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Post by sigurdur on Dec 19, 2009 21:32:05 GMT
The difference between myself and most folks is that climate DOES affect me in a very economical way. I talked to my state climatologist last week about the PDO switch, as it affects NA in a very big way. He had made forcasts based on the "positive" PDO. They are not panning out at all this year and haven't for the past 2 years.
Hard to believe, but he hadn't thought about the longer term implications of the switch, but I don't fault him for it. Only happens approx every 30 years so it isn't an everyday thing.
I also am working on building a regional summary of temp and prec from 1940-1980 for my area as that would show the trends during the last negative pdo.
No one has done this, but I do need to know as sensative crops don't like cold and may need to be taken out of my rotation.
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Post by sigurdur on Dec 19, 2009 21:37:23 GMT
AJ: I had a brain fart. Mr. Svensmark is a Dutchman and you are from the Netherlands...different countries. Please accept my apology for misstating that.
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Post by Ratty on Dec 19, 2009 23:34:13 GMT
AJ: I had a brain fart. Mr. Svensmark is a Dutchman and you are from the Netherlands...different countries. Please accept my apology for misstating that. Very funny Sig! ;D I hope Mr Svensmark isn't reading this!
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Post by nautonnier on Dec 20, 2009 0:17:51 GMT
I am reminded of another Douglas Adams quote: "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space."We might think that the amount of CO 2 given off by human activity is large - but in comparison to natural sources and variations it is small - in this or other threads it is assessed at ~5% or less of atmospheric CO 2Now my understanding of the solubility of gases in water is that: 1. Solubility decreases as temperature rises and 2. Henry's law states that : at constant temperature the mass of a gas dissolved in a given volume of the liquid is directly proportional to the pressure of the gas present in equilibrium with the liquid.From this we get that for any temperature as the amount of gas in the atmosphere rises more gas dissolves. This could easily account for the very small percentage of CO 2 from anthropogenic sources. It seems to be borne out too by the graphics earlier in this thread that show: * lower CO2 concentration at the poles and * rapid reductions in larger amounts of CO 2Once again the oceans and water are the system in the background that stabilizes things. More CO 2 == higher CO 2 solubility. At the same time as ocean temperatures rise - as they have done until recent years - CO 2 solubility drops and it 'out-gases' and atmospheric CO 2 rises until the level meets the Henry's law partial pressure balance. This is complicated by the greater solubility at the poles where water is cold compared to the equator where water is warm. Thus the various convective circulations will move heat and out-gased CO 2 to the poles where it will dissolve back into the water The world does not behave in a linear fashion. I am sure that there are physical chemists here who will be able to confirm this. May I warn you that the antropogenic CO2 flux is a yearly value? Physical Chemists will tell you that antropogenic influence (many traces) can be found ALL over the world even in the most remote areas? (We might be small, but we are many!) The fraction of CO2 dissolved in the ocean is substantial, but the top ocean layer is quickly saturated because it acts as a buffer. Physical oceanographists will tell you that large scale overturning is a slow process. More about CO2 solubility in the oceans can be found in the literature, e.g. Kohler et al. 2006. And the lag between temperature and CO2: Kawamura et al., 2007. You can remind me of the spread of CO 2 if you like but if you read what I posted you would have seen that I stated that it would be carried to the poles by the various convective cells. Now I agree about the buffer of the ocean surface - and that ocean surface water follows Henry's law. It may be that it is more saturated than deeper water - but it has ALWAYS been more saturated than deeper water - so the very small percentage rise in CO 2 partial pressure will STILL increase the amount dissolving in that surface layer while temperature rises will reduce solubility. Water at the poles being colder will allow more CO 2 to enter solution than will warmer water at the equator. This is all apparent from the NOAA satellite imagery. I have no doubt that CO 2 also dissolves in cold water droplets and rain dropping through the atmosphere that then enters the oceans. The surface area of all those water droplets in all the clouds on Earth is HUGE. You need to get out more away from all those simplistic equations
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Post by brian0707 on Dec 20, 2009 0:33:57 GMT
Sigurdur, your comment on the PDO change and problems experienced by your state meteorologist is interesting. I may be reaching but the comment suggests you may make your living in agriculture - or another weather sensitive field. My field is energy.
