Solar Cycle 24

[McBoog]

Great paper that ties it ALL together! pdf file and 30 pages but not too complicated.

 

Archibald is described in the conference materials as “a scientist operating in the fields of cancer research, climate science, and oil exploration .” He also appears to have business interests in some oil fields in Australia. I figured I would point this out for those who want to "poo-poo" instead of read.

 

I thought it was an interesting paper, one more set of ideas and opinion to add to my bank of info on the topic. I am not sure that it is accurate, but the data is convincing as presented. What the reality of the whole climate thingy is this... We don't really know what is going to happen and it will be interesting to see who ultimately was correct. Be responsible, be green but don't overreact!

 

Can global warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide save us from a collapse in mid-latitude agricultural production? Not at all...

 

Anthropogenic warming is real , it is also minuscule. Using the MODTRAN facility maintained by the University of Chicago, the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide content and increase in average global atmospheric temperature is shown in this graph...

 

There are a couple of things to note from this graph. One is that carbon dioxide levels have fallen over geological time. Relative to the last five hundred million years, the natural level is around 2,500 ppm. The second thing is that prior to the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was bumping along the level required to sustain life on this planet. The more we take carbon dioxide above that minimum critical level, the safer life on this planet will be...

 

Regarding that 1,000 ppm level, we will never get there. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been much higher in the geological past. But most of that carbon is now bound up in the Earth’s sediments where we can’t get to it. Half of the carbon dioxide we are producing now is being gobbled up by the oceans, in soils and in the Russian tundra. At best, we might get to about 600 ppm...

 

A 300 ppm increase is something that we can only dream about, but some future generation will get these sort of benefits from the current industrious burrowing of the Chinese in their coal mines . ...

 

What I have shown in this presentation is that carbon dioxide is largely irrelevant to the Earth’s climate. The carbon dioxide that Mankind will put into the atmosphere over the next few hundred years will offset a couple of millenia of post-Holocene Optimum cooling before we plunge into the next ice age. There are no deleterious consequences of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are wholly beneficial...

 

We have to be thankful to the anthropogenic global warming proponents for one thing. If it weren’t for them and their voodoo science, climate science wouldn’t have attracted the attention of non-climate scientists, and we would be sleepwalking into the rather disruptive cooling that is coming next decade. We have a few years to prepare for that in terms of agricultural production...

 

The US has very large coal reserves and the conversion of this coal to liquid fuels could provide the US with fuel security. If the building of conversion plants is delayed by notions of supposedly harmful carbon dioxide emissions associated with the conversion process, those notions are unnecessarily harmful to US national security.

 

I was not aware that coal could be converted to liquid fuel... You learn something every day! Something else to research. Cool!

[polksalet]

Let's assume that there is no global warming at all.

 

Why not clean up the environment and promote green technology anyways?

 

Assuming there is no global warming at all, why should we hamper our economy and force our companies to compete with foreign companies who abide by ZERO rules. The next thing you know people will be shipping jobs to China.

[westvirginia]

Unless you spend all day indoor with a air purifier, why not promote green?

 

I'm not saying that there should be zero pollution, just less.

 

And since some companies have become MORE profitable from pusuing green, I don't think that money should be part of the equation.

 

How much pollution is okay with people who chant "no such thing as global warming"?

 

You're as bad as one of the folks who says "You just want criminals to run rampant" to someone who doesn't want their DNA in some government database. Sheesh...

[isleseeya]

as i have said many times , please dress appropriately based on the weather

[McBoog]

as i have said many times , please dress appropriately based on the weather

 

 

 

Did anyone actually ay least scan the document or is it a lost effort in this forum? Serious question. This is NOT the place I come to learn about the topic. I post some of this stuff here to share the many angles, political and scientific I come across.

 

I have noticed that the Tailgate tends to run absulutly and blindly partisan and you are forced into one camp or the other. In my case, I have never said there is no anthropogenic forcing, just that I have trouble accepting that humans are the only thing that drives climate and the panic being caused by one faction of the discussion. As a scientist by education, single factor causation on such a large scale makes absolutly no sence!

Edited April 22, 2008 by McBoog

[Randall]

This guy doesn't have a lot of credibility.

