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On Microclimates
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, Billy wrote: Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. - Orson Scott Card My new signature thank you. Bill who has about 20 F. low for four more nights before a break. 40 F. high right now. Started some caladiums this morning. -- Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden |
On Microclimates
Nad R wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote: It is clear you have not read any of my posts. Take a look at your last posting. I will use smaller sentences. Sequence one. 1) Per geology life thrives in warm climates. 2) Per archeology humans thrive in warm climates. 3) The cause is irrelevant given those two points. 4) Because global warming should be beneficial what's the fuss about? Sequence two. 1) So scare mongers must do it for other reasons. 2) Scare mongers must not care about the actual topic. 3) Scare mongers tend to be collectivists. 4) Collectivists tend to dislike capitalists. 5) So scare mongers are using the topic in a political campaign. Sequence three. 1) Global warming is real. 2) Human causation is a matter of recent concensus. 3) Across history, recent concensus in science has often been wrong. 4) Why care since the predicted result is beneficial? Sequence four. 1) Fossil fuel is limited. 2) Green power includes wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear. 3) Wind is expensive but dropping slowly in price. 4) Solar is expensive but on an exponential curve. 5) Exponential curves can have good results, just not today. 6) The installed base of hydroelectric is nearing the maximum. 7) Hydroelectric damages cute fishees. 8) Nuclear is politically unpopular. 9) That's yet another sign the scare mongers aren't honest about their goals. 10) Developing green sources is still good because fossil fuel is limited. Conclusion. It's not about what you claim it's about. So you make up stuff about what my stance is. |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote: Billy wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: The Sahara used to be grassland, as was most of central Asia. How much was human grazing and farming and how much was natural climate change? Very hard to tell after the fact. What is "natural climate change"? Change that is not caused by humans. There's been a lot of it in geological time. Enough to ask if the human contribution in the current trend is large or small. And that's independent of the real issue that you point out in the graph - If global warming isn't really a good thing. The graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#Recent_past indicates that the planet was "naturally" getting cooler. The graph also shows that life in general has done very well during the warmer geological periods. We're all doomed - The history of life thriving during warm periods proves it! I realize that this is sarcasm, but let me point out the home, for Homo sapiens is the Olduvai Gorge [Latitude: 2?59S], which is very near the equator. We're all doomed - Humanity evolved during the recent swings and highs. Our prehistoric ancestors have already been through several ice ages and warming periods. The "we" part is specific parts of human culture not humanity in general and not life in general. Possibly. -- http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...eID=00037A5 D -A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000 October 2006 Scientific American Magazine Impact from the Deep Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again? By Peter D. Ward Philosopher and historian Thomas S. Kuhn has suggested that scientific disciplines act a lot like living organisms: instead of evolving slowly but continuously, they enjoy long stretches of stability punctuated by infrequent revolutions with the appearance of a new species--or in the case of science, a new theory. This description is particularly apt for my own area of study, the causes and consequences of mass extinctions -- those periodic biological upheavals when a large proportion of the planet's living creatures died off and afterward nothing was ever the same again. (cont. below) Independent of the size of human contribution to global warming that's the interesting point - Earth's life thrived under warming conditions. Ancient humanity thrived under warming conditions. Therefore global warming *must* be *entirely* human caused and we're all going to die as a result of it! It's political BS at its finest. Granted, "political BS" is redundant. It would help if you could separate the theatrics from your argument. What is it that you offer as proof of your contention? It ignores what has actually happened during prior warm eras. Even glancing at the graphs tells a different story. Life and humanity have thrived under warmer conditions across geological time. In the grand scheme of things, the few million years of humanoids existence is hardly representative of the changing environmental conditions on earth. Except for folks living in Florida which will eventually be innundated, exactly how again is life and humanity thriving a disaster? Last time I checked there are planes, trains and automolbiles capable of evacuating Florida in a lot less than the several centuries it will take for it to flood. We'll need to replant the citrus groves elsewhere, completely disasterous. The degree of human contribution just doesn't matter in real terms - Life in general and humanity in specific has thrived on Earth during eras of warmer climate. Is it bad just because it's different? Really? I look at those graphs and I don't buy it. I look at those graphs and I wonder why I support green energy sources like wind, solar and nuclear. Because fossil fuels are limited resources, that's why. No concern over rising CO2 levels? Why not? http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...eID=00037A5 D -A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000 October 2006 Scientific American Magazine (cont.) Since first recognizing these historical mass extinctions more than two centuries ago, paleontologists believed them to have been gradual events, caused by some combination of climate change and biological forces such as predation, competition and disease. But in 1980 the understanding of mass extinctions underwent a Kuhnian revolution when a team at the University of California, Berkeley, led by geologist Walter Alvarez proposed that the famous dinosaur-killing extinction 65 million years ago occurred swiftly, in the ecosystem catastrophe that followed an asteroid collision. Over the ensuing two decades, the idea that a bolide from space could smite a significant segment of life on the earth was widely embraced--and many researchers eventually came to believe that cosmic detritus probably caused at least three more of the five largest mass extinctions. Public acceptance of the notion crystallized with Hollywood blockbusters such as Deep Impact and Armageddon. Now still another transformation in our thinking about life's punctuated past is brewing. New geochemical evidence is coming from the bands of stratified rock that delineate mass extinction events in the geologic record, including the exciting discovery of chemical residues, called organic biomarkers, produced by tiny life-forms that typically do not leave fossils. Together these data make it clear that cataclysmic impact as a cause of mass extinction was the exception, not the rule. In most cases, the earth itself appears to have become life's worst enemy in a previously unimagined way. And current human activities may be putting the biosphere at risk once again. After Alvarez To understand the general enthusiasm for the impact paradigm, it helps to review the evidence that fueled it. The scenario advanced by Alvarez, along with his father, physicist Luis W. Alvarez, and nuclear chemists Helen V. Michel and Frank Asaro, contained two separate hypotheses: first, that a fairly large asteroid--estimated to have been 10 kilometers in diameter--struck the earth 65 million years ago; second, that the environmental consequences of the impact snuffed out more than half of all species. They had found traces left by the blow in a thick layer of iridium--rare on the earth but common in extraterrestrial materials--that had dusted the globe. Within a decade of this prodigious announcement the killer's thumbprint turned up, in the form of the Chicxulub crater hiding in plain sight on the Yucatn Peninsula of Mexico. Its discovery swept aside most lingering doubts about whether the reign of the dinosaurs had ended with a bang. At the same time, it raised new questions about other mass extinction events: If one was caused by impact, what about the rest? Five times in the past 500 million years most of the world's life-forms have simply ceased to exist. The first such event happened at the end of the Ordovician period, some 443 million years ago. The second, 374 million years ago, was near the close of the Devonian. The biggest of them all, the Great Dying, at the end of the Permian 251 million years ago, wiped out 90 percent of ocean dwellers and 70 percent of plants, animals, even insects, on land [see "The Mother of Mass Extinctions," by Douglas H. Erwin; Scientific American, July 1996]. Worldwide death happened again 201 million years ago, ending the Triassic