DrumBeat: May 30, 2007
Posted by threadbot on May 30, 2007 - 9:00am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Argentina Rations Gas to Companies, Chile Amid Cold
Argentina rationed electricity to companies and severed natural gas supplies to Chile as a cold wave prompted record demand for electricity in South America's second-largest economy....Rolling blackouts and gas shortages in Argentina threaten more than four years of economic growth of over 8.5 percent per year. The ban on gas deliveries to Chile jeopardizes supply for an estimated 1.2 million residential users in eastern Santiago and may lead to increased energy costs for mining companies as power generators switch to more expensive diesel fuel.
Is the story of ‘massive untapped oil reserves’ fact or fictions?
Who are we to believe? Is it logical and sane to doubt the surveys by IPC, the National Oil Company, giant foreign oil firms and recent surveys by U.S. groups and believe the I.H.S?
Saudi Electricity seeks Aramco help
Saudi Electricity Co. needs state oil firm Aramco to invest in more gas exploration and fuel pipelines to avoid the power outages that hit the world's top oil exporter last year, a document obtained by Reuters showed.
The Petrochemical Plant Strategy
We all know how it's bringing misery to many at gas pumps and making us cry when we open our heating bills. But did you realize that the rising cost of oil is also affecting an industry you might not think about too frequently? I'll let The Graduate whisper it into your ear: "Plastics."
Exxon Mobil could get an earful
Shareholder proposals up for votes include investment in renewables and adopting goals on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Management opposes both as unprofitable or redundant, recommending shareholders reject them as they have similar proposals in past years.
"The corporation's traditional business areas remain critical and promise far greater value than renewables, which currently lack the scale and economic competitiveness of our core business opportunities," the company said in its annual proxy statement.
Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process
Even as Congressional leaders draft legislation to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming, a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicans is pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels.Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.
G8 must focus on energy, not just economy: Russia
The world should rethink its emphasis on unfettered economic growth and boost efforts to create environmentally-friendly sources of fuel, a draft statement by oil and gas giant Russia ahead of a G8 summit says.
World oil production may have already peaked at about 85 million barrels daily (mmbd) where it has been stuck for the past year (see chart Global Oil Production, below). With current demand near 86 mmbd, the difference has been made up by declining inventory.
Gasoline prices hit an all time high of $3.227 a gallon just before the Memorial Day holiday, and once again, Congress has taken the easy way out. Instead of doing anything substantive about the United States' unquenchable thirst for gasoline, it has gone searching for phony villains - and found them in the personage of mysterious "price gougers."
Fifteen killed in gang clash in Nigeria oil delta
Gun battles between rival gangs in Nigeria's southern oil-producing state of Rivers erupted on Tuesday in violence linked to a change of governor, killing 15 people, local rights activists said.
Ethanol boom may fuel shortage of tequila
Mexican farmers are setting ablaze fields of blue agave, the cactus-like plant used to make the fiery spirit tequila, and resowing the land with corn as soaring U.S. ethanol demand pushes up prices.
South Africa: Biofuel making staple food more expensive
The rush to produce biofuels, driven by the threat of global warming and higher oil prices, is exerting price pressure on staple foods in South Africa, according to a report by the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP), a nongovernmental organisation that highlights food security concerns.
Mexico´s plans for a big push to encourage the use of bioethanol in fuel are caught in a wrangle with the state oil monopoly Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), according to Osiel Castro de la Rosa, a National Action Party (PAN) deputy from the state of Veracruz.
‘Hypermilers’ wring out every last bit of mpg
“When I see someone roar past me, I think, ‘They just used enough gas to last me a week.”
Climate change seen as greatest threat to Pacific islands
Climate change is the biggest threat facing low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean, a conference of regional agriculture ministers in the Marshall Islands was told.
States vie with US on emissions rules
Four months after making headlines with its new program to fight global warming by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from vehicles, California finds its new plan is stalled – as do 11 other states waiting to do the same.
U.S. rejects EU emission reductions
The United States rejects the European Union's all-encompassing target on reduction of carbon emissions, President Bush's environmental adviser said Tuesday.
