Soot Is Warming the World — a Lot 251
sciencehabit writes "Soot is bad stuff all around, whether you're breathing it into your lungs or it's heating the atmosphere by absorbing more of the sun's energy. But a new 4-year, 232-page assessment (PDF) of soot's role in climate finds that the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought. The study points policymakers toward the best targets for reducing climate-warming soot emissions while at the same time improving the health of billions of people."
Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of a cartoon [about.com]. Caption: "What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
The reason that occurred to me is, here's a case where it makes sense to reduce a pollutant (soot) for public health reasons, even setting the global warming issue aside.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
What you present is the argument that neither side want's to hear. Trust me, I tried. The arguments for curing global warming are identical to cleaning up pollution. In the 70s, there was a huge push on cleaning up pollution. The "clean" campaigns were all silenced in favor of high profit for a select few.
While I agree with you, good luck getting anyone in current argument crowd discussing anything as logical as pollution.
Basically we have 2 fronts: Big Oil and Money people saying "We are not doing anything wrong", and the other half saying "Humans are a plague on the planet." Anyone else is ignored, ridiculed, or drown out in noise.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument is also identical to pre-emptive moves to prepare the world economy for the end of cheap oil. It's irrelevant to Big Oil's cheerleaders, and seemingly by the general public, who want to believe, no matter how foolish it is, that fossil fuels cause only limited (if any) climate change and are of infinite supply.
And you'll find that the actual climatology community doesn't have a lot of "humans are a plague" types. While there are some extreme green types out there, that everyone who accepts AGW is some crazed tree hugging lunatic is a pretty huge strawman.
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"... to prepare the world economy for the end of cheap oil."
We saw the end of "cheap" oil years ago. I think you mean "necessary" oil.
It will still be necessary, of course, for lots of things. Just not powering automobiles.
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Oil only seems expensive because governments around the world are destroying the value of their currencies.
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"Oil only seems expensive because governments around the world are destroying the value of their currencies."
You have a point. But when you adjust for new sources, it still reflects unhealthy inflation due to scarcity. Despite government rhetoric to the contrary, in a healthy market, prices don't inflate, they go down. Look at electronics for example, and computers specifically.
History is chock full of examples of deflation in healthy markets. Despite what "mainstream" economists say, inflation is bad news. But oil is a limited resource, so the more used, the scarcer it gets.
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But when you adjust for new sources, it still reflects unhealthy inflation due to scarcity.
There's no such thing as "inflation due to scarcity" because inflation is a drop in the value of currency (typically through creation of such currency in large amounts, but possibly also through faster transaction speeds, also called "velocity of money").
Here, the currency maintains its value, but the good rises in price because the supply drops. The good becomes more valuable because there's only enough of it to cover the more valuable uses of the good. This is standard supply and demand. It's a healthy
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"There's no such thing as "inflation due to scarcity" because inflation is a drop in the value of currency (typically through creation of such currency in large amounts, but possibly also through faster transaction speeds, also called "velocity of money")."
Yes, technically you are correct, and I should have been more clear. I wasn't referring to actual inflation of currency, but inflation or deflation of the price of the commodity.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you define "non-inflating gold" for us? How is this gold different from the regular inflating type that's risen around 300% in the last ten years? Is "non-inflating" gold a short hand for gold value adjusted for the current position in the gold boom-bust cycle?
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On the surface, I agree. A bit further, I don't. When is the last time we hard how damaging Oil and Coal are to Humans or the environment? The simple answer is, that we don't. There are numerous studies that show how damaging frack mining is, yet you have to go out of your way to find information. So it's not just about the financial aspect (cheap vs. expensive). It's also that you won't hear how harmful the products and byproducts are. That information is getting buried as fast as it can be created.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
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The moment you use the term "denialists", you've converted the discussion from science into religion.
There's a reason why some deny it- it's because of crap like what you just spouted. Right or wrong, it's not hard science like you're claiming it is- you've made it your faith and you'll not listen to ANY reasonable discussion on the subject.
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Using your logic dousing myself in lighter fluid every day would also be fine because it won't be the direct chemical effects of the fluid that will harm me.
CO2 increases the ability of the atmosphere to retain heat. A hotter planet is not good for human health.