 

"Archibald's presentation is so bad its laughable.

 

First off, he provides no references and no sources for his data.

Does that matter? Well, looking at the first figure, which is claimed

to be "The 29 years of high quality Satellite Data". But, which

analysis of "the satellite data" is it? There have been several

different attempts to analyze the data from the MSU, starting with

Spencer and Christy's work. This batch looks like S & C's so-called

"middle tropospheric" set, based on the MSU channel 2 data. Back in

1992, S & C claimed that this data set was flawed, as it included

weighting from the lower stratosphere, which was known to be cooling

due to ozone depletion. S & C then produced their TLT, or Lower

Tropospheric analysis. If Archibald used the MT data, it would not be

a surprise that little or no warming is seen. It's noteworthy that

Bob Carter also incorrectly used this data in his presentation before

Congress. I think Vincent Grey used it also. All three are wrong.

Archibald continues, showing a graph of global sea-ice area. But, the

important changes seem to be happening in the NH and are especially

evident in the minimum extent, which has exhibited a very strong

negative trend. Last summer saw the least sea-ice extent in the

available record. While that low value may not be repeated this year,

the trend before last year was quite negative.

Next, we see data for 5 rural sites around Georgia. Archibald then

asserts, without any attempt at proof, that the variation is due to

solar effects. He completely ignores the Dust Bowl years, which were

the result of very poor agricultural practices after WW I. Abut the

same time, the cotton farms of the southeast were decimated by the

Boll Weevil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil

 

This period was also the time of the Great Depression, during which

time many small farmers left the land. Later, land formally used for

growing crops was converted to massive tree farms, which have a

cooling effect on local microclimate.

Archibald goes on to present a graph with temperature and solar

anomaly, claiming a cause and effect relationship. Trouble is, the

solar insolation data does not have a scale associated with it!

And, he is using only U.S. data, again ignoring the impact of the Dust

Bowl years, as well as the possible impact of air pollution from 1940

thru the start of the Clean Air Act.

 

Moving on, he shows a temperature series for Central England, pointing

to the time of the Maunder and Dalton Minimums in sunspot activity.

No problem there, but one will notice that the low temperature

supposedly associated with the Dalton Minimum is less than that of the

Maunder Minimum. Later, on page 9, he shows data for 3 European

stations, claiming that the 2 degree decline at one station was the

result of the Dalton Minimum. But, wait, what about The Year Without

Summer? What about the Tambora volcanic eruption, which appears in

the ice core record as the strongest sulfate spike in the past 400

years. Not only that, but there was another eruption a few years

earlier, so the cooling seen in Europe and New England was most likely

due to the short term impact of those volcanic eruptions.

Back on page 6, Archibald shows a graph supposedly representing

temperatures during the Medieval Warm period and Little Ice Age. He

gives no source for this graph. The figure looks very much like one

presented in the First IPCC report, one which Tom Crowley called a

"cartoon" in sworn testimony before a Congressional Committee. And,

Crowley's graph did not have a temperature scale, as I recall. Where

did that temperature scale come from? Without knowing the source, who

can say?

 

Archibald goes on and on, with lots of unproven assertions, finally

getting to the end on page 29, where he claims (as do others) that the

temperature since 1998 has not shown any warming, which is likely to

be true, since 1998 was an usually warm year. Over the longer time of

the record, say, the last 30 years, the Earth is seen as warming.

Picking the very warm year as the start of one's period of reference

is completely bogus.

I think Archibald's entire report is very bad science and should be

ignored. I hope you will agree.

[McBoog]

This guy doesn't have a lot of credibility.....

 

 

Dude. That guy was a poster in a comment thread! I checked his profile BEFORE you posted this and it is anonymous. Even minimal vetting of your sources would save you some time posting garbage. The guy that posted this has NO CREDIBILITY because there is NOBODY that can be associated with it. This guy could be someone that uses the internet handle of "Randall", possessing no scientific background for all we know. And you are so partisan, that you are willing to take this anonymous, non-vetted, sans ceredential person's comments over those of an accredited scientist in the field that was invited to a symposium of his colleagues?

