January 8, 2018
453 Global Warming [8 Jan 2018]
In January in Saskatchewan we often hear "Global warming? Bring it on!". But do we really know what we're joking about?
Like most of you, I suspect, I considered global warming (or climate change as it is now called) to be a distant possible problem that would affect future generations to some degree. A few coastal cities would be flooded, hurricanes become stronger and more frequent, alternate droughts and floods become more common and more severe. Then I read “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells (nymag.com, July 2017) which opened my eyes to the full potential scale and impact of global warming.
In my December 18 column [#451] I described how rising CO2 is reducing the nutritional content of crops. This effect, in the long term, pales in significance.
The current atmospheric CO2 level of 407 ppm is the highest in the last 800,000 years. During the warm periods between the last four ice ages the CO2 level never reached more than 300. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution man has added 365 billion tonnes of carbon from burning fossil fuels, and deforestation has added another 180 billion. And it’s going to keep rising at a faster and faster rate. There are 1.8 trillion tonnes of carbon in the arctic permafrost waiting to be released when it melts. Other factors that will accelerate the rate of warming include the albedo effect (less ice and snow to reflect heat); the die off of forests and grasslands (which extract carbon from the atmosphere); and increased cloud cover (which traps more heat).
What does this mean in terms of global temperature?
The low end of the projections predict a 2 oC rise (the goal of the Paris Climate Accords, which is unlikely to be achieved). This will be enough to flood low coastal cities and countries like Miami and Bangladesh. The upper end could be as high as 8 oC. Even the median projection of a 5 oC rise will have catastrophic effects.
There have been five major extinctions in the history of life on Earth. The most recent at 66 million years ago (mya) which wiped out the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact. The other four were caused by climate change – sudden rising or cooling of Earth’s temperature. The most severe, called the Permian-Triassic, occurred 251 mya, triggered by a massive volcanic eruption in Siberia. The Earth warmed by 5 oC resulting in the loss of 96% of its species.
So the current warming trend means more than just milder winters in Saskatchewan and the flooding of a few cities or even an extra-long or extra warm interglacial period. It could mean the beginning of Earth’s sixth major extinction event.
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I could not let your Rosetown Eagle article Re: “Global Warming” go unchallenged. Your facts are wrong and misleading to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThe current CO2 level is NOT 406,000 ppm (40.6%)!!! …. It is 400 ppm (0.0004%)!!!!
Between the ice ages the CO2 level was NOT about 300,000 ppm (30%). It was 300 ppm (0.0003%)!!!!
This is NOT an increase of 10% …. It is an increase of 0.0001%
I looked at the nymag.com and it is better than National Enquirer, but not much. It is typical to left-wing alarmist propaganda.
Many statements are made, that simply are not true. For example: Statements about a multiyear warming trend that will end up in a runaway situation. That is not true. In 1910 to 1940 the world experienced a similar warming trend. Check the records. Back then there were less than 2 billion people, therefor a small fraction of the current vehicles, coal fires electrical plants etc., etc. existed.
No, the glaciers are not going to disappear anytime soon. The major glaciers in the Antarctic have receded and expanded many times. In the 90’s they were smaller than they are today.
Yes the oceans are rising. They have been rising about 8 centimetres per 100 years for 15,000 years (since the last ice age).
David Wallace-Wells, knows little about the CO2 in the atmosphere. He makes questionable statements about CO2 never being higher in concentration. Not true! In the history of the earth, it is now at a very LOW level. As a matter of fact, most plants would grow faster and larger (higher yield) if it was increased 3-4 fold. As a matter of fact, high output green houses have extra CO2 pumped into them to increase the yield. Even NASA has recorded an increase in the amount of green on the earth’s land surface. This is due to more plant growth which uses more CO2 and thus self regulates. CO2 is not a poisonous or toxic gas. It is one of the basics of life on earth. If CO2 ever dropped to less than 200 ppm, we would all starve to death since plants would cease to photosynthesize and therefore cease to grow.
Back in the 60’s we were told to prepare for the new ice age coming. The ice was expanding in Greenland and an unprecedented rate of snow pack was expanding in the arctic. Then in the 80’s we were told it was getting warmer and to prepare for the greenhouse effect. Neither of these came to fruition. Now the new catch-all phrase is “climate change”. The alarmists like this one. They continue to say the overwhelming majority of folks and scientists are on board. And they are right. The climate has been changing for millions of years, and it will continue. Actually, surveys have shown that the majority of people accept climate change, but do not buy into this idea that mankind is responsible.
All this being said, we have NOT been very good stewards of the environment. Too much pollution, too much politics, too much pressure on too few people and funds. We have caused extinctions and waste unparralelled in mankind. We all must become more sensitive to the environment, after all, it is the only one we have.
I, too, have read many books and articles on this subject. I try to read one book on the alarmist side for everyone on the skeptic side. (I hate the term “denier”, as it sounds akin to holocaust denier.) There are many eminent scientists who argue on both sides of this climate change question. It is not an exact science.
Want to read a good rebuttal to your article? Try, “Greenpeace Dropout” by Dr. Patrick Moore. He is a Canadian ecologist, not a sci-fi journalist or politician.
Like reading fiction? Try “State of Fear” by Michael Connelly. This book is about Environmental Terrorism. The interesting thing about this book of fiction is that the science is factual. You can look up the data used on the internet.
On the Alarmist side, try “This Changes Everything; Capitalism vs Climate” by Naomi Klein (A left-wing Canadian writer.)
Anyway, I have used enough of your time. Thanks for letting me vent.
MM
Sorry, that 2nd book should be State of Fear by Michael Crichton
ReplyDeleteMM
ReplyDeleteThank you for your detailed comment and respectful tone. Thanks for catching the CO2 ppm error - I have corrected that (and updated it to 407 from the latest NASA data).
As to relative vs absolute % increases (which is often abused in analyzing medical studies) the significance depends on the effects of marginal change. A change from 300ppm (.0003) to 400ppm (.0004) is an absolute increase of only .01% but a relative increase of 33%. And that's above the highest interglacial level in the last half million years, which looks significant to me. A drug that increases cancer risk from 2 to 3 per 100,000 has a relative increase of 50% but a rather insignificant absolute increase of .001%.
Yes climate is always changing. Our species has lived through at least one ice age. In Europe we adapted by moving south into a few small refugia along the Mediterranean. There are three factors making this climate change episode more significant for man. There are many more of us so there's no place to move to; we have incredible amounts of infrastructure that will be prohibitively expensive to move; and the change is happening faster than plant and animal life can adapt.
I remember the ice age predictions. One theory was that opening up the arctic sea in winter would increase snowfall leading to increased ice accumulation. We haven't seen any sign of that happening. Climate science has advanced greatly in the last 50 years so I have more confidence in current predictions than in those from the 60s. That said many of the predictions of warming from the 70s and 80s have already occurred, alarmingly sooner than expected.
The periodic fluctuating temperatures of the past ice ages are now known to be caused by slight changes in Earth’s orbit and tilt. Greenhouse gases from volcanic eruptions is another, less predictable, natural factor. Man’s burning of fossil fuels and deforestation only adds to these.
This brings up another issue that confuses climate change discussion. In my mind it is irrelevant whether the current warming is caused by man's activity (I'm sure it is a big factor), but only whether we can do anything to slow it down to a manageable rate. We didn't wait to find out if the 2016 Fort McMurray fire was caused by lightning or a cigarette before deciding to fight it. The deciding factor was the value of the property at risk.
Again, thanks for "venting". You may wish to comment on this week's follow up column (my last on this topic before going back to natural health issues).
Stan