WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Theo520
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
weller2 said:
There’s a problem though:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/fitzpatrickgraph1.png

If atmospheric CO2 increases less than emissions, then the excess CO2 must be going somewhere. If, for example, it is going into the ocean, then it is contributing to ocean acidification, which is also not good. More to the point however, if emissions continue to increase exponentially, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the sink we are talking about will be continue to accept increased CO2 forever.
Click to expand...
Or the more logical explanation is Co2 emissions don’t cause the atmosphere to warm
 
estesbob said:
NOAA: 1695 Low Max Records Broken or Tied From Sept 11 to Sept 20. One record broken by 25F

climatedepot.com/2014/09/27/noaa-1695-low-max-records-broken-or-tied-from-sept-11-to-sept-20-one-record-broken-by-25f/
Click to expand...
If true (and I really believe it could be), those could be ominous stats supporting growing research on GW contributing to greater more stationary Rossby waves (negative arctic oscillations, Nor’easters, Polar Express…) in which the weather pattern goes from a more strictly west-to-east to a north-to-south pattern, bringing colder weather down south and warmer weather up in the arctic (melting the permafrost, etc).

The science on that is still cutting edge, beginning to become robust, but I’ve been watching it like a hawk for nearly 10 years bec we live in an area, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, that only occasionally gets killing freezes – like about every 5 to 7 years – when our tropic plants either die or die back and our winter veggie gardens are destroyed (we can’t grow in the summer bec it is too hot). When we moved here in 2002, I thought, well one thing good about AGW is we won’t get as many killing freezes, but the opposite happened and I’ve been looking into the research ever since.

Here’s a recent animation of those waves:
http://squall.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_atl_loop.gif

Here’s some info on it:
 
weller2 said:
Well, that was of course assuming that the current allocation of labor is optimal. If you can increase farming area without increasing employment, it means that your business is run in a sub-optimal way, because you could as well decrease employment and cut costs. Saying that you could increase farming area 10-fold without increasing employment is the same as saying that the farming sector is overstaffed by the factor of 10. While it probably is indeed overstafffed (i.e. one farmer runs a farm which only takes 0.5 farmers to run) it is unlikely that it is overstaffed at such proportions you assert.

There’s also a “small” problem that global warming will cause the price of arable land to increase. Arguably, this is already happening, with e.g. China purchasing large amounts of land abroad.

Labor aside, the point about increasing share of agriculture in Canadian’s GDP still stands though. If your agriculture is now responsible for 50% of GDP, then you are no longer an industrialized country.
Click to expand...
I did not say one could expand a farm without limit without increasing labor (name removed by moderator)uts; only that it’s not proportional.

But I don’t think you understand farming or ranching, either one. The smaller the farm, the more labor intensive per acre it is. The larger the farm, the more labor replacements one can employ.

Sure, small farms are relatively inefficient given modern methods, which is why one could make a good living on 100 acres 100 years ago, but can’t do it today unless it’s a very high intensity farming of a very expensive product. Ginseng, for instance, comes to mind, but it’s a devil to grow. Commodity products like corn or wheat are not sufficiently expensive to support a person on 100 acres. 100 years ago, they were.

The price of arable land has gone up a great deal in the last 20 years, or even in the last 10 years, but not because of global warming. There are a number of factors responsible for that.

Industrial countries also employ “industrial” agricultural methods to maximize output. Non-industrial countries employ muscle power for subsistence agriculture.
 
weller2 said:
There’s a problem though:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/fitzpatrickgraph1.png

If atmospheric CO2 increases less than emissions, then the excess CO2 must be going somewhere. If, for example, it is going into the ocean, then it is contributing to ocean acidification, which is also not good. More to the point however, if emissions continue to increase exponentially, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the sink we are talking about will be continue to accept increased CO2 forever.
Click to expand...
Could there not also be a feedback loop here of CO2 causing the growth of more vegetation world wide? And that causes the increased CO2 to not show up by devouring it?
 