 

All of the data used by Archibald has been gathered from official Governmental, Educational and Private institutions and has been 100% verified as accurate data.

 

The questions arise in the INTERPRETATION of the data. If anything goes to "harming Archibald's credibility, it would be his association with oil. However, much of this is counter balanced by the fact that he is a non-American (Australian) and believes our best resource would be to use technology to turn our coal into fuel (I still need to research this).

 

If you actually even read the pieces I took from his paper, he claimed that anthropogenic warming is REAL ! Its effects are going to help hold off for a short term the impending (in his findings) global cooling he says is due according to analysis of solar cycles and planetary global climate cycles.

[Randall]

 

Dude. That guy was a poster in a comment thread! I checked his profile BEFORE you posted this and it is anonymous.

 

 

Keep posting. They are entertaining.

 

With the innernets it's harder for the right wing to lie than it used to be.

 

 

From Source Watch

 

2. David Archibald, Australia. Geologist with Summa Development Limited. Associated with Australia's Lavoisier Group, which was established specifically to be skeptical of climate change. The group receives funding from the coal and oil industry.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group

 

The Lavoisier Group is a global warming skeptic organisation, based in Australia. It argues that the evidence for global warming is based on inexact science and that any policy responses, such as signing the Kyoto Protocol, would be too expensive for Australia's industry.

The group is closely associated with the Australian mining industry, and was founded in 2000 by Ray Evans, then an executive at Western Mining Corporation (WMC), who was also involved in founding the HR Nicholls Society and the Bennelong Society. Hugh Morgan, former WMC boss and head of the Business Council of Australia until 2005, delivered the group's inaugural speech.

Lavoisier is a fairly small operation, with under 100 members and an annual budget of around $10,000. [1]

In 2001 Australian economist John Quiggin wrote that the Lavoisier Group is "devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics...cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry." [2]

Edited April 22, 2008 by Randall

[McBoog]

Keep posting. They are entertaining.

 

With the innernets it's harder for the right wing to lie than it used to be.

 

Now you are NOT agreeing that there is anthropogenic warming??? This guy supports the notion. Make up your mind! OOHHHH! I get it. It is not presented the way you want it to be. It does not follow the proper lock-step dogma we must comply to.

 

Applying a label is not intellectual. Elitist and smug, yes. It also does not address anything about the topic.

 

And I am far from being "right wing". But if that makes you comfortable to use a label so you know which spin to throw at me... so be it!

 

You lost the fascist "corporate" thingy. Don't fight it, just kick back, open your mind and learn.

 

101

Edited April 22, 2008 by McBoog

[Avernus]

Now you are NOT agreeing that there is anthropogenic warming??? This guy supports the notion. Make up your mind! OOHHHH! I get it. It is not presented the way you want it to be. It does not follow the proper lock-step dogma we must comply to.

 

Applying a label is not intellectual. Elitist and smug, yes. It also does not address anything about the topic.

 

And I am far from being "right wing". But if that makes you comfortable to use a label so you know which spin to throw at me... so be it!

 

You lost the fascist "corporate" thingy. Don't fight it, just kick back, open your mind and learn.

 

101

 

there is one thing I will agree with...

 

labeling...

 

this has become a cheap way to lump people in a group and generalize...

[Randall]

there is one thing I will agree with...

 

labeling...

 

this has become a cheap way to lump people in a group and generalize...

 

 

I wasn't calling him right wing only the junk he was posting, anti global warming claims funded by the oil and coal industry.

 

It's like the tobacco companies all over again listing fake science to confuse real problems.

 

We need real people to decide what the problems are and fix them not bought out scientists to derail any real action.

[McBoog]

Your logic is flawed and suggests that if humans aren't the only ones at fault, then it shouldn't be their responsibility.

 

Humans are the only ones who can do anything about it.

 

Dude,

 

You are relatively new here, but go back and read some of the threads over the last month or two. I would suggest skipping just about everything AtomicCEO and Bushwacked post since it is mostly mindless insults and privides nothing of substance to the topics that are posted (this is what I do now, not even worth replying to them).