The effect of restricting CO2 emissions will be to restrict its emissions to the most cost effective forms. Which will almost certainly see petrol cars replaced by electric ones, especially in the city. In addition to limiting warming this will have
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No. If CO2 levels go up about 10 or 15 times what they are today, there would be a people feeling respiratory symptoms from it. If the levels went up about 100 to 120 times current concentrations, it would be considered an immediate threat to health and life, and if all of that added CO2 were to displace O2 in the air, the amount of oxygen per unit volume would go down only about 20%. That would be th
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So long as the partial pressure of oxygen remains above 16kPa (in Earth's atmosphere at STP the PP of oxygen is about 21kPa) you generally aren't at risk of hypoxia. Coincidentally, the PP of oxygen doesn't drop below 16kPa until about 10,000 ft.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:5, Informative)
If they support that notion they weaken the argument against their prime target, CO2, since it has no ill health effects until you have enough of it around you to displace the oxygen you need.
Actually, CO2 is toxic at concentrations above 1%, and can cause suffocation and blood poisoning when concentrations are around 10%, and not just because it displaces oxygen. That's exactly what happened on Apollo 13: Carbon dioxide concentrations were too high, despite Oxygen levels remaining normal.
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Most of the Co2 crowd isn't really interested in reducing Co2 globally, or curing the problem. They're more interested in redistributing $trillions to the third-world and China.
Bullshit! Just bullshit!
CO2 is the issue and it's just about the only issue worth worrying about until we get it under control. Then we can move on to the lesser things.
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
"What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
I'm thinking the real question is, "What if global warming is true (and it seems to be), but we spend trillions of dollars - presumably to the
detriment of other beneficial things - to obtain only a marginally better outcome?"
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
"What if global warming is true ... but we spend trillions of dollars - presumably to the
detriment of other beneficial things - to obtain only a marginally better outcome?"
I don't know if it's true (and I do have my doubts) but I think this is really the essential point.
Even if you dismiss economist Bjorn Lomborg as an "anti-warmist", nobody has really refuted his calculations: that the cost of reducing CO2 warming by 1 degree C over the course of 100 years is about the same that it would cost to completely end world hunger... and that's taking changed conditions and population into account.
Which is more important?
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Sell it this way:
If you want to keep your private island from sinking in the ocean, stop the planet from warming up.
It doesn't matter how the planet is warming up.
If we know we can prevent some or most of the damage by not use using dirty combustion methods,
Why wouldn't we?
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If we know we can prevent some or most of the damage by not use using dirty combustion methods, Why wouldn't we?
That's an easy one. We wouldn't because the alternatives to those dirty combustion methods are more expensive. Note that "more expensive" doesn't mean "requires more money" because money isn't a real thing, it's just a placeholder. it means that the alternatives require more resources, whether they be raw materials, labor, etc., resources that could be applied to solving other problems like, perhaps, the aforementioned world hunger.
In fact, world hunger isn't a problem of insufficient production, it's a p
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More like the alternatives have a greater up-front expense.
A number of them could work out much cheaper once in place.
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A number of them could work out much cheaper once in place.
There are a variety of sayings on wishing that cover this situation. In practice, whacking on an economy with a mallet breaks things.
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Don't forget to include the raw materials in the form of fossil fuels that you have to continuously feed a FF power plant to keep it going.
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BS. If they were cheaper, industry would be doing them in a massive fashion.
You act like there is a free market. The way it works is that the guy with the gold makes the rules, and they're going to ride this horse until it dies because as long as there's money to be made doing the same old shit, why take a chance on doing something new? Since they write the laws, they can prevent anyone else from doing anything new either, or slow down the rate of progress to something they can manage in every sense.
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Sell it this way:
If the plain truth doesn't convince enough people to support your policy, then the problem is your policy.
Stop being dishonest fucks.
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"at the cost of reducing CO2 warming by 1 degree C over the course of 100 years is about the same that it would cost to completely end world hunger."
That's actually pretty small. The cost of not reducing CO2 will of course include substantial destruction of highly economically valuable coastal infrastructure which supplies jobs and creates wealth, as well as lowering agricultural productiivty and increasing food costs.
The error is computing the "cost of hunger" using today's data.
1 degree C is huge as a lo
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"The error is computing the "cost of hunger" using today's data."
No, it's not, and it's not small, either.
Note that I stated he already took into account the changed conditions (like projected crop failures and desertification due to warming), and increased population. His calculations were based on the worst-case IPCC predictions of the time.
Of course, the upcoming IPCC report retracts many of those predictions, and discusses far less severe consequences than it had projected before.
And if you don't want to put up with "coastal destruction", don't live there. E
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Of course, the upcoming IPCC report retracts many of those predictions, and discusses far less severe consequences than it had projected before.