I know of several well respected economists and market experts who are making major long term recommendations based on the effects of a cooling climate. For the most part they are focused on sunspots and solar geomagnetic activity rather than the PDO. But twhatever their reasons, they are making bets on the effects of North American and hemispheric cooling.
As I understand it, a cooler dryer climate raises higher risks of crop shortfalls and outright failure - droughts - than a warmer humid climate. One such economist, Don Coxe, has noted that the US Midwest has not experienced a significant drought since the early 80s, perhaps a reflection of the recent trend. Likewise there are significant long term bets within the energy sector - especially in natural gas and electricity production - if coming winters are materially colder than the past decade.
Perhaps the good news, although politically incorrect for some, is the huge advances in developing hardier and pest resistant crops should provide some mitigating effect if the breadbasket of North America experiences poorer climate conditions. At least I hope so. One of the more disturbing "page 16" stories has been the downward trend in worldwide grain and rice inventories over the past decade or so - a reflection of population and consumption growth without corresponding gains in food supply.
The old Chinese proverb comes to mind.
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Post by sigurdur on Dec 20, 2009 1:42:21 GMT
Sigurdur, your comment on the PDO change and problems experienced by your state meteorologist is interesting. I may be reaching but the comment suggests you may make your living in agriculture - or another weather sensitive field. My field is energy. I know of several well respected economists and market experts who are making major long term recommendations based on the effects of a cooling climate. For the most part they are focused on sunspots and solar geomagnetic activity rather than the PDO. But twhatever their reasons, they are making bets on the effects of North American and hemispheric cooling. As I understand it, a cooler dryer climate raises higher risks of crop shortfalls and outright failure - droughts - than a warmer humid climate. One such economist, Don Coxe, has noted that the US Midwest has not experienced a significant drought since the early 80s, perhaps a reflection of the recent trend. Likewise there are significant long term bets within the energy sector - especially in natural gas and electricity production - if coming winters are materially colder than the past decade. Perhaps the good news, although politically incorrect for some, is the huge advances in developing hardier and pest resistant crops should provide some mitigating effect if the breadbasket of North America experiences poorer climate conditions. At least I hope so. One of the more disturbing "page 16" stories has been the downward trend in worldwide grain and rice inventories over the past decade or so - a reflection of population and consumption growth without corresponding gains in food supply. The old Chinese proverb comes to mind. Yes, I am a farmer. I grow edible beans/soybeans/wheat/corn/potatoes. The wheat is the least sensative to heat units. With that said, the wheat crop, which is a cool weather crop, barely made it this year in a state that normally has excess heat units. The corn did not make it, is light test weight and there is still a bit standing. I have noticed in the past 2 years the shift in climate here. And the remarkable swing in temps, which you have indicated. November turned out above average, the 1st of Dec was like you pulled the rug out. The temp went 15-20F colder than average. This type of climate seems to be predominant in a cooling phase. We had a blizzard in the 1940's that killed many people. Went from 55F to -20F in 6 hours, and in that time it also snowed 8 inches. Many people were caught out as the day began so beautifully. That would have been the beginning of the pdo going negative. Then in 1973, it was around the end of the negative pdo, and it also went out with a bang. I came home from Guam to help my father plant the crop, did not spend one day in the field from the 3rd of May to the 1st of June. It was extremely cold and wet. The fall that year was also horrible. When I got out of the service in 75, the weather had smoothed and I started growing corn in 1978. Everyone thought I was totally nuts, but had excellent crops. By 1988 I had gone to even a longer maturity for my corn. In 2008, it was cool, the fall was wet, and I ended up harvesting my corn this summer. Didn't plant an acre of corn in 2009, and don't plan to plant corn now till I retire. Just a physical observation of climate. Regional yes, but I don't think it is going to stay regional. At least in NA, it has been a very cold December with numerous records set for early snow and cold. I do believe that there are more than one switch going on at this time. Australia has had goofy weather, the storm in Europe was a bit on the freakish side, the storm on the east coast of the US right now is record breaking etc. Pysical observations trump models every time. That is why I have indicated that co2 is a minor player in climate, I want to know wayyyyyyy more about the DRIVERS of climate.