period, and the last major extinction, 65 million years ago, concluded the Cretaceous with the aforementioned big bang. The earth can, and probably did, exterminate its own. In the early 1990s paleontologist David Raup's book Extinctions: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? predicted that impacts ultimately would be found to be the blame for all these major mass extinctions and other, less severe events as well. Evidence for impact from the geologic boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (-K/T) periods certainly was and remains convincing: in addition to the Chicxulub crater and the clear iridium layer, impact debris, including pressure-shocked stone scattered across the globe, attests to the blow. Further chemical clues in ancient sediments document rapid changes in the world's atmospheric composition and climate that soon followed. For several other extinction periods, the signs also seemed to point "up." Geologists had already associated a thin iridium layer with the end Devonian extinctions in the early 1970s. And by 2002 separate discoveries suggested impacts at the end Triassic and end Permian boundaries. Faint traces of iridium registered in the Triassic layer. And for the Permian, distinctive carbon "buckyball" molecules believed to contain trapped extraterrestrial gases added another intriguing clue [see "Repeated Blows," by Luann Becker; Scientific American, March 2002]. Thus, many scientists came to suspect that asteroids or comets were the source of four of the "big five" mass extinctions; the exception, the end Ordovician event, was judged the result of radiation from a star exploding in our cosmic neighborhood. As researchers continued to probe the data in recent years, however, they found that some things did not add up. New fossil analyses indicated that the Permian and Triassic extinctions were drawn-out processes spanning hundreds of thousands of years. And newly obtained evidence of the rise and fall of atmospheric carbon, known as carbon cycling, also seemed to suggest that the biosphere suffered a long-running series of environmental insults rather than a single, catastrophic strike. Not So Sudden Impact The lesson of the K/T event was that a large-body impact is like a major earthquake leveling a city: the disaster is sudden, devastating, but short-lived--and after it is over, the city quickly begins rebuilding. This tempo of destruction and subsequent recovery is reflected in carbon-isotope data for the K/T extinctions as well as in the fossil record, although verifying the latter took the scientific community some time. The expected sudden die-off at the K/T boundary itself was indeed visible among the smallest and most numerous fossils, those of the calcareous and siliceous plankton, and in the spores of plants. But the larger the fossils in a group, the more gradual their extinction looked. Slowly, paleontologists came to understand that this apparent pattern was influenced by the sparsity of large-fossil samples for most of the soil and rock strata being studied. To address this sampling problem and gain a clearer picture of the pace of extinction, Harvard University paleontologist Charles Marshall developed a new statistical protocol for analyzing ranges of fossils. By determining the probability that a particular species has gone extinct within a given time period, this analytical method teases out the maximum amount of information yielded by even rare fossils. In 1996 Marshall and I joined forces to test his system on K/T stratigraphic sections and ultimately showed that what had appeared to be a gradual extinction of the most abundant of the larger marine animals, the ammonites (molluscan fossils related to the chambered nautilus) in Europe, was instead consistent with their sudden disappearance at the K/T boundary itself. But when several researchers, including myself, applied the new methodology to earlier extinctions, the results differed from the K/T sections. Studies by my group of strata representing both marine and nonmarine environments during the latest parts of the Permian and Triassic periods showed a more gradual succession of extinctions clustered around the boundaries. That pattern was also mirrored in the carbon-isotope record, which is another powerful tool for understanding rates of extinction. Carbon atoms come in three sizes, or isotopes, with slightly varying numbers of neutrally charged particles in the nucleus. Many people are familiar with one of these isotopes, carbon 14 (14C), because its decay is often used to date specific fossil skeletons or samples of ancient sediments. But for -interpreting mass extinctions, a more useful type of information to extract from the geologic record is the ratio of 12C to 13C isotopes, which provides a broader snapshot of the vitality of plant life at the time. That is because photosynthesis largely drives changes in the 12C-13C ratio. Plants use energy from the sun to split carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic carbon, which they exploit to build cells and provide energy; happily for us animals, free oxygen is their waste product. But plants are finicky, and they preferentially choose CO2 containing 12C. Thus, when plant life--whether in the form of photosynthesizing microbes, floating algae or tall trees--is abundant, a higher proportion of CO2 remaining in the atmosphere contains 13C, and atmospheric 12C is measurably lower. By examining the isotope ratios in samples from before, during and after a mass extinction, investigators can obtain a reliable indicator of the amount of plant life both on land and in the sea. When researchers plot such measurements for the K/T event on a graph, a simple pattern emerges. Virtually simultaneously with the emplacement of the so-called impact layer containing mineralogical evidence of debris, the carbon isotopes shift--13C drops dramatically--for a short time, indicating a sudden die-off of plant life and a quick recovery. This finding is entirely consistent with the fossil record of both larger land plants and the sea's microscopic plankton, which underwent staggering losses in the K/T event but bounced back rapidly. In contrast, the carbon records revealed by my group in early 2005 for the Permian, and more recently for the Triassic, document a very different fate for plants and plankton during those two mass extinctions. In both cases, multiple isotope shifts over intervals exceeding 50,000 to 100,000 years indicate that plant communities were struck down, then re-formed, only to be perturbed again by a series of extinction events. To produce such a pattern would take a succession of asteroid strikes, thousands of years apart. But no mineralogical evidence exists for a string of impacts during either time span. Indeed, further investigation of the evidence has called into question the likelihood of any impacts at those two times. No other research groups have replicated the original finding of buckyballs containing extraterrestrial gas at the end Permian boundary. A discovery of shocked quartz from that period has also been recanted, and geologists cannot agree whether purported impact craters from the event in the deep ocean near Australia and under ice in Antarctica are actually craters or just natural rock formations. For the end Triassic, the iridium found is in such low concentrations that it might reflect a small asteroid impact, but nothing of the planet-killing scale seen at the K/T boundary. If impacts are not supported as the cause of these mass extinctions, however, then what did trigger the great die-offs? A new type of evidence reveals that the earth itself can, and probably did, exterminate its own inhabitants. Ghastly Greenhouse About half a decade ago small groups of geologists began to team up with organic chemists to study environmental conditions at critical times in the earth's history. Their work involved extracting organic residues from ancient strata in search of chemical "fossils" known as biomarkers. Some organisms leave behind tough organic molecules that survive the decay of their bodies and become entombed in sedimentary rocks. These biomarkers can serve as evidence of long-dead life-forms that usually do not leave any skeletal fossils. Various kinds of microbes, for example, leave behind traces of the distinctive lipids present in their cell membranes--traces that show up in new forms of mass spectrometry, a technique that sorts molecules by mass. This biomarker research was first conducted on rocks predating the history of animals and plants, in part to determine when and under what conditions life first emerged on the earth. But within the past few years scientists began sampling the mass extinction boundaries. And to the great surprise of those doing this work, data from the periods of mass extinction, other than the K/T event, suggested that the world's oceans have more than once reverted to the extremely low oxygen conditions, known as anoxia, that were common before plants and animals became abundant. Among the biomarkers uncovered were the remains of large numbers of tiny photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria. Today these microbes are found, along with their cousins, photosynthetic purple sulfur bacteria, living in anoxic marine environments such as the depths of stagnant lakes and the Black Sea, and they are