Global Warming in the News
Posted by Hawk at 2/9/2011 1:11 PM 
Categories: Science News, Global Warming
Tags: Global Warming Adam Savage Dragon Con 2010 Dragon Con
Categories: Science News, Global Warming
Tags: Global Warming Adam Savage Dragon Con 2010 Dragon Con
First off, because I have been accused of this, I do not deny that the Earth is warming. The Earth is certainly a bit warmer than it has been in the previous century. The number is around a degree Fahrenheit, or about .4 degrees Celsius, depending on how you are measuring such stuff. I do deny that humans caused such warming, or at least an appreciable amount of it. A reasonable estimate is less than 10%, though some respectable papers show a higher percentage. Frankly, as probability of publication is directly correlated to the % of warming that you attribute to humanity, well, I think the bias is more than the sample size.
The Earth is colder now than it was when Lief Erikson discovered Vinland. The Earth is colder now than when Carthage invaded Rome with an army of Elephants across the Spanish Pyrenees. The upper African winter was decidedly wetter when Alexandria was the grain basket of Rome and grapes were grown in South - Eastern Canada.
Now, since the cold winter is making the whole "warming" word a bit off, the spaghetti flingers are pitching "extreme weather events" against the wall as the current reason we should tax the hell out of coal and oil. It doesn't stick.
I have a graph below provided by Florida State University. Which shows about as linear a progression (Left hand side, y axis, is number of storms 0-120; the bottom, x-axis, is years 1970 to 2011.) as mother nature ever provided. Any bias might be attributable by Experimental Learning Curve error, which I discussed in a previous post. There was a peak back in 2006, but overall, there doesn't seem to be any increase in storm frequency or energy. Furthermore, the death rate due to weather is down, WAY down.
Cheap energy saves lives. Air conditioning saves lives. Cheap heat saves lives. Ambulances and HEMSI quick response vehicles save lives. (The cost of keeping these vehicles on the road is more than just gas money, but energy costs affect every other price.) There isn't a bum on the streets who couldn't walk into a shelter. (The reasons they don't have to do with mental illness, alcohol & drugs, and sexual hook ups.) As for marines, football players, and SCA heavy fighters who are trying to kill themselves in the heat, well, frankly they play for 110% and they suffer for it. If it was cooler, their 110% would be higher.
There are always people who believe that the US is the font of all the trouble in the world and there are always people who believe that yesterday was purer than today. (Heck, I am one of them.) It is great (mentally romantic) to imagine that air was pure in the middle ages. Live was better, healthier. Back when Veggies were a rare treat and gout killed more kings than Alhzeimer's. I can be romantic about life before air conditioning and good toilet paper, but I don't want to live there. And, none of those who want you to have less energy are going to truly conserve. They want to be the new "Energy Royalty" who sympathize with the peasants, but don't have to live like them.
Screw em. I don't need moral authority, I have bills to pay. And, this year they are higher than ever, partly due to their malign influence. Heating costs this winter are off the charts, mostly because no one is building new power supplies. Gas prices are going to cross $4 a gallon this summer. Partly due to the lack of drilling and refinement in this country. This will cost me, personally, about $70 a month.
I won't go off on all the other costs, but a little bit of Tort reform and regulation reform would go a long way in this country. I better get back to work. You all have a nice day!
This isn't a myth they can bust, as it is large scale data, not experiment driven, but nonetheless, here is my lovely assistant and the Mythical Adam Savage
And speaking of Mythical Busts... A shot from Dragon Con
The Earth is colder now than it was when Lief Erikson discovered Vinland. The Earth is colder now than when Carthage invaded Rome with an army of Elephants across the Spanish Pyrenees. The upper African winter was decidedly wetter when Alexandria was the grain basket of Rome and grapes were grown in South - Eastern Canada.
Now, since the cold winter is making the whole "warming" word a bit off, the spaghetti flingers are pitching "extreme weather events" against the wall as the current reason we should tax the hell out of coal and oil. It doesn't stick.
