Driver to drive?

[James Arthur]

Don Klipstein wrote:

In article <tdsmq4d25ce63l7ahcp7k7q9s2u0bnu6kq@4ax.com>, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 05:18:24 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article <locmq4tbuacer9il8f9dpn11sicrs5484o@4ax.com>, D from BC wrote:
On Sun, 1 Mar 2009 16:01:53 +0100, "Bill Sloman"
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5918/1187

Martin van Calmhout - a formidable Dutch science journalist - reviewed
this article in Science in yesterday's Volkskrant. One of the authors -
Henk Brinkhuis - is a professor at Utrecht.

It talks about a 5C drop in global temperature over 100,000 years some
34 million years ago during the Eocene-Oligocene Climate Transition.

The paper is based a new technique for recovering paleolthic
temperatures, by measuring the the relative concentrations of
particular organic chemicals in the cell wall of single cell fossils,
which allowed the authors to clarify what what actually going
on during the transition, when the Antartic ice-sheet seems to
have made its appearance

The authors can't come up with an explanation for why it happened
as fast as it did. Explanations for the transition do exist, but they
seem to envisage a slower cooling.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06853.html

No doubt the denialists will blame the sun, as usual.
When's the next ice age due?
If not for AGW, good chance within a few millennia. We have probably
already averted it and then some.

If not for AGW, a century or two from now could easily repeat the
"Little Ice Age" of 2-3 centuries or so ago, with noticeable downturn in
first half of 22nd century appearing likely on basis of MAO and longer
term sunspot cycles.
Which might kill a billion people and wipe out a good chunk of a
million species.


Should we set new global surface and/or lower
troposphere temperature highs at those times when we should be repeating
"little ice age" as a harbinger of "next real ice age", then we end up
being shown that AGW is for real and that we have given ourselves warming
that will probably persist through the next several millennia and
probably be reinforced to multi-mega-year highs by the time the
"should-be-coming next ice age glaciation" would end maybe 90,000 or so
years from now.
And the plants love the CO2 we're feeding them.

Just a few or several months ago I asked for how much has plant growth
improved as a result of the atmospheric CO2 uptick since the Industrial
Revolution.

As best as I can remember, it's 7% or about that according to someone
giving an answer and probably providing a cite.

How much has their growth rate increased in the past century, when
atmospheric CO2 concentration increased about 35-36%?

- Don Klipstein (d...@misty.com)

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_thread/thread/62d221af29522b15/d8cfc2d356dff907?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=About+6.2%25+in+the+last+20+years#d8cfc2d356dff907
"About 6.2% in the last 20 years according to this article:
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=569586

Hey, that outpaces CO2 ppm increases, doesn't it?

Cheers,
James Arthur"


(IIRC and the usual

similar "horse puckey disclaimers"). From atmospheric CO2 increase
around 35% from the 280 ppmv having some consideration being
"pre-Industrial-Revolution-baseline") as of when I asked the question
resulting in that answer.

7% increase of plant growth from 35% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration? For a simple approximation at a mathematical relationship,
I see log(1.07)/log(1.35) indicating plant growth rate being proportional
to atmospheric CO2 concentration raised to the .23 power, though I suspect
such power to increase towards unity when our planet is/was "more CO2
starved" and to correspondingly decrease when atmospheric CO2
concentration increases past the 370-380 ppmv or whatever that was
relevant to 7% increase of plant growth that I remeber (how correctly?)
being result of increase from pre-industrial-revolution-"baseline" that
was/"was" 280 ppmv.

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

In that same thread I pointed out that the major global climate models
assume static vegetation, and static ice sheets:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_thread/thread/62d221af29522b15/1d1fd9ee12816c65?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=model+kirwan+dynamic+vegetation#1d1fd9ee12816c65

Don't forget that plants' adaptations obviously lag changes in their
environment. Not to mention that humans have been hacking them down
en masse to grow biofuels in South America, etc.

So, the increase in plant growth is likely underestimated.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:

On Mar 5, 1:10 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
On Mar 4, 1:26 am, Rich Grise <r...@example.net> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:18:29 -0800, D from BC wrote:
When's the next ice age due?
We're not even done with the LAST one yet! We're simply getting closer to
an end in the current lull. >:-
Wrong. This is an interglacial, not an ice age.
Rich was not wrong. An interglacial is a period within an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial
"An interglacial is a geological interval of warmer global average
temperature that separates glacial periods within an ice age."

That's not the way I parse that sentence. The glacial periods are
within the ice age, and - in fact - define it, while the interglacials
are between the ice ages.

Your interpretation would make the entire Pleistocene one single 2.5
million year long ice age, which might be understood to be formally
correct in a geological forum, but doesn't represent popular usage,
where this period is described as consisting of a succession of ice
ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

"Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice
sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this
definition we are still in an ice age..."

[...]

"Within the ice ages (or at least within the last one), more
temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods
are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials,
such as the Eemian Stage."


Speaking of Eemian, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian_Stage
"The warmest peak of the Eemian was around 125,000 years ago,
when forests reached as far north as North Cape (which is
now tundra) in northern Norway well above the Arctic Circle
at 71.1725°N 25.79444°E. Hardwood trees like hazel and oak
grew as far north as Oulu, Finland. Sea levels at that time
were 4-6 meters higher than they are now, indicating greater
deglaciation than today (mostly from partial melting of the
ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica)."

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Popular usage and technical usage conflict here, that's the
problem. Technically Rich is right: we're in an interglacial--
a warmer period where ice melts--but we're still in an Ice Age.

