[_ Old Earth _] So how's the climate going?

[Barbarian]

Since the beginning, before man, the climate has cooled, warmed, cooled, and warmed. Now it's somehow our fault. Silly.

There are many instances in the past when we made a mess of things and altered climate. The Romans, for example, heavily timbered Israel and the result was a semi-arid climate. Italy went through the same thing. Poor irrigation practices made the fertile crescent into a desert. The only difference now is that we have the capability of messing with the entire world, not just a region or two.


repaired the quote brackets

 

[gr8grace3]

Why not just be responsible in what we do? Businesses that make a mess should be required to clean it up. What's unreasonable about that?
[

I Agree. But Governments that say a "mess" should be cleaned up that isn't really a mess, should be cleaned up also,Right?

 

[jasonc]

Why not just be responsible in what we do? Businesses that make a mess should be required to clean it up. What's unreasonable about that?
[

Because unless really suggest evacating my state no amount of mitigation will stop the brown or red tides .

These are caused by fertlizer,fresh water release of lake okeechobee,septic tanks..forcing water discharged from lake o into the glades will work.we can't just allow that to flood over the dikes.

Mitigation is the best but again we can't just assume we won't swap poisons.the r12 swap to r134 is a great example and now r134 is out.no body did the reasearch on that before rushing.they did that here with the fertlizer and even now ecologists say that won't stop the brown or red tides

 

[gr8grace3]

There are many instances in the past when we made a mess of things and altered climate. The Romans, for example, heavily timbered Israel and the result was a semi-arid climate.

No. It didn't change the climate. It changed what the ground did with a semi-arid climate.

We have mining districts in Montana that cut down EVERY tree that were the size of Israel. The climate did NOT change. What the soil did changed though. It was a semi-arid climate before, it was a semi-arid climate during their cut down of forest, and it is a semi-arid climate today with the forest back.

 

[Barbarian]

No. It didn't change the climate.

It changed the climate. Went from forest to desert in a few hundred years. The Israelis are in the process of changing it back. And it will work.

We have mining districts in Montana that cut down EVERY tree that were the size of Israel. The climate did NOT change.

It was already semi-arid, but it become more arid with the trees gone.

The overgrazing that destroyed or severely altered the original grass cover of the rangelands of Mexico and the United States began in Mexico after the Spanish conquest and spread into the U.S. Southwest. By the early part of the l9th century, overgrazing was already a fact on both sides of the international boundary. With the explosive expansion of cattle numbers in the Southwest when the railroads arrived, range carrying capacities were greatly exceeded, and that situation continued well into the 20th century. The increased gully (arroyo) formation that occurred in overgrazed rangelands during the latter part of the l9th century has been associated with range deterioration, erosion, salinization, and waterlogging first received attention from research organizations in the late 1800s and early l900s. Many of the basic principles for controlling desertification were established at that time. However, application of the principles did not become widespread until the 1940s and 195Os. Even though solutions are available now, much remains to be done to put them into practice.
http://www.ciesin.org/docs/002-193/002-193.html

 

[gr8grace3]

It changed the climate. Went from forest to desert in a few hundred years. The Israelis are in the process of changing it back. And it will work.

No, it did not change the climate. It went from forest to desert because they cut it all down. shade and root systems retain moisture...........how are they changing it back?..........More crops,plant life and trees. To retain moisture for their semi-arid climate.

It was already semi-arid, but it become more arid with the trees gone.

The overgrazing that destroyed or severely altered the original grass cover of the rangelands of Mexico and the United States began in Mexico after the Spanish conquest and spread into the U.S. Southwest. By the early part of the l9th century, overgrazing was already a fact on both sides of the international boundary. With the explosive expansion of cattle numbers in the Southwest when the railroads arrived, range carrying capacities were greatly exceeded, and that situation continued well into the 20th century. The increased gully (arroyo) formation that occurred in overgrazed rangelands during the latter part of the l9th century has been associated with range deterioration, erosion, salinization, and waterlogging first received attention from research organizations in the late 1800s and early l900s. Many of the basic principles for controlling desertification were established at that time. However, application of the principles did not become widespread until the 1940s and 195Os. Even though solutions are available now, much remains to be done to put them into practice.
http://www.ciesin.org/docs/002-193/002-193.html

The climate NEVER changed. They changed the soil and what was on/in the ground. they wanted a tropical crop in a semi-arid land.......And it is still a semi-arid climate in those areas. Even with the overgrazing.