Don't count on it. My understanding is that it won't be that much different than the previous one and many of the differences will show worse effects than before.
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Whether or not it is a hoax, or to what degree it is sensationalized, would impact the kinds of measures you were willing to take, however.
If for example you could create a compelling case that "unless we stop burning all coal by February 1, the world will implode", I imagine people would be willing to take pretty drastic measures, and it might even come down to armed conflict.
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So your ENTIRE resistance is an ad hominem attack ? "There are scam artists cashing in on AGW - therefore I refuse to listen to the concerned scientists or give credence to the theory".
There are scam artists in everything. There were scam artists in the Y2K days - but that doesn't mean the crisis wasn't real. Some of the money spent averting that crisis went to scam artists, but if we hadn't spent ANY money we would NOT have averted the crisis and it would have been disastrous.
Now you're saying that because
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I see a lot of political statements in your post including the implicit assumption that climate scientists positions are political in nature. What if they are not?
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:4, Insightful)
If the AGW people would focus their efforts on expanding use of nuclear energy, especially new, safe designs, then there wouldn't be a problem. But they don't want to do that. They want carbon taxes and increased government intervention on every front.
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Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite where true.
Small-scale farming as happens in the third world is not nearly as dependant on fossil fuels as our first-world large-scale farming. That means a higher oil price will make local farming more competitive, and local farmers can actually compete with the imported weste
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As for TFA, twice the forcing from soot is within the previous error bars [wikipedia.org]. Studies like this don't really tell us anything new, but they are important if you want to shrink those pesky error bars. As can be seen from the graph, forcing from soot is still dwarfed by the forcing from CO2.
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This reminds me of a cartoon [about.com]. Caption: "What if global warming is a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
The false assumption there is that the cost of "creating a better world" is zero. It also implies that, for some reason, a world with less CO2 emissions is a good thing, even if turns out CO2 emissions don't do anything bad. Looking at the measures countries are taking with AGW, it looks like the "better world" will consist of one where power producers are taxed more, and household power bills increase. Um, yay?
It's likely that, if global warming turns out to be a non-issue, the measures taken to combat it
Re:Reminds me of a cartoon (Score:5, Insightful)
>Looking at the measures countries are taking with AGW, it looks like the "better world" will consist of one where power producers are taxed more, and household power bills increase. Um, yay?
Firstly - that's bullshit, the money saved on healthcare costs alone will be far larger than what is spent on additional energy costs even if you were right.
To get the TRUE price of fossil fuels we would have to demand they run with zero-pollution, only then are we internalizing the costs that pollution is exerting on the consumer. Do you really think coal power plants would still cost so little if they had to filter every pollutant out and store it safely instead of pumping it into the air and making us pay for the results ?
But even though it would cost a fortune more to have clean coal, it would STILL cost LESS than we ALREADY spend on healthcare caused by pollution.
And then your basic assumptions is false anyway:
*More green energy would cost LESS to produce in the medium because fuel is not having to be paid for - in fact, many of them are cheaper even in the short term.
*In Australia there is already measure being proposed to tax people who generate some of their power off-grid from solar. The massive reductions in their power bills from doing so is causing a major price depression on the power plants. So much so that the crony-capitalism of the power generators are trying to demand people can only get HALF the power they generate themselves off their bill !
So who is trying to prevent normal market operations now ?
The REAL truth is that investment in green energy even on the SMALL scale of "my house during daylight hours while using grid at night" is already adding competition that drives down prices for consumers. More green energy on the large scale will only increase this.
No my friend - fossil energy companies are battling AGW measures because that is their excuse to prevent anybody from investing in renewable energy. They don't want people investing in renewable energy because they don't want the competition. Competition drives down prices - which is good for consumers, but bad for incumbents. The entire anti-AGW campaign is nothing but classic monopolist behaviour by an incumbent industry trying all in their power to prevent the rise of competing products that can and will consistently undercut it and will only be able to undercut it FURTHER over time as initial investments are paid off and production is scaled up.
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Unfortunately that oversimplified cartoon is also a great example of why we don't generally let cartoonists determine public policy. How do you define "better": Is a "better world" one in which poor people have less to eat, and poor people have less access to the benefits of technologies like lighting and refrigeration? Is that "better"?
See, the core of the problem is that the competing energy technologies that you just described as "better" (as if that's simply a given) are actually still literally prohi
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Large areas of ocean are basically lifeless deserts due to a lack of iron.
