What Is Causing The Warming ?

[Iceberg]

Sorry VP, The black carbon bit wasn't in anyway linked to LI or hysteresis, it was an attempt to bring it the topic back on track !

[VillagePlank]

Sorry VP, The black carbon bit wasn't in anyway linked to LI or hysteresis, it was an attempt to bring it the topic back on track !

OK. I'll shut up now ...

[Iceberg]

To add to that, what I am saying is that maybe the rapid industrialisation of China, has lead to an increase in Black Carbon which has helped to overcome the recent drop in SI and has been an important contributor to the recently very high global temperatures.

BTW no need for you to stop.

[Admiral_Bobski]

We will have to agree to disagree CB.

I don't see why, or even how we can do that. I'm all for agreeing to disagree over matters of opinion, but this isn't about opinions, it's about facts.

Sigh.

I'll duck back out again.

CB

[jethro]

To add to that, what I am saying is that maybe the rapid industrialisation of China, has lead to an increase in Black Carbon which has helped to overcome the recent drop in SI and has been an important contributor to the recently very high global temperatures.

BTW no need for you to stop.

There was a paper a while back about the impact of soot upon the Arctic ice, vague memories of it being as important as CO2 in contributing to ice loss.

The soot problem however has to be balanced against the additional aerosols and sulphur, both of which cause cooling. It may be that a balance is achieved whereby the soot contribution is cancelled out, or indeed, the aerosols and sulphur cause more cooling than soot does warming so the net effect is to cool the atmosphere. No one seems to know the answer as yet.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0909/full/climate.2009.80.html

[Iceberg]

um the effects of global dimming, I think I need to have a quick read up on the possible effects of global dimming, my assumption was that it was on the decline in the last decade, but maybe not going from that article.

[jethro]

um the effects of global dimming, I think I need to have a quick read up on the possible effects of global dimming, my assumption was that it was on the decline in the last decade, but maybe not going from that article.

It's not something I've looked at for a while either. There's no doubt the clean air act made a measurable difference to temperatures, an oft over-looked aspect of the rise in recent decades. There was a lot of info on an old thread somewhere but it's a while ago, it's stuck in my memory as it's one of the few things Stratos and I agreed upon. Perhaps it's time to look again, China and to a lesser extent India, have certainly made a difference.

[Iceberg]

I've this from NASA which would seem to indicate that at least up until 2006 global dimming was on the decrease.

Also this which is a study in China last month.

http://www.physorg.com/news169474977.html

"This result suggested that aerosols create smaller water droplets, which in turn have a harder time forming rainclouds. The team verified this with computer models of pristine, moderately polluted or heavily polluted skies. In the most heavily polluted simulation, rain fell at significantly lower frequencies than in the pristine conditions.

An examination of the cloud and rain drops showed that these water drops in polluted cases are up to 50 percent smaller than in clean skies. The smaller size impedes the formation of rain clouds and the falling of rain. "

So a small amount of pollution causes global dimming by increasing precip, but alot of intense pollution might decrease the heavy clouds causing less global dimming. This is only one article though.

below

[jethro]

Cheers Iceberg.

If I get time later I'll have a look and see what I can find too, plus hopefully some info on Sulphur. I think with Volcanoes the impact from Sulphur depends upon how high it gets injected into the atmosphere so not sure how large the impact would be from emissions???

[Iceberg]

Another warming effect in connection to air pollution is Airplane contrails.

A study in 1992 seemed to say that it accounted for an increase of 0.02 W/m2.

Since 1992 Air travel seems to have increase by roughly 40times which would give an increase in warming due to mans aircraft use of 0.8 W/m2. This seems a little high to me, but would equate to half of the warming caused by a modern solar cycle.

hope your factoring these into your LI, VP.

[jethro]

Came across this from NASA:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html

Although nothing is certain in any of this debate, the article and study attempts to quantify the effect of sulphates and soot:

"The researchers found that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the level of aerosols. Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades."

It also confirms that "Clean air regulations passed in the 1970s, for example, have likely accelerated warming by diminishing the cooling effect of sulfates".

What the future holds with the rapid development of China and India is anyone's guess; there's no doubt that the large increases in soot will have a negative impact upon Arctic ice, however, that has to be off-set against the sulphur content. Anyone know how sulphurous the coal is in China? I know it varies depending upon source - Potty might know, are you there Potty?

