The Global Warming Thread

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 12:22 pm

Proof that the conspiracy is huge!

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:14 pm

In other news how about that climate change caused drought flood in California.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 3:50 pm

Rip wrote:In other news how about that climate change caused drought flood in California.

You're tireless, I'll give you that.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:14 am

As Tim Cook of Apple is out there asking "climate change deniers" to not invest in Apple, Greenpeace has for some time been out there linking Apple to global warming.

A March 30 report from Greenpeace associates the Apple iPad with global warming, as the activist organization seeks to raise new questions about the environmental effects of cloud computing.

The term suggests a move to put less-robust devices in the hands of consumers, eliminating the need for massive data storage or processing power by instead storing information or running applications in "the cloud" through an Internet connection, as Google does with its widely used Gmail and Google Docs services. The reality of these services, however, involves an intense demand for energy at the server farms powering each company's cloud.

According to Greenpeace, if "data centers and telecommunication networks, the two key components of the cloud," continue to grow at current rates, by 2020 they'll consume "over half the current electricity consumption of the United States-or more than France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined."

"As the cloud grows, the IT industry's appetite for energy will only increase, so the industry must become strong advocates for renewable energy solutions and strong laws that cut global warming pollution," Casey Harrell, a Greenpeace International campaigner, said in a statement.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wir ... ng-778895/

DOS=HIGH · Post by **DOS=HIGH** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:04 am

Nice 4 year old article from Greenpeace.

Greenpeace Applauds Apple for Cutting Conflict Minerals, Supply Chain Transparency

Media release - February 13, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO — In response to Apple's release of its Supplier Responsibility report, Greenpeace released the following statement, from Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Tom Dowdall:
"Apple's increased transparency about its suppliers is becoming a hallmark of Tim Cook's leadership at the company. Apple has flexed its muscles in the past to push suppliers to remove hazardous substances from products and provide more renewable energy for data centers, and it is proving the same model can work to reduce the use of conflict minerals. Samsung and other consumer electronics companies should follow Apple's example and map its suppliers, so the industry can exert its collective influence to build devices that are better for people and the planet."

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:21 am

So the worst polluter of them all takes a few steps to pollute a little less and now they are the knight in shining armour. Hurray!!!

One thing for sure they remain the master of marketing.

DOS=HIGH · Post by **DOS=HIGH** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:57 am

We’ve already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. And for all of Apple’s corporate facilities worldwide, we’re at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases. We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.

Yep, a few little steps to make Greenpeace happy and market it so well that you had no idea your previous post was no longer relevant.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:08 am

DOS=HIGH wrote:We’ve already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. And for all of Apple’s corporate facilities worldwide, we’re at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases. We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.

Yep, a few little steps to make Greenpeace happy and market it so well that you had no idea your previous post was no longer relevant.

Tim Cook is that you?

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Mar 18, 2014 8:38 pm

AAAS launches What We Know, a new resource to translate current research into plain English and advocate action.

Its mission statement is "As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do or must believe about the rising threat of climate change. But we consider it to be our responsibility as professionals to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people understand what we know: human-caused climate change is happening, we face risks of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes, and responding now will lower the risk and cost of taking action."

In its debut, it's light on information and heavy on advocacy. I hope that will change over time.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Wed Mar 19, 2014 5:27 pm

Here's a great statewide summary for Colorado of climate change I came across doing my job that I thought folks might find interesting here.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:36 pm

Phil Plait goes over part 2 of the IPCC's report on Climate Change, with links to denials and debunkations of said denials:

Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released Part 2 of its Assessment Report. Part 1 came out in September 2013 and showed unequivocally that climate change is real, and human influence is the root cause. Part 2 deals with the impacts of climate change, and what might be done to minimize the effects. The technical summary is an interesting if depressing read. It concatenates the results from scientific journals in the field, giving what is essentially the position of the scientific community on the issues.

The scope of the report is very broad, going over the climate change impact on the planet’s physical systems (oceans, coasts, weather, and so on) as well as the biosphere (humans, animals, agriculture) and human society, and then discussing how we must adapt to and manage/mitigate these risks.

