Incredibly, on reading the most recent issue of the Planetary Society's Planetary Report (Sept-Oct., p. 18, 'Members' Dialogue') I was astounded to come across two letters that took the organization to task for its "biased treatment of the global warming issue". This was after their reading the July-August, 2008 special issue. Of course, even then the issue was relatively settled but now even more so - thanks to high resolution satellite imagery of the poles, as well as more detailed ice core analyses. Thus, the complaint that "a growing number of papers don't support global warming" is plain bullocks. In fact, just the converse is true.
One knuckle-dragger, a Warren Miller, wrote:
"Without going into great detail, interglacial periods are directly correlated to a number of natural phenomena, including Sun cycles, Earth axis variation, orbital procession variation, and yes, CO2 levels. These processes combine to cause an end to ice ages usually once every 100,000 years. Most of the causal culprits are never mentioned by the global warming camp."
Well, they're never mentioned because they're not really relevant. While Miller is gracious enough to note the effects of CO2- CO2 levels, he doesn't go the next step and report that there never has been a glacial period or ice age when the CO2 level is at 200ppm or higher (see, e.g. Gale Christianson's book, Greenhouse). In effect, the 'Sun cycles' (solar sunspot cycles) would not have played any role in halting an ice age for when CO2 levels were < 200ppm. The same applies to 'Earth axis variation', 'orbital procession variation' (i.e. change in eccentricity of orbit) which are to do with the controversial Milankovitch hypothesis, which I've already exposed as half-baked schlock in a previous post, e.g. 'The Travails of the Milankovitch Hypothesis', Dec. 5, 2007)
Miller also drags in the red herring of "global cooling" being a prevalent belief in the 1970s, failing to note that the reason was to do with an effect only appreciated years later called global dimming - by which aerosols and other pollutants in the atmosphere artificially kept down the ambient temperatures by 40 percent or more. Once 'clean air' laws were passed, as in the USA and Britain, the pollutants contributing to the cooling were reduced to the point global warming predominated.
Miller then adds:
"If you wish to continue publishing global warming articles, please do so in an unbiased fashion, befitting the long history of the Planetary Society. Better yet, stick with the topics that have led to your loyal readership."
Ah yes! Don't veer too far off the path of the 'Middle Mind' - into areas some factions of our country can't handle and never will - because it means economic growth must be retracted. And oh, by the way, steer clear of anthropogenic based warming or you will piss guys like Miller off. To which I'd tell Bill Nye, lead CEO of the Society, let that ilk go and even allow the door to smack them in the butt on the way out. We don't need or want them. In fact, their very presence gives a bad name to the Society.
Not to be outdone, we spot the reply of another genius, Phil Pickering, who moans:
"It is going to continue to warm up no matter what is done. Learn to live with it. Just do not continue to scare our young people with unproven scientific facts that make mankind there evil culprit."
Right! So, in other words, our young people are too infantile to handle the truth - that we are steering this planet toward an incendiary disaster - and we need to coddle them and feed them fairy stories that we're not the ones responsible. So just go on burning all that fossil fuel - whether in auto engines, or in coal fired plants and be happy!
What both these characters need to see is the MSNBC documentary, 'The Last Days of Planet Earth': where physicist Michiko Kaku observes: "For the first time in history, humans have the potential to alter the destiny of a whole planet."
On the same documentary astrophysicist Neil Degresse Tyson put it another way:
"Imagine the irony of our species having the intellect to stop an asteroid impact, but lacking the intellect to moderate the worst effects of global warming. It boggles the mind!"
Indeed, because it's inexcusable! Further, I go so far as one British climatologist who opined in the same documentary that so-called "climate mavericks" and their skeptic pals who are holding back bold changes, are no different from Holocaust deniers. (Who in a number of countries, such as Austria and Germany can be jailed for making public pronouncements).
Is this an incursion of liberty or "free speech"? Well another question: If a fire breaks out in a crowded theater and several 'maverick' voices yell 'There is no fire, stay put!' and all the people perish, what is their accountability (hint: they sneak out after yelling the injunction to stay put)? Should they not face lengthy prison terms? The same situation applies to the global warming deniers whose defective PR has postponed necessary, timely action, which will make the difference between a moderately-warmed, tolerable planet and an intolerable one in the maw of the runaway greenhouse effect.