RGCheek said:
Could there not also be a feedback loop here of CO2 causing the growth of more vegetation world wide? And that causes the increased CO2 to not show up by devouring it?
Click to expand...
I doubt anybody takes account of the reduced CO2 consumption by plant life due to manmade desertification, which is huge.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I doubt anybody takes account of the reduced CO2 consumption by plant life due to manmade desertification, which is huge.
Click to expand...
That is a good point. What are the economic costs of reversing desertification? Since you are close to farming you probably know better than most, so enlighten us. My thought, being not very close to farming, is that at least with CO2 emissions, the major emissions sources are point sources (power plants) and can be addressed intensively. But with reversing desertification, one must replant wide areas and make whatever other changes are required for the new plants to grow. It probably can be done fairly easily if we make small changes and let those changes propagate for centuries. But if you wanted to reverse desertification quickly, that sounds very expensive.
 
weller2 said:
There’s a problem though:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/fitzpatrickgraph1.png

If atmospheric CO2 increases less than emissions, then the excess CO2 must be going somewhere. If, for example, it is going into the ocean, then it is contributing to ocean acidification, which is also not good. More to the point however, if emissions continue to increase exponentially, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the sink we are talking about will be continue to accept increased CO2 forever.
Click to expand...
The problem seems to be that even you don’t agree with you. You claimed earlier (#459) that: "the amount of anthropogenic CO2* in the atmosphere** must also double every 20 years." *yet this chart you helpfully provided shows nothing like that. First it was the excess heat that was missing and now it is the CO2 that is missing. I would say this suggests a weak understanding of the processes involved, but the point seems too obvious to belabor.

When the facts contradict the theory I take it as an indication that the problem lies with the theory.

Ender
 
LeafByNiggle said:
That is a good point. What are the economic costs of reversing desertification? Since you are close to farming you probably know better than most, so enlighten us. My thought, being not very close to farming, is that at least with CO2 emissions, the major emissions sources are point sources (power plants) and can be addressed intensively. But with reversing desertification, one must replant wide areas and make whatever other changes are required for the new plants to grow. It probably can be done fairly easily if we make small changes and let those changes propagate for centuries. But if you wanted to reverse desertification quickly, that sounds very expensive.
Click to expand...
It would vary from place to place.

I don’t know, for example, what can be grown in north China, or how quickly it can be done in the various ecosystems there. But there’s always a way to do it. Most grasslands, for example, get desertified by cutting or cropping grasses so close they don’t have enough blade surface for adequate photosynthesis. Desertification cascades from there. If they can photosynthesize adequately and if the detritus is allowed to degrade biologically, they’ll rebuild soil. Most soil is nothing in the world but rock dust mixed with organic material of biologic origin. In a way, you’re “mixing the rock with sunlight”.

In an area like the one in which I live, (classified “humid subtropical” but close to the northern edge of that zone), I could tell you easily enough. It isn’t horribly expensive, and a couple of years can make dramatic results. Even if there’s no humus at all, and it’s just bare clay, you can do it. I would do it with a combination of a soil-building grass variety and a nitrogen-fixing legume. If there’s no humus at all and it’s all bare clay, I would harrow in manure with a disc harrow or feed cattle with hay in the location during the winter and no-till in the late winter, taking the animals off until at least late May; maybe not until fall. I would bring the soil to “soil test”. But always, my two central objectives would be soil building and moisture retention. My fundamental methods would be encouraging photosynthesis and returning organic material generated by it to the soil.

In a somewhat droughty place, I would probably also plant trees that cast filtered shade from the western sun along borders. In my area, it would be mostly black walnuts and shortleaf pine. Two years of close attention will restore almost anything here if you provide a minimum of fertility initially, allow photosynthesis sufficient to build good root systems and ensure that the detritus (seed stems, old grass) get stomped to the ground by hooved animals. Organic material of biologic origin holds moisture remarkably well.

On an extremely droughty, shaley surface that’s west-facing, I would plant shortleaf pine and white oaks, and leave it for the wild animals and “volunteer” woody species like wild cherry, redbud, persimmon and dogwood to live in. Eventually, they’ll create humus and trap moisture, but I would still leave it to the woody species, allowing a very little cattle intrusion once/year to clean up low-lying shrubs and deposit a little manure. (Wild blueberries and other fruiting plants like that manure, wild animals like the fruit, generate manure, die, return to the soil, etc, etc)

In the less humid southwest, I understand, reversing it would probably take a lot more, including very major root plowing and herbicides, in order to get rid of the mesquite and prickly pear that infests so much of it but leaves so much of the ground uncovered.

There’s always a way. It just has to be the right one in the right place.

In places like the Sahara, there probably isn’t a way. I’m talking about the places that have been desertified by man, and those areas are huge.
 
