I see on the news today,that the eggheads in Britain are blaming Global Warming for the floods and other bad weather over there.
My Q is ,is this just an easy answer or are there facts to back it up?
In the Pacific the weather is said to be controlled by El Nino,isn't it reasonable to presume a similar system controls the weather in Europe? Come on Krusty ,WW lets get a discussion going like the old days!
I'm sick of politics ,well voting anyway.
Is there an explanation for this bad weather I'm keen to hear your ideas.Regards skai
Donkey
11-03-2000, 03:59 AM
Global warming is a fact but whether it is a man(/woman) made phenomena or natural is a contentious issue.
When the media report about global warming they mean man made problems which i think is misleading for the average believe all that you read public.
The earth without humans would still go through periods of global warming and cooling . From fossil evidence areas of the world used to be tropical which are now cool and everyone knows of the last ice age and in fact we are apparently due another one.
One bit of statistics i heard the other night is that 98% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (which is the cause of the so-called global warming) is natural and of the 2% left only 0.8% comes from cars yet the media and politicians still want us to use our cars left so that we can save the world. Even though the likely hood of being able to detect the difference if we do stop is minimal.
Especially here in britain where we alway like to make our own lives difficult in an attempt to lead the worls in how everyone should be living. If we here stopped using every cars it would it would not make the blindest bit of difference as the amount of pollution coming from countries like USA and china etc and especially the 2nd worlds countries will over shadow ours by orders of magnitudes.
The floodings we are having here are manly due to the fact that we are building houses on areas of land that used to be flood plains designed specifically to be able to cope with any excess water by being flooded and taking the water away from more important areas. Now though seeing as they are nice and flat and the government is demanding more houses the fools are building houses in obvious danger regions and then everyone is in uproar when they get flooded. I mean use some common sense.
There has always been flooding and there always will be maybe it is getting more recently but that could be purely natural and in the long term (and i mean LONG term) the world will survive with or with out us. I don't think anything we can do to the world will kill it. We may well kill ourselves but the world has an amazing ability of self repair.
wow that was a bit long http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif going to lie down now.
Rod
sns
11-03-2000, 04:18 AM
I think things have always been similar but with all our technology you are just hearing about it more. Just about any little village in some remote area to the big city has access to some form of technology to get stories, photos etc straight to tv & radio stations. If its a slow news day the media doesnt mind where the carnage or suffering is - its all about getting bums on seats.
I did catch something on the tube once where someone had looked up in old weather records (as far back as they were kept/started that is) I think it went back to the industrial revolution (maybe more) and they suggested there had only been minor changes in temperatures and they were fluctuating quite a bit then. Who knows? I believe there has to be some warming, the smog etc from coal and oil fires, cars, manufacturing processes has to act like clouds and keep heat in doesnt it? El Nino? I seem to remember the media building that one up bigger than ben hur or the 'millenium bug' we were all done for. Sure we had floods, landslides & probably earthquakes but I also remember worse events after the El Nino which if I remember right they still tried to blame it on El Nino's residual effect. Britain? when did they ever have anything other than bad weather? I think the bad weather was there long before global warming was ever started, invented or heard of.
Axel
11-03-2000, 06:25 AM
As this board is typically for PC related issues -
Do PC's contribute to global warming? - In that they use electricity - they probably do -
What I'd be interested in seeing is a theoretical estimation of how much the tobacco industry adds to global warming - the tons of ash - the volumes of smoke... etc. etc. - forest and grass fires caused by ****-sucking idiots throwing their waste out the window rather than polluting their personal ash-trays.....
TechJumper
11-03-2000, 06:41 AM
Excuse me, I might be overstepping my boundaries, but
You are posting a non-computer releated topic in a brainstorming board. This kind of off-topic discussion is very confusing to those who are new to the board, and down right anoying for the Ultimates. I don't think I should disclose my personal view of "Global Warming" but the quotations should be enough of a hint. This should be in Community if it should be anywhere.
Michael
TechJumper
BFlurie
11-03-2000, 07:14 AM
*******************************************
Global warming is a fact
*******************************************
Donkey, it certainly isn't a fact. You make some other good points, tho. Look here:
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/
http://www.junkscience.com/
barry glisson
11-03-2000, 05:29 PM
Techjumper you did overstep your boundary. lets let the moderators do the moderating and the members do the posting. Ice core samples from Antartica has shown fluctuations in temps for over 50,000 years.
