Climate Change

[cheesehead]

Just out, from the American Geophysical Union in its Eos publication:

"Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide"

http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

There's a widespread belief among anti-AGWers that volcanoes emit far more carbon dioxide than human activities.

Originally Posted by Terry Gerlach

... In fact, present-day volcanoes emit relatively modest amounts of CO2, about as much annually as states like Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.

Volcanic and Anthropogenic CO2 Emission Rates

Volcanic emissions include CO2 from erupting magma and from degassing of unerupted magma beneath volcanoes. Over time, they are a major source for restoring CO2 lost from the atmosphere and oceans by silicate weathering, carbonate deposition, and organic carbon burial [Berner, 2004]. Global estimates of the annual present-day CO2 output of the Earth’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes range from 0.13 to 0.44 billion metric tons (gigatons) per year [Gerlach, 1991; Allard, 1992; Varekamp et al., 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998]; the preferred global estimates of the authors of these studies range from 0.15 to 0.26 gigaton per year. Other aggregated volcanic CO2 emission rate estimates—published in 18 studies since 1979 as subaerial, arc, and mid-oceanic ridge estimates—are consistent with the global estimates. For more information, see the background, table, and references in the online supplement to this Eos issue (http:// www .agu .org/ eos elec/).

Anthropogenic CO2 emissions—responsible for a projected 35 gigatons of CO2 in 2010 [Friedlingstein et al., 2010]—clearly dwarf all estimates of the annual present-day global volcanic CO2 emission rate. Indeed, volcanoes emit significantly less CO2 than land use changes (3.4 gigatons per year), light-duty vehicles (3.0 gigatons per year, mainly cars and pickup trucks), or cement production (1.4 gigatons per year). Instead, volcanic CO2 emissions are comparable in the human realm to the global CO2 emissions from flaring of waste gases (0.20 gigaton per year) or to the CO2 emissions of about 2 dozen full-capacity 1000-megawatt coal-fired power stations (0.22 gigaton per year), the latter of which constitute about 2% of the world’s coal-fired electricity-generating capacity. More meaningful, perhaps, are the comparable annual CO2 emissions of nations such as Pakistan (0.18 gigaton), Kazakhstan (0.25 gigaton), Poland (0.31 gigaton), and South Africa (0.44 gigaton). (CO2 emissions data are for 2008 [International Energy Agency, 2009a, 2009b]; see also http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/meth_reg.html, http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energ...fect/coal.html, and http://lgmacweb.env.uea.ac.uk/lequer...bon_budget.htm.)

But what about volcanic supereruptions? Surely those would exceed human emissions, right?

... supereruptions, defined as eruptions yielding more than 450 cubic kilometers of magma [Self, 2006]. ... Supereruptions are extremely rare, with recurrence intervals of 100,000–200,000 years; none have occurred historically, the most recent examples being Indonesia’s Toba volcano, which erupted 74,000 years ago, and the United States’ Yellowstone caldera, which erupted 2 million years ago. Interestingly, these calculations strongly suggest that present-day annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may exceed the CO2 output of one or more supereruptions every year.

[LaurV]

invaluable proof of global warming (sorry if someone else posted before, I didn't waste my time to read this thread, prefer reading about some math, and learn something from that...)

[Christenson]

Don't be sorry...that's funny!!!!!!

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by LaurV

invaluable proof of global warming (sorry if someone else posted before, I didn't waste my time to read this thread, prefer reading about some math, and learn something from that...)

Nice - "The thong remainth the thame"...actually no, it's getting smaller every year. I guess that makes Led Zeppelin a bunch of AGW-deniers?

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Quick order-of-magnitude comparison pertinent to Cheesehead's volcano/CO2 notes above, but for a more recent (and far more common) kind of large volcanic eruption:

- The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo released from 2.5-5 km^3 of stuff into the atmosphere, which is a combination of mineral dust and volatiles such as compressed superheated H2O, SO2 and CO2. Generously estimating 10% of the total eruptive volume to be CO2 compressed to roughly the density of liquid water, and using the high end of the eruptive-volume estimates, that means ~0.5 billion tons of CO2. Compare that (deliberate over)estimate to

- Human activities resulting in over 20 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year.