pretty noxious characters. For energy, they oxidize hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas, a poison to most other forms of life, and convert it into sulfur. Thus, their abundance at the extinction boundaries opened the way for a new interpretation of the cause of mass extinctions. Scientists have long known that oxygen levels were lower than today around periods of mass extinction, although the reason was never adequately identified. Large-scale volcanic activity, also associated with most of the mass extinctions, could have raised CO2 levels in the atmosphere, reducing oxygen and leading to intense global warming--long an alternative theory to the impacts; however, the changes wrought by volcanism could not necessarily explain the massive marine extinctions of the end Permian. Nor could volcanoes account for plant deaths on land, because vegetation would thrive on increased CO2 and could probably survive the warming. But the biomarkers in the oceanic sediments from the latest part of the Permian, and from the latest Triassic rocks as well, yielded chemical evidence of an ocean-wide bloom of the H2S-consuming bacteria. Because these microbes can live only in an oxygen-free environment but need sunlight for their photosynthesis, their presence in strata representing shallow marine settings is itself a marker indicating that even the surface of the oceans at the end of the Permian was without oxygen but was enriched in H2S. In today's oceans, oxygen is present in essentially equal concentrations from top to bottom because it dissolves from the atmosphere into the water and is carried downward by ocean circulation. Only under unusual circumstances, such as those that exist in the Black Sea, do anoxic conditions below the surface permit a wide variety of oxygen-hating organisms to thrive in the water column. Those deep-dwelling anaerobic microbes churn out copious amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which also dissolves into the seawater. As its concentration builds, the H2S diffuses upward, where it encounters oxygen diffusing downward. So long as their balance remains undisturbed, the oxygenated and hydrogen sulfide-saturated waters stay separated, and their interface, known as the chemocline, is stable. Typically the green and purple sulfur bacteria live in that chemocline, enjoying the supply of H2S from below and sunlight from above. Yet calculations by geoscientists Lee R. Kump and Michael A. Arthur of Pennsylvania State University have shown that if oxygen levels drop in the oceans, conditions begin to favor the deep-sea anaerobic bacteria, which proliferate and produce greater amounts of hydrogen sulfide. In their models, if the deepwater H2S concentrations were to increase beyond a critical threshold during such an interval of oceanic anoxia, then the chemocline separating the H2S-rich deepwater from oxygenated surface water could have floated up to the top abruptly. The horrific result would be great bubbles of toxic H2S gas erupting into the atmosphere. Their studies indicate that enough H2S was produced by such ocean upwellings at the end of the Permian to cause extinctions both on land and in the sea. And this strangling gas would not have been the only killer. Models by Alexander Pavlov of the University of Arizona show that the H2S would also have attacked the planet's ozone shield, an atmospheric layer that protects life from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Evidence that such a disruption of the ozone layer did happen at the end of the Permian exists in fossil spores from Greenland, which display deformities known to result from extended exposure to high UV levels. Today we can also see that underneath "holes" in the ozone shield, especially in the Antarctic, the biomass of phytoplankton rapidly decreases. And if the base of the food chain is destroyed, it is not long until the organisms higher up are in desperate straits as well. Kump and Arthur estimate that the amount of H2S gas entering the late Permian atmosphere from the oceans was more than 2,000 times the small amount given off by volcanoes today. Enough of the toxic gas would have permeated the atmosphere to have killed both plants and animals--particularly because the lethality of H2S increases with temperature. And several large and small mass extinctions seem to have occurred during short intervals of global warming. That is where the ancient volcanic activity may have come in. Around the time of multiple mass extinctions, major volcanic events are known to have extruded thousands of square kilometers of lava onto the land or the seafloor. A by-product of this tremendous volcanic outpouring would have been enormous volumes of carbon dioxide and methane entering the atmosphere, which would have caused rapid global warming. During the latest Permian and Triassic as well as in the early Jurassic, middle Cretaceous and late Paleocene, among other periods, the carbon-isotope record confirms that CO2 concentrations skyrocketed immediately before the start of the extinctions and then stayed high for hundreds of thousands to a few million years. But the most critical factor seems to have been the oceans. Heating makes it harder for water to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere; thus, if ancient volcanism raised CO2 and lowered the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, and global warming made it more difficult for the remaining oxygen to penetrate the oceans, conditions would have become amenable for the deep-sea anaerobic bacteria to generate massive upwellings of H2S. Oxygen-breathing ocean life would have been hit first and hardest, whereas the photosynthetic green and purple H2S-consuming bacteria would have been able to thrive at the surface of the anoxic ocean. As the H2S gas choked creatures on land and eroded the planet's protective shield, virtually no form of life on the earth was safe. Kump's hypothesis of planetary killing provides a link between marine and terrestrial extinctions at the end of the Permian and explains how volcanism and increased CO2 could have triggered both. It also resolves strange findings of sulfur at all end Permian sites. A poisoned ocean and atmosphere would account for the very slow recovery of life after that mass extinction as well. Finally, this proposed sequence of events pertains not only to the end of the Permian. A minor extinction at the end of the Paleocene epoch 54 million years ago was already--presciently--attributed to an interval of oceanic anoxia somehow triggered by short-term global warming. Biomarkers and geologic evidence of anoxic oceans suggest that is also what may have occurred at the end Triassic, middle Cretaceous and late Devonian, making such extreme greenhouse-effect extinctions possibly a recurring phenomenon in the earth's history. Most troubling, however, is the question of whether our species has anything to fear from this mechanism in the futu If it happened before, could it happen again? Although estimates of the rates at which carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere during each of the ancient extinctions are still uncertain, the ultimate levels at which the mass deaths took place are known. The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is something our society should never find out. ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) PETER D. WARD is a professor in the University of Washington's biology department and its earth and space sciences division, where he investigates both realms. His terrestrial research centers on ancient mass extinction events as well as the evolution and ultimate extinction of the nautiluslike marine animals known as ammonites, which he described in his first article for Scientific American in October 1983. Ward also applies principles gleaned from studying the earth's earliest life-forms to research for the NASA Astrobiology Institute into potential habitats for life elsewhere. He discussed those environments in an October 2001 Scientific American article, "Refuges for Life in a Hostile Universe," written with Guillermo Gonzalez and Donald Brownlee, as well as in a popular book co-authored with Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is So Uncommon in the Universe (Springer, 2000). -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Nad R wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: It's an issue not handled in the currect discussion. While the fact of global warming completely real it demonstrates that our current century is not the warmest of recent times. It demonstrates that the records cited do not go back as far as climate records in general. It also If there are no temperature records of the past, how do yo know that our century is not the warmest century in "human" history? demonstrates that degree of human causation is not the primary issue because humans have done fine in centuries past that were warmer than today. The primary issue is the social change triggered by climate change and what to do about it. The history of Greenland makes it clear that global warming has happened in the past without human input so it's not about that. A point that Nad R hasn't gotten. When has global warming happened in the past? See article reproduced in one of these posts. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...eID=00037A5 D -A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000 October 2006 Scientific American Magazine Impact from the Deep The planet has had ice ages due to volcanos and possible meteor impacts. When the dust settled, the earth returned to normal temperatures. Because the ice melted does not constitute a global warming, higher than normal temperature.. Note: "faith" means believing in something in which all the facts are not there. Ex: I have "faith"I will find that hot looking woman and have a happy life :) -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article
