Global Warming - What's really going on?? - Climate Prize?! - $25M

[Alpha]

Well, well, what an unusual duo :thinking:

With the recent airing of this subject on Coast, specifically Canadian Dr Tim Ball's theory and now both Branson and Gore offering this very tasty monetary prize?!?!?

What's really going on? Note the source.....:detective:

Thanks to Dera, who originally posted this article here:

Climatologist Calls Global Warming Fears 'Greatest Deception in the History of Science'... (http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6957)

Here's the latest scoop:

------------------------------

Gore, Branson Announce Climate Prize

LONDON, Feb. 9, 2007 CBS News

(CBS) Former presidential candidate Al Gore has joined forces with the British financial heavyweight Sir Richard Branson to offer up a $25 million reward to inspire innovations in the field of combating climate change.

In an exclusive London interview with CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith, Gore said: "What we are facing is a planetary emergency. So some things you would never consider otherwise, it makes sense to consider."

Branson announced the "Earth Challenge" prize Friday morning at a news conference in London with Gore, who served as vice president under Bill Clinton, and then failed in a 2000 White House bid before becoming a vocal environmental activist.

His recent documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth," is credited with bringing the issues of global warming and carbon emissions much nearer to center-stage in the American media - in addition to creating an Oscar buzz and rumors of Gore being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Branson, chairman of the wildly successful Virgin Group, said the prize will go to whoever comes up with the most innovative way of sucking harmful greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

"The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said at the news conference. "The Earth cannot wait 60 years."

When Smith asked the men whether their prize campaign might distract attention from the important drive to get politicians onboard the push for a greener planet, Branson acknowledged, "it's going to be a problem to get the political will of, you know, some countries, in particular America, to actually get out there and encourage people to go for smaller cars, to encourage people to use less carbon."

Gore told the Early Show co-anchor that there had been a "big shift" in American public interest in global warming, and that such a shift was the only thing capable of driving a change in the political policy of the country.

"I think you really are going to see change in the way people demand politicians in both parties make this their top priority," Gore said.

But, Branson said if the political will isn't there yet, that's just more evidence that there's an urgent need to give the private sector new incentive to solve to the problem, and that's the goal of the prize money.

Judges of the competition, which applies the basic business theory of creating a huge incentive to get a problem solved, are looking for a method to remove at least one billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year.

The judges include a NASA scientist and several top environmental researchers from around the world.

This is not the first time Gore and Branson have joined forces to bring attention to climate change. Gore backed the English tycoon's September 2006 pledge to devote all the profits from his transportation businesses - which include air and rail - to fight global warming.

Branson said that over 10 years, the amount allocated from his business ventures could total $3 billion.

------------------------------

"Terrible Two-Some" perhaps or something else?

What are your thoughts on Global warming...is it CO2 emissions, a direct symbiosis of Earth to Sun, magnetic field changes, natural cycle....something else?? The Upcoming Global SuperStorm according to Art and Whitley's theories?

What do you think about this latest media splash and what's really going on?

[Kamalam]

I think it's awesome that people are finally getting serious about the issue - that heavyweights are bringing not only attn to it, but are forking up the bucks as well.

I really don't know what to think about George's guest...Tim Ball. I was really confused after hearing him speak. One thing that stood out though, was his assertion that scientists were afraid to give credit to an anti-global warming outlook.

What?

If anything, hasn't just the opposite been the case until very recently? If the sun is really more to blame for climate change... fine. I can accept that. However, isn't increased CO2 also an issue? Are we not CLEARLY messing with the planet's biosphere... polluting up down and all around?

I think George is really out to lunch on this one. We need a round table discussion on this ASAP... let's not just invite people on who agree with our own theories.

:wavey: Thanks for bringing this subject up, Alpha... I've wanted to comment on this since hearing George's show.

[lastconundrum]

The really big question isn't whether there is or isn't global warming; it's whether the Earth has a balancing mechanism that kicks in to reduce the temperature if it gets too hot. A whole bunch of quick-frozen mammoths indicate that it does. If so, how soon should we expect the superstorm?

[crossfire]

The really big question isn't whether there is or isn't global warming; it's whether the Earth has a balancing mechanism that kicks in to reduce the temperature if it gets too hot. A whole bunch of quick-frozen mammoths indicate that it does. If so, how soon should we expect the superstorm?
Speaking of the superstorm, how much snow did you get?

