[geeks] Global Warming causes...

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Dec 2, 2007, at 12:22 AM, wa2egp at att.net wrote:

>> Consensus via news media or published articles is a popularity
>> contest, not a metric.
>
> Then what is?  How about peer-reviewed published articles?  Or
> do we just make up whatever we want?

I talked to guys really working on it myself, and they didn't agree  
with what is said here.

They basically said we are so painfully ignorant right now, there  
isn't much that can be said with authority.

They also said we are wasting time on how and now putting effort into  
planning what to do about both warming and cooling, and a few dozen  
other thing which increase in magnitude as our civilization and  
population increase.

>> I used to work in an atmospheric research data center, and I read a
>> lot of the publish reports.
>
> I doubt you read them all.  Your sample may be selective.

There's not much need to read them all, since the computer prints  
summaries.

>> There was no consensus at all, and a good number of them reported
>> cosmic radiation, natural disasters, and orbit variation as larger
>> factors in global temperature.
>
> Explain how.  Maybe some of those might be bogus alternative  
> explanations
> which have been shown to be just that.

No, they are facts.  You can track rather extensively the immediate  
effects of forest fires, thermal venting, volcanos, etc.  The long  
term effects, we really have no solid idea.

Right now the computational power to sift through the data we already  
have is not there.

We collect data at a rate many times greater than we can process it.

We can't even monitor a large storm accurately yet.

> Cosmic radiation (what type, I
> don't know) sounds a little far fetched.

Why does something we've been measuring for decades sound far fetched?

I was going to mention changes in sun activity too, but I guess that  
is far fetched also.

> Orbital variation should have
> been noticed by astronomers, even subtle ones.

When did I say it was not noticed?  We've known about it for  
centuries, and it does affect our weather and climate.

> I don't know what natural
> disasters that would have happened more in the last hundred years than
> before.  I find that unlikely.

I said nothing about them happening more recently, so I don't know  
what you are driving at here.

My only point is that their output is far greater than our own, so  
slight variations in them have a measurable effect.

>> The main reason you don't hear about those other factors is that they
>> are not popular.  They don't sell ads, they aren't boogymen, they  
>> have
>> no emotional appeal, and it requires real work rather than knee jerk
>> reactionism to cope with it.
>
> Or maybe they were found to be flawed.

No, those are well worn paths, not new theories.

It is a fact that we focus on humanity rather than nature.  We do it  
in news, in our fears, in discussions, in politics, and in our  
reactions.

If we did it, then it is easy to point at everyone and say, "You gotta  
stop!"

If it is something out of our control, we quickly lose interest  
because at present, there is usually little we can do about it.

>> People like to focus on things where they can say, "Let's fix it."
>>
>> Factors out of our control, we aren't as willing to talk about.
>>
>> In the end, we do precious little about either.
>
> Hmmmm...I thought we managed to head off the ozone layer problem
> before it got too far along.

Incorrect.

Right now, ozone continues to deplete.  Some people think it is  
slowing, but not long after the last report, it was shown to be  
increasing again.

Ozone has a long life, and the estimation is that it will take around  
100 years before man-made ultraviolate catalyzed gases leave the upper  
atmosphere.  That means around 50 years before we know if reduction of  
CFCs is working, 100 to be certain.

Stratospheric air currents can also cause ozone holes, move man-made  
gasses around, etc, making it difficult to monitor exactly.

But the primary problem is just that it is going to take a long time  
before what we generated is gone.

Also, CFCs are a very special case where we happened upon a compound  
that has a very easily catalyzed reaction far in excess of what is  
natural.

We were able to cause a reaction about 7 times greater than what is  
natural.

The opposite is true with pollution, with mankind being a tiny  
fraction of the whole.

On the plus side, reducing pollution usually produces results faster.

In mountain valleys were factories were cleaned up in the 70s, they  
are already back to normal, so we didn't need to wait very long for  
confirmation or the benefits.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is busy doing now what we did  
back in the 40s-70s.

More importantly, they don't have the money we do for cleaning it up,  
which means even if they stop, it will likely sit for long periods of  
time unless someone helps them out.



-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."