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A major looming problem that doesn't get enough attention (imho) is the impending collapse of wild ocean fisheries. Realistically there is no way to stop the current over-fishing in international waters, and giving the eco-system a boost seems the best way to mitigate the damage.
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In fact it would be best to downplay the global warming aspect as much as possible, you'll still get environmentalist support but without the climate denialists' opposition.
Global Dimming (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, look at Beijing these days. Not much sun rays coming down. No blue sky either.
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Only to a complete, unmitigated moron.
How does it affect models? (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it surprising that this study is so late to the global warming game. I wonder how this affects the existing climate models. For, if as the study says, the exisitng affects of soot have been understated by a factor of 100%, does that not mean that the existing warming models are overstating the effect of CO2?
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Can i get a refund on my carbon credits then?
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I find it surprising that this study is so late to the global warming game.
It's actually really depressing how much we don't know about the climate system (or exciting, if you're the guy embarking into a new world to discover).
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The article indirectly touches on that:
By drawing on observations to better understand the behavior of climate models, Bond and her colleagues concluded that atmospheric soot particles 100 nanometers or so in diameter are absorbing enough solar energy to warm the atmosphere with about 1.1 watts per square meter—twice as large a driver of warming as most researchers had estimated. That makes it the second largest humanmade contributor to global warming behind the dominant driver: carbon dioxide. "If
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"we could buy ourselves up to half a degree (Celsius) less warmingâ"or a couple of decades of respite."
Or a century of respite. even if this research is true, the above statement depends on those models being accurate. Half a degree C is at least a third of all warming since the industrial age, including both man-made and not. That may mean that greenhouse gas induced warming is far less severe than predicted and that would in turn result in future warming being much lower than predicted.
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Here you go.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4083.1/ [ametsoc.org]
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It won't effect climate models that much. They already include aerosols in their calculations. There will just be some adjustments for the increased knowledge of that part of the aerosol calculations. I don't expect to see drastic changes in their output.
And... (Score:3, Funny)
Wooh! Good times ahead! (Score:2, Funny)
Thank you, soot!
- From Frozen Hell (AKA. Finland) with love!
Really? (Score:2)
Whenever I see or touch soot, it is ambient temperature. Not sure how inert particles in the air make the air warm
"/sarcasm"
One of the reasons war warms the world (Score:3)
Climate science wins again.
Now THERE's a reversal. (Score:2)
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It was less that two years ago that they said that the reason warming is lower than forecasts is because of pollution in China
RTFA. Your point was directly addressed in the story:
"Diesel engines can spew mostly soot, but coal burning puts out both climate-warming soot and sulfur that goes on to cool the climate by reflecting solar energy back into space."
In other words, no reversal whatsoever. The researchers simply realized that the impact of soot is much larger than previously estimated, so much so that it outweighs the potential cooling impact of sulfur emissions.
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It was less that two years ago that they said that the reason warming is lower than forecasts is because of pollution
Stop right there, what are you talking about: Warming has not been lower than forecast (what stinking place did you pull that from?) - Actually, one of the biggest recent meta-studies to come out on climate science showed that warming over the last 20 years has been very close to the average consensus forecasts over the last 20 years.
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Actually, one of the biggest recent meta-studies to come out on climate science showed that warming over the last 20 years has been very close to the average consensus forecasts over the last 20 years.
Then why does every single story on new work in this area appear beneath a headline announcing how badly previous work underestimated the effects?
The answer, of course, is that the public debate about AGW has nothing to do with the science of AGW.
The sole policy prescription the pro-AGW side have is, "Reduce CO2 emissions by any means necessary except investment in nuclear power, even if a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that it is infeasible to the point of causing hundreds of millions of premature
Re:Now THERE's a reversal. (Score:5, Funny)
An Anonymous Coward on Slashdot says the IPCC predictions are a dismal failure.
On the other hand David J. Frame & Dáithí A. Stone compared the IPCC model predictions against the observed temperatures and found the predictions to be accurate (source [nature.com]).
So I guess the question is who am I going to believe:
The unsubstantiated claims of an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot -OR- the detailed research of scientists that has passed the peer-review process?
Tough call!
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Except your wrong.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/no-global-warming-hasnt-stopped-121017.htm [discovery.com]
AGW deniers are like evolution deniers. No matter how often a pseudo-skeptic claim is debunked, it will just be retold.
Good. (Score:2)
Northeastern Ohio winter weather is often too damn cold anyway. If such a "global warming" tames winter weather and extends the growing season, then I'll be the last one to complain.