Life in the Sprawling Suburbs, if You Can Really Call It Living (a review of Radiant City)
James Howard Kunstler, a critic of suburbanization, appears throughout “Radiant City” and helps define its tone, which could be described as one of incredulous lament. The cinematographer Patrick McLaughlin’s eerie, sometimes monumental images italicize the experts’ statements, making the suburbs seem like an asphalt-and-Sheetrock dreamscape where democracy goes to die.
Laser fusion - the safe, clean way to produce nuclear energy
A multinational project led by British researchers aims to use a high-power laser to reproduce the physical reaction that occurs at the heart of the sun and every other star in the universe - nuclear fusion. If the project succeeds it has the potential to solve the world energy crisis without destroying the environment.
And They All Lived Technologically Ever After
And there are even darker, more negative scenarios. For example, what if a future energy crisis pushes humanity to the brink of destruction, where the struggle for basic survival tips us into a new Dark Age in which our fragile web of technology disintegrates? Or as one science writer put it, what if there’s “a smash-up on the road to singularity”? Where will that leave the human race?
Eating Radiation: A New Form of Energy?
Here's a possible solution to both the energy crisis and what to do with highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors: use the radiation as food.
Fla. Man Invents Machine To Turn Water Into Fire
Kanzius said he showed the experiment to a handful of scientists across the country who claim they are baffled at watching salt water ignite.Kanzius said the flame created from his machine reaches a temperature of around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. He said a chemist told him that the immense heat created from the machine breaks down the hydrogen-oxygen bond in the water, igniting the hydrogen.
The short-sightedness of both public and debate and official policy is most clearly seen in the concern for “keeping things going the way we are used to” for as long as possible: any suggestion that we are facing collapse or a serious unraveling of the economy is attacked as being “gloomer-doomer”. I guess if people had a little more time to stop and smell the roses, and were not so caught up in the rat-race and trying to pay the mortgage etc… they might be able to stop long enough to realize that growth cannot continue indefinitely and that it is not in anyone’s interest for it to do so.
VW 1 Liter Vs. The TV
In the May 27th Drumbeat there was a thread discussing the Loremo, Aptera, and VW 1 Liter. In the discussion, some wattage figures were thrown about, and that of the VW 1 liter shocked me as to how low it was.
For whatever reason, I hear “Watts” and think “TV”…Therefore: VW 1 Liter Vs. The TV
As surprised as I was at the low number from the VW 1 Liter, I was equally surprised (in the ungood way) at the power consumption of some of these TV’s.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html
The BeastMaster: Sharp LC-65D90U 65 Inch LCD weighing in at 584 Watts
The majority are in the 150 – 300 Watt range, so I think 200 Watts might be a reasonable figure to use as an average TV.
--------
So where does an average 25 mile daily commute put you in a VW 1 Liter in terms of TV hours?
We'll say: (25 miles) * (82 Watt-hours/mile) = 2,050 Watt-hours
So: (2,050 Watt-hours)/(200 Watts) = 10.25 hours of TV time
-------
(25 miles) * (2,000 Watt-hours/mile) = 50,000Watt-hours
(50,000Watt-hours)/(200 Watts) = 250 hours of TV time
LCD's and wattage, HA, go check the wattage of PLASMA TV. You need an AC unit to keep the room cool from their heat ouput. Though Plasmas are not selling well now because LCD's are getting bigger.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Check out that CNET link..it has Rear Projection, LCD's and Plasma as well as two token CRTs. The BeastMaster has nearly all of them by a healthy margin. I also noticed after I posted that, that it has a STANDBY of 76 Watts! 76 watts to do NOTHING! But yes, the plasmas are higher on average.
Wow, I got quoted.
A watt-hour isn't very much. So it's not so surprising that a big TV uses a lot. By a strange circumstance, electric cars and video projectors are two of my biggest interests.
Most video projection technologies are "light valves". That means that a bulb provides a constant light source, and some arrays of shutters act to block part of that light to form an image. Even film projectors are light valves. So the standard output of the bulb is the baseline for the projector's power consumption.
