Global warming – A review
Global warming, or what is now often reffered to as global climate change, is one of the most polarizing issues of our time. In this article, I will attempt to explain the basic physics of global temperature changes, how we are attempting to measure and predict them, the alleged consequences (and even possible advantages) of global warming, the “solutions” to slow it, and the potential impacts of such measures on our lives.
(NASA)
1. The physics of global temperature.
The sun (shortwave) radiation warms the earth while outgoing (longwave) radiation cools the earth. The energy coming in from the sun is fairly constant, and the energy going out from the earth is proportional to the temperature on earth. The earth’s average temperature is the value that allows an exact balance between incoming shortwave, outgoing longwave, and absorbed and reflected radiation.
“Greenhouse gases”, like carbon dioxide (CO2), absorb some of the outgoing energy, keeping the earth warmer. Interestingly, high clouds do the same thing, while low clouds do the opposite. Some other gases, like sulfur compounds, reflect sunlight and keep the earth cooler. The primary assertion by those who are concerned about anthropogenic (manmade) global warming “AGW” is that the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution began has also caused a warming of surface temperatures through the greenhouse effect, and the warming will continue. However, natural occurrences have also caused changes in CO2 and periodic warming way before the industrial revolution. According to geologists, an ice age once brought glaciers down into the present-day northern U.S. and created the Great Lakes. The earth warmed after that, and it wasn’t a power plant causing it. Scientists also tell us of a warmer time in the past, when sea levels were much higher due to melting polar ice, when the Gulf of Mexico came up to about Montgomery (they have found manatee fossils in Auburn). Again, no power plants. Since people produce CO2 everytime we exhale air, we are also contributing to global warming by breathing. Ok, bad joke.
Also, some phenomena (volcanic eruptions, nuclear bomb tests) emit sulfur compounds and aerosols into the upper atmosphere, that absorb or reflect sunlight and cause cooling in the lower atmosphere. It may also be stated fairly, then, that the decrease in SO2 emissions due to various clean air regulations since the 1970s and the nuclear test ban has also caused warming to the planet. (The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo produced a 1 degree F cooling over the northern hemisphere in 2 years).
Mt. Pinatubo (USGS/UND)
2. Attempts to measure and predict climate change
The measurement of atmospheric temperature is difficult. Measurements of temperature from across the globe over the past few decades have shown an increase. The amount of increase is debatable, since much of the alleged warming has been over Siberia, and in Russia many weather observation stations apparently went offline with the fall of the USSR. So, measurements in Siberia may not be reliable.
Also, most temperature measurements are taken in cities, where it is warmer anyway, especially at night, due to the urban heat island. On a clear night in the winter, it is sometimes 5 degrees warmer in Birmingham than it is in Snead. So, the temperature at Birmingham does not give an accurate picture of the temperature over central Alabama, but it goes into the surface temperature database, not Snead. Satellites likely give us the best estimates, and they show only a very slight warming. Look at the difference between surface measurements (used by IPCC) and satellite measurements (from UAH) for a developing region in East Africa:
(Christy et al. 2009)
Many climate models, similar in some ways to numerical weather prediction models like the GFS, are run to predict the future climate and its effects on rainfall patterns, local temperatures, and even biological cycles. However, we know how inaccurate our weather prediction models are at times! And, IPCC model-based temperature projections from 2000-2009 are apparently wrong.
(scienceandpublicpolicy.org)
Also, as pointed out by Alabama State Climatologist John Christy in his response to EPA assertions (for his report, click here.), running the IPCC models for the past 30 years shows that they greatly overpredict warming. Christy states “the models overstate the warming that has occurred. The clear implication of this result is that the models have an assumed sensitivity to CO2 that the real world does not.” Christy points out that the big model weakness is cloud cover. Climate models indicate that increasing CO2 causes a decrease in clouds, further warming the earth in a positive feedback. Actually, Roy Spencer of UAH has found that warming the earth increases clouds, so the earth has its own “thermostat” to cool things down if it warms.