Let me be clear: The report plainly states the world is warming, the climate is changing, and we already see the impacts today. Now. It also goes into detail on projections for the future, and the great majority of them are grim.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:43 pm

Enough wrote:Here's a great statewide summary for Colorado of climate change I came across doing my job that I thought folks might find interesting here.

Some Colorado highlights:

Observed climate trends in Colorado 14 15

• In Colorado, statewide annual average temperatures have increased by 2°F over the 16 past 30 years and 2.5°F over the past 50 years. Warming has been observed over these 17 periods in nearly all parts of the state. 18

• No long ‐ term trends have been detected in annual precipitation for Colorado, even 19 considering the relatively dry period since 2000. 20

• Snowpack, as measured by April 1 snow ‐ water equivalent (SWE), has been mainly 21 below ‐ average since 2000 in all eight major Colorado river basins, though a long ‐ term 22 trend has only been detected in one basin. 23

• The timing of snowmelt and peak runoff has shifted earlier in the spring by 1 ‐ 4 weeks 24 across Colorado’s river basins over the past 30 years, due to the combination of lower 25 SWE since 2000, the warming trend in spring temperatures, and enhanced solar 26 absorption from dust ‐ on ‐ snow. 27

• The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) shows a trend towards more frequent soil ‐ 28 moisture drought conditions in Colorado over the past 30 years, reflecting the 29 combination of the warming trend and below ‐ average precipitation since 2000. 30

• Tree ‐ ring records and other paleoclimate indicators for Colorado show multiple 31 droughts prior to 1900 that were more severe and sustained than any in the observed 32 record

Herman Hum · Post by **Herman Hum** » Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:04 pm

And there is more arctic ice this year than in many previous years.

gbasden · Post by **gbasden** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 12:59 am

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:22 am

He should have blown it out and gone with "Look, liquid water in St. Louis."

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:32 am

What happened to studying weather patterns in Detroit?

The polar vortex brought a bit more than two days below 0 here. I believe we are at our second snowiest and coldest winter on record. Still while it is too cold I won't complain too much. I would want to live in droughts and earthquakes and hurricanes and heat waves and dust bowls and drying rivers.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:46 am

Co-worker says this winter has been the coldest in Ottawa in 20 years. I didn't verify his source, but I probably should.

Global warming? Clearly a fraud perpetrated by those looking for grant money.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:24 am

Yet, hurricanes if anything have trended down the last few years.

Earthquakes? Really? Might as well go back to blaming earthquakes on too much oil extraction not leaving enough oil to lube tectonic plates. Blaming them on climate change is quite the stretch.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu Apr 03, 2014 10:28 am

LordMortis wrote: Still while it is too cold I won't complain too much. I would want to live in droughts and earthquakes and hurricanes and heat waves and dust bowls and drying rivers.

Boy, not me.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 12:09 am

Good Scientific American article addresses the "faux pause" impact on future warming with sciency numbers and graphs and stuff. Whoever coined "faux pause" deserves a bonus.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Apr 07, 2014 3:23 pm

The OH Hole

Modelling of the ozone hole hasn't always matched up with observations and now we may know why.

Scientists have discovered a hole in the atmosphere that allows ozone-depleting compounds and other chemicals to bypass the atmosphere’s natural “washing machine” layer.

The lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, known as the troposphere, is full of hydroxyl (OH) radicals which are known as the detergent of the atmosphere. This is because OH is highly reactive and can break down all sorts of pollutants, chemicals and natural substances emitted by living organisms including humans, plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. The substances become water soluble and are washed out of the troposphere during rainstorms.

But when scientists sent weather balloons through the troposphere over the tropical Western Pacific, they discovered a 9-mile-high hole in this protective OH shield that extends over several thousand square miles. Because it has only just been discovered, researchers are as yet unsure what causes this hole. But by letting certain chemicals escape into the upper levels of the atmosphere, the OH gap could contribute to depletion of the ozone layer over the polar regions and influence worldwide climate.
...
The discovery of the hole has already helped solve a discrepancy in our understanding of the atmosphere. Measurements of ozone depletion have long been known to be more than they should from our theoretical models. When researchers put an OH hole into their simulations, the theoretical ozone depletion much more closely matched real-world data.