, Billy wrote: In article , Nad R wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: It's an issue not handled in the currect discussion. While the fact of global warming completely real it demonstrates that our current century is not the warmest of recent times. It demonstrates that the records cited do not go back as far as climate records in general. It also If there are no temperature records of the past, how do yo know that our century is not the warmest century in "human" history? Lipids in algae. Stay tuned. Rats! The article has to do with rainfall, not temps. But still, it is an interesting article that relates to gardening and agriculture. Scientific American March, 2011 A Shifting Band of Rain By mapping equatorial rainfall since A.D. 800, scientists have figured out how tropical weather may change through 2100 By Julian P. Sacks and Conor L. Myhrvold THE FIRST INDICATION THAT OUR EXPEDITION WAS NOT GOING AS PLANNED was the abrupt sputter and stop of the boat's inboard engine at 2 A.M. The sound of silence had never been less peaceful. Suddenly, crossing the open ocean in a small fishing vessel from the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific Ocean seemed an unwise choice. A journey to a scientific frontier had led us to a different frontier altogether, a vast darkness punctuated by the occasional lapping wave. We are climate scientists, and our voyage (which ended safely) was one of many intended to help us do what at first glance seems impossible: reconstruct rainfall history back in time, across an ocean. By tracing that history,we can gain a better understanding of how the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, rising air temperatures and changes in tropical precipitation are likely to alter future climate patterns. We have traveled far and wide to numerous islands across the Pacific Ocean. ----- IN BRIEF The tropical rain band that wraps the globe north of the equator migrates as atmospheric temperature changes, altering rainfall patterns worldwide. Data from sediments in Pacific island lakes show that the band is at 3°N to 10°N, as far north as it has ever been in the last 1,200 years. At current warming rates, the band could shift north by five degrees by 2100, drying out farmland for millions of people in Ecuador, Colombia, and elsewhere. Multiyear drought conditions in the southwest U.S. could persist as that area becomes more like the semiarid region of northern Mexico. ----- Some present-day climate patterns are well known, such as the El Nino and La Nina circulations in the Pacific. A lesser known but equally important pattern is the primary precipitation feature on the planet: a band of heavy rainfall that circles the globe in the tropics and migrates north or south seasonally with the angle of the sun. The area in which it moves is known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Any change in the earth's temperature, as a result of incoming solar radiation or greenhouse gases, can affect the rain band, which provides the precipitation that feeds equatorial agriculture. The band also plays a central role in the monsoons of Asia, Africa and India and the large convection cells that transport heat from the equator toward the poles. The frequency and intensity of El Nino and La Nina events and the strength and duration of hurricane seasons in the Pacific and Atlantic can all be influenced by variations in the band's position. Changes in rainfall resulting from a permanent shift of the band would dramatically alter the equatorial environment, with effects reaching worldwide. And we have good reason to believe the band is shifting. Until recently, climate scientists did not know whether the current annual range of the band's midline‹from 3°N to 10°N latitude over the Pacific Ocean‹was its historical range. But now field measurements from latitudes bracketing the ITCZ have allowed our colleagues and us to define how the band has moved over the past 1,200 years. A large shift of five degrees northward‹about 550 kilometers‹occurred from about 400 years ago until today. Discovery of that shift led us to a startling realization: small increases in the greenhouse effect can fundamentally alter tropical rainfall. We can now predict where the ITCZ will move through 2100 as the atmosphere warms further. We can also predict whether rainfall may rise or fall across the world's equatorial zones, the probable effects across higher latitudes in Asia, Central America and the U.S. southern tier, and what those changes might mean for weather and food production. Some places are likely to benefit, but many others, we fear, will face dry times. MEDIEVAL UNKNOWN UNTIL WE BEGAN mapping rainfall history, scientists had little data about where the ITCZ had been during the past millennium. The band hovers near the equator, but it can be tens or hundreds of kilometers wide, depending on local conditions and seasonal sunshine. Because the zone is highly pronounced over the Pacific, that region is ideal for tracking its movement. And because the rain band girds the earth, Pacific trends indicate global changes. Scientists can profile the sun's strength from isotopes such as carbon 14 in tree rings and beryllium 10 in ice cores and can reconstruct the historic profile of world-wide greenhouse gases from air bubbles trapped in tubular cores of ice extracted from polar regions. By comparing solar output and greenhouse gas levels with the ITCZ's position over centuries, we can infer how tropical rainfall might change in the 21st century in response to rising greenhouse gas emissions. Clever investigators have identified many different indicators of global temperature during the past millennium. Two periods stand out. Around A.D. 800, global temperatures were similar to those in the late 1800s. Temperatures then rose during the Medieval Warm Period (A.D.800 - 1200), reaching levels similar to 20th-century temperatures. They gradually settled and fell during the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1400-1850). In the past two decades the sun's output has remained essentially constant, yet both temperature and levels of carbon dioxide‹the most abundant manmade greenhouse gas‹have become significantly higher than at any point in the past 1,200 years. Atmospheric scientists knew few specifics about past tropical climate, however, when we began our work. Seafloor sediments, which can provide exquisite records of climate on multithousand-year timescales, accumulate too slowly to record much information about the past 1,000 years. Many corals produce annual bands, but the creatures rarely live longer than 300 years, providing no records from 300 to 1,000 years ago. Mapping rainfall would allow us to fill in the missing information about the ITCZ's position over the past millennium. Usually determining rainfall once it has hit the ocean is a lost cause. But small islands scattered across the Pacific have enclosed lakes and ponds that can reveal the history. In the past six years we have collected dozens of sediment cores from the bottoms of such waters in some of the most remote, exotic Pacific islands. The locations span a range of latitudes above, below and within the current band and fully across the Pacific. We can define where the rain band was during a given time period by pinpointing places that experienced intense rainfalls in that period at various latitudes. Simultaneous rainfall increases and decreases, northward or southward, indicate a common, oceanwide shift in the band. Fieldwork is an adventure fraught with setbacks, equipment issues, language barriers and difficulty getting to the sediment-coring locations. For example, by the time we arrived in the capital city of Majuro, the local airline, Air Marshall Islands (affectionately known to locals as "Air Maybe"), had two broken planes in its fleet of two. The two-day trip mentioned earlier to test a local entrepreneur's modified fishing boat that looked alarmingly unseaworthy ended when the engines died on our overnight return from a neighboring atoll. To retrieve an undisturbed sediment core, we push, pound and screw long tubes into a lake's bottom. Just about every site we have cored has a unique sediment sequence. Sometimes we find bright-red gelatinous layers several meters thick made up of cyanobacteria, as in the Washington Island lake. Other times the sediment is brown mud rich in hydrogen sulfide (read: it stinks!), containing mangrove leaf fragments and the occasional layer of bivalve shells, as in Palau. As we slog through mud on foot and row across shallow water, we push a long pole into the sediment to test depths and to see whether obstacles lurk. It is not unusual to abort a core attempt because it hits rocks, ancient coral, sand or roots. Because the rate of sediment deposition is highly