3. The alleged consequences and unmentioned advantages of global warming
The global warming hysteria in the media really began to heat up after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It is true that 2004 and 2005 were very active hurricane years; however, Katrina moved ashore as a Category 3 hurricane, a strength attained by an average of 2-3 hurricanes per year since 1944 in the Atlantic basin. It just so happened that Katrina hit at a location that caused catastrophic damage to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Immediately, the AGW alarmists sickeningly used this tragedy to further their viewpoint, with Barbara Streisand or some Hollywood person calling it a “Global Warming Emergency”. (Where did they, or Al Gore, get their degrees in climatology?) Despite the quiet hurricane seasons of 2006 through 2009, those claiming AGW had catastrophic consequences seemed energized after the active 2004-05 years.
There has been a lot of debate on the correlation of hurricane activity and atmospheric CO2, but this is hard to correlate since hurricane activity has been variable, with a period of about 60 years per cycle, since the late 1800’s. Hurricanes were numerous 1870-1890, then quiet in the early 1900’s, active again in the 1950’s and 1960’s, quiet from 1970 through 1994, then active most of the time since then. I don’t think the industrial output of the world has been periodic like that.
It has now gotten to the point that almost any major weather event is blamed by someone on global climate change. The snow at a National League Playoff game this year, California wildfires, and some tornadoes, droughts, and floods are blamed on AGW. These types of events have been occurring for hundreds of years. The recent usage of the phrase “global climate change” seems to protect the AGW people; they have their bases covered now. They have even discussed a scenario where global warming and ice melting will cause a problem with the Gulf Stream and an Ice Age in North America. So, even if it gets very cold for many years, they can say it was AGW.
If the most extreme predictions of AGW occur, it would be rough in many ways. Heat waves would occur, some rainfall patterns would change, and agriculture would have to adapt (peach trees might have to be moved to Tennessee, but we could grow oranges I guess). No one mentions the possible advantages of AGW, if it is occurring. Some models apprently indicate that the most intense warming would occur in the polar regions. Is that all bad? Maybe people could grow crops in Siberia and northern Canada, and sea lanes would open for shipping in the Arctic. Winters culd be warmer, lowering some energy bills.
4. “Solutions” to global climate change
Many of the solutions that are supposed to slow down AGW being proposed by environmentalists make sense whether you think AGW is a problem or not. However, politicians in the U.S. and around the world are proposing drastic changes to our energy system that could damage our already weak economy and perhaps lower the standard of living in the United States.
To me, saving energy is generally a good thing. It reduces pollution and saves me money. I have written on saving energy (click here.). I plan to do the same for winter. Also, do you really need a giant SUV to tote your kids around in? Why not just buy a dump truck and take it to a conversion shop? Carpooling, 4×10 workweeks, and telecommuting are also good ideas. Also, please stop throwing plastic bottles in my river…they make garbage cans. And I like the 15 W flourescent light bulbs that produce the equivalent light of a 100 W incandescent bulb.
Modern ways of producing electricity are also nice. Solar power is free, it just costs a fortune in most cases to convert it to electricity (I checked online and a solar panel to charge a digital camera runs over $100, so imagine how much it costs to power your home).
However, we live in 2009. We can not stop driving our cars, and we need electricity. Yet, driving and using electricity are some of the biggest ways we produce CO2 every day (besides breathing). The “cap and trade” bill coming up in Congress will create a market where many power and oil companies will eventually have to buy credits to burn coal or natural gas or oil to produce electricity or refine gasoline. However, the power company or the oil company is a business, and they will probably pass along the cost of those carbon credits to you. The house version of the bill passed in the summer also requires a massive reduction in greenhouse gases over the next few years/decades. Where will the power come from, then?
I suppose we could replace coal-fired plants with nuclear ones, at a cost of billions of dollars (that we will all have to pay). What about solar, or wind? Right now, electricity in Alabama costs about 7 cents per kWh. Solar energy costs about 30 cents per kWh, and wind power can be produced in windy areas (like the northern Plains or Northeast) for 5-7 cents per kWh, but it is not windy enough in most of the Southeast for wind power. Transmission of the power from wind farms or solar panels 1,000 miles way would greatly increase the cost, not only due to the cost of the transmission system (one article estimates $80 billion for the eastern U.S. just in transmission system costs like power lines), but also due to losses of power due to resistance along the power lines. However you slice this, electricity prices would likely increase significantly.