 

In a nutshell, I am an environmentalist and biologist by education (started in Botany to Bio-systems to finally Pre-med) and we should clearly be responsible for the part that we can effect. I also believe that we need a big picture plan for dealing with the whole issue and its consequences, not over react to the Gore camp hyperbole. I would bet money my lifestyle is "greener" that yours and most people's. There is a much larger picture that includes cosmic and geologic events that we can't do anything about. No matter how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, the planet will cycle into another ice age... someday.

 

Edit to add: I don't treat noobs poorly and do my best to try to be one of the few civil members of these forums.

Edited April 22, 2008 by McBoog

[McBoog]

I wasn't calling him right wing only the junk he was posting, anti global warming claims funded by the oil and coal industry.

 

It's like the tobacco companies all over again listing fake science to confuse real problems.

 

We need real people to decide what the problems are and fix them not bought out scientists to derail any real action.

 

 

But what "real" action? This is a "boggle" that produces as many consequences for every action taken as results. Anyone that wants to disassociate the world hunger crisis from actions that we take towards reducing the human element of climal warnging is adding to the problm, not helping it.

 

Subsidising the growing of corn for ethanol is retarded, but is happening. The higher demand for corn has created bio-damage from the extra fertelizer being dumped into the system by enlarging the dead zone around the mouth of the Mississippi and driving the cost of grains up world wide. I read that food costs have risen globally by as much as %70. This is not as catastrophic in our society as it is in those much poorer.

 

I like the paper originally posted because it "dares" to look beyond a single issue and attempts to link all of the related issues together. It is probably not all correct, but it is a better approach than the single issue proponents.

 

A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups. The latest — a 30% increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.

 

And here at home:

 

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

 

I would bet that is it comes down to eating and worrying about warmer temps, people, as self-preservation oriented as we are, would be willing to increase food production as opposed to worrying about CO2. Not good IMO, but probable. I am actually more worried about all the other poisons in our emissions and not as concerned about CO2. But hey, , that's just me.

[westvirginia]

Really? My comments were that extreme to you?

 

Yes. The insinuation I took from the post was that if you aren't in favor of green, you're just someone with an agenda. Not all "green" initiatives are alike. Some of the crap out there is a bit on the ridiculous side. For instance, the reduce, re-use, recycle program. I'm all on board with reduce and re-use where it makes sense, but there are some cases where it just doesn't make sense to recycle. Where it uses more energy to recycle (therefore more carbon emissions) and the materials in a landfill are benign, (IIRC, wax-coated paper cups are like this) why recycle?

 

Anyway, you seemed to be asking an honest question, so I gave you an honest answer. I'm one of the "Question everything" camp.

[McBoog]

Why can't we be 'responsible' for the parts we don't ruin? Why can't humans be the planet's guardian? (I'm not saying we should, just saying that the idea that if we didn't cause the problem, means we're not responsible for it just doesn't hold water.) I'm not saying that we can't. We have to be smart about how we do it though.

 

I assume you ride your bicycle to work? What bike do you have? This would be suicide in the DC area! I have a family to take care of. But I do drive an economy car with decent MPGs (I can only afford so much. Bought it used)

 

And thanks for treating this n00b nicely. I don't mean to sound rude if I'm coming off that way. WELCOME... and no rudeness perceived. Just was pointing out that we have had many threads on this topic and I am not a fan of the Gore "hysteria", but am an environmentalist.

[Randall]

How about posting things not funded by the coal and gas industries?

[Perchoutofwater]

Unless you spend all day indoor with a air purifier, why not promote green?

 

I'm not saying that there should be zero pollution, just less.

 

And since some companies have become MORE profitable from pusuing green, I don't think that money should be part of the equation.

 

How much pollution is okay with people who chant "no such thing as global warming"?

 

You have to take the cost into consideration. We need to try to be as green as we can, but not to the detriment of our national economy, unless everyone else in the world subscribes to our standards. We need to be smart in what we are doing, and we need to look at all of the consequences of our actions both those that we are currently taking, and those that we are contemplating taking in the name of environmentalism. The CFL is a perfect example. It is a good idea, with bad consequences, same thing with ethanol. We need to take a measured approach. We need to make standards, but we need to gradually ease into them rather than forcing ourselves into them in 5 or 10 years. Rather than saying we need to retrofit all plants, we should have any new plants meet a certain standard, and any replacements in an existing plant meet the new standard. We need to think of our economy when we make green initiatives. It would be easy to say we are going to do this and the financial consequences be damned, but it really does very little good if the rest of the world isn't on board, and we just make our position weaker.