In this light, I recall after the failure of the climate conference in Durban to accomplish anything significant or durable, The Economist (December 17, 2011 p. 138) sounded off:
"Its terms - even assuming they are acted upon - are unlikely to prevent a global temperature rise of of more than 2 C, which was the stated aim of the whole UN climate 'process'. Indeed, they might easily allow a 4C rise"
The latter would be catastrophic and on top of the existing (hitherto) 1.2 C increase, bring us to the precipice of the runaway greenhouse. Carl Sagan noted in an interview (with Ted Turner) ca. 1989 (still have it on tape) that the limits for catastrophic climate change- we're talking species exterminating magnitude with a runaway greenhouse - are not as high as many think. In fact, he cited the tolerance increment of six degrees Celsius.
This position was reinforced in Sagan's essay: 'Ambush - the Warming of the World', p. 98, in his last popular book, Billions and Billions, Random House, 1997.
Is this all "scare mongering"? That is what the flat Earth, Denier cultists want you to believe, so they can wreck the world on the basis of pure economics with no thought of the morrow or how our children and grand children will forever curse us for putting our comforts and stock profits over their welfare.
In a blog four years ago, I warned about the impending signs of ice sheet breakup and melting in Greenland in connection with the phenomenon known as "Jokulhlaup" (cf. ‘Jokulhlaup Observed in Greenland ice sheet’, appearing in Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 89, No. 35, 26 Aug. 2008, p. 221). The cited paper specifically noted an increased frequency in occurrence of “jokalhlaups”or sudden glacial bursts of melting runoff from glaciers. It was this phenomena that also played a role in the “unusual cracks" that set off the separation of a “chunk of ice the size of Manhattan” (19 sq. miles)from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic.
Since then, many more drastic break-ups of glaciers have been observed and documented and now readers can access this material directly at the following link:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899
Anyone watching this documented evidence who isn't terrified, has lost most of his or her brain neurons.
We also know that this process provides one of the nonlinear drivers toward catastrophic climate change. Melting of ice caps and glaciers (already occurring) results in diminished albedo (fraction of solar radiation reflected back into space), a darker Earth surface - with more infrared radiation (e.g. HEAT) being absorbed - reinforcing and enhancing global warming. As more ice melts from the polar regions, the positive feedback from lowering albedo proceeds faster. The overall (mean) ocean temperatures continue to rise - ultimately becoming too hot for any marine life- and reaching equilibrium temperature somewhere in the next 500 years. All ocean currents, circulation systems will, of course, eventually cease. With atmospheric circulation soon following (as on Venus) , all solar energy going into heating the oceans until their specific heat capacity is reached. We then will have vaporization.
Even now, before the runaway has set in, we know the acidity of sea water has increased nearly 30% since the Industrial Revolution. Given that sea life, including corals, fish, and the critical phyto-plankton (which provide most of our planet's oxygen) can only exist within very narrow pH levels this may be most disturbing. It means that there is the potential for humanity to suffer devastating famines and loss of life long before the Runaway Greenhouse charges up.
The upshot of all this is that deniers and their BS can no longer be tolerated, given the havoc already afoot from the delays they have promoted. And rather than give the likes of Warren Miller and Phil Pickering a forum to spout off the Planetary Society would do better to ignore them. Their voices represent only a small and irascible minority, and let's bear in mind that in science - unlike in a democracy - truth isn't settled by votes (even if they are few and far between) but by facts and hard evidence.
Showing posts with label Milankovitch effect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milankovitch effect. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2014
Monday, January 16, 2012
More "Ice Ages" In the Distant Future? Don't Believe It!
Figuring out climate science is not an easy task, and often requires plenty of devotion, including to historical records, as well as climate physics, solar physics and ....plain old regular physics. This is often more than most lay folks or press pundits are willing to commit to so it's no surprise that so much bollocks can be written which gets attention either in a comatose corporate media or on some blogs.
Much more difficult to parse or grasp is how any academic worth his or her salt could seriously believe that another Ice Age could be on its way.....even over a thousand years hence! Yet in his Jan. 14-15 column in the WSJ ('Are We Holding A New Ice Age at Bay?'), Matt Ridley cites a paper published by university reearchers in Cambridge, London and Florida, claiming that while current greenhouse emissions may temporarily avert an Ice Age, we will still expect to see one "within about 1,500 years".
I don't think so!
Their argument is that our current "inter-glacial" (I refer to it as the first era of the "no more glacial") echoes the patterns of a previous warming period about 780,000 years ago. Like other Ice Age claimants, they make the mistake of believing that the Earth's orbit will somehow change and its eccentricity, axial tilt or both will over compensate for the CO2 accumulated and produce a new glacial period.