5. Effects on our lives
According to the IPCC, “meaningful climate mitigation” would cost
approximately 1.7% of world GDP. Apply this to the U.S., and it would
cost us $238 billion per year. Averaged out to $800 per person, or $270
per month for a family of four. And this assumes other countries with rapidly-growing energy use like China and India would follow our lead. The US government has placed lower costs on the “cap and trade” bill, varying from about $100 to $1,000 per year. Here is a quote from President Obama, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008:
“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” Obama told the Chronicle . “Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.”
The AGW debate, and any criticism or resistance to it, often produces outrage. James Hansen, an outspoken climatologist from NASA, recently stated in a letter to The Guardian in England,
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
What? Death trains? I pass by Birmingport on the way to the river often, and I see trains full of coal that goes to Miller or Gorgas or one of the other plants nearby, often on a barge (are those now “death barges” too?), and I would call them life trains, life barges, and factories for life. How would all the premature babies born in Birmingham hospitals, or the heart attack and other critical care patients, live without the electricity that feeds the hospitals? How would we air condition our homes in summer and heat them in winter? I’m sure burning firewood is not more efficient than using a heat pump. And how many lives of the elderly and young were saved by that coal during the heat wave of 2007, or on the morning it dropped to 12 degrees in Birmingham this year?
The bottom line is that we are likely using at least partially inaccurate data, fed into possibly inaccurate models, to predict rapid global warming. Is it possible? Yes. But is it certain, or even likely? We don’t know. And are willing to bet up to $238 billion per year to TRY to slow something down that may not happen, at least not nearly the rate some say it will? And are we willing to do all this knowing that it may not even matter very much if other large nations don’t go along with us?
If you’re worried about global warming too much, you could always buy some farmland in northern Canada in hopes that it will someday be warm, buy a $25,000 (or more) solar panel system for your backyard so if power bills double you can go off grid, or acquire some land across US 98 from the Gulf, in case sea level rises 2 feet and the condos of 2050 will be over there, and your great-grandchildren will be wealthy. In all seriousness, we should do all we can to save energy and protect the environment, but in my opinion, not at the cost of our livelihood or our national security.
My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my primary employer.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Fluorescent bulbs. Also, i thought of a recent program which depicted Greenland as an area where settlers grew crops. It was the 1400s and might have been the Vikings.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:45 am
Very well spoken! If the GFS model was as inaccurate as the IPCC model, would we not throw out the GFS (or make major changes to it)?
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:53 am
Enjoying the article but I already have a question at the very beginning.
“‘Greenhouse gases’, like carbon dioxide (CO2), absorb some of the outgoing energy, keeping the earth warmer. Interestingly, high clouds do the same thing, while low clouds do the opposite.”
I didn’t know that low clouds do the opposite of high clouds with regard to radiation. How does that work?
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:13 am
It’s terrifying when you realize what a little fearmongering can accomplish when it comes from Washington, no matter which party holds the power.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
So do you believe that humans can/will eventually have a major effect on the climate with the problems of AGW? Thanks for the great info!!
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
This whole post reads like an example of “misconceptions of global warming.” I can’t believe a scientist is writing it.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am
Why wouldn’t you believe that a scientist wrote this article?
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
The lie of global warming appeals to the sense that we are in control. Everyone has this and it gives us a false sense of security. We can control alot of situations around us. The weather is not one of them. This is where people lose touch with reality and jump of into the global warming lie up over their ears. There is something much bigger behind all this. Question, Who is the father of lies? The science of global warming is gone and can’t be trusted. Speculation with the data is always hugely variable. It is never constant. If we have trouble forecasting temps a week in advance just in the lower 48 why on earth could we think we can predict 10-20-30 years in advance. It is comical. All you WISE scientist who ate this pill need to find the remedy.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:55 am
Although I think your article is very well written, I must say that the introduction paragraph is extremely misleading. I was looking forward to reading a scientific article on Global Warming that was written for those of us who…well…may not understand everything in the articles from weather journals. I was disappointed to find that for everyone one fact there was at least one personal opinion (that mainly seemed very political). Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some very good points made & gave me other ways of looking at the whole Global Warming issue. Like I said, I thought the article was very well written. I guess I just wish that I knew that it was going to be more of a “I’m going to prove my point of view” sort of article than a “here are some facts…go make up your mind” type of article.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 am
The article is right, about you cant really call it Global Warming. At least for now its only the poles that are getting warmer, nobody can deny that….to much ice has melted over the last few years during summer at the poles, more than anyone living on this earth has ever seen before.