And as many folks have pointed out, such not-quite-super volcano eruptions are basically part of the natural atmospheric-GG-and-dust cycle, so would only matter if their average GG emissions dwarfed those of humans. But that is easily shown to be not true, both by OOM estimates like above or directly - If e.g. Pinatubo had emitted human-dwarfing (or even human-approaching) GG amounts, global measurements (including professor Keeling's famous long-running CO2 gauge on Hawai'i's Mauna Kea) would have showed a huge upward spike in 1991 - they most assuredly showed no such thing.

-----------------------------

Separate topic: Away from the economic-policy arena, I agree quite stringly with president Obama on some major issues, including the need to reduce U.s. dependence on fossil fuels in general, and on oil imports in particular:

Fuel mileage standards: Washington gets something right: Our view: Obama administration proposal to raise vehicle fuel efficiency standards is a win-win for automakers, the environment and national security

Lost in all the recent furor over the federal debt-ceiling and gridlocked Washington was a major breakthrough for the Obama administration and good news for the economy, national security and environment. Thanks to an accord reached with automakers, regulators, unions and the state of California, President Barack Obama proposed vehicle fuel efficiency standards last Friday that could dramatically reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

The new rules call for a 54.5-miles-per-gallon fleet-wide standard for cars and light trucks by 2025 — based on a 5 percent improvement each year beginning in 2017. That could reduce the nation's fuel consumption by 40 percent — 23 billion gallons annually.

Forget drilling for East Coast off-shore oil reserves or building new pipelines to tap Canadian tar sands or other questionable policies, this is a far more effective (and sensible) way to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Altogether, the potential savings achieved by nearly doubling current fuel efficiency standards add up to what the U.S. last year imported from major suppliers Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined.

Just as importantly, the reduced consumption would yield tremendous benefits to the health and security of the country. It would mean reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 280 million metric tons and allow Americans to save $80 billion at the gas pump annually.

That Detroit actually endorses the new standards demonstrates just how far the philosophy of automakers has evolved — with or without a federal bailout. Industry executives recognize that global fuel prices aren't coming down and that consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles is only going to rise in years to come.

No doubt the oil industry and its friends in Congress will try to derail the agreement and prevent the standards from being finalized next year. Lately, House Republicans have been going after environmental regulations, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hammer and tong. They can argue that the new standards will raise new car prices — but that's a perspective that fails to account for the multitude of savings accrued through lower fuel consumption, cleaner air, and reduced dependency on Mideast oil.

What will be required to meet the new standards is innovation and new technology — and perhaps the sacrifice of those gas-guzzling full-size pickup trucks and SUVs that have proven so profitable to American manufacturers in the past. Hybrid and electric vehicles will likely play a bigger role in the future, but so might cleaner burning gas engines, better aerodynamics and lighter materials. All that innovation is expected to create jobs, perhaps as many as 43,000 of them in the auto industry alone.

[Christenson]

I can read a more sinister (note: not dexter) motive into Detroit: My 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid can get 50mpg in practice at 45mpg...and the Edison II, without batteries, gets 100mpg...and if Detroit doesn't start upping efficiency, who's gonna buy from Detroit?

A nice little government whip here will help spur on the giant Detroit Sloths, and, if the standards become impossible to meet, they can get some help from outside, the government, possibly financial or possibly in the form of design assistance from the national labs.....

Now, can I get some help getting my car off the road a bit more?

[Christenson]

I was listening to a random San Jose/Santa Cruz area radio program last week, and it was pointed out that we are currently at a solar minimum, with sunspots disappearing for months on end......

[Oddball]

Just read this on the news today:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/28...-rights-fight/

Gore also wants people to give up meat and go organic to combat global warming.