[lastconundrum]

No snow in NYC yet but weather-guessers say 4 inches Tuesday. Yesterday they said "dusting". Last time we had this weather pattern we had 27 inches. :yell:

[snowbird]

Here's a scientific and non-political article written by people in the business of climatology and not bureaucratic politico pseudo-scientific wannabees... There is absolutely no way that I would ever trust the UN summary of a paper that is not due to be written til May. Nor would I trust an agency whose main interest is global money distribution, (incidentally, billions in Kyoto credits going to China who is set to build 500 coal fired reactors). Does the emperor have no clothes? - has everyone lost leave of their senses? I'm appalled at the thought of my country's money leaving on someone else's whim instead of fixing our pollution problems at home. :yell: :sigh: :worried: Follow the money....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece


An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

The Chilling Stars is published by Icon. It is available for £9.89 including postage from The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585

[TerrasHelm]

OMG!!!

Forgive me if I seem a little excited - I believe I may have the answer.

I'll let you know about it when Mr. Branson presents me with the 25 million dollar check.

Till then, I'll keep eating my "Ramen" noodles and helping others to realize how the human practice of capitalism is destroying Earth.

[Judee]

Doesn't anyone wonder if 'global warming' is something the earth goes through as a normal and natural process. I am sure, Mr. Gore will get rich, and get his ego assuaged... but...will the truth come out???

[Alpha]

Doesn't anyone wonder if 'global warming' is something the earth goes through as a normal and natural process. I am sure, Mr. Gore will get rich, and get his ego assuaged... but...will the truth come out???

This is what some are saying Judee...that and as Dr Ball said the other night, that our climate and climate changes are directly related to sun activity.

The Earth being a living organism, may also decide to purge every once in a while, when she gets too heavy and/or pollluted...nevermind the theory of us as a petrie dish :thinking:

[Alpha]

OMG!!!

Forgive me if I seem a little excited - I believe I may have the answer.

I'll let you know about it when Mr. Branson presents me with the 25 million dollar check.

Till then, I'll keep eating my "Ramen" noodles and helping others to realize how the human practice of capitalism is destroying Earth.

Good luck TerrasHelm....I hope you do have the answer!!

Remember if you win...share a bit with your friends :D ;)

Just kidding!! :)

[TerrasHelm]

Good luck TerrasHelm....I hope you do have the answer!!

Remember if you win...share a bit with your friends :D ;)

Just kidding!! :)

Alpha,

We all share the air we breathe; why not share the rest of Earth's resources. Isn't that what 'intelligent' species with the capacity for compassion are supposed to do?

Pardon me for my sarcasm with my first post, but with countries like China, who's economy is growing by nine percent per year through their industrial practices, allowing them to emit as much pollution as the USA by 2009 (and who knows how far they'll go after that), I'm hoping that others can begin to conceptualize how capitalism and continued life here on Earth does not mix.

(You know, that's a really long sentence. Break it up yourself if you don't mind.)

[Alpha]

Alpha,

We all share the air we breathe; why not share the rest of Earth's resources. Isn't that what 'intelligent' species with the capacity for compassion is supposed to do?

Pardon me for my sarcasm with my first post, but with countries like China, who's economy is growing by nine percent per year through their industrial practices, allowing them to emit as much pollution as the USA by 2009 (and who knows how far they'll go after that), I'm hoping that others can begin to conceptualize how capitalism and continued life here on Earth does not mix.

(You know, that's a really long sentence. Break it up yourself if you don't mind.)

No need to either break up or apologize my friend.

What you say is vital and more than well said, to us continuing in this space and dimension. :notworthy

I agree with you more than wholeheartedly...not only the air we we breath, yet the food we eat and the conditions that we live in....globally.

There is NO reason for in inequities we see here...all orchestrated by a few, who seemingly don't give a rats ass about anything but power and their pocket book.

Well said...this is a great topic :hug:..let's continue, however better yet, how can we use our collective and individual essence and consciousness to change this most unpalatable and disgusting....yes, I'll call it disgusting matrix we're in?

[lastconundrum]

Alpha,

We all share the air we breathe; why not share the rest of Earth's resources. Isn't that what 'intelligent' species with the capacity for compassion is supposed to do?

Pardon me for my sarcasm with my first post, but with countries like China, who's economy is growing by nine percent per year through their industrial practices, allowing them to emit as much pollution as the USA by 2009 (and who knows how far they'll go after that), I'm hoping that others can begin to conceptualize how capitalism and continued life here on Earth does not mix.

