planet is also “spilling” oil into the oceans at levels we would have to work to create. How about doing some deep sea concrete laying to seal the ocean floors? Who knows, you might get a patent and get rich off the manner in which you can accomplish that monumental task…and don’t forget a treaty to stop earth and sea quakes, so the sealing layers never crack. I’m sure you can get your country to sign that one.
Comment by xformed — 2/27/2007 @ 1:22 pm
What are you on about Xformed. Let me blow your idiocy well and truly out of the water.
“Which part of the human experience are you suggesting created the CO2? Yes, we “out gas” that as a byproduct, as does every form of non-plant life. So, let me hear how you plan to mitigate this? Will there soon be a law for us to take 1/2 breaths only to reduce our CO2 “footprint?”” -Xformed.
Well Xformed, without the ‘human’ addition of pollution, the ecology of the
planet absorbs MORE than it emits. In total, the natural cycles and lifeforms of this planet emit more C02 than human activity alone. However, as previously stated “the planet absorbs MORE (c02) than it emits.”
Humans are accountable for 28 billion tons of c02 anually.
Your natural phenomenon are absorbing more than they emit.
Volcanoes are an insignificant factor in emissions (
Comment by Goshdarnit — 2/28/2007 @ 2:02 pm
(Cont’d)
Volcanoes are an insignificant factor in emissions (
Comment by Goshdarnit — 2/28/2007 @ 2:03 pm
Volcanoes are an insignificant factor in emissions (less than one percent) of c02 in comparison to human emissions. Let’s play a game. Which number is larger? 200 million tons or 28 billion tons? Er gee, I dunno.
Human activity: 28 billion tons.
Natural phenomena: 500 billion tons.
Human activity absorbs: 0 billion tons.
Ecosystem absorbs: 513 billion tons
Net Human Emissions: 28 billion tons
Net Natural Emissions: -13
Net Human Emissions: 28 billion tons (28 - 0)
Net Natural Emissions: -13 billion tons (500 - 513)
Rate co2 is rising in the atmosphere: 15 billion tons (28 - 13)
So humans account for ALL of the increases of atmospheric c02. Are we clear on that now Xformed?
Somewhere within all that idiocy is an intellect. However, it is clearly tarred with a willing desire to dress itself in a veil of ignorance. Still Xformed, at the end of the day, you’re not quite as clever as you think you are.
Comment by Goshdarnit — 2/28/2007 @ 2:04 pm
Goshdarnit, you will be happy to know that I do not use the old lightbulbs anymore. Not cost effective. You can buy more expensive lightbulbs that use less watts to provide the same amount of light and they last longer. To me it was all economics, if it has the additional benefit of being eco-friendly, then more power (no pun intended) to the lightbulb makers.
Comment by Richard Nixon — 3/1/2007 @ 7:36 am
As for human activity not absorbing CO2 I would agree, however I would offer this; we support the environments efforts to absorb CO2 by fighting fires which destroy trees (more acres than we consume) which absorb CO2. We also plant trees to replace those harvested.
We have only been at this industrial thing for a blink of an eye in terms of the life of the planet, and the planet has had its fair share of interesting times even before us pesky humans evolved. I think the earth is doing just fine and will recover as it always has from external influences, after all it survived the meteor that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. We will get our CO2 emisions under control, maybe not as fast as some would like, but I also think that those same “some” (read Gore and ilk) are screaming doom for their own economic gains…..after all, how much money is he making on book sales and movie proceeds? We are not perfect, but we are not deliberately evil, it will work itself out.
Comment by Richard Nixon — 3/1/2007 @ 7:54 am
So, would you just say it? You’ve been on the humans are the only cause of damage to the ecosphere for a lot of posts now, so just get to the point:
You want us to dug a big hole, line ourselves up and rid the plant of the scourge of humanity, since, we are the main, primary, most egregious, most prolific, most evil (and for me, the most stupid) creatures to have ever evolved.