"Industrial agriculture is a part of the problem,” Gore said. “The shift toward a more meat-intensive diet,” the clearing of forest areas in many parts of the world in order to raise more cattle and the reliance on synthetic nitrogen for fertilizer are also problems, he added.

Get ready for a heat wave, folks. Me and my buddies are getting lots of steak at Outback tonight.

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by Oddball

Just read this on the news today:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/28...-rights-fight/


Get ready for a heat wave, folks. Me and my buddies are getting lots of steak at Outback tonight.

You might want to think about this:
1) It takes an awful lot (like 10x by weight) of grain to feed a meat animal, so eating less meat does increase the carrying capacity of the planet's agriculture.

2) There's a direct correlation between eating a lot of red meat and heart disease.

3) A little bit of a lot of things (including some things we'd call poison, such as beta carotene) is good for you.

4) There's a direct relationship between feeding antibiotics to cattle and other meat animals and antibiotic resistant, flesh-eating bacteria.

So eat more vegetables, and more variety of vegetables, and a little meat. That is actually best for you AND the (rest of the humans on the) planet.

[Oddball]

Originally Posted by Christenson

You might want to think about this:
1) It takes an awful lot (like 10x by weight) of grain to feed a meat animal, so eating less meat does increase the carrying capacity of the planet's agriculture.

If you're worried about the planet's carrying capacity, why not reduce the number of children you have? It's much more effective than changing your diet, especially in the long run.

2) There's a direct correlation between eating a lot of red meat and heart disease.

Physical activity and good genes are far better predictors of heart disease than meat consumption. Besides, vegetarians are under-represented in the population of pro athletes and 100+ year olds. There's a reason for that.

3) A little bit of a lot of things (including some things we'd call poison, such as beta carotene) is good for you.

That's why you have to eat a variety of meat. Beef-only diets aren't good; you need chicken, turkey, fish, pork, and other meats.

4) There's a direct relationship between feeding antibiotics to cattle and other meat animals and antibiotic resistant, flesh-eating bacteria.

That doesn't mean giving up meat; that means switching from conventionally produced meat to organic meat.

So eat ...a little meat. That is actually best for you AND the (rest of the humans on the) planet.

I'm willing to consider driving less, living in a smaller house, and paying more for renewable energy in order to reduce my impact on the environment. But giving up meat? Too bad, you'll need to pry every last ounce of steak from my cold, dead hands!

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by Oddball

I
<snip>
That's why you have to eat a variety of meat. Beef-only diets aren't good; you need chicken, turkey, fish, pork, and other meats.
<snip>
That doesn't mean giving up meat; that means switching from conventionally produced meat to organic meat.

I'm willing to consider driving less, living in a smaller house, and paying more for renewable energy in order to reduce my impact on the environment. But giving up meat? Too bad, you'll need to pry every last ounce of steak from my cold, dead hands!

How you planning on getting that variety of meat from Outback steakhouse again? You better at least meet me at the Red Lobster!

I'm not arguing you should not eat meat; I'm arguing you should eat a few more green vegetables; there's plenty of evidence that on average, americans consume more beef (and meat in general) than is good for them.

And yes, if you want to live to be 100, you had better start walking around a lot.

[imwithid]

Originally Posted by Oddball

If you're worried about the planet's carrying capacity, why not reduce the number of children you have? It's much more effective than changing your diet, especially in the long run.

Effective in the short to medium run, however, in the long run, it has devastating results. China has been trying to do that (crossed with cultural aversions) and the worst is yet to come.

Economic growth and gender equality (economics and law, respectively; two things China has yet to fully appreciate) lead to effective declines in the fertility rate. This has been the case in most western economies where domestic population growth is negative. Immigration has sustained population growth in these areas. Japan is the exception in the east (their immigration policy is ... complicated, to say the least).

In India, the fertility rate has fallen by one half in the last 60 years, which, although significant, still means India will surpass China in in the next few decades as having the largest population in the world with well over a billion and a half. Brazil, too, has had similar effects, however, their fertility rate is now below the replacement rate.

The heavy hand of direct policy need not be used in this case as the invisible hand is more effective.