There is a theory, which was in the article about the Gulf stream and an ice age in North America, it states that all the meltwater coming from the poles is less dense than the ocean water (salt water) so the much cooler meltwater will sit on the surface of the ocean. Therefore cooling the regions away from the poles, as the meltwater flows around the globe in ocean currents.
So i see why it is referred to as Global Climate Change.
Humans have an effect on the environment, but not enough to completly change the Earths climate…..This is part of mother nature…as the article stated the earth has seen major climate shifts before mankind ruled the earth….so Why do we think we are the reason for it now? And why do we think we can prevent climate change from happening.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:19 am
Hello,
in the first point i found something i must point out….it says the sun sends us “shortwave” that warms us and the earth emits longwave that cools us.
the sun sends the WHOLE SPECTRUM, it also sends us longwaves as they are part of the whole spectrum.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Beth,
The issue is that there isn’t any “real” global warming issue. It’s all political. This was a great article opinions and all. Of course I think this because it lines up with my opinions but I liked it because it is backed up by scientific facts, and best of all common sense !!
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 am
Bill,
Tim is not referring to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. He’s speaking in general terms for people who may not have ever had a physics class. Most general physics books will tell you that the visible light (along with UV radiation) from the Sun is “shortwave.” Heat is infrared, and that is the longwave radiation.
This is a statement about energy transfer and how solar radiation warms the land, and the land in turn re-radiates that heat into the lower atmosphere warming it up.
Tim’s work here is good, and it is written for the general public. This isn’t a scientific journal, and what I just said could be nit-picked by an astrophysicist if he wanted to…the point is having a basic understanding of the process.
Jason
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
While there may be a few advantages of climate change, they pale when compared to the rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. (Not many scientists disagree with that.) Millions of people in low-lying coastal countries like Bangladesh will be adversely affected. Most models also indicate less rainfall in many current “breadbasket” regions of the world. Are increasing CO2 levels totally to blame? Don’t know, but they may turn out to be the easiest to fix.
To Bill, the sun emits a blackbody spectrum that peaks in the visible range. The reemission of this radiation shifts the wavelengths more towards the infrared region.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:45 am
WOW. Well written post.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Thanks Jason. Also, it’s finally a perfect day for doing yard projects and admiring/raking fall leaves. Going outside now.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:54 am
thanks for the replies…..laymans translation, the average person wont understand so we dont need to be exact in our wording…..there is no shift in the radiation, the sun does emit the whole spectrum as i already posted there is NO “peak” in that spectrum, just because we see the visible portion that changes nothing about how much of it there is or how much of the rest of the spectrum there is…indeed much of the UV portion is stopped by out upper atmosphere that is why we have an ozone layer, the UV heats the atoms of oxygen when it hits the upper atmosphere and that forms ozone, without the protection we couldnt live on the surface.
this stuff that the average person wont understand bothers me greatly, indeed if the wording is too “scientific” many wont be able to understand, but an intelligent scientist should be able to put things in terms EVERYBODY could understand.
saying the sun sends us the shortwaves as portion 1 clearly does gives a FALSE impression that there are no longwaves coming from the sun.
a “blackbody” does NOT emit visible light so saying the sun emits a blackbody spectrum is simply wrong….FACT = the sun emits the whole spectrum PERIOD.
my purpose is ACCURACY, nothing more or less.
those UV waves also have heat energy in fact the whole spectrum has that power, whenever electromagnetic waves hit particles they excite those particles causing heat.