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Post by sigurdur on Dec 20, 2009 1:47:42 GMT
There are some genetic advances in crops as far as drought, but there are NO advances dealing with temp. When we drop below 32F...0C.....we are in bad shape if the crop has not reached maturity.
I have written to my Senators recommending that as part of the stimulus that is so freely given, that they should be starting a grain reserve. HOWEVER, with all the hubbub about warmth, it is falling on deaf ears as they seem to think that we are going to burn up, while recognizing that increased temps mean increased ag output.
We are in for some very trying times in the near future and yes, I am angry that the co2 bandwagon has overtaken common sense in all of this. The out of the box scientists who have valid hypothosis's can not over ride the ones who have the megaphones at this time.
Just a prediction from someone who is very sensative to climate change.
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Post by hairball on Dec 20, 2009 1:51:10 GMT
I dunno, I did some numbers recently on the basis of there being .5 hectares of arable land per person currently (courtesy the CIA world factbook) and (as an amateur) worked out that we could easily feed the UN's projected 2050 peak population of 10 billion right now. Easily in the sense that we could lose 10% of arable land and not use that which remains to grow fuel. As opposed to growing food instead of fuel and burning coal which we've got loads of. Or investing more than 1% of the global "defense" budget in hot fusion or advancing plain ol' 1940's fission technology.
Dunno about Chinese proverbs but they use one in India I'd recommend for James Hansen: "Sit on the bank of a river and wait: Your enemy's corpse will soon float by." His 1970's ice-age is far out to sea and global warming seems to be dieing on its feet. Will he live to see his second global cooling nemesis float by?
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Post by aj1983 on Dec 20, 2009 18:39:30 GMT
sigurdur: Svensmark is from Denmark, so he is Danish. I'm from the Netherlands (aka Holland), so I'm Dutch. It is complicated indeed, and Denmark is actually quite close to the Netherlands for American (or Australian) standards. I'm glad I made you laugh. I understand that you see it this way. The hydrologic cycle has a very great influence on climate. However, the time water vapor resides in the atmosphere is so short that it will only act to modify (amplify?) changes in external forcing on climate. I have been observing the same things. We are usually all winter around the snow-sleet-freezing rain-rain boundary (usually just on the warm side). It is amazing how much energy is involved in phase transitions. Clouds are one of the most uncertain part of the AGW theory. However, processes seem to counteract eachother somewhat (albedo vs LW heating), but where the balance exactly resides is very difficult to determine. We suspect it is slightly on the cooling side, especially for low clouds. High clouds only lead to heating, because they are rather transparent and emit LW at a lower temperature than what they receive. Svensmark's theory is very interesting. I've done a small literature study on it when I was in my Senior college year (my pro-AGW physical chemist and cloud microphysics and dynamics teacher/professor was quite interested in it, like me). It is probably still the most important candidate for solar-climate drivers (besides TSI, and maybe some stratospheric processes, but how the stratosphere influences the troposphere is currently a hot research topic, and to what extent the troposphere is influenced by the stratosphere is controversial (new research shows that the troposphere influences the stratosphere (not surprizing, because the density decreases rapidly, so gravity waves (the meteorological type) are being amplified, while disturbances from the stratosphere are quickly dissipated in the upper troposphere), but it is unsure how much it works the other way around. I've been thinking and discussing this, because you would assume that if the solar UV output is smaller there is a chance that this would cool the stratosphere (as long as UV is the bottleneck, which might be true near the poles), and if you cool the stratosphere you might think about a stronger polar vortex, and a stonger polar vortex leads to stronger westerlies so warmer temperatures in Europe. However, in the LIA, there are indications of a colder, and much more variable climate in Europe, which might have been caused by a weaker and more meandering jet stream (so a weaker polar vortex, or weaker temperature gradient in the stratosphere between the poles and the equator). However, it is not at all this simple. Temperature gradients are more important. With equal reasoning you could also explain things the other way around. It would be nice (but less challenging and interesting maybe) if nature would have been less complicated for once.