 

[Papa Zoom]

There are many instances in the past when we made a mess of things and altered climate. The Romans, for example, heavily timbered Israel and the result was a semi-arid climate. Italy went through the same thing. Poor irrigation practices made the fertile crescent into a desert. The only difference now is that we have the capability of messing with the entire world, not just a region or two.


repaired the quote brackets

and the people pushing it stand to make billions

no thanks. I don't trust them and I've read plenty alternate views. Co2 is plant food.

 

[Papa Zoom]

It changed the climate. Went from forest to desert in a few hundred years. The Israelis are in the process of changing it back. And it will work.



It was already semi-arid, but it become more arid with the trees gone.

The overgrazing that destroyed or severely altered the original grass cover of the rangelands of Mexico and the United States began in Mexico after the Spanish conquest and spread into the U.S. Southwest. By the early part of the l9th century, overgrazing was already a fact on both sides of the international boundary. With the explosive expansion of cattle numbers in the Southwest when the railroads arrived, range carrying capacities were greatly exceeded, and that situation continued well into the 20th century. The increased gully (arroyo) formation that occurred in overgrazed rangelands during the latter part of the l9th century has been associated with range deterioration, erosion, salinization, and waterlogging first received attention from research organizations in the late 1800s and early l900s. Many of the basic principles for controlling desertification were established at that time. However, application of the principles did not become widespread until the 1940s and 195Os. Even though solutions are available now, much remains to be done to put them into practice.
http://www.ciesin.org/docs/002-193/002-193.html

that's not changing the climate

 

[Barbarian]

that's not changing the climate

That's what it is. When the pattern of weather changes over several years, that's climate change.

 

[Barbarian]

nd the people pushing it stand to make billions

no thanks. I don't trust them and I've read plenty alternate views. Co2 is plant food.

Turns out that will be a big problem for a lot of nations. You see, the nutrition content of plants drops in an excess of carbon dioxide. Subsistence farmer will have a harder time of it.

Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.

When plants do benefit from increased Carbon Dioxide, it is only in enclosed areas, strictly isolated from insects. However, when the growth of Soybeans is boosted out in the open, it creates major changes in its chemistry that makes it more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-is-not-good-for-plants.html

From Nature
One of the most consistent effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on plants is an increase in the rate of photosynthetic carbon fixation by leaves. Across a range of FACE experiments, with a variety of plant species, growth of plants at elevated CO2 concentrations of 475–600 ppm increases leaf photosynthetic rates by an average of 40% (Ainsworth & Rogers 2007). Carbon dioxide concentrations are also important in regulating the openness of stomata, pores through which plants exchange gasses, with the external environment. Open stomata allow CO2 to diffuse into leaves for photosynthesis, but also provide a pathway for water to diffuse out of leaves. Plants therefore regulate the degree of stomatal opening (related to a measure known as stomatal conductance) as a compromise between the goals of maintaining high rates of photosynthesis and low rates of water loss. As CO2 concentrations increase, plants can maintain high photosynthetic rates with relatively low stomatal conductance. Across a variety of FACE experiments, growth under elevated CO2 decreases stomatal conductance of water by an average of 22% (Ainsworth & Rogers 2007). This would be expected to decrease overall plant water use, although the magnitude of the overall effect of CO2 will depend on how it affects other determinants of plant water use, such as plant size, morphology, and leaf temperature. Overall, FACE experiments show decreases in whole plant water use of 5–20% under elevated CO2. This in turn can have consequences for the hydrological cycle of entire ecosystems, with soil moisture levels and runoff both increasing under elevated CO2 (Leakey et al. 2009).

Since photosynthesis and stomatal behavior are central to plant carbon and water metabolism, growth of plants under elevated CO2 leads to a large variety of secondary effects on plant physiology. The availability of additional photosynthate enables most plants to grow faster under elevated CO2, with dry matter production in FACE experiments being increased on average by 17% for the aboveground, and more than 30% for the belowground, portions of plants (Ainsworth & Long 2005; de Graaff et al. 2006). This increased growth is also reflected in the harvestable yield of crops, with wheat, rice and soybean all showing increases in yield of 12–14% under elevated CO2 in FACE experiments (Ainsworth 2008; Long et al. 2006).

