Testimony on Climate Change to the US Supreme Court

[Admiral_Bobski]

For those who haven't come across it before, the 'petition signed by 17,000 scientists' cited by the Heartland Institute link is known as the 'Oregon petition'. This is one version of the story about it; feel free to google it & see what comes up.:

:)P

Thanks for that update P3 - point conceded that the petition appears to have been misleading and/or fraudulent. I shall drop that reference from the case post haste.

Out of interest, in a previous post I remarked: "Also, the authors of 13 of the cited papers refuted Soon and Baliunas' claims, but the study covered over 240 different papers. About 5% of the papers' authors were unhappy about the findings of the study. So the concensus is on Soon and Baliunas' side?" Any thoughts on this?

A couple of other quick points, after reviewing the thread - you said a while ago that wildfires were thought to contribute approximately 25% of global CO2 on an annual basis. Consider that wildfires are likely less prevalent than they were a thousand years ago (by dote of the fact that there is less vegetation now than then), and that at least a small percentage of wildfires are slowed, held steady or stopped as a result of human intervention, what would you estimate the likely annual contribution (as a percentage of modern-day CO2 output) of wildfires in past times to be?

Also, considering the suggestions of increased drought levels as global temperatures increase, what are your thoughts on the shrinking Sahara?

C-Bob

[parmenides3]

Table 6 of this: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/biomass_burn/biomass.html gives estimates. I'll look for more recent estimates later. I know very little about the shrinking Sahara: I'll do some reserach when the dog has been walked.

:)P

[Admiral_Bobski]

Table 6 of this: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/biomass_burn/biomass.html gives estimates. I'll look for more recent estimates later. I know very little about the shrinking Sahara: I'll do some reserach when the dog has been walked.

:)P

Hmmm...interesting conclusions in that paper. Must do more digging!

C-Bob

[parmenides3]

A bit more on wildfires: I've used the quote because I don't subscribe to 'Science'. Thanks to the Climate Science weblog:

The paper published by Science on November 17, 2006 by Randerson et al in Science is entitled “The Impact of Boreal Forest Fire on Climate Warming” (subscription required) has the abstract,

“We report measurements and analysis of a boreal forest fire, integrating the effects of greenhouse gases, aerosols, black carbon deposition on snow and sea ice, and postfire changes in surface albedo. The net effect of all agents was to increase radiative forcing during the first year (34 ± Watts per square meter of burned area), but to decrease radiative forcing when averaged over 80-year fire cycle (−2.3 ± 2.2 Watts per square meter) because multidecadal increases in surface albedo had a larger impact than fire-emitted greenhouse gases. This result implies that future increases in boreal fire may not accelerate climate warming.”

The conclusion of the paper has the very important conclusion that.

“Future interactions between the land surface and climate in northern regions may involve both negative feedbacks within the boreal interior (via mechanisms outlined here) and positive feedbacks involving shrub and forest expansion in arctic tundra ecosystems and loss of snow cover. Our analysis illustrates how ecosystem processes that generate carbon sources and sinks have inseparable consequences for other forcing agents. To the extent that the contemporary Northern Hemisphere carbon sink originates from changes in northern forest cover and age, its value from a climate perspective requires a more nuanced view that encompasses all agents of radiative forcing. Important next steps include reducing uncertainties associated with direct and indirect aerosol effects and disturbance-linked changes in albedo, exploring the combined impacts of feedbacks of the forcing agents estimated here within climate models, and extending this approach to assess the radiative forcing associated with land-cover transitions in temperate and tropical ecosystems.”

[Admiral_Bobski]

A bit more on wildfires: I've used the quote because I don't subscribe to 'Science'. Thanks to the Climate Science weblog:

Again, an interesting article. The results seem almost counter-intuitive (to me, at least), although the fact that mankind burns forests is important. The thing is that, generally, when man burns the forest he keeps it clear afterwards, but when Nature burns the forests they grow back...

(Maybe we're getting a bit off-topic here - the real debate seems to have migrated back over to the Monckton Part 2 thread!)

C-Bob

Edited December 16, 2006 by Captain_Bobski

[Flash67]

Hi Flash, and welcome to the boards. I'm going to try and squeeze in a reply before my internet connection conks out, which it has been doing a lot the past few days

You say "Ask any marine biologist about the effect of a one degree rise on plankton distribution or on corals, or in fact the whole marine ecosystem", but a one degree rise in atmospheric temperature does not equate to a one degree rise in sea temperature, and since the 20th century showed approximately a 0.6 degree rise in atmospheric temperature then the plankton, I think, are safe (for now).