(You know, that's a really long sentence. Break it up yourself if you don't mind.)

China isn't capitalist; their economy is controlled by an oligarchy put in power by the government. That's not to say capitalism is all flowers and butterflies; the global capitalist system has metastisized into something very similar.

Any sane species would consider the effects of their actions on their children and wouldn't pollute and ravage and destroy the biosphere. So obviously, the insane are in control of the Earth. :15:

[Judee]

So obviously, the insane are in control of the Earth. :15:

:sad: Indeed... and there you have the crux of the matter.

[snowbird]

President of Czech Republic Calls Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity...

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/02/vclav-klaus-about-ipcc-panel.html

In an interview with "Hospodářské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions (well, actually, the interview took place yesterday although it was published today, on 02/09/2007; the translation from Czech to Czenglish is mine):

* [Questions and answers about European politics are omitted]
* ...
* Q: On Wednesday, the European Commission has approved carbon dioxide caps for new cars. One week earlier, the U.N. IPCC climate panel released a report that has described, once again, the global warming as one of the major threats for the whole civilization. The Stern report about similar threats was published before that. And you suddenly say that the global warming is a myth. Try to explain, how did you get this idea, Mr President?
* A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" and "if's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.
* This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians... If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.

* Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...
* A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.


* Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?
* A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.
* Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it, I don't plan to learn it, and I don't pretend to be an expert in such measurements. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article grew in size and it became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.
* Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.

* Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?
* A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.

* Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right ...
* A: ...I am right...

* Q: ...Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
* A: It's such a nonsense that I have probably not heard a bigger nonsense yet.

* Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?
* A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person hardly. I don't see any ruining of the planet, I have never seen it, and I don't think that a reasonable and serious person could say that he has. Look: you represent the economic media so I expect a certain economical erudition from you. My book will answer these questions. For example, we know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It's clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.
* It's also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.
* That's why I ask: how can you pronounce the sentence you said? Perhaps if you're unconscious? Or did you mean it as a provocation only? And maybe I am just too naive and I allowed you to provoke me to give you all these answers, am I not? It is more likely that you simply present your honest opinion.

[TerrasHelm]

Wow, the President of Czech Republic seems very opinionated on the matter of global heating.

Regardless of his viewpoint though, I think I'm more concerned with his ample ability to articulate and express himself. A strong point that the President of the United States seems to lack in the extreme.

[snowbird]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/13/upiUPI-20070213-100336-9529R.html

Study: Glacier melting can be variable

Feb 13 10:13 AM US/Eastern

BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. study suggests two of Greenland's largest glaciers are melting at variable rates and not at an increasing trend.

The study, led by Ian Howat, a researcher with the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, shows the glaciers shrank dramatically and dumped twice as much ice into the sea during a period of less than a year between 2004 and 2005.

But then, fewer than two years later, they returned to near their previous rates of discharge.

Howat says such variability during such a short time underlines the problem in assuming glacial melting and sea level rise will necessarily occur at a steady upward trajectory.

"Our main point is that the behavior of these glaciers can change a lot from year to year, so we can't assume to know the future behavior from short records of recent changes," he said. "Future warming may lead to rapid pulses of retreat and increased discharge rather than a long, steady drawdown."

The research is online in the journal Science Express.

[TerrasHelm]

Snowbird,

When you do your searches on the Net, and even though the mainstream stream media ignored global heating for years, I'm sure that you find, like I do, that the ratio of 'Earth heating up' verses 'Earth not heating up' is thousands to 1 in favor of the former.

Good day

P. S. - Perhaps I should say, in light of the overwhelming evidence of our planet dying, "Good Luck".

[snowbird]

Snowbird,

...P. S. - Perhaps I should say, in light of the overwhelming evidence of our planet dying, "Good Luck".

We're talking about 2 issues here (and probably more):

1-Global warming, which is happening naturally and that we are unable to do anything about it;
2-Pollution, which is exacerbated by the global warming which is occurring naturally.

We are in the tail end of an ice age...which occurred after the earth was much warmer than it is now, when the north was lush and green. Science, not politics tells us this is so and offers many clues that this has happened "many" times before. What do you suppose triggered the melting of the 2 mile high sheet of ice whose weight, incidentally, the earth is still recovering from?