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Post by aj1983 on Dec 20, 2009 18:51:18 GMT
I have noticed in the past 2 years the shift in climate here. And the remarkable swing in temps, which you have indicated. November turned out above average, the 1st of Dec was like you pulled the rug out. The temp went 15-20F colder than average. This type of climate seems to be predominant in a cooling phase. We had a blizzard in the 1940's that killed many people. Went from 55F to -20F in 6 hours, and in that time it also snowed 8 inches. Many people were caught out as the day began so beautifully. That would have been the beginning of the pdo going negative. Then in 1973, it was around the end of the negative pdo, and it also went out with a bang. I came home from Guam to help my father plant the crop, did not spend one day in the field from the 3rd of May to the 1st of June. It was extremely cold and wet. The fall that year was also horrible. When I got out of the service in 75, the weather had smoothed and I started growing corn in 1978. Everyone thought I was totally nuts, but had excellent crops. By 1988 I had gone to even a longer maturity for my corn. In 2008, it was cool, the fall was wet, and I ended up harvesting my corn this summer. Didn't plant an acre of corn in 2009, and don't plan to plant corn now till I retire. Just a physical observation of climate. Regional yes, but I don't think it is going to stay regional. At least in NA, it has been a very cold December with numerous records set for early snow and cold. I do believe that there are more than one switch going on at this time. Australia has had goofy weather, the storm in Europe was a bit on the freakish side, the storm on the east coast of the US right now is record breaking etc. Pysical observations trump models every time. That is why I have indicated that co2 is a minor player in climate, I want to know wayyyyyyy more about the DRIVERS of climate. I have also noticed a pattern change in the past 2 years. Before I recall (but memory is usually biased) that the temperatures were nearly always too warm here, with stong westerlies. Last winter and this year until now patterns have changed from dominant westerlies to more blocking patterns, which mostly southerly winds bringing very warm air, but sometimes a period of persistent northerly or easterly winds bringing cold we haven't seen much since 1996/1997. It seems like the variation have become larger. (The current period is a grand example, November was 3 C too warm, same for the first 10 days of December, and then temperatures dropped 10-15 C all of a sudden (that's huge in our mild climate!!!) and have stayed like that until now. Last January and December were rather cold, but we had an extremely warm spring, a mild summer and warm fall to over compensate for that, so that this year will be -another- warm year (it is really becoming boring...).
