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An Inconvenient Truth

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Author Topic: An Inconvenient Truth  (Read 6791 times)
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19Merlin69
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« Reply #120 on: April 02, 2007, 07:32:07 am »

What is the evidence of global warming?
Carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) concentration increasing

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been increasing steadily for 50 years.
First look at the CO2 concentration over 400,000 years from the Vostok ice cores

This is very old information.  One of the most prominent reasons for questioning this is that it shows a cyclic nature in the atmosphere.  Secondly, we have no way of telling from that data, is temperature following CO2 or is CO2 following temperature.  But that's not all that has kept scientists from wondering...  Let's keep going.

Compare this to Mauna Loa CO2 measurements over the last 50 years

Now we are measuring CO2 concentrations in the air and are comparing it to dissolved gases in ice cores.  This is the same thing that always occurs, and it is what gets the emotionally-driven scientists in trouble with the logically minded scientists.  Dissolved gases will always be smaller than concentrated ones, and measuring in the vicinity of an active volcanic ring is a sure-fire way to measure a lot of CO2.  This presentation could have come from the Inconvenient Truth movie, they are comparing extremes.

Methane trapped in frozen tundra may be a ticking time bomb. (* new 3/22/06*)  Aparently as much as 400 billion tons of methane may be trapped in the frozen tundra in the arctics.  This is about 3000 times the current methane content of the atmosphere.  Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.  The warming and thawing of the tundra may start a chain reaction which could release billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere which would greatly exacerbate the global warming problem.

First, you started out by saying, "What is the evidence of global warming?"  Unfortunately, I do not see any evidence.  The whole "Methane trapped in frozen tundra may be a ticking time bomb" headline isn't science or proof - it's  hype.  What you didn't include was the part where naturally occuring methane dissolves quite rapidly in the lower atmosphere and hardly ever makes it to the upper one.  Only really massive and rapid onslaughts of naturally occuring methane cause this sort of problem and thus far we haven't seen any signs of this; only slow - gradual increases. 

Also because of the density of (natural) CH4, massive releases are predicted to alter the localized weather, causing at first - a cool down.  Only later will they show the effects generated...  Maybe.  The data isn't able to be resolved due to its age.  Furthermore, because of ancient history, they theorize that it may have occurred at least twice before - leading them to question if Global Warming is man-made or of a cyclic nature.  The most recent of these catastrophes occurred about 55 million years ago in what geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when methane eruptions caused rapid warming and massive die-offs, disrupting the climate for more than 100,000 years.  The "grand daddy" of these catastrophes occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, when a series of methane outflows came close to wiping out all life on Earth...  Maybe.  We see the mass extinction event and we see a lot of methane, but we cannot ascertain which came first.  Again - we have no way of telling what came first - the methane or the temperature increase of 10-12o.

Probably the best argument, in-lieu-of evidence was the following by a friend who is a paleochemist:

"Greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide from increased volcanic activity, warmed the earth and seas enough to release massive amounts of methane from highly sensitive clathrates and gas hydrates, setting off a runaway greenhouse effect in the previous two episodes of rapid global warming.  In both cases, it appears as though the signs first showed up at the poles, therefore this time we should expect to see the same thing (if it is happening again).  Humans appear to be able to emit carbon dioxide in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that initiated these chain reactions in the past.  The U.S. Geological Survey states that, "burning fossil fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes, the equivalent of an estimated 15,500 additional volcanoes the size of Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii."  If they are right, then it may be mankind that is triggering this new event.  Of course, all of this is assumed, based up the data we have from the past.  The idea that the K/T Boundary Event was caused by a meteor throws a monkey-wrench into the theory.  If the methane did not follow the volcanic activity but came simultaneously, then we are the tail wagging the dog in this new proposal.  It might best be time to turn off the sun till we can sort this all out."

I like him - he's honest.  I'll look through your other posts and comment as I complete them.


« Last Edit: April 02, 2007, 08:51:41 am by 19Merlin69 » Report Spam   Logged

Knowledge is a gift to be given; stupidity, a communicable disease.
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