Gomer
11-03-2000, 10:10 PM
Techjumper, you are new here aren't you. "Brainstorming" is a forum for discussion of scientific ideas in addition to technical brainstorming. It doesn't really have to be tech related. Let the mods run the show bud, you'll make it longer here.
Global warming.
CO2 is one greenhouse gas. Gasses which trap much more heat per molecule include CH4, NOx's, and CFC's. At the beggining of the industrial revolution CO2 concentration was at 280 parts per million (ppm). From 1860-1995 CO2 concentrations have risen exponentially to 360 PPM higher then any time in 150,000 years. It rose from 316 ppm-360 ppm from 1960-1995. From 1976-1994 CFC (traps 1,500-1,700 more heat then CO2) concentration rose from 1.50 parts per billion to 3.00 ppb, CH4 (traps 25 times more heat then CO2) concentration went from 1.52 ppm - 1.75 ppm, and NO2 (traps 230 times as much heat as CO2) conc. went from 300 ppb - 310 ppb.
Since 1860, mean global temperature has risen 0.3-0.6C. Between 1946-1995 temp has risen 0.3C. Since 1860 the 12 warmest years on record have occurred between 1979 and 1997. In it's 1995 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change concluded that "the observed increase over the last century is unlikely to be entirely due to natural causes" and "the baance of evidence suggests that there is a discernable human influence on global climate." The IPPC projects the earths mean surface temp will rise 1-3.5C over the next century. Even at the lowest projected increase of 1.0C the earth will be the warmest it has been in 10,000 years. The larger landmasses in the Northern Hempisphere causes it to warm more and faster Surface temps north of the Arctic cirlce have risen 5.5C since 1968. Since 1947, the average summer temp in Antarctica has risen 2C. The IPPC warns that that warmings or coolings by more then 1C over a few decades (rather then over many centuries, as the pattern has been over the last 10,000 years) will cause serious disruptions of the current structure and functioning of earth's ecosystems and of human economic and social systems.
Nature has many checks and balances built into its climate control. Positive and negative feedbacks. As the ocean warms, it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere. Ocean currents act like a conveyor belt transferring heat and storing CO2 in the deep sea. If the density and the salinity of the water changes it effects this conveyor belt. If it stalls out, evidence from past climate changes suggest it could trigger atmospheric temp changes of more then 5C over 40 years. So now there is all this water vapor in the air. Clouds form. They can have both a warming (trapping heat) or cooling effect (reflecting sunlight). It dependeds on the thickness and altitude of the clouds and if it is day or night over them. As the icecaps melt, less sunlight is reflected, more is absorbed, temp goes up. Or, the warmer air will carry more water vapor, causing more snow to be dropped on the ploar glaciars causing them to grow, reflecting more sunlight, and maybe plunging us into the next ice age.
Then there is the pollution we create that helps to reduce global warming. Sulfate aerosals and most other aerosals reflect sunlight back into space helping to keep the earth cool. However, as laws are passed and greater steps are taking to reduce the amount of aerosals emmitted we lose this buffer. Aerosals do not stay in the atmosphere for long periods of time as the greenhose gasses do.
What about plants and and increase in photosynthesis? All the excess CO2 could be gobbled up by vegatation helping to keep temps down. Warm temps and an increse in food would allow plant eating bugs to breed faster and year-round offseting the increase in vegatation. Weeds could also grow faster at the expense of food crops.
I mentioned methane earlier as a greenhouse gas. As CO2 uptake by wetland plants is increased, there would be more organic matter for methane prdoucing anaerobic bacteria to decompose. There is also a large amount of methane tied up in the arctic tundra soils. If the blanket of permafrost melts this CH4 would be released causing an increase in warming. I am pretty sure I saw something on the news within the last 6 months or so about the permafrost in some areas melting causing houses built on it to sink and collapse. Gotta check into that again
So is there global warming? It is getting warmer, that is obvious. Are we causing it? 10,000 years ago nature could hold its own and keep the scales balanced. We have thrown so many more variables into the mix no one knows what is happening.