Theo520 said:
Just stop spreading your BS.
Satellites allow objective measurements
Satellites show the earth is getting greener

Carbon emissions helping to make Earth greener
Click to expand...
No reason to be personally insulting about it.

There are plenty of articles citing increased desertification worldwide. Just google "desertification in (fill in the blank) and you’ll see.

Your article, by way of example, expresses ambivalence concerning whether CO2 has any effect on what they think of as “greening” at the edges of deserts. They don’t know, and admit they don’t know. One would think (and hope) increased CO2 has a beneficial effect. But land restoration is not entirely dependent on CO2 or rainfall, either one. Nor is all “greening” beneficial. If, for example, it’s all warm season weeds or prickly pear, it will “green up” the land, but it’s just another phase in desertification. What are the grazing patterns there? Your article doesn’t address that.

Most definitely your article does not lay a foundational basis to accuse another of “spreading BS”. Uncharitable expression does not establish the legitimacy of one’s point of view.
 
gilliam said:
From the blog Bob cited:

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Sept 13 2014 – New All Time Record (well at least for satellite data)

This is a new All-Time Record. Breaking the record set in 2013 by 48,000 sq km.

Interesting:

sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-sept-13-2014-new-all-time-record/
Click to expand...
Here’s something I just read about that:

“In June 2014, scientists recorded the largest Antarctic sea ice extent ever. The sea ice covered about 15.26 million square kilometers. This surpassed the previous record, set in 2010, by 260,000 square kilometers. Some scientists see evidence that the air around Antarctica is warming, and warmer air can hold more moisture. That moisture leads to more snow falling on the ocean around Antarctica, which makes the ocean less salty and dense. Less salty water is able to freeze at a higher temperature.” From: csmonitor.com/Environment/2014/0827/Climate-change-Is-your-opinion-informed-by-science-Take-our-quiz/Sea-Ice
 
lynnvinc said:
Here’s something I just read about that:

“In June 2014, scientists recorded the largest Antarctic sea ice extent ever. The sea ice covered about 15.26 million square kilometers. This surpassed the previous record, set in 2010, by 260,000 square kilometers. Some scientists see evidence that the air around Antarctica is warming, and warmer air can hold more moisture. That moisture leads to more snow falling on the ocean around Antarctica, which makes the ocean less salty and dense. Less salty water is able to freeze at a higher temperature.” From: csmonitor.com/Environment/2014/0827/Climate-change-Is-your-opinion-informed-by-science-Take-our-quiz/Sea-Ice
Click to expand...
So when climate scientists said decreasing Antarctic ice was a sign of global warming they were wrong? Or are we to believe that both increasing Anartic ice and decreasing Antarctic ice are signs of global warming?
 
I always knew heart-of-hearts climate change skeptics were atheists.
Click to expand...
Take a good look at whose is at “climate change” rallies, maybe even talk to them about religion, and get back to us on where the irreligious are. 😉
 
estesbob said:
So when climate scientists said decreasing Antarctic ice was a sign of global warming they were wrong? Or are we to believe that both increasing Anartic ice and decreasing Antarctic ice are signs of global warming?
Click to expand...
Of course:
  • Warmer weather - AGW
  • Colder weather - AGW (remember those Rossby waves increased by AGW – see here}
  • Less Arctic sea ice - AGW
  • More Antarctic sea ice - AGW
  • More droughts - AGW
  • More floods - AGW
Can’t we do anything right?
 
lynnvinc said:
Of course:
  • Warmer weather - AGW
  • Colder weather - AGW (remember those Rossby waves increased by AGW – see here}
  • Less Arctic sea ice - AGW
  • More Antarctic sea ice - AGW
  • More droughts - AGW
  • More floods - AGW
Can’t we do anything right?
Click to expand...
Finally we agree on something! Does the fact that means hell just froze over bolster of discredit AGW:)
 
Climate Change Has Jumped the Shark

Lay aside for now all of the arguments that can be made about the weaknesses of catastrophic climate change predictions. In fact, for purposes of discussion, let’s assume that the worst-case scenario is likely to come true. The paradox of climate change is exactly this: the more serious the problem, the more implausible are the remedies of the environmental community. That’s what ought to make the climate campaigners realize that last weekend’s mega-march in New York City represents the dead-end for their cause. Truly we can invoke that overused cliché that climate change has “jumped the shark.”

forbes.com/sites/stevenhayward/2014/09/29/climate-change-has-jumped-the-shark/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top