They fail to grasp that the change in gravitational potential energy (V = - GM/r) required to alter the Earth's orbit even a minuscule amount is stupendous - as even simple calculations would disclose. To get a magnitude of change sufficient for triggering major climatic impact you're talking about changes of the orbital elements in the range of 2- 5%. This is totally preposterous, given solar system energy constraints, and why most astronomers dismiss Milankovitch.
The alteration of the Earth's axial tilt is equally formidable to effect. For a theoretical change in obliquity, say from 21 to 24 degrees one can work out the change in angular momentum that’s required:
Since:
L = w I_p (ñ + cos ^2 (Θ)]
where w is the radial velocity, I_p the polar moment of inertia, ñ a direction in space and Θ the angle from vertical. Then d L = w Ip ( cos ^2 (Θ2) – cos ^2 (Θ1)] since we do not expect the magnitude of either w or I_p to change.
Then if Θ2 = 24 deg (= 0.419 rad), and Θ1 = 21 deg (= 0.367 rad):
Using I_p = 0.3307M r^2 =
I_p = 0.3307 (6.0 x 10^ 24 kg) (6.378 x 10^6 m)^2
I_ p = 8.07 x 10^ 37 kg- m^2 (polar moment in appropriate units)
dL = {7.272 x 10^ -5 rad/s) (8.07 x 10^ 37 kg- m^2 ) x ( cos ^2 (Θ2) - cos^2 (Θ1)]
dL= (5.87 x 10^33 kg-m2 s-1) (0.871 - 0.834) = 2.17 x 10^ 32 kg-m2/s
This is an enormous change in angular momentum of the planet – even given a presumed 41,000 year period to accomplish it. WHERE is the external force coming from to effect this change in angular momentum? We don’t know – since neither the Milankovitchies or their apologists and academic invokers never say. All they have is an empirical correlation schema – as opposed to a bona fide theory with self-consistent explanatory power and predicted orbital parameters, for the changes postulated.
Thus, we need to know – before “time expires” – where all the external torque is coming from to alter the Earth’s angular momentum by such a vast amount! Even allowing for the length of time- the magnitude of angular momentum must be accounted for. It has to come from somewhere, it simply cannot materialize in vacuo.
So if orbital changes are out, what IS the cause of the Ice Ages we've experienced? Basically, the CO2 concentration! Never has an Ice Age occurred when this is above 200 ppm, and never has an interglacial lasted very long when the CO2 concentration is less than 200 ppm. It now stands at nearly 380 ppm, and we believe the threshold to trigger the runaway greenhouse effect will kcick in between 480- 500 ppm.
Now, an added fact is that we are adding CO2 at the rate of 2 ppm/ year and the insolation is increasing at 2 watts/yr. A more disturbing fact is that CO2 also accumulates because earlier depositions remain even as new burdens are added yearly! Thus, the CO2 warming we’re now experiencing is not the result of just one year – but 100 years’ accumulation. In effect, each year we not only deal with the immediate concentrations of CO2 produced but also cumulative concentrations added from 100 years ago.
The process may be described something like a series with terms being added, viz: to describe the CO2 content added up to now in the atmosphere (CO2 depositions added by the completion of year 2011), we must initiate the series with n= 1 (e.g. for 1912), viz. CO2( 2011) = x_1 + x_2 + x_3 + x_4 +.............+ x_100
E.g. terminating at the last term, 100 years later. Here each ‘x’ denotes the CO2 burden added for each year in succession.Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather inclusive of the cumulative additions for all the years - starting up to 100 years before!
This means, all other things being equal, at any given time we have at least 100 years worth of CO2 concentrations to ADD, as well as the infrared energy component in watts. So, we can safely say - unless human cease using all fossil fuels immediately - that by the year 2112 we will have added another 200 ppm in CO2 concentration to the 200 ppm yearly real time additions, and also added 200 watts to the solar insolation or heat effect of it (estimated now at 1370 w/m^2). That means the latter will be expected to rise to 1770 w/m^2 while the CO2 concentration will reach 380 ppm + 400 ppm = 780 ppm. In other words, we will already have not only reached but surpassed runaway greenhouse conditions.
But it gets even worse!
An article appearing in Eos Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 83, No. 34), August 20, 2002, ‘Progress Made in Study of Ocean’s Calcium Carbonate Budget’, noted that sedimentary carbonates represent the largest reservoir of carbon on Earth. The author also noted that “a third of the anthropogenic CO2 that has been added to the atmosphere since the middle of the 18th century has been absorbed by the oceans. " This means that the oceans, acting as CO2 reservoirs, have actually masked the worst effects of global warming and that when their saturation point is reached, the spillover effect will be rapid and calamitous indeed.