We are raping mother nature on a daily basis. And we aren't being gentle about it. We destroy nature to provide ourselves with what we consider a better quality of life. Think about landfills. We need them, no doubt about it. But think about the cocktail of chemicals that it is pooling at the bottom. They are there and eventually they will find their way out. Picture that cocktail and then imagine taking a microliter of it and adding it to a glass of water. Would you drink it? Every landfill liner will fail given time. They can't design one that won't. Will we be around. I hope not but someone will. (end tangent)
I don't know what the answer is. We are too wrapped up in our lifetimes and short term personal goals to give a **** about the future of the earth. So every day we slowly destroy something amazing that tooks billions of years to build. I do it myself. I just hope that the other foot doesn't fall while I am still around.
One thing though. I am sure many of leave your computers on 24/7. If you are cracking RC5 more power to you, at least something is being done with them. But if you just leave it on so you don't have to wait for it to boot, turn it off. Think about the 16 hours that computer isn't doing anything. Multiply that by a million and think about all that power getting slurped up to do nothing. Cheap electricity won't be around forever and turning them off is an easy step of conservation.
(most data taken from G. Tyler Miller's "Environmental Science")
[This message has been edited by Gomer (edited 11-03-2000).]
skai
11-03-2000, 10:44 PM
Wow! It's great to see so many great posts.
Im sorry I havn't posted earlier but time differences make it difficult,Gomer that was great reading, I am wondering if recent volcanic activity is a faactor in this.
Was reading about the Tambora Volcano on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, on April 10-11, 1815. Fifty cubic kilometres of magma were expelled in Plinian ash clouds and pyroclastic flows. Ash greater than one centimetre thick fell on more than 500,000 square kilometres of Indonesia and the Java Sea. Before the eruption Tambora was a 4,300-metre-high stratovolcano; following the eruption 1,400 metres of the summit cone were missing and in its place was a collapsed caldera measuring six by seven kilometres wide and one kilometre deep. About 10,000 people were killed instantly!
In Nth America and Europe the following year was called "Year without a summer"then in 1883 Krakatoa, believed to lower the average temp by 0.5c.
I wonder what percentage of these and recent eruptions contribute to warming ?
Techjumper,easy mistake to make ,go back and read some earlier Topics {before Community existed} great reading ! Cheers skai
medo
11-04-2000, 12:09 AM
Hello,
Our contributions + nature cycle = global warming.
Medo
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
jad1097
11-04-2000, 12:15 AM
Same ol' same ol'. Do a search in this forum for "Global Warming:.
skai
11-04-2000, 12:59 AM
Jad1097 I will do anything to get away from the tedious subject of who to vote for ,if you want to get a thread going in brainstorming, you post a sensible topic and we will all be happy to respond .skai
Gomer
11-04-2000, 09:16 AM
In the short run, volcanos contribute global cooling. This is a result of the particulate matter and aerosals they expel. This matter serves to reflect energy back into space. This particulate matter is relatively short lived in the atmosphere. However, the volcanos will expel additional greenhouse gasses in to the atmosphere which in the long run will serve to raise the temperature higher.
The weather is controlled by the ocean currents. The density of the water is a product of its temperature and salinity. Speed up or slow down this conveyor belt that moves energy around the world, and odd weather results.
I am also glad that there is a non-political thread going on somewhere on this board.
skai
11-04-2000, 06:54 PM
Gomer on that point about water density,do you think that ash or smoke fallout would increase the density to give any noticable affects?
Cheers skai
Gomer
11-04-2000, 06:57 PM
Particulate matter would have no effect on water density. Temperature and salinity does.
krusty the klown
11-06-2000, 03:21 AM
Well, I hypocrytically take the view of many religious peeps - there's nothing to be lost by not believing. (I am not religious, but I do try not to waste energy and I use 'low energy' electrical goods, etc.)
What harm can be done by attempting to reduce energy consumption? It usually ends up costing you less, so that's got to be a bonus. I can think of more imaginative things to spend my money on than fuel taxes - strangely many people with money cannot, so they buy a gas guzzler and dispose of their surplus money that way.... why not just give it to the government and not pollute our air excessively in the process? Whether or not you give a stuff about the environment, using an energy saving lamp or installing a condensing boiler will save YOU money... so there's nothing to lose.