Re:And here I thought it was the cars (Score:5, Informative)
The article just says that the contribution of soot to global warming is higher than previously thought. It doesn't say that soot is now the sole or even the main cause of global warming (the linked article ranks it #2, behind CO2).
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CO2 has a radiative forcing of ~1.7 W/m^2.
You can see a handy chart on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (taken from the IPCC report, I believe soot is mixed in with aerosols there).
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because water vapor is a tremendously more important greenhouse gas than 1/3000th of our atmosphere (CO2) that has a self-limiting (logarithmic) saturation effect in its ability to absorb certain frequencies of light
This is an example of a statement that is both true and pointless, because while it is true that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it is also true that adding CO2 to the atmosphere can have an effect.
And that effect, including its magnitude, is entirely the question.
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This is an example of a statement that is both true and pointless, because while it is true that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it is also true that adding CO2 to the atmosphere can have an effect.
Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
It seems to me that you ignored the false statement, and instead felt that you just had to go after the true statement.
The problem here is two fold. First is your motivation, and we can guess what that is in a moment. Second is your pretense to be standing up for some form of higher honesty.
If the second part were true, you would have (at least) also gone after the lie, but you didn't.. y
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Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
If you're talking about anthropogenic effects, it is.
I honestly have no idea what you were talking about in the rest of your post.
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>I honestly have no idea what you were talking about in the rest of your post.
Me neither. I was going to pass his post through google translate but they still don't support moronese.
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Except his statement was in response to a statement claiming that CO2 was the #1 atmospheric greenhouse component.
I think if you read the original paper what they actually said is that CO2 is the #1 forcing agent of greenhouse warming. Water vapor is strictly a feedback effect.
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And the level of water vapor is totally dependent on temperature so is can't drive temperatures. The level of water vapor is dependent on other things that drive temperature (like CO2). CO2 is nowhere near being completely saturated.
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So it's not the cars causing global warming?
Strawman - nowhere do the articles or summary make that statement.
I'm confused. Oh wait, I'm not, it's the scientist who are.
No, sorry, it's just you.
Seems you did it to yourself, even...
They know nothing, they just guess, and then say they need more money to study it!
Um... you do know the definition of "hypothesis" is "an educated guess," right? As in, all scientists "just guess," albeit with a much better understanding of the topic than you or I.
Also worth noting: the statement is "the combustion product could be warming the world twice as much as previously thought."
"could be" != "is"
Some Corrections (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's not the cars causing global warming? Or is this just a way to garner more research funds?
This is about the contributions soot has to global warming and the magnitude of those contributions. This is, by no means, an attempt to isolate global warming down to one factor. It is a complex situation and your logical fallacy is to prey upon that complexity in order to disprove any additional information people try to publish on it.
Also, the paper had a very helpful executive summary. Had you bothered to read even that small fraction of it, one of the opening sentences states:
Sources whose emissions are rich in black carbon (‘BC-rich’) can be grouped into a small number of categories, broadly described as diesel engines, industry, residential solid fuel and open burning.
So, yes, according to the paper in the Americas and Europe diesel engines are some of the biggest contributors whereas in Africa and Asia the biggest contributors are coal and biomass burning operations.
I'm confused.
I know -- it's quite evident. I'm here to help.
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Volcanoes don't release all that much soot. What they do release is SO2 and fine rock ash which do have a cooling effect that can last for a few years before it washes out of the atmosphere.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Insightful)
as long as coal powers the turbines that make the electricity, that's exactly what those things are.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Informative)
There is a German wikipedia article about flue gas cleaning (Translation [google.co.uk]). I wonder why this is only in German and Swedish. These aren't the only countries doing this, are they?
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No. Denmark is also doing it - of course we border on both Germany and Sweden...
It is possible to clean the exhaust from coal and natural gas powered plants (almost) completely (99.9%), but the stuff in the filters... Let's just say that it is handled in ways similar to nuclear waste... it's ultra-toxic and extremely hard to handle safely. It can be disposed of, but the process is complicated and very expensive, but we do it as opposed to storing the waste which is much less expensive - and much less safe i
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Turns out that this is very easy to remove from the smoke of coal, at my local plant they've been doing it for years and it get's a lot of it ou. One thing is for sure, as we move more of our manufacturing to China we are essentially 'Sooting' our planet because regulations are much less strict there. I wouldn't be surprised if they just send it straight up in the air. If you've ever been in the western united states and seen the haze, most of it is from China.
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Nuclear is the future... Embrace it.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF does this stupid argument keep coming up?
