Kyoto: the day after 17 February 05

A genuine request for substantiation over how Russia is supposed to have more hot air now than back in 1997.

My understanding is that car usage and energy consumption in Russia have increased (and with the least efficient cars and power plants) as their economy has grown. this would imply less hot air, wouldn`t it?

I just read an article today 2/18/05 talking about scientists measuring increases in the ocean temps to gauge climate changes. Common sense says that its easier to heat air than it is to heat water. The average air temps, by most accounts, are only a few degrees warmer. On the face of things, it would seem that human activity heating the air by only a few degrees would mean something else must be heating up the earth’s oceans! (Otherwise we would be seeing very large air temp increases to force the ocean’s temps to increase by as much as they are!)

John,

Warm air can heat the water’s surface but the water mostly heats the air. The main energy source is the Sun. An explanation below:

Energy coming from the sun is absorbed on all earth’s surfaces. The oceans cover 70 percent of this surface and have a low albedo compared to land. Albedo refers to reflectivity.

The ocean surface only reflects 5 percent of the incoming solar radiation. By contrast, most land reflects more radiation back and ice-covered land reflects 80 percent of this incoming solar radiation.

Therefore, the oceans must absorb more than 70 percent of the radiation from the sun reaching the earth’s surface.

Now, the earth’s surface heat has 4 main modes of heat transfer. These are radiation, conduction, convection, and evaporation. The ocean surface heat is distributed down to waters beneath by conduction and convection and distributed to the air above by conduction, convection, evaporation, and radiation.

The earth’s surface absorbs more energy than the air which is rather transparent to solar radiation. Since the earth’s surface warms the air above the ocean surface temperature should rise higher than the air surface temperature above it when the transfer is by conduction or convection.

However, evaporation would have a cooling effect on the ocean surface when heat is transferred that way and therefore lower its surface temperature in the same way our bodies cool themselves.

Furthermore, the ocean is much colder beneath and the convection of heat downward would also cool the surface. The higher heat capacity of the ocean would also slow its temperature rise.

Now the greenhouse effect traps heat by slowing the radiation of surface energy back into space. Clouds do this and without them it would be much colder. That is why desert environments are so extreme. It gets colder without the clouds to help retain the surface heat. Greenhouse gases operate in similar ways to help retain heat.

The heat transferred to lower ocean waters helps to expand the ocean as its temperature rises. This is a partial contribution to the observed sea-level rise. The other is from receding glacier water.

All this takes time since the oceans are huge and can absorb a lot of heat energy. I call it thermal inertia. What we do today takes time and we see the effects decades later.

The reduction of polar ice increases more absorption of solar energy since ice which is 80 percent reflective is replaced by ocean water which is 5 percent reflective.

This is the main reason why temperatures are increasing in higher latitudes. More solar energy absorbed by more exposed ocean surface transfers more heat into the air thereby raising its temperature.

Now for a more through explanation of climate science and its development I refer you to the site below.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

I have already read every essay on that site and if you like we could discuss any climate topic in more detail.

I hope what I shared was of benefit to you and others. Many times, we get caught up in the complexities of the science. However, a good foundation on the basic principles can help us discern the truth more easily on more complex aspects. I hope my posts can help sometimes in that regard.

Best, Dan

from http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=611828 is evidence that not everyone was as ecstatic about the Greenpeace trespass as Mark was.

“Greenpeace campaigners, not a group of people unaccustomed to flying in the face of danger, were forced into a tactical retreat yesterday after feeling the wrath of angry oil traders.

“On the day the Kyoto Protocol came into force, 35 eco-warriors stormed the Interna- tional Petroleum Exchange [IPE] in the City. . . . But the campaigners . . . appear to have underestimated the hostility from their intended victims.”

“One demonstrator described how “all hell broke loose” on the trading floor: “We were actually getting battered. We weren’t fighting back, which makes it even worse.” Greenpeace’s executive director, Steven Tindale, said: “They kind of pinned us into the corner, there were a couple of dozen around us. We were non-violent and peaceful and we made it clear that’s what we were there for but there were quite a few blows raining down on our heads.”

Norbert, I agree with you on this one. The statement by Green Peace was not quite accurate about being “non-violent and peaceful”.

