Global cooling!

"The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it." - George Orwell.
 
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Everything bad in the world today is Bush's fault. Everything. When the world over-heats, it's Bush's fault. When it freezes, it's Bush's fault. Some say Bush is even to blame for the last Ice Age, you know -- the one that happened 10,000 years ago? Yeah. That one. Bush did it. :mad:
 
r0beph said:
What really confuses me, is why the hell everyone is all feisty to disprove global warming... WHO CARES real or not, don't be dense, just hey lets stop polluting like massive asshats. Whether the planet is heating or cooling doesn't matter, even if it's not that crap being pumped into the air isn't HEALTHY. It's that simple... So all your lil squiggly lines don't mean jack diddly in comparison to the fact that I can't eat fish out of the river near my house without risking all kindsa scary stuff.....

I mean seriously its these people who continually tout "omg it's so hot! It must be global warming" yeah ok I detect sarcasm since it's only like 50 degrees, but who cares, my city is still covered in lovely haze consisting of likely no less than 8 rather poisonous metal particulates among other nasties.... but hey, long as the earth stays cool, its ok right? Justify that.... it's really a jagoff idea that global warming is the only (real or unreal) problem that may come from pollution, all the arguing ignores the much easier to see BS....
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For the control of future policy, why else?

Pollution is not the same thing as CO2. Pollution would usually be CO (Carbon Monoxide), NOx (Oxides of Nitrogen), heavy metals, VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds)... Frankly, too much human execrement can even be considered "pollution" because it can provide food for algae blooms that can sour water.

Back to policy: I think a lot of folks on either side of the aisle want "their side" to win the argument to conclusively demonstrate that the folks "on the other side" are off their rocker and clearly incapable of being responsible enough to make policy decisions.

To illustrate a possible consequence we can attempt a "thought experiment". Let's say, for instance, that the pro-AGW camp gained enough control of the government to install legislation requiring all coal-fired power plants to install CO2 sequestration technology in the United States. What's CO2 sequestration? Capturing the CO2 emissions and storing them somewhere away from the atmosphere. I've only just started looking into this but some of the strategies intend to capture the stuff, pipeline it to depleted oil wells and inject it back into them to force more oil out or just get rid of it in the first place.

How much CO2 are we talking about? World coal usage produces about 3 billion tons of carbon per year, or about 11 billion tons of CO2 per year. That's 1.82E14 standard cubic feet or about 1,235 cubic miles per year. The world use of natural gas per year by comparison is about 676 cubic miles. Oil, by comparison, comes up to about a cubic mile per year in volume. So, you'd be cramming about twice as much in volumetrically as we'd be pulling out per year in gas and oil with all the immense amount of energy that would require to do.*

Naturally, we'd have to tweak that simplified model and see what kind of economic damage we'd be talking about but I'd think the entire exercise would be rendered academic if the voting public ever figured out beforehand that it'd simply bankrupt them back to the Stone Age. However, due to Peak Oil, that's where we're heading anyhow.

Pidgey

*Disclaimer: I haven't had much time for sanity checks on the math, yet, so feel free!
 
This could be a possibilty for our recent loss of heat:

2393099800073664377erERzu_ph.jpg


...and here if you can't see that picture:

http://image58.webshots.com/658/0/99/80/2393099800073664377erERzu_ph.jpg

(you may have to copy-and-paste that link into a separate browser window)

That's a chart showing the OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation) for the last few years. It's kinda' like a chart of the infrared heat loss from a thin strip of the tropics (15 degrees wide around the entire equator). There is a zero anomaly line on the chart from which you can see yellow shading above and blue shading below. In order to maintain thermal equilibrium for the planet, you need to see relatively equal portions of the yellow and blue shading. If you see too much blue, we're holding too much energy in and the temperature will rise. If, on the other hand, you see too much yellow it means we're losing energy. The basic tenet of AGW is that the greenhouse gases (CO2 and H2O) will prevent thermal energy from exiting the atmosphere as easily and thus raise the bulk temperature. This satellite track is measuring the direct energy loss/retention in Watts per square meter.

Pidgey
 
Well, crap! NASA has just confirmed that the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) has kicked into its cool phase and will, therefore, affect the climate of California and its agriculture for years to come. These things can last up to 30 years at a time. California has been experiencing some damage to their grape, fruit and nut crops which could increase in the future. Given the size of California's agricultural economy, this is bad news indeed.

Pidgey
 
Pidgey said:
Well, crap! NASA has just confirmed that the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) has kicked into its cool phase and will, therefore, affect the climate of California and its agriculture for years to come. These things can last up to 30 years at a time. California has been experiencing some damage to their grape, fruit and nut crops which could increase in the future. Given the size of California's agricultural economy, this is bad news indeed.

Pidgey
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Yes, crap. What it could mean for California is drier winters and a smaller snow pack, all bad news for our farmers. Of course, such predictions are far from certain.

What happens when there is a "La Nina" pattern, part of the Decadal Oscillation, is that the jet stream tends to stay to the north and give storms to Oregon and Washington, rather than California. When there is an El Nino pattern, meaning a warming of certain parts of the Pacific, it bends the jet stream south and tends to give us wetter winters, much to the joy of farmers and ski resorts.

Of course, none of those predictions are set in stone. Last winter was a La Nina year, yet the snow pack is close to normal (average). Climate can be a complex thing, depending on jet streams, ocean currents, and thermohaline circulation.

Here is more about the Decadal Oscillation: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/jason-20080421.html

"The comings and goings of El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation are part of a longer, ongoing change in global climate," said Josh Willis, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. Sea level rise and global warming due to increases in greenhouse gases can be strongly affected by large natural climate phenomenon such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. "In fact," said Willis, "these natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it."
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PLC1 said:
A plane crashed due to fuel line blockage caused by cold weather during a trans polar flight, and that's a sign of global cooling?

I suppose it makes a good joke, at least.
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Didn't you read the entire story? It was ultra cold and the pilot hadn't seen that before in 25 years of flying.

Pidgey
 
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Pidgey said:
Didn't you read the entire story? It was ultra cold and the pilot hadn't seen that before in 25 years of flying.

Pidgey
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Oh, so it's yet another local weather vs global climate kind of story. I've heard a lot of them.

It's colder than a well diggers *** out there, and snowing like crazy. Where's your global warming now?

There are many such stories.
 

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