Fortunately great strides have been made. My old JVC G10 front projector used a 400 watt xenon arc bulb for outstanding color accuracy, but it only lasts 1000 hours, and I simply couldn't afford to replace it. My new projector, an Optoma HD70 DLP, cost me $850, is brighter, has a much better contrast ratio, and uses a 200 watt bulb. Furthermore, I run it in the low output setting to increase bulb life to 3000 hours and reduce heat rejection.
The problem is, I keep forgetting that when I stop the player, the screen goes dark but the bulb is still cranking away in there. I try to limit use to 2 hours a night, but I keep pausing the movie for things.
The next goals for power reduction are the use of LEDs as bulbs, and the replacement of plasmas and flat LCD panels with OLED panels. So far, the former are limited to conference-table screens.
As for cars, I know of some watt-hour figures for some other vehicles. The Prius is commonly said to consume 250 watt-hours/mile. However, a dozen years ago AC Propulsion converted a Civic to run on lead-acid batteries:
"In June of 1996, at 77,000 km, the AC Propulsion electric vehicle traveled 233 km (145 mi) on one charge over Southern California Edison’s Pomona Loop, a 31.2 km (19.4 mi) circuit of city streets in and around Pomona, California. The Optima spiral-wound lead-acid EV batteries had been installed at 65,000 km, and the new range mark represents a 23% improvement over the best range achieved with the previous generation Optimas. The AC Propulsion EV completed the range test with an average energy consumption of 78 Wh/km (126 Wh/mi)."
I have to wonder what they knew that GM did not. Top speed was about 80 mph, 0-60 in 6.2 seconds, and a weight of about 3500 lbs.
Solectria also did some great work in those days, building a handful of Sunrise composite sedans in lead-acid, NiMH and lithium ion versions:
"Solectria Corporation announced today that unofficial
results indicate the Solectria Sunrise electric sedan powered by Ovonic
Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries set a new electric vehicle range record by
completing 375 miles on a single charge in the third day of racing in the
1996 NESEA American Tour de Sol, the national solar and electric vehicle (EV)
championship."
Here's pictures:
www.austinev.org/evalbum/655
The secret is the weight.
I keep seeing the citation that the Prius uses about 250 Watt-hours per mile. I think it is not right. I suspect the true number is closer to 100 to 150 Watt-hours per mile based on my experience.
Whoa, I've gotta call bu!!sh!t on this one. The energy equivalent of a gallon of gas is about 36kW-hours...are you saying the Prius gets 360 to 240 miles per gallon? Even 250 Watt-hours per mile would be 144mpg evquivalent - BS on that too. Now 600 Watt-hours per mile I can believe.
Didn't someone in here say that electric power to the wheels is about 90% efficient and gasoline is 10% to 15% efficient -- so (taking the best ratio of 9x) your Prius numbers go to 40 to 26 mpg. No?
You have to be careful about comparing the same quantities. In an electrical appliance we generally compare the power delivered to the device by the electrical service.
In an automobile we measure the fuel consumed, not the power generated by the engine. A gallon of gas does have roughly 36 kWH of energy. However, only about 25% of that is converted to useful energy. Thus, if we measure cars the way we measure TVs then you'd have to consider that a gallon of gasoline produces roughly 9 kWH of useful energy.
Check out novalux.com for information about laser projectors. They claim that a 65" display will consume under 200W. They are also looking to produce smaller projectors that will fit in your cell phone or iPod. Obviously these will use less than 200W.
Weather related post.
I spoke previously of 'spiky' weather and my views were that GW or CC(climate change) were not about averages but about abnormal changes or extreme changes. The averages may still compute the same but the 'variations' are what is important.
Given that we may only go up a slight percentage of a degree in say 5 years but what is really happening is very big changes that still average out with just a slight uptrend.
For instance this last spring. A very very warm March then followed by the extremely hard killing frosts of April. This
had huge effects on my part of the country and we are still dealing with that. Right now soybeans are the focus where corn and wheat was before.