example we cant see microwaves but indeed they do HEAT the foods we put in those ovens.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
I agree with the comment made earlier by Jason. We are not in control of the weather and I dont believe for one second that we can in any way alter weather patterns. The Bible tells us to worship the Creator not the creation. Alot of people worship the creation.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
the way i like to put the “balance” of energy in vs energy out is the use of thermodynamics….our atmosphere indeed seeks to find a balance between the energy in vs out and thermodynamics is how that process works…..BUT because there are so many factors at play and most all of those factors are constantly changing while seeking a balance it can never be found because factors constantly change so that balance point also constantly changes.
i offer the fact that every historical record and present day measurement shows up and down cycles in our climate, NEVER a stable period of equilibrium as proof that the system is seeking a balance but has yet to find it.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I thought James Spann summed it up pretty well a couple of years ago…follow the money…..Gore, Heidi, and the rest of the libs.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
by the way the rest of Dr. Tim’s post is spot on, but i would have gone further in saying the models used by the ipcc are much more than maybe wrong, they are PROVEN to be wrong by the fact that they were wrong on the first decade of this century, they foresaw warming when actually cooling happened.
they assign a power to co2 that it simply does not have, think of a well insulated house(the water vapor in our atmosphere is the good insulation) and then add a thin layer of gauze on the outside(i use gauze because just like co2 it allows MOST ALL of the heat to leave the outer surface with zero impact because co2 only affect 3 tiny portions of the IR wavelength.
adding that layer of gauze would NOT make it warmer inside the home and would not reduce the amount of energy needed to keep it warm inside…insulators only slow heat movement they do NOT trap heat.
again i am a layman but must say i have done extensive research on this issue and if the pros among us desire to use anything i have posted feel free to do so, for again sharing accurate information is my goal.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Bill Taylor,
Please go look in a physics textbook and look at the electromagnetic spectrum for the sun and the earth. The sun does emit over many wavelengths, but since it is very hot, Wien’s displacement law states that the wavelengths where most of the energy come from are very shortwaves. Since earth is relatively cool, its radiation peaks at much longer wavelengths.
Email me if you want an actual chart of the irradiance per unit wavelength for each.
Tim C.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
ty, Dr. Tim,
i didnt say the earth doesnt emit IR of course it does and indeed that is its peak output.
i DID say the sun puts out the entire spectrum and does NOT have a peak in the visible spectrum and that is correct.
i also made no difference in which portion has the most energy but did say the whole spectrum has energy.
not trying to argue with you Dr. Tim, but do remain correct in saying the whole spectrum comes from the sun and your initial point implied only the short waves comes from the sun.
a minor point but valid.
“The sun does emit over many wavelengths, but since it is very hot, Wien’s displacement law states that the wavelengths where most of the energy come from are very shortwaves.”
good thing out upper atmosphere uses/blocks much of that very short wave energy isnt it? if it didnt then the longwaves going back out might not be sufficient to keep us cool enough for life.
thanks again for responding and would enjoy your opinion of the rest of the points in my posts if you care to?
i have read physics books by the way, long ago in school and more recently to be certain my memory of these issues is correct in todays world.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Careful, Dr. Tim. I invented the Internet. I can easily make your blog post disappear. The debate is over, you know.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
oops, i must defer to the Gore-acle, in the words of that great philosopher emily latella, nevermind!
this science is settled TY big al.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I’m getting a real laugh at those who say that this wasn’t written by a real scientist LOL. Pay attention to his name….do you not notice that there’s DR. in front of his name? His name is DOCTOR TIM COLEMAN. He’s more of a scientist than any of us will ever be and certainly more of a scientist than AL GORE will ever be!
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Thanks so much for putting this on the blog. It is very informative. I’m going to print it off for my 17 year old, he is always asking questions about global warming and I frequently don’t have the answer.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Well, at least i am on leave (vacation) this week – as in, home and car maintenance, dr. appts, errands, things to do = like raking leaves, etc. What interests me are the strong storms in Louisiana – that is why i am tapping into the weather so often and watching the blog.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Good article! I think the point is political since this cap-and-trade bill, that will most probably get the presidents approval, will significantly invade our lives even further. Shouldn’t we at least take more time on the issue before we make such drastic changes to our economy?
