Re: Actual Climate Change Thread

[chris () blask org]

--- On Sat, 11/28/09, Martin Tomasek <tomasek () ufe cz> wrote:

Ah, the hunt is engaged! :~)

> I am interested in ecology and climatology, because some
> politicians want either to take my money or to hurt the
> nature

I might suggest it is worth being interested also because we live in the climate and ecology so we have a direct 
interest in knowing how it works.

> by insane 'ecological' laws.

Now, that is a qualitative statement which should require the same scientific rigor we require of any other such 
sweeping statement.  If the ecological law in question was, for example, to prohibit spraying atomized mercury into the 
air outside day-care centers it would be hard to argue that it was insane.  Certainly there are many ecological laws 
that fall into that Zone of Sanity.

> It is possible if we exclude 'global climate'.

I don't find any reason to do so.  Your examples indicate changes in proximity to some area affecting that area, so it 
is only possible to assume that you argue nothing but a matter of scale.  Are you claiming to have personally proven 
that environmental changes can only have impact over a given distance - say over a hundred miles but not over a 
thousand miles?  What do you base this assumption on?

Further, there is a great deal of evidence that the earth has had a range of different global climate conditions, from 
an oxygen-free atmosphere, to a global coating of ice ("snowball earth") and a large number of ice ages where there was 
no place left to have serious concern for heat stroke, the most recent of those being 12,000 years ago.

The base assumption I read from your statements is that nature has some "preferred" climate for the surface of the 
earth.  This would require more proof - and short of a theistic argument beg more frank credulity - than any other 
alternative.  Every evidence is that the surface of the earth is not the one particular charmed natural artifact in the 
universe.  Gases and liquids and solids will interact here in the same pseudo-random fashion they do anywhere, with 
whatever result physics dictates and with no regard to what humans find survivable.

> But, speaking of 'greenhouse gases', human impact is minimal. I talked
> on this with geologist and with ecologist. CO2 produced by
> nature (mostly by volcanos) is about two ordes of magnitude higher
> than quantity produced by human. So, if anyone want to impact
> levels of CO2, he should ban volcanos. :-) And situation on methane is
> similar.

So, it is a matter of scale you are arguing, not a matter of capacity?  If mankind upped the output of carbon and 
became (by your numbers) only a single order of magnitude less than all natural inputs then it would possibly make a 
difference?  Equal to all natural inputs?  Double?  The global climate might be changed by human effort if we arranged 
for a large enough rock to fall to earth?

A more nuanced observation would be that there is no reason to believe that it is necessary to equal all natural inputs 
into the atmosphere to have an impact on it.  Simply having an aggregate impact that is comparable to, for instance, 
all North American volcanoes might be enough to alter the global climate on aggregate.  Raising or lowering the amount 
of a compound in a chemical mix by a percentage point can, in fact, have dramatic effect.  Raising or lowering your 
guanine content by one percent could make you as easily a chimpanzee as a blob of goo. 

> There are sporadically happening events that cause change
> of climates globally. But I think this is not standard situation.

This is definitely the standard situation.  The climate began with a heavy rain of rocks and moons, settled into a few 
billion years of poisonous (by our standards) gases, is in a brief hiatus of 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen and will end 
as the outer shell of a dying red giant star.  At any given moment along the way the climate may be called upon to 
process the mass and energy of a passing comet, which has measurable impact on every cubic inch of the global biosphere 
every time it happens.

> You know, climate on whole earth is made of many local
> climates. 

The existence of micro climates is not equal to the proof of non-existence of macro climates.  

> So you can measure global area represented by different
> climates, but averaging temperature over the areas (or globally) is
> quackery. Average global temperature has no meaning. 

During the Snowball Earth stage the averaged temperature was below 0C and this did in fact result in no place being 
above 0C, the Cretaceous hothouse (again, relative to today) resulted in an average ocean-bottom temperature about 10C 
greater than it is today (where the average is about 4C) and a complete lack of icecaps.  This did in fact affect 
climates everywhere on the earth.

> I assume it has some importance in politics, such as 
> environmentalism,  because it is scalar and can be
> presented in scary graphs.

"Just because two people disagree does not prove that either is correct."

The misuse of data does not prove that the data in question does not exist.  Whether some people have political 
motivations to show that Humans Are Bad And Stupid (that, I believe, you and I agree some do) is immaterial to the 
question of whether humans are capable of - and in fact potentially accomplishing - global environmental change.  
Regardless of political leanings it is possible to make some basic logical conclusions (i.e. if we infinitely double 
our carbon output it will at some point matter) and make some irrefutable empirical measurements (i.e. that particulate 
matter from Chinese coal-fired power plants is increasingly thick in Californian air).

Whether or not the human-induced increase in atmospheric carbon is sufficient to cause temperature shifts at this or 
another given point - and whether this is even a good or bad thing - are more finely-tuned questions than most of the 
tabloid-level public debate touches on.  But it is certainly possible to determine whether the earth has a static 
climate that is impervious to any action by man or nature, and it most certainly is not.

-best

-chris


      

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.