Hmmmm... global warming eh? Well there's no doubt that there are natural cycles to weather patterns that have occurred for millions of years before human industrialisation.... there's also no doubt that the climate is an outrageously complex system - far too complex to include all variables in a model: for one, we don't have the computing power and for two we just don't know exactly how all the many factors interact. We can only build a model that includes sufficient variables so that the main influencing factors are captured and hopefully the model will not only be computationally solveable, but will produce some meaningful results.
Many lay people expect scientists to be able to plug any problem into a computer and it churns out the right answer (42?). Well I'm sorry my friends, but it just doesn't work that way. I am working on mathematical modelling of blood clot dissolution (thrombolysis) using drugs. Even that relatively simple model produces mathematics that will scare most people (including me!) - I can't imagine what a climate model looks like!!
Having done a bit of mathematical modelling, I reckon that our CO2 activities on this planet are a transient perturbation (a small ripple) in the system. Rather like the Takoma (?sp) Narrows suspension bridge, a relatively minor perturbation can either rock the boat and die out, or spiral into a major event. (OK, I know that was a resonance thing.... - just an illustration for those not versed in systems of coupled differential equations!). As has been cited earlier, the amount of CO2 that we are responsible for is small compared to that naturally present. We must not just consider this and say "oh well, it's only 2%, so I'll get the 7.4L V8 instead of the small block 5.7L" - we must also consider that activities like chopping down rainforests will serve to exaggerate the effect of the increase in CO2. If we increase the CO2 by 1%, then there will be X effect (whatever that may be). If we do this AND chop down Y million hectares of rainforest, then there will be an effect greater than X. Trees are one of the planet's carbon sinks - this is how we get coal: just carbon that was 'sunk' a long time ago.
So whether CO2 is a perturbation that will die out, or spiral into a major effect remains to be seen, but 4 fux ache, don't go Hell-for-leather opening the path for the least favourable outcome by removing one of the factors that will dampen the perturbations!
[rant#2]
The ignorance and arrogance of those who say "well, the CO2 levels were xxxx times higher so many millions of years ago, so what difference will the 'little bit' that we are responsible make?" astounds me. Have they forgotten that there were a lot more trees around then? If anything, we should be attempting to replace the trees that we have chopped down.... 'cos it's **** difficult to persuade people to either drive a more economical car/use it less (curiously, they see this as an infringement on their rights) and it's **** difficult to persuade people to vote for a government that is promising to increase fuel tax/selectively hit gas guzzlers. Trees are our best defence until people will actually change their attitudes and consume less - not just fuel, but all the energy-consuming packaging cr@p (i.e. people refuse to buy a product with excessive packaging) and other goods that have the good old 'built in obsolescence' - just throw it away!
[/rant#2]
So whether (or is it weather http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif ) or not the current flooding is due to climate change is very difficult to answer, but as Donkey pointed out, you build houses on a flood plain and start stuffing the runoff water where it doesn't normally go, there's no prize for guessing that it all hits the fan somewhere. Apparently, people are slowly learning that if you cover a wet area with tarmac and concrete and divert the runoff water elsewhere, then the 'elsewhere' gets flooded, the 'wet' under the concrete becomes dry and the stuff on top of the concrete falls over. Took them a bit of time to work that one out eh?
As you say in the St8s "Like Duh!" http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif
The environment will be able to tolerate certain perturbations... even quite large ones.... but are we going to find the limit when they are not little ripples that die out, but waves that superimpose????
Just my $0.02
(well, it was more like $0.04.... must be 'buy one get one free' day http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif )
skai
11-07-2000, 03:32 AM
On Ya Krusty! I agree about using gas guzzlers and fossil fuels upping the co2 levels ,I hear about it all the time from the Greenies ,and I agree we have to change our ways. But that's gonna take a long time! so when I suggest Nuclear energy I am treated like I’m a child molester WHY?
skai
barry glisson
11-07-2000, 04:41 AM
The problem with nuclear power is what to do with the spent fuel and all the things that have been contanimated along the way. Thousands of years half life is a problem that must be solved. barry
krusty the klown
11-08-2000, 02:06 AM
That is the irony about nuclear power (using fission reactors): little CO2 emissions, shame about that 10,000 year half-life! Then if they go 'pop', they tend to slide down in the public popularity.... but just remember folks "duck and cover" http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif
If we can ever get fusion reactors working on a viable scale it should be a lot cleaner than fission, but I've no idea what sort of timescale we're looking at.