Elevated CO2 also leads to changes in the chemical composition of plant tissues. Due to increased photosynthetic activity, leaf nonstructural carbohydrates (sugars and starches) per unit leaf area increase on average by 30–40% under FACE elevated CO2 (Ainsworth 2008; Ainsworth & Long 2005). Leaf nitrogen concentrations in plant tissues typically decrease in FACE under elevated CO2, with nitrogen per unit leaf mass decreasing on average by 13% (Ainsworth & Long 2005). This decrease in tissue nitrogen is likely due to several factors: dilution of nitrogen from increased carbohydrate concentrations; decreased uptake of minerals from the soil, as stomatal conductance decreases and plants take up less water (Taub & Wang 2008); and decreases in the rate of assimilation of nitrate into organic compounds (Bloom et al. 2010).

Protein concentrations in plant tissues are closely tied to plant nitrogen status. Changes in plant tissue nitrogen are therefore likely to have important effects on species at higher trophic levels. Performance is typically diminished for insect herbivores feeding on plants grown in elevated CO2 (Zvereva & Kozlov 2006). This can lead to increased consumption of plant tissues as herbivores compensate for decreased food quality (Stiling and Cornelissen 2007). Effects on human nutrition are likely as well. In FACE experiments, protein concentrations in grains of wheat, rice and barley, and in potato tubers, are decreased by 5–14% under elevated CO2 (Taub et al. 2008). Crop concentrations of nutritionally important minerals including calcium, magnesium and phosphorus may also be decreased under elevated CO2 (Loladze 2002; Taub & Wang 2008).
http://www.nature.com/scitable/know...atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108

Too much of a good thing is often a bad thing.

 

[Barbarian]

No, it did not change the climate. It went from forest to desert because they cut it all down. shade and root systems retain moisture...........how are they changing it back?..........More crops,plant life and trees. To retain moisture for their semi-arid climate.

Yes, the presence or absence of trees change climate in an area. This has been known for over a thousand years. The difference today is that we have the ability to alter the climate of the entire world, as we are now doing.

 

[jasonc]

Yet the replacemente for r134 is Co2 as a proposal.

 

[Papa Zoom]

That's what it is. When the pattern of weather changes over several years, that's climate change.

The pattern of weather always is in a state of change. Always. It's never always the same, it's always changing. Some winters are mild, other not. Sometimes drought, sometimes not.

Many things contribute to co2 in the atmosphere. Termite farts and cow burps. Tax them.

 

[Papa Zoom]

Turns out that will be a big problem for a lot of nations. You see, the nutrition content of plants drops in an excess of carbon dioxide. Subsistence farmer will have a harder time of it.

Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.

When plants do benefit from increased Carbon Dioxide, it is only in enclosed areas, strictly isolated from insects. However, when the growth of Soybeans is boosted out in the open, it creates major changes in its chemistry that makes it more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-is-not-good-for-plants.html

From Nature
One of the most consistent effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on plants is an increase in the rate of photosynthetic carbon fixation by leaves. Across a range of FACE experiments, with a variety of plant species, growth of plants at elevated CO2 concentrations of 475–600 ppm increases leaf photosynthetic rates by an average of 40% (Ainsworth & Rogers 2007). Carbon dioxide concentrations are also important in regulating the openness of stomata, pores through which plants exchange gasses, with the external environment. Open stomata allow CO2 to diffuse into leaves for photosynthesis, but also provide a pathway for water to diffuse out of leaves. Plants therefore regulate the degree of stomatal opening (related to a measure known as stomatal conductance) as a compromise between the goals of maintaining high rates of photosynthesis and low rates of water loss. As CO2 concentrations increase, plants can maintain high photosynthetic rates with relatively low stomatal conductance. Across a variety of FACE experiments, growth under elevated CO2 decreases stomatal conductance of water by an average of 22% (Ainsworth & Rogers 2007). This would be expected to decrease overall plant water use, although the magnitude of the overall effect of CO2 will depend on how it affects other determinants of plant water use, such as plant size, morphology, and leaf temperature. Overall, FACE experiments show decreases in whole plant water use of 5–20% under elevated CO2. This in turn can have consequences for the hydrological cycle of entire ecosystems, with soil moisture levels and runoff both increasing under elevated CO2 (Leakey et al. 2009).