[pottyprof]

Chinese coal contains about 1.1% sulphur on average. UK coal is about 1.7% sulphur. So you can see why there was a push to stop deep mining in the UK given the connection to the birth of the IPCC. There are other considerations to do with combustion of coal that we need take into account. The main one being ash content. Chinese coal is about 22% ash where as UK coal is about 15% ash. This makes for a cleaner combustion for UK coal as it burns hotter and produces less in the way of other products such as carbon monoxide, tars, etc. The downside of that is it can become too clean for powerstations and the higher temps can damage the burning equipment. Stupid as it sounds, the last pit I worked at was contracted to 15% ash and we were bringing dumper loads of the tip down to blend in with the coal because it was too clean.

Opencast mining produces coal that is much less in sulphur amounts as the natural breakdown of sulphur compounds occurs closer to the surface.

Given all that, unless they are using some sort of scrubbing method, then there would be a higher soot content from Chinese powerstations. Given the amount of powerstations built over the last few years I should imagine that the net sulphur output has increased.

[Devonian]

Chinese coal contains about 1.1% sulphur on average. UK coal is about 1.7% sulphur. So you can see why there was a push to stop deep mining in the UK given the connection to the birth of the IPCC.

We stopped deep coal mining because Mrs T and the Tories both took revenge on the miners and sought to reduce their power be reducing how much of our energy was dependent upon them - nowt to do with any link with the IPCC (which was formed in the 90's not the 80's).

There are other considerations to do with combustion of coal that we need take into account. The main one being ash content. Chinese coal is about 22% ash where as UK coal is about 15% ash. This makes for a cleaner combustion for UK coal as it burns hotter and produces less in the way of other products such as carbon monoxide, tars, etc. The downside of that is it can become too clean for powerstations and the higher temps can damage the burning equipment. Stupid as it sounds, the last pit I worked at was contracted to 15% ash and we were bringing dumper loads of the tip down to blend in with the coal because it was too clean.

Opencast mining produces coal that is much less in sulphur amounts as the natural breakdown of sulphur compounds occurs closer to the surface.

Given all that, unless they are using some sort of scrubbing method, then there would be a higher soot content from Chinese powerstations. Given the amount of powerstations built over the last few years I should imagine that the net sulphur output has increased.

Beijing birth defects rise again...

[pottyprof]

I give up...........

Edited September 18, 2009 by pottyprof

[Devonian]

I give up...........

I don't. I'm happy to engage in debate with you about this - why am I wrong? Put forward evidence why I am please.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Devonian

[jethro]

Thanks for the info on Sulphur Potty, thought you'd know.

Dev: Maggie came to power in 1978, her previous line of line of work before taking up politics had been chemistry. Her interest in all things scientific lead her to have concerns about the impact we were having upon the planet. The IPCC may not have come into existence until 1990 but her concerns prior to that are well known. She made a speech to the Royal Society back in 1988, given that she wasn't a politician to go off on a whim, everything was carefully thought out and planned, I feel it's unlikely this speech would have been made from a random, passing thought.

Yes, there were political elements in the decision to close the pits, of course there were, as there were back-door plans to generate the need to get the nuclear power plants off the ground in the face of large opposition but the emerging science of climate change played their part too. China's coal was deemed to be cleaner than our own.

Maggie's speech at the opening of the Hadley Centre clearly states there had been concerns for sometime.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/Speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108102&doctype=1

[Devonian]

Thanks for the info on Sulphur Potty, thought you'd know.

Dev: Maggie came to power in 1978, her previous line of line of work before taking up politics had been chemistry. Her interest in all things scientific lead her to have concerns about the impact we were having upon the planet. The IPCC may not have come into existence until 1990 but her concerns prior to that are well known. She made a speech to the Royal Society back in 1988, given that she wasn't a politician to go off on a whim, everything was carefully thought out and planned, I feel it's unlikely this speech would have been made from a random, passing thought.

Yes, there were political elements in the decision to close the pits, of course there were, as there were back-door plans to generate the need to get the nuclear power plants off the ground in the face of large opposition but the emerging science of climate change played their part too. China's coal was deemed to be cleaner than our own.