Natural gas is the future...
Wind is the future...
Geothermal is the future
Solar is the future...
Nuclear (fission) is the future...
Nuclear (fusion) is the future...
Embrace all of the above.
This is a zombie problem, not a werewolf problem.
i.e. We need a shotgun approach, not a silver bullet.
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WTF does this stupid argument keep coming up?
Natural gas is the future... Wind is the future... Geothermal is the future Solar is the future... Nuclear (fission) is the future... Nuclear (fusion) is the future... Embrace all of the above.
This is a zombie problem, not a werewolf problem.
i.e. We need a shotgun approach, not a silver bullet.
pssh... shotguns don't kill zombies unless you hit them in the head. A silver bullet would work just the same.
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The cheapest is the present. Embrace it.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really, it's only cheaper if we carefully ignore all of the external costs.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course we do ! Any savings from cheaper power goes directly into your pocket, while the extenal costs are shared with 7 billion people.
That's the problem with externalities. If I can make a deal that is a win of $10 million for me -- but that cauces a loss of $0.05 for every human being on the planet, then it's a huge win for me, so barring laws stopping me, I'll likely say yes. Meanwhile, the deal creates $10M of value, and does $350M worth of damage, thus for humanity as a whole, the deal is a huge loss.
Externalities is one of the biggest problems with capitalism. It explains why rational players can end up making decisions that are a net loss overall.
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Even moreso, with each actor doing that, in the end, each and every actor can lose personally as well as the collective loss.
Of course, more often the vast majority lose personally while a few at the top come out ahead.
Re:That's it!! I've had it!! (Score:4, Insightful)
What gets me, is that this has been known "forever", aslong as there's been a solid theory of capitalism, atleast.
The solution, of course, is to set a fair price on the externalities. What that price is, and how to practically evaluate, collect and distribute that money, is a difficult problem, however notice that even if the money is collected in a highly inefficient manner, it is still frequently better than the alternative.
If you want to do something that gains you $50M while costing every human being $0.05 - then the overall loss is $300M. If there was a tax on your pollution to the tune of $250M, then you'd conclude it's not worth it since the taxes are higher than your gains.
In this case, no taxes are collected, and no deal is made - but nevertheless the tax-code was useful: it prevented $300M worth of harm from taking place.
Notice that even mostly-squandered taxes is a win from the perspective of everyone-but-you.
Let's say instead you want to do something that gains you $100M, while costing the rest of humanity $25M. We tax your activity at $50M, and the inefficiency of bureacracy means half of the collected taxes are completely wasted.
End result: With the tax you gain $50M and everyone else breaks even. Without the tax, you gain $100M, and everyone else is down $25M. -- thus the tax, despite being 50% wasteful, is a net-gain for everyone except you.
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I would disagree. I believe its only the cheapest monetarily to those producing and distributing power.
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Here is what the Dr. Hansen did: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ed.html [slate.com]
Yea, no cherry picking there..
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Re:Is anyone else sick of... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think the universe gives a flying fuck about politics? If the climate is changing (and just about every active researcher in the field says it is), then it does not matter what fucking little bit whether you find it political. Nature is not bound by any ideology, or by politics, or by your distaste for either.
Grow the fuck up. What are you, eight years old, that your reaction to this sort of thing is to shove your fingers in your ears and declare you don't want to hear about it?
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It is only political in American where people love to be willfully ignorant of facts and science. This has been accepted everywhere else in the world. Time to grow up.
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And yes, we have fascism, and it is failing as fascism always does (contrary to the myth that the Nazis "fixed" the German economy--they were just squished as they were collapsing under the weight of their own inefficiency). Look to the economy of Spain under Marco to see the long term effects of full-on fascism.
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How can something that blocks out the sun make it hotter?? Wouldn't it make it cooler? Thats what they say is going to happen if a super volcano erupts it will block out the sun and make it much cooler and making very hard to grow stuff with less sun. Ya ask me its all the roads that have been build and building with dark roofs making it much hotter on the surface of the earth. The reason cities are much warmer then the burbs. Soot moves around and it cleaned out by rain our natural air filter.
You answered your own question.
It absorbs IR and UV, and reradiates it - that's how CO2 (and all of the other greenhouse gasses like water vapour) work. If it's thick enough to block incoming UV then that energy from the sun never reaches the ground. This is what happens during a super volcano eruption.
If it's finely dispersed in the atmosphere then it acts like CO2, absorbing the returning IR from the surface of the earth and warming the atmosphere.
It's all about concentration.