Hmmm…think about that, and cling to Darwin for a moment: The “theory” (taken as the truth of science) says species evolve to survive and do so to fit their niche better. So, either you agree and then have to admit we are the most evolved form of life (as we can survive anywhere on the planet (and in the depths of space nearby) and you need to embrace that with all of your being and rejoice in our version of the finches of the Galapagos Islands. Celebrate that you are one of us, the human race…, or…time to toss Darwin over the transom and admit the point of entropy in evolution (not listed in his thesis) has been reached and evolution breaks down and we have actually become a species bent on our own destruction, which completely contradicts the “theory” (which therefore means you have to let go of it as proven fact and know it for what it has remained for over a century, just a theory, which no one has proven yet)…
Which philosophical path will you take?
But…back to the original issue highlighted by your comments:
Grand idea. I’m sure the planet will then breathe a sigh of relief and know you aren’t going to have to drink your own effluent, as it goes about generating lightning and starting forest fires that will burn themselves out, after polluting the air…
OH MY GOD!!!!! Then the precious animals will have to breath air of poor quality!
Better see what PETA’s attitude is on human cleansing before you spend too much time drafting your operational plans….
You know you want it, you know it’s the only cure to your problem, you know…oh, yeah…not like many people will sign up for your plan….so why not roll up your selves and quit complaining. Get that backyard condensation still running and start stocking up on fresh water now…
Oh, side thought: Will we mess up any union plans for the ecosphere if we all go away? I can hear the complaining now by the plants…you know, about the good old days when they actually had a purpose, to recycle the “pollution” of the humans…now, what will they do with the excess capacity to ensure their purpose of existence? Start a marketing campaign to be the recycling planet in our solar system and beyond? I can see the ads now: “Bring your greenhouse gases to us and we’ll turn them into O2! Fast turn around, courteous service, and, now: WITHOUT HUMANS! Give us a try, we know you’ll love us!”
Comment by xformed — 3/1/2007 @ 8:26 am
Oh, I forgot…animals and plants can’t write, build and use telecommunications devices, send satellites into space…
Sorry, my plan to get more business to replace the human source of work falls apart…like Darwin….
Comment by xformed — 3/1/2007 @ 8:42 am
So…as one human said “Never mind!”
(H/T: to a fellow human being Ruth Buzzy)
Comment by xformed — 3/1/2007 @ 8:42 am
oops…showing my defined stupidity (or lack of being a good proof reader)…please correct my comment #11 to read:
“…and plants can’t write,…”
My apologies and know no animals were injured, hurt (physically anyhow) in my postings…emotionally? Hey, they can’t read!
Comment by xformed — 3/1/2007 @ 10:38 am
edited as per your request
Comment by Richard Nixon — 3/1/2007 @ 11:27 am
Goshdarnit says to Xformed: Huh?
Yeah Richard, I completely agree with your post. However, on the other hand, we are encountering problems now that need to be addressed. For instance, the Australian drought. Which, coincidentally, Xformed hasn’t provided a theoretical solution for. What with, his superior intellect and all. I’m wondering how Xformed proposes he we feed our starving and dehydrated cattle. How do we irrigate our dying crops in the arid, desert-like regions across the Australian countryside?
“Like Darwin…” Er… um. Yeah.
Comment by Goshdarnit — 3/2/2007 @ 12:12 am
Goshdarnit;
I put out a rain gage here last night and it’s dry this morning.
Does that mean I have a drought?
Are you requiring equal precipitation on a worldwide level?
Did you miss all the news on the massive snow in the upper US in the last few weeks?
I can explain your drought. The weather patterns are not bringing rain your way right now. Is it global warming, or is you local the only place to ever have such a problem?
The real problem is you are looking at a small circumstance and “projecting” the end of the earth as a result.
It does and has been raining on other places on the planet. in 1964, Okinawa had a drought. We had 55 Gal drums of salt water at the curb for flushing toilets, however, last I checked, Okinawa s doing fine. Virgina Beach, VA had very low rainfall for about 5 years in the early 1990s, but it’s been fine since then. Oh, and the nearby areas didn’t have a water problem, which sowed by our unwashed cars in contrast to their clean ones (OH! THE HUMILIATION!). Where I live now is under lawn watering restrictions, but that has not always been the case.
Open your eyes and realize it’s a cycle….and it’s not out to get you.
Comment by Xformed — 3/2/2007 @ 6:08 am
I already addressed the lack of weather equilibrium and precarious ecosystem/weather extremes and balances in previous posts. I suggest you read them.
Comment by Goshdarnit — 3/6/2007 @ 7:41 pm