Maggie's speech at the opening of the Hadley Centre clearly states there had been concerns for sometime.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/Speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=108102&doctype=1

I don't much disagree with this. What I do disagree with that there was a link between mine closures and the IPCC since the IPCC came after mine closures and the miners strike.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Devonian

[Methuselah]

I don't much disagree with this. What I do disagree with that there was a link between mine closures and the IPCC since the IPCC came after mine closures and the miners strike.

Good point. But, maybe one for a separate thread?

[VillagePlank]

As an aside, Thatcher was one of the first world leaders (the first?) to speak up on climate change. See a transcript of her speech, here

[jethro]

I don't much disagree with this. What I do disagree with that there was a link between mine closures and the IPCC since the IPCC came after mine closures and the miners strike.

The mines were closed at the behest of Maggie's government, Maggie played a leading role in the instigation of the IPCC being established; the IPCC may have been a few years in the coming but that's to be expected when you're trying to link different nations together. She was one of (if not the first, can't remember) world leader to raise concerns about environmental impacts upon climate. Dirty coal was a primary concern and really it was not a lot more than a natural progression following the introduction of the clean air acts, the move to remove lead from petrol I think also came about around this time.

Off to work now so if you reply, I'm not ignoring you, just not here.

[Devonian]

The mines were closed at the behest of Maggie's government, Maggie played a leading role in the instigation of the IPCC being established; the IPCC may have been a few years in the coming but that's to be expected when you're trying to link different nations together. She was one of (if not the first, can't remember) world leader to raise concerns about environmental impacts upon climate. Dirty coal was a primary concern and really it was not a lot more than a natural progression following the introduction of the clean air acts, the move to remove lead from petrol I think also came about around this time.

Off to work now so if you reply, I'm not ignoring you, just not here.

Again, I don't much disagree. I just think it was mine closures first, IPCC second not the other way round. And I don't think the mines were closed to help, or because of, the IPCC.

But, perhaps this all needs to be put in another thread.

[Iceberg]

It is one for a different thread, but in 1988 the UK didn't have the clout to form the IPCC and the pit closures were not a consideration, it would have happened with, or without them.

Reagan was the force behind the forming of the IPCC orginally, he actually formed it to slow down the science of AGW at behest of the Petrol companies, at the time they wanted the science of GW to be kicked into the long grass and what better way of doing it than to set up the IPCC and to give the scientists several years to come back to say that the science is (as it was then) inconclusive.

This rather backfired in the longer term though. Quite spectacularly really.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Here's a link worth reading, with regards to Thatcher and the IPCC: http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/singleEdit.asp?individual_SQL=9/20/2007@16725_Public_.htm

As a point of order, it is worth noting that in fact the IPCC was established in 1988, not "the 90s" as Dev has suggested. Its first assessment report was published in 1990, but it was set up in 1988 by the WMO and UNEP (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change).

This was the same year that Thatcher gave her speech to the Royal Society: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107346

The link between Thatcher and the IPCC is fairly direct - Thatcher was an advocate of environmental issues; Reagan was not. With our "special friendship", Reagan wanted to be seen to be on the same page as Thatcher with regards to environmental concerns, but he also wanted an organisation like the IPCC to slow things down a bit (after all, what could be better at stalling things than a committee?).

Thatcher wanted to move to nuclear power - there are likely various reasons for this, and certainly being dependent upon kowtowing to the miners to ensure a steady supply of fuel was one of these, but the need for cleaner energy sources was certainly a factor too, given her belief in protecting the environment. (And before anybody says anything, from Thatcher's point of view nuclear waste was far less threatening to the environment than sulphur and soot.)

So, yes - there is a link between the closure of the deep mines and the IPCC.

CB

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

to say that the science is (as it was then) inconclusive.

And so it remains so Iceberg.

BFTP

[Iceberg]

So, yes - there is a link between the closure of the deep mines and the IPCC.

CB

There is a link, but the link isn't a very strong one. The IPCC would have formed regardless of Thacthers thoughts on Coalmining. The link only really exists in Thacthers head rather than being a physical driver for the set up of the IPCC. The link is one of political expidency rather than factualality.