Global Cooling!

[Warren Faidley]

Snowpack and SVR Season

Years ago, there was a theory that Colorado's, NM's and AZ's higher than usual snow-pack levels (like this year) might relate to an active NP/CP/SP spring season. This theory alone, with a La Nina pattern, or related, might be something to watch. Then again, too many strong fronts or dynamic systems in sequence, w/o recovery can also ruin a season. It's always fun to watch this unfold.

Warren

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

Andin a matter of minutes an atsreoid killed of almost every living creature on this planet!

the K-T and (possibly) Permian extinction events took a huge amount of time. It's not the actual asteroid impact that wipes out the most - it's the million or so years of different climate that it causes. Strangely, it's a much slower process than you might think.

 

[Keith Mullen]

Well, I am personally a little frustrated with the whole Global Warming discussion - not because I don't believe the world's climate isn't warming on the whole - but because there are groups trying to use this warming cycle as proof of "whatever".. you name their agenda and see how it fits in their personal "discoveries".

"Global Warming" if that's how you want to call it, has been rising since the late 1910's.

Best case example (which I never see anyone mention by the way) is the fact that on the West Coast of Oregon through the West Coast of Washington, many lakeside resorts used to make summer money by storing 4 foot thick blocks of ice (from the winter lakes) in cold houses... rivers would freeze over sufficient enough to allow horse travel across them...

...There hasn't been a river that has frozen over enough for a dog to walk across in 20 years.... and any lake freezing more than one foot thick?? forget about it. Hasn't happened here in almost 40 plus years.... and every decade sees less severe cold snaps (in this corner).

Warming? Yes absolutely.
Global? Perhaps.
Shifting Ocean currents and weather patterns? Absolutely.

Somethings happening and everyone is trying to put their finger on the pulse.... but noone knows what the true normal heart-rate is.

*shrugs* Is this normal and cyclical? Sure could be. Is this a little abnormal and enhanced by modern man? Sure could be. Are we all not paying enough attention - or conversely watching environmental paint dry? Sure could be.

In any event - there is a change occurring. Whether for the better, the worse, naturally, or inflicted by humans, the best course would be to keep an open mind and monitor and record everything we can for those folks waaaayyy in the future to look back upon as a reference and say, " See, this is ...... that happened before because of ....".

No need to get too polarized. But without a doubt, there is change. I personally think it is way too early to point fingers.

But it's never too late to ask questions.

Keith

 

[Graham Butler]

the K-T and (possibly) Permian extinction events took a huge amount of time.

The K-T boundary is actually no longer the K-T boundary. The K, standing for Cretaceous, is still a legit name; but "Tertiary", which was what the T stood for, is no longer recognized as a formal time or rock unit. What was formerly known as the K-T boundary is now known as the K-P or the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

The Permian extinction did in fact take a good amount of time; although only a burp in the geologic time scale. There is still some conflict, actually there is lots of conflict throughout the placement of ALL boundaries throughout the geologic time scale, you just have to look closely to find it. But for the Permian extinction specifically it is generally accepted that the extinction of the animals took 10 - 60 thousand years where as the plants taking a few hundred thousand years to feel the complete impact of the event. I will also note that it is still considered that this extinction took at least two separate events.

It's not the actual asteroid impact that wipes out the most - it's the million or so years of different climate that it causes. Strangely, it's a much slower process than you might think.

Yes and No, the actual asteroid impact causes catastrophic disaster and localized (relatively speaking) mass extinction. Whereas yes, what is thrown up into the atmosphere is more important, and is what eventually causes major climate changes. It is these climate changes which eventually lead to the extinction of some/many species over 10s - 100s of thousands of years (in some cases over a million years).

One side note I would like to add is that at ages this long ago the ability to pinpoint certain dates has a much larger error than is usually expected. In some cases "pinpointing" a date is +/- 100,000 years. There is no 100% set of strata across the earth’s surface. There always have been and there always will be gaps, some scientists suggest that as little as 50% of the rock history has been recorded. As with any science geology is an interpretation and we can only work with the best we have.

To tie this back in with global warming/cooling/whatevering; it has and always will be a series of cyclical events. Are humans impacting the world? ABSOLUTELY!! Anyone who tells you otherwise is off their rocker and likely owns Amazon front real estate. Are humans the sole cause for the current warming trend? No. Look back through history (geologic history please) and you will see that the earth has endured many warming and cooling trends without the aid of humans. Now if one was only to consider the previous 2000 yrs then I might see how someone could believe that the current warming trend is the cause of humans and humans alone. Is the current movement to become more green worth while? Of course it is, anything to make something work without using nonrenewable resources, or as much of the given resource, is a benefit for everyone, regardless of whether you believe that humans impact the earth or not. Just like the wind farms out here in West Texas, they are a great step in the right direction, and with every day becoming a greater supplier of electricity to the state.


Graham Butler

 

[Mike Smith]

I've never understood who is making money here off fear. (Who?) If we are putting resources into developing alternative energies, why on Earth are people opposed to that?

Al Gore, for one: www.generationim.com/about/team.html !

The reason this thread strikes a chord is that many of us are tired of the alarmists using every geoscience blip (tsunami!, polar ice melting!) as "proof" of AGW.

The reason I am one of the people opposed to mandatory carbon caps and other measures that would cause great economic disruption without a good scientific basis is the law of unintended consequences. Here is a pertinent example of what I mean...

The Montreal Protocol ("celebrating 20 years of progess") was hailed as a great step in fixing the ozone hole. Only one problem: In 2006, 19 years after the ban of CFC's (and people losing their jobs and companies going out of business) the ozone hole was larger than ever.

Unnoticed in the hype of giving Gore the Nobel Peace Prize was the Prize for Chemistry which went to Gerhard Ertl. Never heard of him? I'm not surprised. He was given the prize for proving that what we thought we knew about the ozone hole and CFC's couldn't possibly be true. See: http://almaz.com/nobel/chemistry/2007a.html While he did not falsify a link between ozone and CFC's, he falsified what the atmospheric chemistry community thought they knew:

As one scientist put it:

"Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart," says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.

"Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely," agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. "Now suddenly it's like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge."

Here is the final comment: "Rex stresses, 'Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions'."

So, they are sure it is CFC's but they can't explain it scientifically. Sounds solid to me.

Here is the irony: As I understand it, the refrigerants that replaced CFCs are less efficient. Meaning your AC has to run longer to produce the same unit of cooling. Meaning more electricity. Meaning more greenhouse gasses. The law of unintended consequences.

I think all of us believed we had a better handle on the ozone hole than on climate change. If we could be wrong about CFC's/ozone how can we be confident about GW?

It is never a good idea to move forward with major policy changes based on half-baked science.

Meanwhile, the "blank sun" continues: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/ .

Mike

 

[Bill Tabor]

I heard the alternative theory to an asteroid, or meteorite causing the mass extinction back in the Permian period was a massive release of methane gas from the ocean. They believe this was caused either from global warming due to enormous greenhouse gases released from giant or super volcano eruptions or possibly due to an enormous ocean earthquake (which could have been triggered by an asteroid impact).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121101514.htm