By my observations in my region we have not really had any rainfall in over 1 and 1/2 months. About the middle of Apr was our best rainfall. However over the whole year we might
obtain the same 'average annual rainfall' .....but there is the kicker. Just how and when that rain occurs.
What has happened recently? Wheat had to be chopped down due to dead growing points. Then had to be mowed and then baled up,another large cost. It had abnormal amounts of nitrate and thus not really suited to being fed to animals and much of it caught on fire,...burned barns in the midwest.
Then after dealing with insurance farmers had to go prep the fields again and now sow soybeans on what was previously wheat. The beans are in the ground. The ground is extremely dry and dusty so no germination. Its just lying there.
Previous , I forgot, a rouge shower crusted over the corn fields preventing much corn from breaking thru so special measures had to be taken(rotary hoes) to break the crust in many areas.
Now the lack of moisture hits.
Spiky weather. If weather is NOT climate change then something is sure as hell playing havoc with weather. El Nino, La Nina, whatever. I think its climate change yet the averages might say no but I believe different.
Sitting in an ivory academia tower dealing with slowly maturing data and writing lengthy reports might be well and good yet is NOT REALITY short term and not where the seed hits the ground.
People are also starting to really bitch here (farmers) about the cost of fuel. The cost of 'inputs' is skyrocketing.
The eventual price of foodstuffs is going to on a huge increase IMO due to much of this. The droughts still continue elsewhere.
We are looking at some bad bad moons on the rise. Sooner or later the cat will escape the bag(or Schrodingers box) and we will then see whether its dead or alive(QM non-locality).
I believe it will be sick and dying. This country has a very , very few, good times(hedonists times that is) ahead of it before the fat lady sings. She is waiting in the wings right now. Then we will see the centre start to fly apart as that rough rude beast slogs(slouches) onward towards Bethlehem.
Airdale-not a cloud in sight,its a doomish sorta day
Yeah it is one of those days when we can look out into the yard and know that there will be no Pecans, No pears, Not many other fruits, cause the hard freeze took them at the prime. I have a dozen species of trees in my yard that have suffered from that spring weather then sudden hard freeze, Next year I'll be triming the dead wood at around 25 to 50 precent off some trees.
Spikes is all that you need to harm you. Look at the Gasoline spikes that way too. But farming and Gardening rely on things that keep steady and Global Climate Change is not one of those things. I don't think we will see a normal year ever again. We really might not have seen one for 20 years either, but my records only go back for 25 years on this land.
Happy food storage.
My old next door neighbor was a retired cotton farmer and I always liked his old saying about rain.
"It only rains twice in West Texas, when it can do the most damage or the least good."
On the flip side we went up to Wyoming this weekend to look at a seismic shoot and it appears Wyoming and West Texas are on the verge of breaking a near 20 year drought. This is the coolest and wettest spring in recent memory. Best hopes for those in need.
Mose in Midland
Or as Elmer Kelton put it, "West Texas is a stage of permanent drought, broken occasionally by rain." I would apply that observation to the entire US Southwest.
I've been following the Gulf Stream Current flow since the theory first appeared 20 or so odd years ago. Something doesn't seem right with it right now, I mean much worse than before. They point out when looking at maps of the current now, that they have changed the way they "compute" it. Off the top of my head its called from "relative" to "absolute" or perhaps the other way around.
The way they used to compute it (don't have the exact date of the change over at hand, but it is fairly recent) showed the GS broken and very sluggish. Then they changed the way they compute it and it looks nothing like the old version. The current seems OK compared to the old views, but a current map shows it begins its turn a tad bit farther south before its northern turn.
A group of amateurs has been following it for the last couple of years and right now they are concerned. They seem to think it has stopped or is very close to it. The change over in computation of the current makes them wonder about what is going on. The water temps along the coasts (they claim) are below normal in the Gulf and along the Atlantic coast.
They do use charts etc. They noted since the time they thought it had shut down the weather in England turned very cold, as well as in Ireland etc. They also say its too early to make the claim as fact, but if things don't change they are wondering why the media is ignoring this. (welcome to the club guys).