Well, as the CO2 concentrations exceed 500 ppm, that threshold will be reached! In other words, like by the year 2060. Increases of atmospheric CO2 also increase concentrations of inorganic carbon, mainly in the forms pCO2 and HCO3. A side effect is to also diminish the pH of sea water. The author notes p. 374:
“Future decreases in sea water pH (and CO3(-2)) concentration will decrease the saturation state of the waters with respect to Ca CO3”.
This means that spillover becomes much more likely as the saturation threshold is lowered, with masses of CO2 released additionally into the atmosphere. Melting ice from glaciers, etc. – far from being an assisting agent to a new ice age, will reduce further the sea water pH and accelerate the release of CO2 from the oceans. Leading to much much warmer conditions and even more acidic oceans than exist currently (likely pH of 6 or less by 2075).
Indeed, we have excellent research showing that once CO2 levels reach 1 ½ times or more their current concentration - resulting in mean temperatures up to 10 degrees Celsius higher- there'll be NO way to halt the warming process. (See: Kerr, R.: No Way To Cool The Ultimate Greenhouse, in SCIENCE, Vol. 262 (October 29, 1993, p.648.)
Let's get it straight that once that runaway greenhouse sets in, it's game over - and there will be absolutely NO chance of any Ice Age recurring.
More amusing than the academics' take of "a new Ice Age in 1,500 years" is the ultimate irony that all of humanity will be dead long before that time, since all the oceans will have long since reached their latent heat of vaporization. Those highly acidic oceans from which life would have vanished even decades earlier will now be mere memories. And Earth?.....It will have mutated into Venus II.
Much more difficult to parse or grasp is how any academic worth his or her salt could seriously believe that another Ice Age could be on its way.....even over a thousand years hence! Yet in his Jan. 14-15 column in the WSJ ('Are We Holding A New Ice Age at Bay?'), Matt Ridley cites a paper published by university reearchers in Cambridge, London and Florida, claiming that while current greenhouse emissions may temporarily avert an Ice Age, we will still expect to see one "within about 1,500 years".
I don't think so!
Their argument is that our current "inter-glacial" (I refer to it as the first era of the "no more glacial") echoes the patterns of a previous warming period about 780,000 years ago. Like other Ice Age claimants, they make the mistake of believing that the Earth's orbit will somehow change and its eccentricity, axial tilt or both will over compensate for the CO2 accumulated and produce a new glacial period.
They fail to grasp that the change in gravitational potential energy (V = - GM/r) required to alter the Earth's orbit even a minuscule amount is stupendous - as even simple calculations would disclose. To get a magnitude of change sufficient for triggering major climatic impact you're talking about changes of the orbital elements in the range of 2- 5%. This is totally preposterous, given solar system energy constraints, and why most astronomers dismiss Milankovitch.
The alteration of the Earth's axial tilt is equally formidable to effect. For a theoretical change in obliquity, say from 21 to 24 degrees one can work out the change in angular momentum that’s required:
Since:
L = w I_p (ñ + cos ^2 (Θ)]
where w is the radial velocity, I_p the polar moment of inertia, ñ a direction in space and Θ the angle from vertical. Then d L = w Ip ( cos ^2 (Θ2) – cos ^2 (Θ1)] since we do not expect the magnitude of either w or I_p to change.
Then if Θ2 = 24 deg (= 0.419 rad), and Θ1 = 21 deg (= 0.367 rad):
Using I_p = 0.3307M r^2 =
I_p = 0.3307 (6.0 x 10^ 24 kg) (6.378 x 10^6 m)^2
I_ p = 8.07 x 10^ 37 kg- m^2 (polar moment in appropriate units)
dL = {7.272 x 10^ -5 rad/s) (8.07 x 10^ 37 kg- m^2 ) x ( cos ^2 (Θ2) - cos^2 (Θ1)]
dL= (5.87 x 10^33 kg-m2 s-1) (0.871 - 0.834) = 2.17 x 10^ 32 kg-m2/s
This is an enormous change in angular momentum of the planet – even given a presumed 41,000 year period to accomplish it. WHERE is the external force coming from to effect this change in angular momentum? We don’t know – since neither the Milankovitchies or their apologists and academic invokers never say. All they have is an empirical correlation schema – as opposed to a bona fide theory with self-consistent explanatory power and predicted orbital parameters, for the changes postulated.