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Post by nautonnier on Dec 20, 2009 19:46:30 GMT
sigurdur: Svensmark is from Denmark, so he is Danish. I'm from the Netherlands (aka Holland), so I'm Dutch. It is complicated indeed, and Denmark is actually quite close to the Netherlands for American (or Australian) standards. I'm glad I made you laugh. I understand that you see it this way. The hydrologic cycle has a very great influence on climate. However, the time water vapor resides in the atmosphere is so short that it will only act to modify (amplify?) changes in external forcing on climate. I have been observing the same things. We are usually all winter around the snow-sleet-freezing rain-rain boundary (usually just on the warm side). It is amazing how much energy is involved in phase transitions. Clouds are one of the most uncertain part of the AGW theory. However, processes seem to counteract eachother somewhat (albedo vs LW heating), but where the balance exactly resides is very difficult to determine. We suspect it is slightly on the cooling side, especially for low clouds. High clouds only lead to heating, because they are rather transparent and emit LW at a lower temperature than what they receive. Svensmark's theory is very interesting. I've done a small literature study on it when I was in my Senior college year (my pro-AGW physical chemist and cloud microphysics and dynamics teacher/professor was quite interested in it, like me). It is probably still the most important candidate for solar-climate drivers (besides TSI, and maybe some stratospheric processes, but how the stratosphere influences the troposphere is currently a hot research topic, and to what extent the troposphere is influenced by the stratosphere is controversial (new research shows that the troposphere influences the stratosphere (not surprizing, because the density decreases rapidly, so gravity waves (the meteorological type) are being amplified, while disturbances from the stratosphere are quickly dissipated in the upper troposphere), but it is unsure how much it works the other way around. I've been thinking and discussing this, because you would assume that if the solar UV output is smaller there is a chance that this would cool the stratosphere (as long as UV is the bottleneck, which might be true near the poles), and if you cool the stratosphere you might think about a stronger polar vortex, and a stonger polar vortex leads to stronger westerlies so warmer temperatures in Europe. However, in the LIA, there are indications of a colder, and much more variable climate in Europe, which might have been caused by a weaker and more meandering jet stream (so a weaker polar vortex, or weaker temperature gradient in the stratosphere between the poles and the equator). However, it is not at all this simple. Temperature gradients are more important. With equal reasoning you could also explain things the other way around. It would be nice (but less challenging and interesting maybe) if nature would have been less complicated for once. AJ, you say: " However, the time water vapor resides in the atmosphere is so short that it will only act to modify (amplify?) changes in external forcing on climate."I think that this is a common misconception water vapor is transient in the atmosphere, therefore it should only be considered a feedback (SoCold's hypothesis ) But water vapor is continually replaced in the atmosphere by evaporation from the surface and from plants, at a rate that is orders of magnitude greater than other 'green house gases'. To that extent it can be considered as permanently present. "High clouds only lead to heating, because they are rather transparent and emit LW at a lower temperature than what they receive."This depends on the type of high cloud - if the 'high cloud' is the icy top of a towering CB at the equator then the albedo is very high research based on ERBE has shown albedo effects that equate to more than minus 100WM -2 Far more research is needed on these aspects of the hydrologic cycle which appears to be what controls Earth's climate. Svensmark's hypothesis is that GCR variances affect the hydrologic cycle particularly the seeding of clouds. This appears to be a far better candidate for control of the climate and it has experimental and empirical evidence.
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Post by Ratty on Dec 21, 2009 5:07:49 GMT
Are there any estimations of the amount of water vapour produced by cooling towers, internal combustion engines, etc and is it a factor worth considering? Be gentle .....
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Post by brian0707 on Dec 21, 2009 5:27:39 GMT
Sigurdur, I appreciate your candor. Although I am involved in the energy sector in Western Canada, my family and roots are on the farm. My grandparents immigrated to Alberta in the 30s and I still have cousins working what was originally the family homestead.
Your comments on the wheat being hardy only to a point - in terms of prevailing temperatures - is indeed sobering. I keep track of global grain and rice inventories and the downward trend has been disturbing over the past few years.
I think none of us have a good idea where the North American climate is heading and, like all things climate, I believe there are no absolutes. I wish you well and hope you have a prosperous year - good for all of us - in 2010.
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Post by nautonnier on Dec 21, 2009 9:02:43 GMT
Are there any estimations of the amount of water vapour produced by cooling towers, internal combustion engines, etc and is it a factor worth considering? Be gentle ..... I don't know about cooling towers - but the amount generated by fossil fuel burning is twice the amount of CO 2 - This is one reason that the argument that water vapor is 'only a feedback' is incorrect.
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Post by poitsplace on Dec 21, 2009 9:07:06 GMT
Are there any estimations of the amount of water vapour produced by cooling towers, internal combustion engines, etc and is it a factor worth considering? Be gentle ..... Since the amount of water churning through the water cycle daily is approximately 1300 cubic kilometers...I think we can rule out the idea that burning hydrocarbons contributes noticeably to it.
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