Because of this they are thinking a big Hurricane is going to hit the Atlantic seaboard this summer. If it has shut down, NG is going to be a big topic in the British Isles and in the NE.
I can't say they are correct, I'm giving it a bit more time, but I can say that cold water pools have been making appearances for the last few years. If they are correct, the effects will be felt rather quickly, even the Pentagon report on Climate Change and the GS made this claim.
Looking at the current and temp charts and the buoy readings they have access to, it really seems to fly in the face of the recent claim that the current is stronger than ever I read the other day from a scientific group.
Anyone here follow this and notice this also.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Gulf Stream, PrisonerX could you post a link to the views of the flow and such you follow?
TIA
Here is a link to the fourth page of the current thread on the site.
http://www.climatepatrol.com/forum/10/2484/pg4/index.php
someone for illustration purposes posted an old map and the way the current view looks. Dramatic difference. The first page on this thread goes back to into March April and the last couple of pages are current. The page I am giving you is just a couple of days old.
One of the site admins says he is trying to build a database of the buoys. That will be terrific if he can pull it off.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
About the possible shutdown of the Gulf Stream.
There's been lots of talk about that happening, but recall that the Gulf Stream is a wind driven current, the result of wind patterns which force water toward the west in mid-ocean of the Northern Hemisphere. The water piles up against the continents and then flows northwards. As it does so, the Coriolis Effect causes the flow to turn toward the east. The same sort of wind driven current is evident in the Western Pacific, the Kuroshio Current.
That said, the other part of the problem often mentioned is that of the Thermohaline Circulation (THC). The Gulf Stream branches as it crosses the mid-Atlantic, most of it flowing back toward the South. The North Atlantic Drift Current brings some of the Gulf Stream waters toward the north of Europe, thence continues as the Norwegian Current flowing westward toward the Greenland and Labrador Seas, cooling enough along the way to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.
http://www.meer.org/M10.htm
Were the THC to stop, Europe would be much colder. This is thought to have happened during the Younger Dryas and also during an event about 8200 years ago. Some models used to study climate change have suggested that the THC might slow or shutdown due to increased greenhouse gases. Others model experiments have suggested that warming from increasing greenhouse gases will counteract the cooling which might otherwise result from a shutdown of the THC.
The THC has been seen to vary over time, perhaps as part of a natural internal oscillation of the Earth's oceans. There was a partial shutdown noted in the Greenland Sea during the early 1980's, which MAY have been associated with the colder winters seen in North America and Europe of that period. It's reasonable to expect a return of such conditions, but, whether the result will be a permanent cooling, ie., another Ice Age is subject of considerable question.
E. Swanson, MsME Ret?, AAAS, AGU
You are correct the Gulf Stream and THC are not the same. Nice data site though. Went back to 2003. Most noticable were warm water surface flows that developed throughout the Atlantic Basin in 2006 that had not been there before. Most notable, a sigificant one that developed north south at 51-52 w long. in December 2006:
http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/gif/gulf_061216_vel.gif
compare with 2005:
http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/gif/gulf_051214_vel.gif
Most Recent
http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/gif/gulf_070523_vel.gif
A year ago
http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/gif/gulf_060523_vel.gif
All Data:
http://rads.tudelft.nl/gulfstream/gif/
THC vs The Gulf Stream
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/carl-wunsch-the-ec...
Is it possible that the unusually warm winter and hot spring have accelerated ice melt in the Arctic thus causing the cooling in the Atlantic?
The spring weather pattern seems to be the same as last year; hot April followed by a cooler wetter May. If the pattern holds then we will see a change to drier hotter (20c+) weather during June, very hot (30c+) in July followed by a wetter cooler August and an Indian summer in the Autumn.
This hotter then cooler pattern would seem like a natural reaction to a hotter climate; heat melts ice, ice melt cools Atlantic, Europe receives cooler weather, cycle repeats.
A layman's view.
Triumvirate of collapse - Economy, Ecosystem, Energy
Damn it! That is the major flaw in my plan to relocate to mainland Europe from the UK, if the Gulf Stream slows or stops. Not a total NAFU, but a serious one non-the-less.