variable, we do not know how deep we need to go. Generally speaking, one meter of sediment stretches back at least several hundred years: nine meters of sediment from Washington Island, for example, spanned 3,200 years. When possible, we try to hit "bedrock" at the bottom of a co deposited sand, coral or volcanic rock marking the time when the lake first began accumulating sediment, so that we can obtain the most complete record of the historical climate. THE SECRET LIES IN LIPIDS RECONSTRUCTING RAINFALL is our goal, but we have to measure the ecosystem's characteristics in the present climate to know what the same measurements of the past environment reveal about the past climate. We therefore collect water samples at different depths to determine the chemical composition and hydrogen isotope ratio of the water, as well as traits of the algal and microbial populations. We trap phytoplankton, zooplankton and microbes on fine, glass-fiber filters, then immediately store them on ice so we can later analyze their lipid composition. Vegetation samples are collected from the immediate vicinity to evaluate their lipids, too. After we carefully raise the cores out of the lake bottom, we have to get the samples back to the lab without disturbing the sediment. To avoid mixing a core's layers, we painstakingly "section" the uppermost sediments that are particularly soft into one-centimeter slices and store each slice in labeled plastic bags. Once we have sectioned cores on site, we journey back to Seattle to our lab at the University of Washington, hauling stacks of ice chests filled with sediment and water and long cardboard boxes filled with the segments of cores that did not require bagging. By measuring the two stable isotopes of hydrogen in the lipids of algae preserved in successively deeper layers of sediment, and dating the samples back in time, we can infer the amount of rainfall that occurred when the flora lived [see box on opposite page]. WET REGIONS BECOME DRY OVER SUCCESSIVE YEARS we have added more data to an increasingly accurate map thai pinpoints the ITCZ's historical locations, and we continually update it with our latest results. Although our findings from the most recent expedition‹to Kosrae in Micronesia‹will take a few more months to analyze, the results from many trips, : combined with data from colleagues, indicate that small changes in atmospheric heat were accompanied by large changes in tropical rainfall during the Little Ice Age, drying previously wet regions such as Palau and bringing abundant rain to previously arid regions such as the Galapagos Islands. When solar energy reaching the top of the atmosphere decreased by just two tenths of a percent for about 100 years, the ITCZ migrated south toward the equator by 500 kilometers. That sensitivity does not bode well for our future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that because of primarily tailpipe and smokestack emissions, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration will rise to double pre-industrial levels by mid-century and triple by 2100, causing an increase in atmospheric heating two to three times larger than changes that occurred at the end of the Little Ice Age from increased sunlight alone. During the Little Ice Age the rain band's midline remained south of 5°N. Today it hovers between 3°N and 10°N. Recent increases in greenhouse gases threaten to move the band's center another five degrees northward‹550 kilometers‹by 2100. This new location (8°N to 15°N) would significantly change the intensity of rainfall in many regions [see box on opposite page}. Evidence for potential changes comes from our findings on the islands. Washington Island, located at 5°N, now receives three meters of rain a year, but 400 years ago it received less than one meter of rain and experienced more intense evaporation. Conversely, the highlands of San Cristobal Island at 1°S in the desertlike Galapagos archipelago were substantially wetter during the Little Ice Age. Evidence from archaeologists is also helpful. They have concluded that on islands across Indonesia and the South Pacific, a marked increase in the construction of fortifications coincided with the last large southward shift in the ITCZ's position. The bulk of fortifications‹stone structures to fend off intrusions from neighboring societies‹were built from the onset to the end of the Little Ice Age. As the rain band moved south, islands left in its northern wake dried out, perhaps forcing inhabitants to flee to more southern islands, raising fears of invasion among local peoples there. Today desalination technology and shipping ease strict dependence on rainfall, but a move of the rain band five degrees further north would endanger the hundreds of millions of people who live near the equator and depend on subsistence agriculture, not to mention tropical biodiversity. Most nations in the current range are developing nations. They are likely to experience great population increases during this century and are unlikely to have the resources to successfully adapt. Rainfall declines, on one hand, and flooding, on the other, across decades or even a few years would reduce crop yields, leading to localized food shortages, political unrest and ultimately geographic displacement. Areas directly in the ITCZ for the first time (10°N to 15°N), such as El Salvador and Manila in the Philippines, would receive more rain annually and would become more humid. Regions no longer under the rain band's direct influence (3°N to 8°N) would receive less rain and become more arid. Whether this drying effect would be countered in certain places by the strength of the Asian and Indian monsoons is subject to debate. LESS COFFEE, FEWER BANANAS OVERALL, WET AREAS in northern Indonesia,Malaysia, the Philippines, Micronesia, Thailand and Cambodia would miss a good portion of the ITCZ rains they now receive. Crop varieties ideal for today's growing conditions would no longer thrive. For example, coffee plants, much like vineyards, need a lot of rain at the beginning of the growing season and require more than 1.8 meters in total to develop suitable beans. In Central America, Ecuador and Colombia would be left in the ITCZ's wake and become drier. Colombia's increased urbanization may help it cope because its economy is no longer as highly dependent on agriculture. Colombia, however, is the world's third-largest coffee producer, and as in Indonesia, less precipitation could affect long-term coffee yields. Most growing regions for the bean, which are below 8°N latitude, would likely suffer by the mid- to late 21st century. Productive areas in the south and along the coast are most at risk because they will be the farthest from the rain band. The future of Ecuador's banana industry may be bleak. Good bananas require warm temperatures and 2 to 2.5 meters of annual rainfall, but Ecuador is already well below the current ITCZ and barely meeting the minimum precipitation threshold. A shift would likely decrease rainfall to a meter a year or less by 2100, shutting down the country's banana industry. A large drop in banana yield can happen quite fast. In the Philippines at the beginning of 2010, roughly half of the plantations produced small and underweight bananas that were useless commercially, because of an abnormal dry season. Subsistence agriculture would also be affected in all the aforementioned locations. Even if people gravitate toward cities, a lack of regional food sources is a recipe for disaster. If the band continues migrating north at the average rate it has been over the past 400 years, substantial rainfall changes in the continental U.S. are likely, too. Some changes may have already begun. The south-western U.S. is enduring a severe multiyear drought that is likely to represent the new normal pattern in the 21st century should greenhouse gas levels continue to rise apace. Higher temperatures, and a continuing northward shift of the rain band, threaten to shift the subtropical dry zone that lies to its north, which currently stretches across northern Mexico, into this part of the country. Scientists are unclear whether a northward shift would affect the frequency or size of hurricanes or monsoons. We also have yet to determine any possible effects on the patterns of El Nino and La Nina. BETTER MODELS COMING MORE WORK needs to be done before alarm bells can be sounded with confidence. Computer-based climate models have not accurately reproduced past and present rainfall patterns in the tropics. If modelers can use data from sediment cores and other sources to produce patterns that more closely approximate those that are known, the world could have greater confidence in their projections of future rainfall. This type of experiment is being pursued by our colleagues at the University of Washington and elsewhere. We will continue to study sediments from tropical islands in the ITCZ, and to its north and south, to more precisely define the rain band's position throughout the past millennium and to predict where it will be in generations to come. MORE TO EXPLORE : Proxy-Based Reconstructions of Hemispheric and Global Surface Temperature Variations over the Past Two Millennia. Michael E. Mann et al. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 105, No. 36, pages 13252-13257; September 2,2008. Southward Movement of the Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone AD 1400-1850. Julian P. Sachs et al. in Nature Geoscience, Vol. 2, No. 7, pages 519-525; July 2009. Paleoclimates and the Emergence of Fortifications in the Tropical Pacific Islands. Julie S. Field and Peter V. Lape in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol. 29, No. 1, pages 113-124; March 2010. Paleoclimate research at the Sachs Lab: http://faculty.washington.edu/jsachs Illustration by George Retseck (globes) and Jen Christiansen (graph) -- Algae: Rain Gauge of the Ages Algae obtain all their hydrogen from the water in which they live. By measuring the two stable isotopes of hydrogen‹deuterium and protium‹in the lipids of algae that are preserved in sediment underneath tropical lakes, we can infer the amount of rainfall that occurred when they lived. The deuterium/protium (D/H) ratio of many algae has a linear relation with the D/H ratio of the water. The water ratio, in turn, reflects the rate of precipitation relative to evaporation in a lake's area. Within the tropical rain band region, where rainfall is frequent and heavy, the D/H ratio of lake and seawater is low. Outside the region, where evaporation can exceed precipitation, the D/H ratio is high. So we can use the varying D/H ratios of algal lipids found deeper and deeper in sediment to infer past rainfall. Fortunately for us, algae also adjust the D/H ratio of their lipids in response to salinity. Special conditions on Christmas Island created a natural experiment for us to calibrate this response. The island hosts a series of ponds that have similar temperatures, light levels, nutrient levels and water D/H ratios, yet they differ widely in their salinities. We found that as the salinity increased so did the D/H ratio of lipids produced by cyanobacteria, in a linear fashion. Because the salinity of sal****er ponds decreases when rain is abundant and increases when it is dry, the salinity effect on lipid D/H acts in the same direction as the rainfall amount effect, making lipid D/H ratios sensitive gauges of hydrologic change. These results, alone, are like geeks at the prom: they need dates! A sediment's age is determined by two radioactive isotopes, carbon 14 and lead 210, which have half-lives of 5,730 and 22.3 years, respectively. By comparing the hydrogen isotope ratios at various dates, we have reconstructed the series of precipitation changes going back 1,200 years. ‹J.P.S. and C.LM. demonstrates that degree of human causation is not the primary issue because humans have done fine in centuries past that were warmer than today. The primary issue is the social change triggered by climate change and what to do about it. The history of Greenland makes it clear that global warming has happened in the past without human input so it's not about that. A point that Nad R hasn't gotten. When has global warming happened in the past? The planet has had ice ages due to volcanos and possible meteor impacts. When the dust settled, the earth returned to normal temperatures. Because the ice melted does not constitute a global warming, higher than normal temperature.. Note: "faith" means believing in something in which all the facts are not there. Ex: I have "faith"I will find that hot looking woman and have a happy life :) -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Nad R wrote: In my argumentation I think I stated in the last millennia, one thousand years, global warming was not to be found. I admit millions of years ago global warming occurred as the earth was still forming and dinosaurs were roaming around. Doug was indicating in recent history of the "recent" ice ages was followed by global warming a higher than normal temperature. I view which I reject. Also to me, "facts are not all there" seems to have the same meaning as "absence of objective proof". Are we going to be splitting hairs over this seemingly same definition :) To my ear "facts are not all there" implies the existence of facts not put into evidence. The last "ice age" (not counting the movie) was 11,000 years ago. We are in an "inter glacial period at present (The Holocene). The "mini ice age" from 1000 CE to 1450 CE was a small change unless you lived in Iceland, where even the Inuit were having a hard time of it. -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
Billy wrote:
In article , Nad R wrote: In my argumentation I think I stated in the last millennia, one thousand years, global warming was not to be found. I admit millions of years ago global warming occurred as the earth was still forming and dinosaurs were roaming around. Doug was indicating in recent history of the "recent" ice ages was followed by global warming a higher than normal temperature. I view which I reject. Also to me, "facts are not all there" seems to have the same meaning as "absence of objective proof". Are we going to be splitting hairs over this seemingly same definition :) To my ear "facts are not all there" implies the existence of facts not put into evidence. Correct! in my book of philosophy. I believe in evolution of man even though all the facts are not there. Someday the facts may be there. If a system has contradictions I will dismiss the theory as false. I believe all religions have contradictions therefore a false belief. I know for others, contradictions in a belief system does not matter. The last "ice age" (not counting the movie) was 11,000 years ago. We are in an "inter glacial period at present (The Holocene). The "mini ice age" from 1000 CE to 1450 CE was a small change unless you lived in Iceland, where even the Inuit were having a hard time of it. I am not positive however I am not sure but was the ice age, 11,000 years ago caused by a super volcano or meteor impact, rather than the Sun. I am fairly certain the mini ice ages was caused by volcanos. I know the sun has a cycle every eleven years for sun spots. Not sure about long term temperatures. The earths magnetic field can flip flop changing the environment, but no sure about its effect on temperature. I imagine when the Sun turns into a red giant in a billion years the Earth will warm up a whole lot. Garden center today had some great spring sales today, free hotdogs, donuts and coffee. Soon to enjoyment comes. -- Enjoy Life... Nad R (Garden in zone 5a Michigan) |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote: Nad R wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: It's an issue not handled in the currect discussion. While the fact of global warming completely real it demonstrates that our current century is not the warmest of recent times. It demonstrates that the records cited do not go back as far as climate records in general. It also If there are no temperature records of the past, how do yo know that our century is not the warmest century in "human" history? There are types of records other than direct temperature measurements. Grazing cattle in the Greenland colony is one such measurement. We still can not graze cattle on Greenland therefore the claim that this is the warmest century in the last ten is a weak assertion. The primary issue is the social change triggered by climate change and what to do about it ... A point that Nad R hasn't gotten. That I object to the socialists claiming the topic as theirs and then proceeding to push their agenda based on that claim. I don't buy that the socialist approach is the right way to go. It's not like that approach worked well in the Soviet Union. Huh? Socialists?? Where did this come from? What agenda? What socialist approach? What has it to do with the Soviet Union? Global warming and cooling can be is real quite independent of human causation. What to do about it and how to go about it matters. For example, not trying again that which failed in the Soviet Union matters. How did the freakin' USSR get dragged into this? I do not think that taking the Soviet approach is the way to go. Has someone been tampering with your food, Doug? That's not about whether global warming is human caused or not. Who said differently? That's about how to react to global warming irrespective of causation. I think this is my main disagreement with Billy - He favors the socialist approach without explaining why since it failed for the Soviets we should try it again now. Bill's approach: reduce CO2 emissions. This is a socialist approach that failed in the USSR? Please, tell me more. When has global warming happened in the past? I already mentioned the Medival warming via the Greenland colony. I will also mention the "Little Ice Age" of the 1300s that killed the Greenland colony and the 1st century AD examples of Caesar Marcus Antonius Aurelius marching his legionary vexellations across the Danube without a bridge to rush to fight against the Panonian revolt. To have two such centuries of global cooling implies at least one more century of global warming before 1000 AD on some sort of human written record that does predate the invention of the thermometer. The planet has had ice ages due to volcanos and possible meteor impacts. When the dust settled, the earth returned to normal temperatures. Because the ice melted does not constitute a global warming, higher than normal temperature.. For the last million years the planet has alternated between warm periods and ice ages. The causes have been more than volcanoes. There is variation in the orbital elipse (greater eccetricity gives harsher winters). There is precession of the equinoxes relative to the orbital elipse (axis aligned with the eccentricity gives wider range of seasons). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing There are cycles of variation in total solar output that have more effect than orbit/spin interaction. And now there are greenhouse gases from human activity. Remember that under 50 years ago projections of the ice age estimates suggested that the next ice age could start in this century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling In the 1970s there was increasing awareness that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945. Of those scientific papers considering climate trends over the 21st century, only 10% inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming.[2] The general public had little awareness of carbon dioxide's effects on climate, but Science News in May 1959 forecast a 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000, with a consequent warming trend.[3] The actual increase in this period was 29%. That the science has changed so in my lifetime tells me it's current projections remain tentative not certain. To someone 20 the projections have not changed in their lifetime. I've also read of very many scientific revolutions across history and the current science remains tentative to me. In the atomic theory of chemistry we now have photographs of atoms. In the genetic/evolutionary theory of biology we now have genetic engineering. In climatology we have a growing database and a concensus among scientists that is new in the last several decades. That's a big difference in uncertainty. We should act like it. Including the parts that are definitely certain like the CO2 release into the atmosphere being huge compared to other eras. Including the fact that the soviet socialist approach has already been shown a failure. Is the "soviet socialist approach" just "filler" for a sentence devoid of content? Current concensus of scientists is the best data we have but it is a concensus. It doesn't have its equivalent of photographs of individual atoms or Xray crystalography showing the spiral structure of DNA. Which themselves aren't pictures in the normal sense of the word, but analogical representations of reality. It simply means that any mathematical representation would have to account for certain, measured eccentricities. A cautious approach that acknowledges this difference in quality is not the same as a denial based on religious nonsense. A conservative approach that remembers the fall of the Soviet Union under socialism is not the same as jumping into socialism control because it feels good to be doing something, anything. Dougie wanna cracker? I'm sure that "socialism" holds some sort of implied meaning for you besides the stated dictionary definition: socialism noun a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned OR regulated by the community as a whole. Our entry into our latest wars wasn't regulated, it was staged. Our biggest oil spill avoided environmental regulations. The economic mugging of America, was caused by de-regulation. So your a neo-liberal then? Nothing should interfere with profits? Not even democracy? An understanding that climate change need not be the actual motivation of politicians but rather their leverage to get power is not denial. Power, to what end? To make this a better world for myself and my neighbors, or greed? Plant bushes. Install solar cells. Compost. And while individual free-market environmentalists plant bushes and trees, install solar cells and wind generator, and compost, free-market power producers produce low cost energy from fossil fuel. Low cost if you don't count the social cost of remediation of the atmosphere, and water, not to mention eco-nuclear and containing radioactive releases. It's called privatizing the profits and socializing the costs, here in the best of all possible neo-liberal worlds. Reducing CO2 emissions, painting roofs white, and burying charcoal, aren't political acts but attempts at survival. Can you back-up, and approach "Global Warming" without the political baggage? If you like weekends (40 hr/5 day weeks), thank a union. === -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Bill who putters wrote: In article , Billy wrote: Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. - Orson Scott Card My new signature thank you. Bill who has about 20 F. low for four more nights before a break. 40 F. high right now. Started some caladiums this morning. Aren't you supposed to mark the topic OT when you talk about gardening? ;O)) How far are you from North Carolina where the Cook is in full gardening mode? Seems very strange. My tomatoes have stuck their little dicots out. The second round of peas are starting to show themselves and the Romanesco broccoli is stretching for the grow lights. If you like weekends, thank a union. === -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Nad R wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: There are types of records other than direct temperature measurements. Grazing cattle in the Greenland colony is one such measurement. We still can not graze cattle on Greenland therefore the claim that this is the warmest century in the last ten is a weak assertion. If it is a "week" assertion, then you also cannot state that this is century is not the warmest. This century could be the warmest in a million years. I doubt cattle grazing has been going on for more that a millennia or a good measure of past temperature recordings. That I object to the socialists claiming the topic as theirs and then proceeding to push their agenda based on that claim. I don't buy that the socialist approach is the right way to go. It's not like that approach worked well in the Soviet Union. Global warming is real quite independent of human causation. What to do about it and how to go about it matters. For example, not trying again that which failed in the Soviet Union matters. I do not think that taking the Soviet approach is the way to go. That's not about whether global warming is human caused or not. That's about how to react to global warming irrespective of causation. I think this is my main disagreement with Billy - He favors the socialist approach without explaining why since it failed for the Soviets we should try it again now. I also object that Ultra Right Wing Capitalist claiming the global warming is not man made. That political view is a two way street. Let face it, your belief is on a God, not science. If your wrong and the human race continues on it's reckless path the earth will be very uncomfortable place to live for short term gains. If global warming is not man made what harm is implementing a policy of reducing CO2 and the human population. I think there should be a balance between humans and nature vs destroying nature at a breakneck pace to support a growing population that will consume more and more resources. without a bridge to rush to fight against the Panonian revolt. To have two such centuries of global cooling implies at least one more century of global warming before 1000 AD on some sort of human written record that does predate the invention of the thermometer. I disagree with your presuppositions that global cooling is preceded by a global warming. Their are cooling temperatures in the past followed by normal temperatures. NOT above normal temperatures like today's time. more effect than orbit/spin interaction. And now there are greenhouse gases from human activity. Yes! "And now there are greenhouse gases from human activity". Thank for confirming that global warming ( Greenhouse Gasses ) from human activities. A cautious approach that acknowledges this difference in quality is not the same as a denial based on religious nonsense. A conservative approach that remembers the fall of the Soviet Union under socialism is not the same as jumping into socialism control because it feels good to be doing something, anything. An understanding that climate change need not be the actual motivation of politicians but rather their leverage to get power is not denial. Plant bushes. Install solar cells. Compost. If I understand this correctly, you think that Climate Change is a socialist plot to be used for political power? If so you have have really really gone off the deep end of the Glen Beck World of grand delusions. Yea I half read "Collapse", some of which has interesting theories. But I do not buy it completely. This video may be of some interest here. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ja..._collapse.html Societies failed because dogma outweighed objective assessment. -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote: Nad R wrote: If I understand this correctly, you think that Climate Change is a socialist plot to be used for political power? It is clear you have not read any of my posts. Thanks for the clarification on the point that you can't tell effect from cause What are you referring to here? and that you do not believe that someone can attach to an idea and use it for their own ends that don't have anything to do with that idea. Oh, come on, Doug. This is an ad hominem attack, that doesn't address Climate Change. And yet you report that you were raised by fundies who use exactly that strategem. You're losing me too, Doug. Instead of attacking, perhaps you could clarify, and refrain from attacks. -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