[Avernus]

I wasn't calling him right wing only the junk he was posting, anti global warming claims funded by the oil and coal industry.

 

It's like the tobacco companies all over again listing fake science to confuse real problems.

 

We need real people to decide what the problems are and fix them not bought out scientists to derail any real action.

 

yeah, I wasn't necessarily agreeing with what he said about you...I just wanted to chime in on the labeling topic because people seem to be doing it left and right...

 

I probably should have clarified this in my post

 

but I wouldn't be shocked if the oil and coal industry did fund this...

[Avernus]

no, you misunderstood. I meant, since it is possible to be MORE profitable being a green company, that money/cost cannot be a logical argument.

 

exactly....but most companies that are going green aren't really going green and are just using certain aspects of "going green" to attain the label and generate revenue because people seem to be gravitating toward that angle right now...

[Perchoutofwater]

no, you misunderstood. I meant, since it is possible to be MORE profitable being a green company, that money/cost cannot be a logical argument.

 

If it is more profitable going green, I can assure you every company out there will be going green as soon as they can afford the capital out lay to do so. Unfortunately I don't think this is true in all instances. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for going green where ever we can, even if we have to spend a dollar or two to do it, but I don't want to be regulated to a degree that has a negative impact on the economy if the rest of the world is not going to go along with it. I'm a about to change out all the windows in my house and as my incadescent light bulbs burn out I'll be replacing them with LED's (The capital out lay for this is going to be about $20,000, but over the next 10 years I should see most if not all of that back in reduced energy bills. I just made a compost bin a few months ago, and have been composting every thing that I can rather than throwing it in the trash. We recycle the color pages of the news paper (B&W go to compost), and we recycle all cardboard, and plastics. It is painless, and I'm all for that. My only concern is with the environmental nut jobs that want to go head long into a course of action with taking into consideration the consequences of their actions, both on the environment and the economy.

[Perchoutofwater]

umm, sorry, I'm not making myself clear... there are companies that have truly gone in an extremely green direction -and- make MORE profit.

 

Since it is possible to be green and more profitable, the argument about money is moot.

 

That is true for some industries, but not for others. You can't make a blanket statement like that. Service industries can go green very easily and save money, where as manufacturing industries will find it much harder to do so and in many cases it will cost more.

[H8tank]

Boog... you really need to ignore lulu, she lives in her grandma's basement and does nothing but troll the innernets all day, there is a never ending pit of kommie ignorance in that one. There are really no lefties here who can hold a conversation about any of this, the earth has been cooling for 10 years, and what they have been whining about is not supported by reality.

[TheShiznit]

there is one thing I will agree with...

 

labeling...

 

this has become a cheap way to lump people in a group and generalize...

 

Stereotypes are a real timesaver....no?

[TheShiznit]

Dude,

 

You are relatively new here, but go back and read some of the threads over the last month or two. I would suggest skipping just about everything AtomicCEO and Bushwacked post since it is mostly mindless insults and privides nothing of substance to the topics that are posted (this is what I do now, not even worth replying to them).

 

In a nutshell, I am an environmentalist and biologist by education (started in Botany to Bio-systems to finally Pre-med) and we should clearly be responsible for the part that we can effect. I also believe that we need a big picture plan for dealing with the whole issue and its consequences, not over react to the Gore camp hyperbole. I would bet money my lifestyle is "greener" that yours and most people's. There is a much larger picture that includes cosmic and geologic events that we can't do anything about. No matter how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, the planet will cycle into another ice age... someday.

 

Edit to add: I don't treat noobs poorly and do my best to try to be one of the few civil members of these forums.

 

You mean we cannot make hugh filters to put over the top of volcano's that would withstand an eruption and filter the ash and CO2 emmissions?

[westvirginia]

How about posting things not funded by the coal and gas industries?

 

How 'bout posting things not pushed by moveon.org?