Interestingly one of the main effects of climate change in corals has been to make them lose their colouration. The corals are still, in many places, apparently quite healthy, but have lost their colour. Perhaps their colouration is not a vital aspect of their survival but merely a side-effect of particular conditions. (I may have a look into this at some point.)

As for Amazonian rainfall, the issue of precipitation is a complicated one. I still read articles talking about GW causing the deserts to spread, particularly the Sahara, but the evidence doesn't bear this out. The Sahara is actually shrinking, and it is shrinking most noticably in the Southern regions.

The polar bear population figures show that most groups are actually increasing in number at present (not massively, but not dying out either), so I wouldn't count them in the endangered species list yet.

"No Regrets" basically takes the stance that we should be looking at putting money into research and technologies that will have long-term benefits, rather than throwing far more money into a project that has little gain (either long term or short term) as a knee-jerk reaction. If we end up throwing enough money at Kyoto and similar treaties, we could find ourselves in a situation where we simply don't have the resources to advance ourselves as a culture. The No Regrets concept is cautious, I grant you, but the limited understanding of climate that we have is not enough to allow us to throw caution to the wind.

Hi Cap'n Bobski - thanks for the welcome - One less 'lurker'!

I feel more on home ground with the ecological effects of any possible clmatic change than I am with the nuts 'n' bolts of the mechanisms of the change, and my point was that the assertion that warming would be 'a good thing' for diversity is way off.

eg plankton changes in the N Sea. These species are generally v temperature sensitive, and changes to the species distribution of both phyto- and zooplankton can - and probably are - having large scale deleterious effects on many larger species. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3879841.stm

While some species of animals and plants are generalists than can adapt to a range of environmental conditions, most - to one degree or another - depend on a relatively stable ecological environment in which to operate. Relatively rapid climate changes affecting direct survival, availability of their food sources, vegetation types, rainfall or interactions with other species can have dramatic effects. Historical changes to these variables could often be adapted to by gradual movement in populations, but the rapidity of the current changes and the exacerbating affects of already fragmented habitats caused by human activities has reduced this species survival mechanism.

re the Polar Bear - IUCN has just published its latest research into this species which finds that 1/4 of the populations are in serious decline, up from around 5% of the populations in 2001. (They have yet to update their website with the population tables, but the results can be gathered from the main report - 15th Dec - http://pbsg.npolar.no/)

You mentioned the phenomenon of coral 'bleaching' where the colours disappear, and often (but as you said, not always) lead to death of the coral. This is caused by the algae which live symbiotically inside the coral dying. This can be a temporary feature, in which case, the coral recovers as algae populations reestablish themselves. The amount of coral reefs dying totally has increased vastly over the last 3 decades, with temperature stress seeming to have a major role to play. http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm

I know this aspect of climate change is slightly off topic, BUT this is something that MUST be borne in mind when discussing this issue, and claims of a very benign effect of increased temperatures are way off beam. For some species, yes, populations will boom. For the majority, it is just one more, very big, human induced straw for the proverbial camels' back to bear.

Edited December 17, 2006 by Flash67

[Guest Viking141]

Hi Flash67 and welcome. I found the article on Coral Bleaching an interesting read. One question. As it was written in 1998 it seems to refer to coral reefs found in the tropical zones of the world, but we now know that there are cold-water coral reefs, such as the Darwin Mounds off Cape Wrath on the NW tip of Scotland. Is there any information on how such cold-water reefs have been affected by GW? Given that they exist in colder waters such as the North Sea one would have thought they would be even more susceptible to rapid, upward temperature change.

Edited December 18, 2006 by Viking141

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Flash67 and welcome. I found the article on Coral Bleaching an interesting read. One question. As it was written in 1998 it seems to refer to coral reefs found in the tropical zones of the world, but we now know that there are cold-water coral reefs, such as the Darwin Mounds off Cape Wrath on the NW tip of Scotland. Is there any information on how such cold-water reefs have been affected by GW? Given that they exist in colder waters such as the North Sea one would have thought they would be even more susceptible to rapid, upward temperature change.

I think all corals need unpolluted waters to exist in so the effect of the Rhines outflow and our oil exploration in the areas may be factors to consider.