Until then (or another technology is available), it seems the best we can do is try to buy us some time by making the best uses of our current resources. Even apparently green energy from hydroelectric stations is not without problems - the methane emitted by the flooded valley is about a 20* more potent greenhouse gas, giving rise to a net larger emission of greenhouse gas than a fossil fuel fired power station (according to a New Scientist report: http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum16/HTML/000132.html )
There are much better technologies available now that make good economical use of limited resources - they're only slowly coming into mainstream use and as they do, there is the inevitable price drop. Miraculously, our (UK) government actually promote one: condensing gas boilers for home heating are up to 30% more efficient than conventional ones (comparing newest to oldest - still operational - technology), but cost about £200-£250 more. The Govt have just run a scheme that gives you a £200 grant towards the condensing boiler.... Woohoo! a sensible policy! It's about the only way they would get people to use energy efficient technology.
Now let's see narural gas fired 'ground heat' heat pumps installed in new houses for a good idea! These can provide considerably more heat delivered to the house than is actually delivered to the system in BTUs of gas: the heat delivered = the energy output of the engine at the crank + the energy recovered from the engine's cooling system & exhaust gases + the energy shifted by the heatpump from the ground to the house - some losses... the overall delivery being greater than the mount of gas burnt..... without cheating the laws of physics!!
skai
11-08-2000, 02:46 AM
I still think nuclear is a goer, safe storage can't be impossible!
If eliminating fossil fuel power stations reduces co2 therefore stopping or slowing warming then maybe it's worth the risk.
I do accept your argument on the dangers of nuclear waste but maybe it could give us the breathing room {no pun intended} to get alternatives up and running including thermal energy. with respect skai
krusty the klown
11-08-2000, 05:16 AM
Thermal energy is what's used in the ground heat heat-pumps. The temperature of the ground is often around 10ºC, which is far too low to be of any use in directly heating a house. The heat pump will recover this 'low grade' heat and output heat at a useful temperature for home heating and water heating.
Check out: http://www.earthenergy.org/
for more info (under residential).
They talk about COP (coefficient of performance). This means the amount of heat moved (from the ground to the house) by the energy required to move it. It requires less evergy to move the heat than is actually moved. For example, you may have a 3kW electric motor driving a heat pump with a COP of 4.0. This means that the system can shift 3*4.0=12kW into the house. Some of the electric motor's energy will be recovered in the process, so the actual heat delivered to the house may be around 14kW (~48,000BTU), which is enough to heat an entire 3 bedroom house in a UK winter - comfortably.
It's not quite this rosy (14kW for the price of 3) in terms of CO2, because the power station required to drive the motor will struggle to extract more than 35% of the energy from the coal/gas/oil burnt to produce electricity. The remainder heats up the countryside, but it still results in an overall carbon emission less than (if the power station is gas fired) using an energy efficient gas boiler.
The real CO2 savings come from using a small natural gas fired engine to drive the compressor in the heat pump.
The engine will throw ~1/3 of the input energy out the exhaust pipe, ~1/3 out of the cooling system and 1/3 out as useful mechanical energy at the crankshaft (in other words, not much better than the power station). BUT, the 2/3 of the energy thrown out of the exhaust and cooling system can be recovered to either directly heat water, or feed into the heat pump system. So, for a 3kW (~5hp) engine, there will be ~6kW of waste heat (exhaust+cooling) and if we can recover 5kW, then the total heat into the house is 14+5=19kW for a gas expenditure of ~15.
The most efficient gas boilers can recover 85-95% of the energy in the gas burnt, so a 15kW burner in a gas boiler will only put 12.75-14.25kW into the water (efficiency of condensing boilers varies with inlet water temperature: colder = more efficient).