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
For this amateur astronomer (and former engineer) the
science in your article is well worth the read.
I enjoyed it much, Dr. Tim and can find nothing for
this scientist to disagree with!
PS: “Not Evil, Just Wrong” – highly recommended!
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Cars and tractor trailers and equipment give off alot more co2 than coal fired power plants, alot more. Look at the skyline of any major city, thats all from cars and trucks. The reason they throw the coal fired power plants in with the mix is because the government knows they will be getting large amounts of money through penalties imposed on power companies- consumers. Why don’t they release an affordable electric car? They actually already have. In the 90’s G.M. LEASED out the EV1 in California. People loved it. It would travel 60 miles with one charge. At the end of the lease program G.M. confiscated and CRUSHED all the cars. Why? because those cars needed no parts and maintainence, and the cars would last a long time-less money for G.M. Bottom line is there is big money to be made by the gov. through power companies and oil companies through penalties over emmissions and oil prices.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Good job Dr. Coleman!
It’s amazing as I follow this blog and others on this issue. There are so many “scientists” and people looking for a “make up your on mind” kind of article or blog. I bet most of these people are NOT scientist or fair minded! They certainly don’t sound like it to me.
One thing we can be assured of – Truth always wins out, it takes time though. No wonder there is such a push to “so something NOW”! They know that the recent trend downward in global temps is likely to continue (even using their skewed methods that you point out in the article). As you also mentioned the AGW crowd is already TRYING to posture to account for this with the whole melting ice and gulf stream stuff. I believe they are too late. Too many people are catching on to their political and greedy games.
Again – good job – Keep it up! (Just ignore all those “scientists” and “fair minded people”) I listen to you on Weather Brains and read your stuff – you are a true scientist who DOES make it easy for folks like me to understand.
For the record – I have NO DEGREES! I’m not an EXPERT! I love weather though, and I do love my country and our way of life!
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Should be -No wonder there is such a push to “DO something NOW”!
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
EVERY YEAR in the US, coal fired power plants emit more than 2 billion TONS of Co2. More than 9 million TONS of Sulphur Dioxide a major cause of acid rain. Fifty tons of Mercury, a potent neurotoxin that can harm developing babies and infants and it is found in many lake fish in Alabama, how’d it get there, duh. Every YEAR in the US coal fired power plants contribute to 554,000 asthma attacks and 38,000 heart attacks (Source EPA). Costing a total of $160 billion in health care bills. How many years have you and your kids lived, you do the math and figure out what percentage you have breathed. There is video on youtube of Dick Cheney during his term as VP saying that one new power plant per week for the next two decades needs to be added to the grid to keep up the demand. Thank God he is sitting at home right now. Sure, those babies and elderly people are being kept alive in that hospital on coal electricity, how about when they go home and over the course of their lifetime. What will the long-term health costs be??? There is another way, geothermal, wind, solar, biofuels etc. Google what the Sumner County Schools in Tn, did with geothermal energy to their buildings and see what can really be accomplished.
Coal comes from the dinosaur era, we live in the 21st Century. We need to put money into alternative energy development and stop burning so much coal whether it causes global warming or not! It is the right thing to do. I feel lucky that I live in a town with a wind turbine farm and get clean power. We also need to stop sending money overseas for oil to countries like UAE that do not pay any taxes because their govt’s are so rich from the $$ we spend on their petroleum. They have a high standard of life and we have polluted air. Who gets the last laugh? Get educated people, don’t just sit with your head buried in the sand. Print this off for your kids and not that drivel above, it might have been right 30 years ago. Look up “Kilowatt Ours” and watch it on youtube, then fact check for yourself and decide if you are still happy with the way things are.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
When we were in Portland, OR last fall, we saw the five foot towers with plugs for recharging the electric vehicles. Wonder if they are still there? Oh – i never mentioned my listings in scientific journals – using lasers, 20 papers and (?) abstracts, before we moved to Birmingham.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:05 am
last one out turn out the lights. We don’t want to cause global warming . . . or cooling. Join the wave of new liberality, fight against global cooling!