Since photosynthesis and stomatal behavior are central to plant carbon and water metabolism, growth of plants under elevated CO2 leads to a large variety of secondary effects on plant physiology. The availability of additional photosynthate enables most plants to grow faster under elevated CO2, with dry matter production in FACE experiments being increased on average by 17% for the aboveground, and more than 30% for the belowground, portions of plants (Ainsworth & Long 2005; de Graaff et al. 2006). This increased growth is also reflected in the harvestable yield of crops, with wheat, rice and soybean all showing increases in yield of 12–14% under elevated CO2 in FACE experiments (Ainsworth 2008; Long et al. 2006).

Elevated CO2 also leads to changes in the chemical composition of plant tissues. Due to increased photosynthetic activity, leaf nonstructural carbohydrates (sugars and starches) per unit leaf area increase on average by 30–40% under FACE elevated CO2 (Ainsworth 2008; Ainsworth & Long 2005). Leaf nitrogen concentrations in plant tissues typically decrease in FACE under elevated CO2, with nitrogen per unit leaf mass decreasing on average by 13% (Ainsworth & Long 2005). This decrease in tissue nitrogen is likely due to several factors: dilution of nitrogen from increased carbohydrate concentrations; decreased uptake of minerals from the soil, as stomatal conductance decreases and plants take up less water (Taub & Wang 2008); and decreases in the rate of assimilation of nitrate into organic compounds (Bloom et al. 2010).

Protein concentrations in plant tissues are closely tied to plant nitrogen status. Changes in plant tissue nitrogen are therefore likely to have important effects on species at higher trophic levels. Performance is typically diminished for insect herbivores feeding on plants grown in elevated CO2 (Zvereva & Kozlov 2006). This can lead to increased consumption of plant tissues as herbivores compensate for decreased food quality (Stiling and Cornelissen 2007). Effects on human nutrition are likely as well. In FACE experiments, protein concentrations in grains of wheat, rice and barley, and in potato tubers, are decreased by 5–14% under elevated CO2 (Taub et al. 2008). Crop concentrations of nutritionally important minerals including calcium, magnesium and phosphorus may also be decreased under elevated CO2 (Loladze 2002; Taub & Wang 2008).
http://www.nature.com/scitable/know...atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108

Too much of a good thing is often a bad thing.

I don't real long posts. For every link you have, I can post another view. Nothing you have said or could say points to climate change caused by man. Climate changes because God designed it that way.

 

[Papa Zoom]

Yes, the presence or absence of trees change climate in an area. This has been known for over a thousand years. The difference today is that we have the ability to alter the climate of the entire world, as we are now doing.

then make it rain in California during the drought

 

[Barbarian]

then make it rain in California during the drought

Few hundred years, it could be changed. But not tomorrow. Notice that much of Israel is still arid. It will be at least as long to fix things as to mess things up.

Biggest issue in the drought in the West is the lack of snow melt. And the reason for that is that the winter snowline is getting higher and higher as the climate warms.

You can't outsmart God. Do stupid things, there are consequences.

 

[Barbarian]

 

[turnorburn]

Not to mention...

Nuclear Engineer: “Alarm bells” are going off over Fukushima plume coming to US West Coast — People will be dying from radiation that’s flowing across Pacific — Massive amounts of nuclear waste are flowing into ocean every day, and will for more than a century — “We’ve contaminated the biggest source of water on planet, and there’s no way to stop it” (VIDEO)

By ENENews, on April 7th, 2016

Published: April 7th, 2016 at 1:12 pm ET
By ENENews


Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on Fukushima@5, Mar 7, 2016 (emphasis added): Massive amounts of radiation continue to enter Japan’s water and air, and the Pacific Ocean, daily… Due to its triple meltdowns and the unmitigable radioactive releases, Fukushima Daiichi will continue to bleed radiation into the Pacific Ocean for more than a century… There is no road map to follow with directions to stop the ongoing debacle…

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on KPFA, Mar 30, 2016: [Univ. of California] Berkeley’s nuclear program has been in the forefront of the pro-nuclear propaganda for decades, and since Fukushima has been aggressively downplaying the significance of it. So, whatever comes out of Berkeley, I just attribute to a very pro-nuclear faculty… [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is] measuring 1,000 miles offshore [of the US West Coast] and… picking up 10 becquerels per cubic meter [Bq/m3]. At my point, that’s when my alarm bells go off is 10 [Bq/m3]… That plume is still coming, the Pacific is a huge place and to think that a disaster on the opposite side of the world can be detected and begin to contaminate California, I think that the monumental shattering conclusion [is] radiation knows no borders… So this ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’ is what I think Berkeley believes in. What you can be sure of is that somebody’s going to die from the radiation that’s in the Pacific, but you just won’t know who it is – and they’re counting on that. The nuclear establishment is saying, ‘Well, we can smear that out in a broader epidemiological study.’