My rationalisation at the time was that warming would make southern Europe too hot and cooling would make northern Europe too cold, the mixture of the two would make somewhere in the middle more or less unchanged. It seemed sensible to hedge my bets and go for the area in the middle with the possibility of ending up with either a Mediterranean, Nordic or Russian type climate. All obviously survivable, even if some more preferable than others.
It will be both interesting and scary to see where this goes.
Triumvirate of collapse - Economy, Ecosystem, Energy
Five months ago I was towing a vessel from Jacksonville, Florida down to the Caribbean. I crossed the gulf stream at Miami. In forty years of crossing the GS I never saw the current that weak. Three to four knots is normal, and the stream was flowing at approximately one and a half to two knots. Very weird. Also passing through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti the current was reversed flowing at two knots to the north. I've never seen that before. Something is definitely happening....Bob
Thanks for the link about the difference between THC and GS. I need to reread it and figure out exactly what the difference is, only had time for a quick read. Did this confusion start with the early theory, because from what I recall they were really referring to the THC but also included the GS in the same vein. Confusing terms.
Anyone with any comments on the new maps that show the GS as a stronger unit and the recent change in modeling.
Thanks for the eyewitness account Boatbob. I check back on that site every month or two to see what going on.
Notice the story about the seal hunters. They were complaining that the ice was so thin and vacant that seal hunting was worth squat. Then a month later they get caught in ice because of the ice formation and had to be rescued. Several boats, even a Coast Guard rescue vessel became stuck in what appears by the story's on the news to be some very quick forming ice.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Kata Maran
Over many (hundreds) of gulf stream crossings using 10 to 15 degrees of compensation southwards into the stream it has been evident lately that even 5 degrees is too much.
To quote: "There's something happening here... What it is ain't exactly clear..."
Airdale, the climate change scenarios actually do predict wider variations, more extremes if you will. So your observation is exactly what is predicted - a generally rising temperature system that is wrapped in ever more volatile weather patterns and temperature extremes. A key thing to remember in a global warming situation, whether natural or not, is that total energy available in the storm systems is growing. Stuart demonstrated this when he analyzed the hurricanes a few years ago, showing no change in number but a drastic change in power of each hurricane. See Hurricanes: Trend or Oscillation? in which Stuart assesses that information very clearly.
You are also correct in that this is one of the dangers of climate change - not the temperature rise itself but the volatility of the weather because of the temperature change.
Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett
Here's the local drought report:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/warn_archive/TAE/ESF/0524_094417.txt
Nearing a record for the driest spring.
One thing that it is good to keep in mind is that the Earth
is NOT a static thing. It's a dynamic system. We might
from our short historical perspective be accustomed to thinking of things as being fixed and unchanging. When over time they do change, especially if we have adjusted our own
lives to the way they were, the change is anything from
a worry to a total disaster. However, the natural state of
the world _is_ change. There is no _single_ state which is
the 'natural' state of the world. Most of these things
change over decades, centuries, millenia, and millions of
years- too long for us to notice the process going on.
Even if we academically know that the earth's climate
fluctuates between cold and warm periods and has done so
at least for the past several million years (the longest
ice and sea-floor core samples that I've heard of go back
about 4.5 milion years and show consistent cycles of hot
and cold periods), being in the middle of just a few bumps
along that cycle is quite a major change for us. The
small components of those big slow cycles can be violent
and arbitrary to an observer in the middle with a few
decades or generations of historical data.
In addition, the majority of the human population has
chosen or been forced to choose a lifestyle that is extremely
fragile - founded on agriculture - where a half dozen crops
are the basis of the food and livelihood of virtually the
entire population. In the natural environment, there a millions of species each filling every imaginable niche and
constantly evolving to any new developments. To reject a
million species and keep five to grow in vast monocultures
under conditions of neverending ecological disaster (plowing
a field literally turns it into an expanse of empty dirt)
is to reduce the hardiness of the entire food supply from
a situation where almost any conditions short of the sun
going nova or an enormous meteor smashing into the planet
are survivable to a situation where a few degrees difference
or the rains two weeks earlier or later mean huge food
shortages or enormous expense to scramble to mitigate.