If you really want to help, stop buying MS products and use a MAC!
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Rosey,
Let me point you to a very good simply written article. For I fear you may not know the energy in your errors. First let me say there is no such thing as a renewable except for fusion (not created except at the suns level) and maybe breeder reactors. Secondly to call wind, solar energy alternatives is completely dishonest and the lie must be stopped. To be an alternative is defined as a replacement…seen of any coal plants shutdown yet, nor will they be. The wind does not blow enough and the sun does not shine enough to be called alternatives. Wind is only about 20% effiecint actually during the peak heat of summer in Texas our wind farms were only about 1% effiecent. Nuclear in Texas runs >95% eff., coal is running at >90%.
Mercury is a naturally occurring element which cannot be made or destroyed sort of like background radiation. In other words one’s exposure to either depends on where you live. People at high altitudes receive more radiation in background than I do total radiation and I work at a nuclear plant. And CO2 lest we forget the dreaded life giving compound, the fact is greenhouse gases make up less than 1% of the atmosphere and water vapor contributes most of that. So maybe we should limit water vapor instead.
Read this article pay particular attention to the cost of wind and solar in the form or energy:
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2294
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
Concisely written James. You might enjoy this. 20 years ago Dr. James Hansen made a prediction during an interview by looking out his window at NASA GISS.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
It failed badly.
Best regards
Anthony Watts
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
Rhetoric is the art of using language to effectively argue a claim by persuading or convincing an audience. Those individuals that speak in convincing or persuasive manners were known as great rhetors. That’s Dr.Tim Coleman degree. Impresive article for its way of manipulating the truth. My hat goes off for the great wording. Denying climate change is like trying to cover the sun’s light with your hand. It is important to read and investigate both sides to have an educated opinion, that’s exactly why I took the time to read this article. And I am grateful now, to know how important is to make people aware of the Copenhagen Treaty and its impact on the earht’s future.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
@Hypotenuse #14 –
“… the rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. (Not many scientists disagree with that.)”
Umm, yes, nearly all of them do. The ice sheets on both land masses survived nicely through the Holocene Optimum, a period of several thousand years during which global temperatures were 2 to 3 deg C warmer than now. Estimates are that to melt Greenland would take about a thousand years of temps six deg C above the present and would raise worldwide sea levels around three inches. Melting Antarctica, both much larger and much deeper (and climatically isolated from the rest of the globe by the Southern Ocean), would take many thousands of years.
“Most models also indicate less rainfall in many current “breadbasket” regions of the world.”
Even the modelers admit that their precipitation projections are wildly inaccurate. In fact, the models are totally useless and have a skill indistinguishable from zero. There was no evidence for CO2-driven AGW in 1988, and after twenty years and more than $60 billion in taxpayer-funded research, there is STILL no evidence for it; in fact, ALL the evidence gathered from increasingly sophisticated satellites and deep-diving ocean buoys indicates that not only are these models wrong, the whole theory on which they are based is ludicrously, spectacularly, sensationally wrong.
We are going to destroy our environment with phalanxes of huge industrial windmills and rainforests cut down to plant eucalypts, and destroy our economy with absurd “carbon credit” trading to make Al Gore and Goldman-Sachs richer, all for the sake of a completely discredited theory which never convinced most scientists in the first place.
We are insane.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 am
@Rosey #34 —
In 1971 the EPA set a maximum limit on sulfur dioxide in air. To help meet this limit, revisions to the Clean Air Act in 1977 required all new power plants to install scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide. Most spray tower scrubbers remove at least 90 percent of sulfur dioxide, according to the EPA. In 1990 further revisions to the Clean Air Act under the Acid Rain Program allotted allowable amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions to electric utilities, which could trade allowances to meet their quotas. Sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in 2001 were 33 percent lower than in 1990 and 5 percent lower than in 2000 according to the EPA.
— http://www.pollutionissues.com/Re-Sy/Scrubbers.html
These scrubbers also remove substantial amounts of mercury, along with nearly all particulates, and carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, it’s a plant fertilizer.