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on CCTV, Apr 5, 2016: We’re looking at newspaper coverage from the last couple of weeks and it’s clear that the plant continues to hemorrhage.

Fairewinds Japan Speaking Tour Series No. 1, Feb 12, 2016:

• Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen: [T]he Fukushima power plants… continues to bleed into the Pacific every day. But what no one is paying any attention to is that the entire mountain range that runs 100 miles up and down this coast is also contaminated. And as much radiation is pouring out… into the Pacific from the mountain range because it’s so contaminated, as from the Fukushima site… in fact, they’ve got an entire state pouring radiation into the Pacific. So what’s in the Pacific? Off of California, they’re finding radiation at what I would consider significant levels… in a cubic meter of ocean water, they’re finding 10 radioactive decays every second… So a cubic meter of water, if you’re in a dark room, would have 10 flashes of light every second, and that’s going to go on for 300 years. So we have contaminated the biggest source of water on the planet, and there’s no way to stop it.
• Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds: So are you saying that the contaminated water problem is hopeless? Is there nothing we can do to slow it down?
• Arnie Gundersen: It used to be that scientists believed dilution is the solution to pollution. But I think we’re finding with the biggest body of water on the planet, that you can’t dilute this stuff. And we’re going to begin to see this bio-accumulation, which is all the fish that are in the ocean are going to uptake the cesium and the strontium and become more and more and more radioactive…

http://enenews.com/nuclear-engineer...inated-biggest-source-water-planet-stop-video

 

[Barbarian]

Arnie Gundersen: It used to be that scientists believed dilution is the solution to pollution. But I think we’re finding with the biggest body of water on the planet, that you can’t dilute this stuff.

You can dilute any substance. Arnie is a brick short of a load if he doesn't realize this.

But he has a history of false statements:
If there’s any luck here, it’s that the wind was blowing offshore, and about 80 percent of the radiation wound up in the Pacific. The amount of radiation released was clearly as much as Chernobyl, but most of it headed out to sea.
Arnie Gunderson:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/7/6/as_japan_says_fukushima_disaster_man#transcript

But:
With the new Cs-137 data, we can now directly compare the fallout from Chernobyl to Fukushima. Check out the Google Earth mashup above (zoom out to see Chernobyl on top of Fukushima, and rotate over to the Ukraine to see Chernobyl in context).

The first thing that you can see is that Chernobyl is indeed quite a bit bigger. In fact, the permanent exclusion zone (red) encompasses most of the Fukushima fallout map (download the .kmz) to toggle the overlay on and off). If Fukushima had been a Chernobyl-scale crisis, significant amounts of radiation would have spread all the way up to Iwate Prefecture, and depending on the winds, it’s not inconceivable that Tokyo might have been hit with serious levels of fallout.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/directly_comparing_fukushima_t.html

Nature, as you might know, is one of the most credible science journals in existence. And the report is well documented. Chernobyl was indeed much larger in terms of released radioactive isotopes.

So Arnie's not very credible as a source.

Even if the radioactive material is entrained in a gyre in the Pacific, it would be greatly diluted by turbulence within the gyre itself, being many kilometers wide. Moreover, the longest-lived isotope of any amount in the leak is cesium, which has a half-life of 30 years. The great gyre would bring the materal to the US in another five years, meaning a significant part of the cesium 137 would have already decayed. (Half of it goes away in 30 years)

Remember, this stuff wasn't produced by magic. People removed it from the environment,and concentrated it. And now, it's going back into the environment.

I doubt if we'll ever see any health problems from exposure in America.

 

[Barbarian]

So how's Arctic Sea Ice doing?

Continuing decline. And significantly reduced albedo, leading to more warming. Not a good thing.