Not the thread that ibdoomed is looking for

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:14 pm

Rip, you need to use bigimg there

Edit: Thanks!

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 7:17 pm

On the Good News side - Fox News is 23% less misleading regarding Climate Change:

A new study just released by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that of the three major cable news networks, in 2013 Fox News far and away was the worst at covering news about climate change: More than 70 percent of their coverage contained misleading statements about it....

...hat is surprising is that in 2013 their coverage of climate change was actually better than it was in 2012, when a jaw-dropping 93 percent of their statements about it were misleading.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:26 pm

Pyperkub wrote:On the Good News side - Fox News is 23% less misleading regarding Climate Change:

I wonder if they're softening up their viewers for a change in orthodoxy. Denial gets less tenable every year. Maybe they're building up to a "we've always been at war with Eastasia" moment.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 10:37 am

Speaking of misleading.

Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won't meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 1-04-02-59

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:23 pm

what's that 'in the early years' part added on for?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:26 pm

Unagi wrote:what's that 'in the early years' part added on for?

It shows that in the later years it flips. The real story being not that in the big picture it is overall worse but that it isn't nearly what it has been advertised as. Particularly when you factor in the subsidies that make it economically feasible. Money that could have been spent elsewhere on something that would have had far better return for the investment.

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:31 pm

Not sure where the misleading is happening here.

The biofuel industry and administration officials immediately criticized the research as flawed. They said it was too simplistic in its analysis of carbon loss from soil, which can vary over a single field, and vastly overestimated how much residue farmers actually would remove once the market gets underway.

"The core analysis depicts an extreme scenario that no responsible farmer or business would ever employ because it would ruin both the land and the long-term supply of feedstock. It makes no agronomic or business sense," said Jan Koninckx, global business director for biorefineries at DuPont.

and then...

A peer-reviewed study performed at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 found that biofuels made with corn residue were 95 percent better than gasoline in greenhouse gas emissions. That study assumed some of the residue harvested would replace power produced from coal, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it's unclear whether future biorefineries would do that.

Liska agrees that using some of the residue to make electricity, or planting cover crops, would reduce carbon emissions. But he did not include those in his computer simulation.

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:39 pm

Rip wrote:
Unagi wrote:what's that 'in the early years' part added on for?
It shows that in the later years it flips.

Like an investment?

Rip wrote:The real story being not that in the big picture it is overall worse

Cause it isn't (right?)

Rip wrote:but that it isn't nearly what it has been advertised as. Particularly when you factor in the subsidies that make it economically feasible. Money that could have been spent elsewhere on something that would have had far better return for the investment.

yeah, we pay farmers to not grow food too. I dunno... While I don't like subsidies in general - I can see how a baby industry will need them, if we seriously want to be oil independent some day... but yeah, I'd like our money put to good use on that topic as well.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 9:38 pm

Unagi wrote: I can see how a baby industry will need them, if we seriously want to be oil independent some day... but yeah, I'd like our money put to good use on that topic as well.

Energy independence is not the issue. We're nearly there already thanks to fracking; absent any major restrictions on that practice, the US will be a net energy exporter (and a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia) within the next decade. The "peak oil" problem in which biofuels were developed and enshrined in law has been kicked down the road again.

It's all about carbon now. I still don't know what to believe about that.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 10:57 pm

Herman Hum wrote:And there is more arctic ice this year than in many previous years.

But it was still the 5th lowest in 36 years, not "many" previous years.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:45 am

Add another line item to the list of radiometric dating: krypton!

A 120,000-year-old piece of Antarctic ice was dated using krypton rather than carbon dating. Krypton, a noble-gas element, was found to be more reliable when it came to finding how old the ice is, although the process is extremely difficult. The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may be able to provide more accurate picture of ancient ice ages.