The problems with coal are more at the mining end than at the burning end, and if we STOP wasting billions on the fruitless chase of carbon unicorns, perhaps the industry will have enough money to solve the environmental problems of mining.
Don’t panic.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am
anemona100,
My PhD degree is in atmospheric science, not rhetoric, linguistics, nor journalism. My undergraduate degrees are in physics and mathematics.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
[...] According to climatedepot.com, anyway. They refer to me as a “another dissenter”, just below the large font pew poll. It is for yesterday’s article on this blog (click here). [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
also Dr. Tim did NOT in any way deny climate change, CHANGE is the natural state of our climate there is NO record anywhere of a stable time with unchanging climate.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Dr. Tim,
Keep up the good work. My Doctorate is in Chemistry, and I’ve been teaching my neighbors/friends the truth for years now. This fraud will end eventually…
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
DR TIM- Aint it amazing what people will “swallow hook line and sinker” to be
TRUTH!! Just like Hitler said: You tell a lie long enough and loud
enough, people will believe it to be TRUE! We MUST be vigilant to refuse
to believe this socialistic propaganda!! Beginning with the white house
on down!
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Forget about average global temperatures. Forget about ice caps melting and Polar Bears floating across the Atlantic on ice cubes. Forget about rising sea levels, droughts, increased hurricanes, floods and on and on. Also forget about sunspot cycles or El-Nino and La-Nina, or whatever the hell else has been thrown into the mix as a distraction because none of it matters, none of it is relevant. All we have to do is drill down and focus on one thing only.
That one thing is CO2.
It is claimed that humans are responsible for Climate Change because of our CO2 emissions and that we need to have limits imposed because we need to reduce our emissions of CO2.
So first simply ask yourself this:
Can CO2 trap in heat?
Answer: NO, nothing traps in heat, substances can only absorb and re-emit heat but they cannot trap heat.
Next question, does CO2 absorb heat more strongly than the other gasses in the atmosphere?
Answer: NO, CO2 is only 0.03811% of the atmosphere and remains as solid ice up to a temperature of 194.65 K
Nitrogen and Oxygen which make up 99% of the atmosphere on the other hand, begin to melt at temperatures as low as 50-60 K and so are much stronger absorbers of heat and at the same time, make up most of the atmospheric gasses.
This puts the effect of CO2 into context. CO2 cannot trap heat as no gasses in the atmosphere can. CO2 is a tiny proportion of the gasses in the atmosphere, so tiny in fact that compared to Oxygen and Nitrogen it is barely noticeable. The effect of such tiny amounts of CO2 being a much weaker absorber of heat than Nitrogen and Oxygen, also show that the warming effect of CO2 is insignificant.
So the final question is, are we responsible for Climate Change through our CO2 emissions?
Answer: NO WE MOST DEFINITELY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE.
Take that to Copenhagen!
If you would like to know more about the AGW fraud and carbon tax, download this free .pdf book
http://www.spinonthat.com/CO2_files/CO2tdino.pdf
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
For Craig, regarding #40:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212091619.htm#
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/23/big-melt-greenland/
November 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Nice essay. If it seems opinionated at times, I think that’s only fair – people who represent the other side also have tended to be opinionated and have taken quite a few verbal jabs as well. I think this was sensible and well-written. I think when there are two extreme points of view that a lot of people are arguing over, there is usually a “middle way” that makes much more sense – and that seems to be what you’re saying here. My only quibble is that I wonder “why” solar power is so expensive? Is it really that much harder to harness than energy from coal and such things, or are there other more political reasons the cost has been made so high? I do know that progress in using solar energy must be awfully slow, because I was reading about possibly using solar energy to power cars and just about everything else back in third grade in the “Weekly Readers” . . . and that was about fifteen years ago.
I’m thinking the most balanced thing to do would be to continue to use our energy sources that work – wisely of course – but to try to work toward better sources. Either extreme – trying to hang onto the old ways and poo-pooing the new completely – or saying the old ways are pure evil and that the new energy sources must be implemented at once at all costs . . . strikes me as panicked and irrational thinking.
January 30th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Solar panels that track the sun currently involve the use of motors and electronic control systems to move them and convert the power to energy.