Agriculture depends on certain very particular climatic
conditions, and very gentle ones at that. It has never
been very intelligent over the long term to place all your
eggs in such a small and shaky basket. The short-term
competetive advantages have so far outweighed the long term
fragility.
Yes, the climate is changing. It has always been in flux.
Knowing it for a hundred years will not prepare you for
what it does over 500 years. Knowing it for 1000 years won't
prepare you for what it does over ten thousand. Stopping in
at ten in the morning at high tide will not prepare you for
another visit at midnight and low tide. Knowing it for a
single day, though, should teach you that it is always
changing, and thus not to expect it to stay the same.
Nice post, Natural climate variability is the missing link IMHO in the Global Warming debate. I can't deny that we are in a warming cycle on balance across the globe. I just am still not totally convinced that we aren't one large volcanic eruption, or one low sunspot cycle away from global cooling and more climate change. Our particular region appears to have hit peak temps in 2003 as successive years has been cooler. This year is very cool and extremely wet much different from the southeast that appears to be in drought. My own experience lends more credence to El Nino and La Nina for weather impact in our region.
Does the climate change debate mean that we shouldn't try and limit our GHG emissions and other man made pollutants... No. It just means I consider Peak Oil a much greater issue for mankind.
Kansas,
just data, but have you noticed that the sunspot cycle was supposed to start and it hasn't. I haven't noticed a report of a sunspot in quite a few weeks. And what do we have. Lots of cold weather around the globe, huge snowstorms in late May. Record cold at the start of the Southern hemisphere winter. Britain is very cold.
coincidence or not. Sunspot activity seems to effect the weather. The Nile evidence recently compiled from the river heights coincided with Sun activity.
Yet, that and volcanic activity are ignored, because "they" say that there aren't enough volcano's to warm the water.
This comes from people that have NO CLUE as to the activity under the water.
the Sea around Japan has warmed faster than other places. Very warm water. Its blamed on CO2 and volcanic activity is ruled out for the above reasons. Yes, they ignore that volcano's are all around Japan under the sea. That japan is an island formed by a eruptions. That they have discovered new activity and magma activity.
You're called names and more when you try and interject it into the discussion, and the people doing this "yelling at dissenters" claim they are using the scientific method.
BS
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
LOL, do you have any clue what you are talking about???
It's 25 degrees Celsius here (outer London), that ain't cold!
If you thought our weekend was bad look at the weather across the water...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_ar...
Moscow breaks another heat record
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070529/66283917.html
Seems to me like we're in some kind of transition stage with the climate oscillating between possible new climate states. A period of chaotic weather as the climate struggles to equalise the opposing forces which are moving it from its current equilibrium. Various extremes being tested until the climate zooms in on the most stable state.
A layman's view :)
i>Triumvirate of collapse - Economy, Ecosystem, Energy
Consider two extreme conditions, a block of ice and a pot of boiling water. Bubbles in ice don't move and bubbles in boiling water move very fast. A warming climate means more volatility which will not find a stable state.
I don't follow that logic Thomas.
What I do notice is that with all the stories of major snowstorms in China, Argentina, and all over the world that show massive inflows of cold air during late May is also a part of the "warming" scenario.
turn turn turn, twist twist twist, this is not science.
Quid Clarius Astris
Ubi Bene ibi patria
Hi,
Not exactly a snowstorm but yesterday was the coldest day in twenty years, here in Argentina. Despite that, we had warmer than usual temperatures until the beginning of May.
Fernando
The volatility causes air masses including cold air masses to be pushed north and south more than the average of previous decades and centuries. It is why Iowa had both below 0F and 70F days last January. The added energy in the atmosphere means winters in particular will no longer have months on end of freezing temps. Not all the extra energy causes temps to rise. Some of it is converted into more kinetic energy and highly convoluted jet streams.
I follow the logic.
It is not easy for many to accept that no new stable point is on the horizon. Ongoing and amplifying chaos is not easy to swallow.