The act of disrupting the trading by using noise was violently trespassing on the trader’s ability to conduct business. Although it was not physical, it was still aggressively intruding into their space. I did think their method using the balloons was creative.

By contrast the protest methods used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King were more non-threatening. Public demonstrations which do not disrupt business or incite violence are intent about getting an important message heard. Marches and key-note speeches meant to gain media attention were effective in the past to help bring awareness to the masses.

Peaceful demonstrations can be very effective and in some cases we have benefited from them. I think that when public protests go too far and incite violence or animosity, it can detract from the message the protesters intended to deliver and further polarize the issues.

The best type of message to get across focuses on a positive alternative to the current status quo and tends to create a vision whereby everybody can win. In that respect, skeptics like you Norbert can effectively bring important aspects to light which are relevant and important enough to be addressed.

Economics and the effectiveness of our solutions are the important considerations we must address that you have brought up. The solutions we develop and implement must be sufficient to solve the problem of climate change. They also must not overly interfere with economic development. If they do, then they may never be implemented.

We cannot make the masses that altruistic. Religions have tried and still we go to war in the name of God.

The main area I most disagree with you on is that you to tend selectively pick available facts to prove your case that climate change is not important for us to be concerned about. By being selective, you tend to influence with only part of the story at times which is like a scientist only using data that supports a preconceived conclusion. It is best to admit uncertainty when you truly cannot prove a hypothesis wrong.

The other area of complaint is that you seldom concede any ground to others who make a positive or correct point. Developing policies that promote more renewable energy or promoting people to be more conservation minded is not really a bad thing at all. Neither is exercise.

I think that eliminating wasteful habits of how we use energy would generate prosperity. In fact, I see so many wasteful practices, that I tend to believe we could reduce this waste to benefit our lifestyle. The posts on traffic congestion are just an example.

When I see how much higher we are in per capita emissions in comparison to prosperous nations like the UK, Japan, Germany, and others, that I sometimes wonder why we could not do better since we could reduce much more than twice that of Kyoto just to be currently at par with the nations that I have already mentioned.

So, that fact always makes me wonder if your arguments against Kyoto-like policies are mostly bogus in terms of our economic destruction.

For me, if we had a reasonable plan to eliminate our wasteful practices, our lifestyle would actually improve and our economy would grow from improved energy efficiency.

Just like the Green Peace protesters who may not be effective to persuade others by disrupting the flow of business, I think that when there is true uncertainty, that you would do better not to cherry-pick information to prove a case which is so contrary to the actual evidence of the truth.

For example, the fact that the Polar Bear population is increasing does not negate the concern of melting ice in their habitat because their population increase is solely due to restrictions on hunting.

Another example is that tax cuts in the face of our spending increases may have increased economic activity but it does not alter the incredible increase in our debt burden. Most intelligent people would disagree with that approach as being prudent for our long-term interests.

The fact that we have this huge debt created by Reagan and both Bush administrations is why we are in such danger today. As more nations develop prosperity, the day may come when all the bonds being purchased are cashed in. I wonder if you think about things like this.

Now, you are a devout Republican based on what you have shared and I wonder if you were devout when your political party focused on balancing the budget instead. For me, I think our huge debt was always bad if it was created by either political party.

I wonder if Bush planned to raise taxes to balance the budget, if you would be for that simply because Bush is a Republican and a great leader according to you. I wonder if you think it was bad of the Clinton administration to balance the budget simply because he was a Democrat.

The reason I focus on showing how your thinking is biased and sometimes flawed is that I desire for you to expand your mind more because when I read your posts I think of someone who does not think enough and broad enough to be able to understand the complex issues and to discuss then in a more objective way.

Furthermore, it often helps to build where other people are correct because quite often, most people have an element of truth in their statements.

For example, I point out quite often where you are right but how what you wrote leads to the wrong conclusion based on the data from your own cited references.

However, you sometimes do get it right like your post about Green Peace which I do agree with.

Many others would not have thought their action either wise or effective. This is a true statement. I agreed with you completely on this! ;-)

Best, Dan

I thought that the climate’s warmth was from the CO2 byproducts of human activity. But it seems from your detailed explanation that the SUN is the culprit. Thanks for clearing that up. :)