I have a graph below provided by Florida State University. Which shows about as linear a progression (Left hand side, y axis, is number of storms 0-120; the bottom, x-axis, is years 1970 to 2011.) as mother nature ever provided. Any bias might be attributable by Experimental Learning Curve error, which I discussed in a previous post. There was a peak back in 2006, but overall, there doesn't seem to be any increase in storm frequency or energy. Furthermore, the death rate due to weather is down, WAY down.
Source: Goklany, IM. 2009. Deaths and Death Rates from Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14 (4): 102-09 (2009). Available at http://www.jpands.org/vol14no4/goklany.pdf.
I cribbed both of those graphs off of a Wattsupwiththat.com page, so feel free to check out the original sources. I did not check out the source of the "Death Rates" graph, but I don't have to. You KNOW that weather caused deaths are way down. Come on, who have you heard of dying from heat or cold? Football players working at 110% in Florida weather, Invalids in France, and Homeless sleeping on steam grates, Right? Oh, well 100 years ago, EVERYONE was in danger of dying from the cold. And people didn't live in the south (away from beaches) because it was too damn hot in the summer.Cheap energy saves lives. Air conditioning saves lives. Cheap heat saves lives. Ambulances and HEMSI quick response vehicles save lives. (The cost of keeping these vehicles on the road is more than just gas money, but energy costs affect every other price.) There isn't a bum on the streets who couldn't walk into a shelter. (The reasons they don't have to do with mental illness, alcohol & drugs, and sexual hook ups.) As for marines, football players, and SCA heavy fighters who are trying to kill themselves in the heat, well, frankly they play for 110% and they suffer for it. If it was cooler, their 110% would be higher.
There are always people who believe that the US is the font of all the trouble in the world and there are always people who believe that yesterday was purer than today. (Heck, I am one of them.) It is great (mentally romantic) to imagine that air was pure in the middle ages. Live was better, healthier. Back when Veggies were a rare treat and gout killed more kings than Alhzeimer's. I can be romantic about life before air conditioning and good toilet paper, but I don't want to live there. And, none of those who want you to have less energy are going to truly conserve. They want to be the new "Energy Royalty" who sympathize with the peasants, but don't have to live like them.
Screw em. I don't need moral authority, I have bills to pay. And, this year they are higher than ever, partly due to their malign influence. Heating costs this winter are off the charts, mostly because no one is building new power supplies. Gas prices are going to cross $4 a gallon this summer. Partly due to the lack of drilling and refinement in this country. This will cost me, personally, about $70 a month.
I won't go off on all the other costs, but a little bit of Tort reform and regulation reform would go a long way in this country. I better get back to work. You all have a nice day!
This isn't a myth they can bust, as it is large scale data, not experiment driven, but nonetheless, here is my lovely assistant and the Mythical Adam Savage
And speaking of Mythical Busts... A shot from Dragon Con
Hawk,
Glad to see that you are back to putting up posts. I have been off the Webz for the past 4 days due to local yokel construction crewfolk accidentally severing the cable linking us to the Internet. Like the suicidal bobcat that shorted out the powerlines and plunged Johnston County into darkness for two days, or the damn possums that nest in the phone Transmission towers and cause me to lose bars, it is just another example of how fragile the concept and comforts of modern civilization are out here in the Oklahoma Outback. Sigh... People don't know when to appreciate it when they have it good!
Anyways, we are having another Blizzard out here and the school is deserted except for yours truly, who gets to do some nefarious skulking about in the lab and halls here. I hope that you and your family are alright in Alabama as they again say that more winter is headed your way. That Groundhog is a lying rodent bastard, andwhen I catch him; I have been assured by the chef at the local Mexican restaurant that yes 'we can make groundhog fajitas, senor" Yum!