"The oldest ice found in drilled cores is around 800,000 years old and with this new technique we think we can look in other regions and successfully date polar ice back as far as 1.5 million years," Christo Buizert, a researcher at Oregon State University who is the study's lead author, said in a news release.
...
Krypton dating resembles carbon dating since it measures the decay of a radioactive isotope. But unlike carbon-14 dating, krypton is a noble gas that is stable and has a half-life of about 230,000 years. Carbon dating is less reliable when it comes to ice since the isotope is produced in the ice itself by cosmic rays.

While krypton dating has been used for more than 40 years, it was difficult since Krypton-81 atoms are so few and difficult to count. It was only in 2011 when a new detector technology was developed did Kyrpton-81 dating become accessible to the larger scientific community.

The latest study used the detector along with a new Blue Ice Drill that allowed scientists to collect ice samples. Scientists used several 660-pound chunks of ice, melted them, and collected their air bubbles to krypton date them.

"The only problem is that there isn't a lot of Krypton in the air, and thus there isn't much in the ice, either. That's why we need such large samples to melt down," Buizert said.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 2:22 pm

Rip wrote:Speaking of misleading.

Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won't meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 1-04-02-59

I'm not sure you understand how scientific funding through grants works. It's shysters all the way down. Apparently.

Rip wrote:Flash: Climate scientists make conclusions that bolster the likliehood that more money will be thrown at climate science research. Film at eleven.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Mon May 12, 2014 6:11 pm

Uh-oh. West Antarctic glaciers in irreversible retreat

OSLO, May 12 (Reuters) - Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on Monday.

Six glaciers, eaten away from below by a warming of sea waters around the frozen continent, were flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea, according to the report based partly on satellite radar measurements from 1992 to 2011.

Evidence shows "a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat", said lead author Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:52 pm

Marco Rubio just told me it's not my fault. That makes me feel good.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun May 18, 2014 11:00 am

In case anyone is bored, here's a site that has cataloged 176 myths on global warming and the information disproving them. What's really awesome is that each answer page has two levels - the basic, high level explanation and then an "intermediate level" listing with all the detailed links to various papers or researchers that back the science.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sun May 18, 2014 12:35 pm

Holman wrote:Marco Rubio just told me it's not my fault. That makes me feel good.

My question is - Why does that matter? Even if the climate change is natural, it's still going to have serious consequences for our habitat and we have the ability to do something about it.

It's kind if like saying cataclysmic asteroid strikes are natural, so if we see one coming we should do nothing because extinction events are natural...

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sun May 18, 2014 12:45 pm

Pyperkub wrote:
Holman wrote:Marco Rubio just told me it's not my fault. That makes me feel good.
My question is - Why does that matter? Even if the climate change is natural, it's still going to have serious consequences for our habitat and we have the ability to do something about it.

It's kind if like saying cataclysmic asteroid strikes are natural, so if we see one coming we should do nothing because extinction events are natural...

Yup.

The deniers are gradually shifting from "It isn't happening" to "Well, it's natural," but the whole point of the denial has always been that we shouldn't impose regulations or take government action to do anything about it.

We'll fry, drown, and starve, but godammit we'll do it with historically low taxes to the end.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Mon May 19, 2014 9:12 am

Well, I suppose that the line of thinking for the "it's natural" argument is that since it's natural, then human action can't do anything to change it. Since we can't change it, then it's silly to spend money and effort imposing regulations that try to stop it.

raydude · Post by **raydude** » Wed May 21, 2014 6:14 pm

Chaz wrote:Well, I suppose that the line of thinking for the "it's natural" argument is that since it's natural, then human action can't do anything to change it. Since we can't change it, then it's silly to spend money and effort imposing regulations that try to stop it.

I suppose that would be the line of thinking for people not interested in spending money up front but it is naive to think that the money wouldn't be spent anyway. We will be spending money every single year to clean up the mess and damage caused by a warming planet and then eventually when the sea level rises we will be spending gobs of money to relocate cities away from the coast and low lying areas. So the amount of money spent for damage control post warming will probably be billions more than would be spent in the near term on CO2 mitigation.