[Vision2020] Texas Oil Man T. Boone Pickens On Global Warming: Was: Human Impacts Accelerating...
Ted Moffett
starbliss at gmail.com
Sat Apr 28 14:57:55 PDT 2007
Paul, Donovan et. al.
Paul, thanks for your sources on stellar evolution. Donovan, at least
regarding natural changes in solar output causing the current warming trend,
I quote a source below to address this.
The original point of my post on the article I quoted on our stars evolution
was comparing the rise in temperatures predicted to be caused by human
impacts to the grand scale of evolution of our sun over 100s of millions of
years. I was amazed to find the quote in this article that quantified the
rate of change regarding predicted human impacts on climate over one
century, compared to what they predicted would take 0.8 billion years of
solar evolution. Of course chaotic variations in solar output might
suddenly induce significant temperature changes on Earth that only last a
short time, let us say decades or centuries.
The theory that current warming trends are due to changes in solar output
keep circulating to question the scientific consensus that human impacts are
the primary cause of current global warming.
I listened to Steve Forbes, who is well known, and Texas oil man T. Boone
Pickens, both giants in the world of capitalism, discuss global warming and
solutions to this problem in a panel discussion on C-SPAN this past week.
Forbes said he thought solar output might explain the current warming rather
than CO2 from human sources. Pickens' accepted that human caused global
warming was upon us and that people should get ready for the changes
demanded to reduce CO2 output. He was upbeat about the Green revolution's
financial impacts and opportunities. Forbes acknowledged we need new energy
sources, even given his skepticism on human induced global warming. They
both pushed nuclear power to address energy needs, discussing new safer
reactor designs with less of a nuclear waste management problem. Forbes
seemed particularly miffed that France relies so heavily on nuclear power,
as if to say, how can those socialist welfare state regulators of capitalism
be ahead of the US in energy independence?
Anyway, the role of the sun in explaining current global warming continues
to be studied. The IPCC has examined the role of solar output, and their
overall conclusion is that changes in the sun do not explain the current
warming trend. I recently heard testimony from one of the authors of the
IPCC report testify to exactly this point before the US Congress on C-SPAN.
Here is a question and answer session from the Washington Post, partly
online and partly relating to testimony before the US Congress, with Kevin
Trenberth, contributing lead author of the IPCC report, and head of the
Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The skeptics are out in force in this discussion! He specifically addresses
the issue of solar changes causing the current warming trend and quite
explicitly states that measurements of solar output do not support this
claim:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/02/12/DI2007021200686.html
*Richmond, Va.:* Mr. Trenberth,
Ice core data going back hundreds of thousands of years from prior glacial
periods and warming periods indicates that warming occurs first, then CO 2
levels increase. This seems to indicate that the increase in CO2 levels is
an EFFECT of global warming, NOT the CAUSE of global warming. An easy
physical explanation: CO2 has a lower solubility in warmer water than it
does in colder water, so when the oceans warm, they release CO2.
Secondly, there is ample evidence of SOLAR FORCING for global warming.
During the Maunder Minimum (1600's), there were almost no sunspots. During
this period of time, the Earth cooled, and glaciers ADVANCED! Since then,
sunspots have reappeared, and lo and behold, the Earth has warmed, and the
glaciers have been retreating ever since. This process has been going on
BEFORE INDUSTRIALIZATION!!!
To my point: There is evidence that the Earth is warming. There is evidence
that CO2 levels are rising. But just because you can put the 2 together on a
graph, DOES NOT make for a CAUSE and EFFECT relationship.
Sincerely,
Bret D Stauffer
*Kevin Trenberth:* You are absolutely right. In the case of the thousands of
year fluctuations, the climate changes and carbon dioxide and methane
amounts in the atmosphere respond through changes on land and in oceans. For
instance, as things warm up, the carbon and plant material in soils decays
much faster (as it does in summer but not in winter) and if wet it does so
anaerobically producing methane, but if dry it does so aerobically producing
carbon dioxide. However, we have measurements of the sun from space since
1979 and we know that the recent warming is not from the sun. Instead carbon
dioxide has increased about 16% since 1970, and that does have a major
effect.
-------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
On 4/25/07, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Ted Moffett wrote:
>
>
> Paul et. al.