I don't know what to think about what's going on any more. Geologists now claim that the Permian "Great Dying" may have had fossil fuel help, as the eruptions that formed the Siberian Traps set fire to massive coal seams in the region, as evidenced by fossil coal ash deposits in ancient Canadian lakes. However, as I once I pointed out to you we are living in an interglacial and maybe the Milkanovitch cycles are overdue to plunge us into the Sixth Great Winter, with the Laurentide Ice Sheet reappearing and coming as far south as central Arkansas. (There is a rest stop on I 40 built on Crowley's ridge which is actually the terminal moraine of the ice sheet from the previous cycle! Scary isn't it?) Most of Oklahoma would become tundra, and Tennessee would be home for packs of Grey wolves, Caribou and Confused polar bears. Maybe they could all do us a favor, stop off at Carthage, and gnaw on Al Gore's bones! One can only hope... Sigh...
So, what can we do to prevent this horrible thing? Geoengineering by injecting soot or sulfates to warm or cool the planet? Too unpredictable! Make like the permian and set fire to giant coal seams? Yeah THAT warmed up the planet... a little too much... and damn near killed... EVERYTHING!!! Go with Hans Oberth's ideas for giant space reflectors to focus the sun's rays on the areas that were too cold or shade the areas that were too hot? While it would get space construction going again, precise control would be tricky... and dangerous if the controls fall into the wrong hands! (Anybody's but mine, of course!!!)
I personally like blowing up the Panama Land bridge, myself. The Pliocene had a much more temperate climate, when the Pacific and The Gulf of Mexico were connected... and we could use a sea level canal. All it would take is one little asteroid in the right place...
Yours, in a warmer science,
Dr. DNA
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Dr. DNA,
Nice to see that you are as unhinged as ever...groundhog fajitas would be aweful. The rest is about right.
The problem with data models of the Earth is that it is complicated. Soot causes increased heating due to black snow or decreased heating due to atmospheric blocking.
As for Ice Ages, what causes them? Is it feedback from ice reflectivity causing cooling, leading to more ice? If so, what causes it to stop? Meteors?
Some questions are answerable, CO2 increases thermal retention, but the effect is limited. Sulfides seem to increase albedo, and soot seems to decrease albedo.
Coal ain't great for the environment. I wish they implemented MHD, but too damn expensive still. I wish they implemented Nuclear power, but hey, nobody listens to me in any case.
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Hawk,
Don't sell yourself short! You have the attention, respect and admiration of your fellow mad scientists and evil geniuses, and that is NOT an insignificant thing. Wwhy, when my plans come to fruition and I become Evil Overlord of the Earth, I will need advisors! How would you like to be put in charge of the Ministries of Energy and Space Exploration? One of the fringe benefits, is that all the environmentalists that mocked and opposed you8 will be put on treadmills to generate electric power for you and your family! You and your friends can enjoy a nice, long soak in your electrically heated hottub while enjoying a beer and listening to the crack of the overseer's whips on the backs of all those who mocked and opposed you. And as a further benefit, those who STILL won't run can be fed to the free-range tyrannosaur that you will be raising for the Jurrasic-Fried Drumsticks in your backyard! Who said that there were no advantages to having friends in high places?
I have the article about the Permian It was mentioned in the Editor's Choice section of the Feb 4th Science magazine, on page 512. In it, it mentions that Grasby et al showed that volcanism combusted nearby coal deposits which match downturns in aquatic productivity during the Permian-Triassic Boundary. The pictures of fossil coal ash look identical to modern coal ashes. Furthermore, the added acid rain and metallic toxins would have further poisoned the seas.
The actual article can be found in Nat. Geosci. 4, 10.1038/ngeo1069 (2011)
Yeah, the feedback loops are really confusing on climate. We are supposed to be having accelerated melting over the Arctic, with more fresh water runoff from Greenland and decreased albedo over the pole. This leads to a shutdown of the Gulfstream conveyer belt and increased snow over Northern Europe, which leads to increased albedo and cooling ant the formation of the Baltic ice sheet/ (Hunh?) global warming could cause an ice age? I give up. Thinking about this stuff makes my head hurt. Screw It! Ready the asteroid for Panama and serve my minions the Groundhog fajitas!
Yours in Thank God It's Friday Science,
Dr. DNA
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