And when our north was warm, green and lush, what do you suppose triggered the global cooling (and there is evidence that it happened quite suddenly and frighteningly)? I cannot tell you how many times this warming and cooling cycle occurred because I'm not a climatologist who delves into these things. This is where some reading and research enters into the equation.

But, how many Kyoto credits do you think could have stopped it?

Political opinions do not count unless it's for the right reason. And I have no respect for anyone that is involved in this "global warming" study (hysteria) that has taken place and the idea that a piss-pot full of money to countries who are not even signed on to the Kyoto accord in order to continue their totally self-serving and horribly polluting ways.

If anyone is really serious about pollution under these global warming circumstances, then teach/send/give them the technology to upgrade themselves into a cleaner life.

The earth is changing, not dying. By the way, we cannot survive without CO2. Follow the money.

[snowbird]

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070106205734data_trunc_sys.shtml

7 February 2007
Greenhouse Thermostat Kept Young Earth Balmy

Scientists have for years theorized that high concentrations of greenhouse gases could have helped Earth avoid global freezing in its youth by allowing the atmosphere to retain more heat than it lost. Now, analysis of the world's oldest sedimentary rocks has revealed the first preliminary field evidence supporting this theory. "Our study shows the greenhouse gas that could have sustained surface temperatures above freezing 3.75 billion years ago may have been carbon dioxide," said University of Chicago geologist Nicolas Dauphas.

Writing in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the researchers, from the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado, explain how the Earth may have avoided becoming frozen solid early in its history, when astrophysicists believe the sun was 25 percent fainter than today. Previous studies had shown that liquid water existed at the Earth's surface even though the weak sun should have been unable to warm the Earth above freezing conditions. But high concentrations of carbon dioxide or methane could have warmed the planet.

The Quebec rocks at the center of the study were discovered in 2001 and are among the oldest-known in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. The only other rocks of the same vintage are in western Greenland. The Canadian site is a landscape of rolling hills of grass and marsh, punctuated by lakes, streams and craggy rock outcroppings. Stunted trees of willow grow no more than six feet high, leaving unobstructed views all around. But the region would have looked very different 3.8 billion years ago.

"At that time it would have appeared to be a totally alien world to us, with a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane that would have imparted a reddish cast to the sky, and deep dark greenish-blue oceans of iron-rich water washing onto beaches of small continents scattered across the globe," said the University of Colorado's Stephen Mojzsis.

The scientists focused their analysis on rocks they suspected contained chemical sediments that precipitate like salt from seawater. "A critical issue with these rocks is that they have been cooked and deformed during burial in the crust for several hundred million years, which makes it difficult to identify their nature," Dauphas explained.

To analyze the rock, the researchers dissolved it and separated the iron oxides and iron carbonates from the other constituents. They then used a mass spectrometer to measure the isotopic composition of the iron. "Iron has several isotopes, and the ratio of these isotopes changes from one to another," Dauphas said. "Sediments that formed by precipitation from seawater have a very distinct signature of iron isotopes." When the Chicago scientists analyzed the iron composition of the rocks; "We found that indeed they had the typical signature of something that formed by precipitation in a marine setting."

The researchers speculate that the iron was probably released with other metals in hydrothermal vents called black smokers found along mid-ocean ridges, where molten lava emerges on the sea floor to create new oceanic crust. In today's oxygen-rich oceans, the iron rapidly precipitates and concentrates near these vents. But in the oxygen-starved oceans of 3.8 billion years ago, oceanic currents could transport the iron long distances before becoming partially oxidized and deposited in sea-floor sediments. Some of these sediments survive today as banded iron formations. "There are no banded iron formations being produced at present because there is too much oxygen," Dauphas said.

Previous research on the ancient rocks from Greenland had already revealed the existence of ocean water in the Precambrian Period. But the Canadian rocks showed something else: the first hints that Precambrian oceans also contained iron carbonates. Iron carbonates can only form in an atmosphere that contains far higher levels of carbon dioxide than are found in Earth's atmosphere today. This carbon dioxide would have played an important role as a planetary thermostat in the support of life on Earth, according to the researchers.

"If it gets cold, ice caps form, chemical weathering decreases, carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, which increases the greenhouse effect and surface temperatures. If it gets hot, the rate of chemical weathering increases, the rate of burial of sedimentary carbonates increases, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and surface temperatures decrease," Dauphas said. "It's possible that such a thermostat was at work as early as 3.75 billion years ago."