>
> Paul wrote:
>
> We've been around for a mere few million years, only the last few thousand
> of which we've had the ability to write things down. This is a small
> fraction of time for the Sun. Our observations of the Sun has occurred over
> such a small timescale that we can basically say that we've only seen it as
> a static observation.
> ------
> Good point, a point that applies in different ways to many scientific
> issues...We could question whether gravity has always operated as we
> observe, given the over 10 billion year history of the universe, and our
> limited time scale of observation. Science makes certain assumptions about
> how the universe operates, and the continuity of the "laws of nature" is one
> of those assumptions, continuity over time and in different places in the
> universe. This principle cannot be "proved" without a doubt, as far as I
> know
>
> But science does have its "time machines" to see into the past before
> humans could make observations directly. The theory of biological
> evolution is not based on just the life forms we have observed evolving
> since Darwin, but on the evidence of fossils from Earth's history, offering
> a kind of scientific "time machine" giving information on life forms
> millions of years before humans walked the planet. And in astronomy, we
> have observations of many different kinds of stars from many different
> stages of evolution, providing a kind of "time machine" to allow us by
> inference to look into our suns past and future. The information we get
> from distant stars is in some ways like a fossil (I don't intend this as an
> exact analogy), given that this information sometimes took longer than the
> history of the human race to reach us...It's mind boggling, but
> astronomy gathers information about the universe dating from billions of
> years ago, even before our solar system formed.
>
>
>
> That's all true. I was thinking more along the lines of leaving a kettle
> of water on the stove. You've been watching it for a few minutes, and
> nothing bad has happened, but you notice it is a chaotic environment and you
> can't really predict how exactly it's going to boil. Maybe it will get
> more violent soon, maybe it won't. Of course, a kettle of water boiling
> isn't going to easily harm us, but I suspect that a small change from the
> Sun's perspective can really ruin our day. Somewhere I found a clip of the
> Sun's surface as it moves. It was pretty chaotic.
>
> It is amazing what scientists can do with our limited observations here on
> Earth and in it's immediate vicinity.
>
> ------
> Paul wrote:
>
> I think the 0.8 billion year number you quoted is the time it will take
> for the slow process of hydrogen fusion at the core to raise the Earth's
> temperature 5%.
> ------
> The article I quoted on stellar evolution said that due to our suns
> evolution the Earth would warm 5 degrees in 0.8 billion years, not 5%.
>
>
> Five degrees, my bad.
>
>
> As to how reliable this figure is, I cannot say for sure, given I have not
> surveyed the scientific consensus on this issue in this field, and there may
> not be a consensus.
>
> I was wondering, can you offer some sources, articles, books, or websites,
> for the information you were providing on stellar evolution?
>
>
> Sure. I kind of made a mish-mash of a few sites. I'm searching for them
> again, my apologies if I miss a few. Also, it's very likely that I
> misunderstood much of what I read. I'm just getting started in this area.
>
> http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec14.html
> http://www.astronomynotes.com/evolutn/s5.htm
> http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~dhw/Intro/lec11_giants.ps
> http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/eChem.f/labC3.html
> http://www.maa.mhn.de/Scholar/star_evol.html
> http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/Videos/general/sun.avi
>
> Paul
>
>
> Ted Moffett
>
> Ted Moffett wrote:
>
> >
> > All-
> >
> > Our sun will eventually cause fatal increases in Earth temperature in
> > its inevitable evolution into a red giant star. When will these temperature
> > impacts become significant? The article below estimates that in 800 million
> > years the sun's impact will raise Earth temperatures by 5 degrees, the same
> > amount predicted by some global warming models for the human impact on
> > global temperatures in the next century:
> >
> > http://www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/media/media191.pdf
> >
> >
> > http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:hAqjwfgBKT4J:www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/media/media191.pdf+time+remaining+Earth+biosphere+sun+expansion&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
> >
> >
> > "As a first application, let us ask how long it will take for the
> > temperature of the Earth to rise by 5 degrees (the rise anticipated in the
> > next century or so if the current human-induced greenhouse effect continues
> > unchecked). The equation predicts it will take the evolving sun about about
> > 0.8 billion years to produce this rise- so human activity may
> > be accelerating astronomical effects by a factor of about 10 million."
> > ------
> > This puts the highly doubtful claim that the current warming trend on
> > Earth is mostly due to increases in solar activity into perspective, it
> > seems.
> >
> > Ted Moffett
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
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>
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