Thus, we need to know – before “time expires” – where all the external torque is coming from to alter the Earth’s angular momentum by such a vast amount! Even allowing for the length of time- the magnitude of angular momentum must be accounted for. It has to come from somewhere, it simply cannot materialize in vacuo.
So if orbital changes are out, what IS the cause of the Ice Ages we've experienced? Basically, the CO2 concentration! Never has an Ice Age occurred when this is above 200 ppm, and never has an interglacial lasted very long when the CO2 concentration is less than 200 ppm. It now stands at nearly 380 ppm, and we believe the threshold to trigger the runaway greenhouse effect will kcick in between 480- 500 ppm.
Now, an added fact is that we are adding CO2 at the rate of 2 ppm/ year and the insolation is increasing at 2 watts/yr. A more disturbing fact is that CO2 also accumulates because earlier depositions remain even as new burdens are added yearly! Thus, the CO2 warming we’re now experiencing is not the result of just one year – but 100 years’ accumulation. In effect, each year we not only deal with the immediate concentrations of CO2 produced but also cumulative concentrations added from 100 years ago.
The process may be described something like a series with terms being added, viz: to describe the CO2 content added up to now in the atmosphere (CO2 depositions added by the completion of year 2011), we must initiate the series with n= 1 (e.g. for 1912), viz. CO2( 2011) = x_1 + x_2 + x_3 + x_4 +.............+ x_100
E.g. terminating at the last term, 100 years later. Here each ‘x’ denotes the CO2 burden added for each year in succession.Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather inclusive of the cumulative additions for all the years - starting up to 100 years before!
This means, all other things being equal, at any given time we have at least 100 years worth of CO2 concentrations to ADD, as well as the infrared energy component in watts. So, we can safely say - unless human cease using all fossil fuels immediately - that by the year 2112 we will have added another 200 ppm in CO2 concentration to the 200 ppm yearly real time additions, and also added 200 watts to the solar insolation or heat effect of it (estimated now at 1370 w/m^2). That means the latter will be expected to rise to 1770 w/m^2 while the CO2 concentration will reach 380 ppm + 400 ppm = 780 ppm. In other words, we will already have not only reached but surpassed runaway greenhouse conditions.
But it gets even worse!
An article appearing in Eos Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 83, No. 34), August 20, 2002, ‘Progress Made in Study of Ocean’s Calcium Carbonate Budget’, noted that sedimentary carbonates represent the largest reservoir of carbon on Earth. The author also noted that “a third of the anthropogenic CO2 that has been added to the atmosphere since the middle of the 18th century has been absorbed by the oceans. " This means that the oceans, acting as CO2 reservoirs, have actually masked the worst effects of global warming and that when their saturation point is reached, the spillover effect will be rapid and calamitous indeed.
Well, as the CO2 concentrations exceed 500 ppm, that threshold will be reached! In other words, like by the year 2060. Increases of atmospheric CO2 also increase concentrations of inorganic carbon, mainly in the forms pCO2 and HCO3. A side effect is to also diminish the pH of sea water. The author notes p. 374:
“Future decreases in sea water pH (and CO3(-2)) concentration will decrease the saturation state of the waters with respect to Ca CO3”.
This means that spillover becomes much more likely as the saturation threshold is lowered, with masses of CO2 released additionally into the atmosphere. Melting ice from glaciers, etc. – far from being an assisting agent to a new ice age, will reduce further the sea water pH and accelerate the release of CO2 from the oceans. Leading to much much warmer conditions and even more acidic oceans than exist currently (likely pH of 6 or less by 2075).
Indeed, we have excellent research showing that once CO2 levels reach 1 ½ times or more their current concentration - resulting in mean temperatures up to 10 degrees Celsius higher- there'll be NO way to halt the warming process. (See: Kerr, R.: No Way To Cool The Ultimate Greenhouse, in SCIENCE, Vol. 262 (October 29, 1993, p.648.)
Let's get it straight that once that runaway greenhouse sets in, it's game over - and there will be absolutely NO chance of any Ice Age recurring.
More amusing than the academics' take of "a new Ice Age in 1,500 years" is the ultimate irony that all of humanity will be dead long before that time, since all the oceans will have long since reached their latent heat of vaporization. Those highly acidic oceans from which life would have vanished even decades earlier will now be mere memories. And Earth?.....It will have mutated into Venus II.
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