Source: University of Chicago

[snowbird]

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070004210624data_trunc_sys.shtml

5 January 2007
Fossil Records Show Yo-Yo Effect Of Changing Climate

The mid-Permian transition from ice age to an ice-free planet was marked by dips and rises in carbon dioxide and extreme swings in climate, according to University of California, Davis (UC) researchers writing in Science. During the mid-Permian, 300 million years ago, much of the southern hemisphere was covered in thick ice sheets and floating pack ice likely covered the northern polar ocean. But forty million years later, all the ice was gone and the climate hot and dry with sparse vegetation.

UC's Isabel Montanez, lead author on the paper, derived levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea surface temperatures from the fossils of brachiopod shellfish and fossilized plants from the ancient rainforests. They also looked at the scars and clues left by glacial ice sheets that once covered the great southern continent of Gondwanaland, which included most of the land masses of the modern southern hemisphere.

Montanez's analysis shows that throughout the change over millions of years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels swung back and forth between about 250 parts per million (close to present-day levels) to more than 2,000 parts per million. At the same time, the southern ice sheets retreated as carbon dioxide rose and expanded again when levels fell, a pattern compatible with the idea that greenhouse gases caused the end of the late Paleozoic ice age. "We can see a pattern of increasing carbon dioxide and increasing temperatures, with a series of rises and dips," Montanez said.

Previously, it was assumed that as the climate warmed, a tipping point would be reached at which the ice sheets would melt rapidly and for good. Instead, the new data shows that the climate went back and forth between the extremes. Instead of a smooth shift, the transition occurred in a series of sharp swings between cold and hot conditions, occurring during perhaps a half-million to few million years.

Montanez pointed out that these results cannot be directly applied to current global warming. The current rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide is occurring throughout a much shorter timescale, for one thing. But the current work does show that such a major change in climate will likely not proceed in small, gradual steps, but in a series of unstable, dramatic swings. Somewhat worryingly, while the mid-Permian changeover took millions of years, similar events might take place during a much shorter time span. "Perhaps this is the behavior one should expect when we go through a major climate transition," Montanez mused.

Source: University of California - Davis

[snowbird]

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060916010403data_trunc_sys.shtml

16 October 2006
Swimming Critters Add New Variable To Climate Confusion

Phytoplankton - the microscopic plants that form the foundation of the marine food chain - generate an astonishing amount of power, report oceanographers from Florida State University (FSU). FSU's Professor William Dewar has calculated that the little critters generate about five times the annual total power consumption of the human world. He added that the yearly amount of chemical power stored by phytoplankton in the form of new organic matter was roughly 63 terawatts. By comparison, in 2001, humans collectively consumed around 13.5 terawatts.

This microscopic powerhouse, already acknowledged as an important player in the climate debate, now looks to also play a key role in keeping the world's oceans circulating. Dewar estimates that the marine biosphere (the chain of sea life anchored by phytoplankton) invests around 1 terawatt in mechanical energy - swimming motions - that mix the world's oceans much as cream is stirred into coffee by swiping a spoon through it.

And the end result, writes Dewar in the Journal of Marine Research, of all that phytoplankton-fueled stirring may be climate control.

"We have predicted, theoretically, that the amount of mixing caused by ocean swimmers is comparable to the deep ocean mixing caused by the wind blowing on the ocean surface and the effects of the tides," Dewar explained. In other words, this biosphere mixing appears to provide about one-third of the power required to bring deep, cold waters to the surface, which in turn completes the ocean's conveyor belt circulation critical to the global climate system.

Phytoplankton acts as a reliable signal of environmental changes at, or near, the ocean surface through sudden declines or rapid growth - and scientists have suspected that phytoplankton affects as well as reflects climate change. In the future, phytoplankton levels are likely to be influenced by rising oceanic acidity and increasing temperatures.

Along with the new calculations that point to the marine biosphere's bigger-than-expected role in ocean mixing and climate control, Dewar also suggests that the decimation of whale and big fish populations may have had a measurable impact on the total biomixing occurring in the world's oceans today.

Source: Florida State University
Graphic courtesy William Dewar, Florida State University

[TerrasHelm]

Apparently, there is no debate here.

You've made up your mind, as I have mine.

I'm a common man with somewhat lofty goals.

You seem to be an extra-ordinary person with modest intentions.