Nad R wrote:
Billy wrote: In article , Nad R wrote: In my argumentation I think I stated in the last millennia, one thousand years, global warming was not to be found. I admit millions of years ago global warming occurred as the earth was still forming and dinosaurs were roaming around. Doug was indicating in recent history of the "recent" ice ages was followed by global warming a higher than normal temperature. I view which I reject. Also to me, "facts are not all there" seems to have the same meaning as "absence of objective proof". Are we going to be splitting hairs over this seemingly same definition :) To my ear "facts are not all there" implies the existence of facts not put into evidence. Correct! in my book of philosophy. I believe in evolution of man even though all the facts are not there. Someday the facts may be there. If a system has contradictions I will dismiss the theory as false. I believe all religions have contradictions therefore a false belief. I know for others, contradictions in a belief system does not matter. The last "ice age" (not counting the movie) was 11,000 years ago. We are in an "inter glacial period at present (The Holocene). The "mini ice age" from 1000 CE to 1450 CE was a small change unless you lived in Iceland, where even the Inuit were having a hard time of it. I am not positive however I am not sure but was the ice age, 11,000 years ago caused by a super volcano or meteor impact, rather than the Sun. I am fairly certain the mini ice ages was caused by volcanos. I know the sun has a cycle every eleven years for sun spots. Not sure about long term temperatures. The earths magnetic field can flip flop changing the environment, but no sure about its effect on temperature. I imagine when the Sun turns into a red giant in a billion years the Earth will warm up a whole lot. Garden center today had some great spring sales today, free hotdogs, donuts and coffee. Soon to enjoyment comes. I was very tired when I wrote that last posting. I am going to take a nap and hope the fogginess of the mind goes away. It was a bit gibberish. -- Enjoy Life... Nad R (Garden in zone 5a Michigan) |
On Microclimates
Billy wrote:
In article , Doug Freyburger wrote: Nad R wrote: If I understand this correctly, you think that Climate Change is a socialist plot to be used for political power? It is clear you have not read any of my posts. Thanks for the clarification on the point that you can't tell effect from cause What are you referring to here? and that you do not believe that someone can attach to an idea and use it for their own ends that don't have anything to do with that idea. Oh, come on, Doug. This is an ad hominem attack, that doesn't address Climate Change. And yet you report that you were raised by fundies who use exactly that strategem. You're losing me too, Doug. Instead of attacking, perhaps you could clarify, and refrain from attacks. Billy, are you changing your opinion about Doug being a good guy? From his postings, he sounds just like my family members. One has to dig a little deeper to reveal his true intentions on the environment of the planet earth. If Doug had anything to with the construction or inspections of California's Nuclear Power Plants, I would be moving out of that state :) -- Enjoy Life... Nad R (Garden in zone 5a Michigan) |
On Microclimates
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote: Nad R wrote: Doug Freyburger wrote: It is clear you have not read any of my posts. Take a look at your last posting. I will use smaller sentences. This fit of pique is unworthy of you. Sequence one. 1) Per geology life thrives in warm climates. 2) Per archeology humans thrive in warm climates. 3) The cause is irrelevant given those two points. 4) Because global warming should be beneficial what's the fuss about? You know that the above are easily picked apart. Sequence two. 1) So scare mongers must do it for other reasons. 2) Scare mongers must not care about the actual topic. 3) Scare mongers tend to be collectivists. Citation please. 4) Collectivists tend to dislike capitalists. Qualified sentence. Doesn't show relationship. 5) So scare mongers are using the topic in a political campaign. I agree, but not in environmentalism. Follow the money. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...ism/dp/0312427 999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300208360&sr=1-1 Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans...lism/dp/B001P3 OMQY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301174163&sr=1-1 "A well-researched and readable case against free-trade orthodoxy." --Business Week "A lively addition to the protectionist side of the debate...well written and far more serious than most anti-globalization gibberish." -- New York Sun "Bookstore shelves are loaded with offerings by economists and commentators seeking to explain, in accessible prose, why free-trade-style globalization is desirable and even indispensable for countries the world over. Now comes the best riposte from the critics that I have seen. Readers who are leery of open-market orthodoxy will rejoice at the cogency of Bad Samaritans. Ha-Joon Chang has the credentials -- he's on the economics faculty at Cambridge University -- and the storytelling skill to make a well-informed, engaging case against the dogma propagated by globalization's cheerleaders. Believers in free trade will find that the book forces them to recalibrate and maybe even backpedal a bit....Chang's book deserves a wide readership for illuminating the need for humility about the virtues of private markets and free trade, especially in the developing world." --Paul Blustein, Washington Post "Lucid, deeply informed, and enlivened with striking illustrations, this penetrating study could be entitled "economics in the real world." Chang reveals the yawning gap between standard doctrines concerning economic development and what really has taken place from the origins of the industrial revolution until today. His incisive analysis shows how, and why, prescriptions based on reigning doctrines have caused severe harm, particularly to the most vulnerable and defenseless, and are likely to continue to do so. He goes on to provide sensible and constructive proposals, solidly based on economic theory and historical evidence, as to how the global economy could be redesigned to proceed on a far more humane and civilized course. And his warnings of what might happen if corrective action is not taken are grim and apt." - Noam Chomsky "A smart, lively, and provocative book that offers us compelling new ways of looking at globalization." --Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics (Available at better libraries near you.) Sequence three. 1) Global warming is real. 2) Human causation is a matter of recent concensus. What do you call recent? What do you call concensus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling 3) Across history, recent concensus in science has often been wrong. Across history, recent concensus in science has often offended dogma. 4) Why care since the predicted result is beneficial? The truth, or its best estimate, is always important. Sequence four. 1) Fossil fuel is limited. 2) Green power includes wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear. Make an argument. What we've had so (nuclear ) far isn't "Green". 3) Wind is expensive but dropping slowly in price. 4) Solar is expensive but on an exponential curve. Ask the Japanese about how expensive nuclear is. 5) Exponential curves can have good results, just not today. Planting a garden is good. It just won't feed you on the day that you plant it. 6) The installed base of hydroelectric is nearing the maximum. Happily, tidal action can be harnessed without harm to fishees. 7) Hydroelectric damages cute edible fishees. 8) Nuclear is politically unpopular. You mean that those who may be affected by it, don't want it. 9) That's yet another sign the scare mongers aren't honest about their goals. Spell it out, would you, please. 10) Developing green sources is still good because fossil fuel is limited. Developing green (sustainable) sources is good in any event. Conclusion. It's not about what you claim it's about. So you make up stuff about what my stance is. We have a problem, let's just address the problem and not go psychoanalytical on it. -- --------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw |
On Microclimates
In article
, Bill who has about 20 F. low for four more nights before a break. 40 F. high right now. Started some caladiums this morning. Aren't you supposed to mark the topic OT when you talk about gardening? ;O)) How far are you from North Carolina where the Cook is in full gardening mode? Seems very strange. Last night here it was 20 F. and in Raleigh it was 41 F. for a low. We are in winter. Distance I'd guess about 600 miles. My tomatoes have stuck their little dicots out. The second round of peas are starting to show themselves and the Romanesco broccoli is stretching for the grow lights. I plan to plant late as a general rule as I have light issues aka tree work in the next two months. Trying to enhance the microclimate. -- Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. - Orson Scott Card |
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