Good Luck to You

[snowbird]

What I won't do is take the word of an entity like the United Nations who have their own agenda and who made it pretty clear that scientists/climatologists who had evidence and climatological history contrary to what the UN was proposing, were not welcome to sit on that committee. Apparently, they were not interested in debating or considering scientific history, either.

I am not a climatologist but I find this interesting enough to read up on it. Did you do any searching/reading or are you content to take the politically correct, flavour of the year opinion? Climatologist don't have all the answers and are quite ready to admit it... What they do have is a lot of research on their side which the UN is not interested in. The UN stance does not make sense to me scientifically.

The world is changing, always has and always will. The continents are moving as we speak and we can't control that any more than we can control earthquakes or the methane that is bubbling up in the ocean or the constantly moving north magnetic pole, or the changing sun, or the earth's magnetism that has been declining, perhaps making way for a pole switch. We know that pole switches have happened and we know one is due to occur some time in the near future (cosmically speaking). Is that the next thing that's going to be the fault of humans?

The only thing we can control is pollution and burning of the rainforest, among other things.

And perhaps pointing the finger of blame at humans for the global warming is a red herring designed to *keep* us pointing the finger at each other instead of being frightened out of our wits about the things that we can't control or dealing with things that we can control.

What do you think?

[snowbird]

What I won't do is take the word of an entity like the United Nations who have their own agenda and who made it pretty clear that scientists/climatologists who had evidence and climatological history contrary to what the UN was proposing, were not welcome to sit on that committee. Apparently, they were not interested in debating or considering scientific history, either.

I am not a climatologist but I find this interesting enough to read up on it. Did you do any searching/reading or are you content to take the politically correct, flavour of the year opinion? Climatologist don't have all the answers and are quite ready to admit it... What they do have is a lot of research on their side which the UN is not interested in. The UN stance does not make sense to me scientifically.

The world is changing, always has and always will. The continents are moving as we speak and we can't control that any more than we can control earthquakes or the methane that is bubbling up in the ocean or the constantly moving north magnetic pole, or the changing sun, or the earth's magnetism that has been declining, perhaps making way for a pole switch. We know that pole switches have happened and we know one is due to occur some time in the near future (cosmically speaking). Is that the next thing that's going to be the fault of humans?

The only thing we can control is pollution and burning of the rainforest, among other things.

And perhaps pointing the finger of blame at humans for the global warming is a red herring designed to *keep* us pointing the finger at each other instead of being frightened out of our wits about the things that we can't control or dealing with things that we can control.

What do you think?

[snowbird]

Sorry for the double post - I tried to delete and can't. Feel free to delete one post.

Thanks, s.

[TerrasHelm]

One of the things that I'm most concerned about in this matter is that 'developing' nations weren't asked to sign the Kyoto agreement. China is still considered a non-developed nation, and did not have to even consider signing the treaty. Yet, with their economy growing by nine percent a year due to their industrial practices, it is projected that they will emit more pollution into Earth’s atmosphere than the USA by 2009. That's less than two years.

Also - The USA and Australia are the only 'developed' nations that refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty.

[snowbird]

One of the things that I'm most concerned about in this matter is that 'developing' nations weren't asked to sign the Kyoto agreement. China is still considered a non-developed nation, and did not have to even consider signing the treaty. Yet, with their economy growing by nine percent a year due to their industrial practices, it is projected that they will emit more pollution into Earth’s atmosphere than the USA by 2009. That's less than two years.
.

That's exactly what I'm concerned about. I'm also wondering if anyone has ever read what the Kyoto Accord is about. If Canada stops all manufacturing (15%) and gets rid of all cars (12%), it's still not enough to cut our emissions by 30%. Is this a realistic expectation of a country who then is expected to fork out billions to countries who run a filthy ship? I don't.

Even given our climate, and right now it's -40 with the wind chill, we'd have to cut our heat down. Mine is set at 69. It was 50 when the furnace broke and I don't think I want to get it down there.

Do you think that the KA is realistic? I don't. And what I *really* don't think is realistic is the fact that while they are focussing on fossil fuels and pointing fingers at the general population for using them, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of serious research to find other means of generating power. There are rumors of experimental, hybrid electric cars that were destroyed by one of the car manufacturers. Many people were upset over that because they worked so well and the technology could have been further explored. Who do you think is behind that? I think we are being had by people in power pulling the strings. Follow the money.

And I think that they are taking advantage of something that cyclically occurring to our planet to scare the bejeebers out of us for their own agenda.