James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

Richard Henry wrote:

On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:

My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use. In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly. That's scary, John.
Tim

The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.

The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.

You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.

I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

Richard Henry wrote:

On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use. In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly. That's scary, John.
Tim
The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.
The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.
You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course. I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant. Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

 

[Richard Henry]

On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use.  In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly.  That's scary, John.
Tim

The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.

The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.

You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.

I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2.  Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:55:39 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@verizon.net> wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use. In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly. That's scary, John.
Tim
The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.
The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.
You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.


Of course. I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant. Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

I keep trying to make it sink in... getting rid of all the leftist
weenies would buy us several hundred years to properly research the
issue ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

If Bush was a "MORON", what does that make Obama ?

 

[James Arthur]

Jim Thompson wrote:

James Arthur wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur wrote:

I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course. I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant. Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

I keep trying to make it sink in... getting rid of all the leftist
weenies would buy us several hundred years to properly research the
issue ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I honestly barely know what to say to people who quibble
whether 5ppm of 340 W/m^2 is significant.

Surely RH is just sniping.


The question was whether fusion power was bad because
it might cause extra heating.

There are billions of people on the planet whose lives
could be _transformed_ if they had just the barest of
mechanical help in their lives. Like a single lightbulb
at night, possibly water pumped to their villages, and
possibly a cell phone or radio to communicate.

Surely those would be a good thing, were it possible,
and well worth the miniscule extra heating?

James Arthur

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:50:42 GMT, James Arthur
<bogusabdsqy@verizon.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur wrote:


I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course. I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant. Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

I keep trying to make it sink in... getting rid of all the leftist
weenies would buy us several hundred years to properly research the
issue ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I honestly barely know what to say to people who quibble
whether 5ppm of 340 W/m^2 is significant.

Surely RH is just sniping.


The question was whether fusion power was bad because
it might cause extra heating.

There are billions of people on the planet whose lives
could be _transformed_ if they had just the barest of
mechanical help in their lives. Like a single lightbulb
at night, possibly water pumped to their villages, and
possibly a cell phone or radio to communicate.

Surely those would be a good thing, were it possible,
and well worth the miniscule extra heating?

James Arthur

Of course it would be a good thing.

RH is one of _those_ that I would dispose of.

In an earlier time... an Ehrlich time it was ;-)...

I would be traipsing thru a mall trailed by my four kids. The "green"
village idiots would accost me and demand to know why I dared have
four children. I developed a response which is still appropriate to
this day... "offsets"... except I, at that time, called it offsetting
the imbecile influence ;-)

Then I took to carrying my briefcase all the time... nice hard-cased
Samsonite... amazing what you can do to a punk that tries to block
your path (if you carry it firmly tucked under your arm and against
your shoulder ;-)

Got quite a number of Hari Krishna's at the PHX airport the same way,
particularly once the city council made it illegal for them to step
into your path ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

If Bush was a MORON, what does that make Obama... IMBECILE ?

 

On Mar 5, 9:50 pm, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
James Arthur wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur wrote:
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2.  Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course.  I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant.  Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

I keep trying to make it sink in... getting rid of all the leftist
weenies would buy us several hundred years to properly research the
issue ;-)

Jim too far gone to realise that getting rid of the right-wing nit-
wits would work even better.

I honestly barely know what to say to people who quibble
whether 5ppm of 340 W/m^2 is significant.

Surely RH is just sniping.

The question was whether fusion power was bad because
it might cause extra heating.

The question was whether lots of fusion power might be bad because
enough of it could cause direct global warming, without any help from
greenhouse gases. This isn't an immediate problem.

There are billions of people on the planet whose lives
could be _transformed_ if they had just the barest of
mechanical help in their lives.  Like a single lightbulb
at night, possibly water pumped to their villages, and
possibly a cell phone or radio to communicate.

Surely those would be a good thing, were it possible,
and well worth the miniscule extra heating?

It you used wind or solar power to provide this minimal extra power,
you wouldn't cause any extra heating at all, which would be even
better, and the power could be generated locally, in small chunks, so
you wouldn't need an elaborate grid to to hook every last village in
rural India or Africa to some giant, high-tech power station.

You are welcome to make fatuous debating points, but they do tend to
discourage the reader from taking you seriously.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

On Mar 5, 8:58 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:

On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:55:39 GMT, James Arthur





bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use.  In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly.  That's scary, John.
Tim
The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.
The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.
You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2.  Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course.  I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant.  Don't you?

If not you'll have to slaughter those billions wholesale, since
perhaps 20x more heating than that is incurred in just growing
their food, not to mention the CO2 they exhale.

James Arthur

I keep trying to make it sink in... getting rid of all the leftist
weenies would buy us several hundred years to properly research the
issue ;-)

Getting rid of the right-wing nit-wits would work just as well, and
make the planet a nicer place to live into the bargain. It's a pity
that it isn't a morally acceptable solution.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

On Mar 5, 6:12 pm, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
On Mar 5, 1:10 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
On Mar 4, 1:26 am, Rich Grise <r...@example.net> wrote:
On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:18:29 -0800, D from BC wrote:
When's the next ice age due?
We're not even done with the LAST one yet! We're simply getting closer to
an end in the current lull. >:-
Wrong. This is an interglacial, not an ice age.
Rich was not wrong.  An interglacial is a period within an ice age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial
"An interglacial is a geological interval of warmer global average
temperature that separates glacial periods within an ice age."

That's not the way I parse that sentence. The glacial periods are
within the ice age, and - in fact - define it, while the interglacials
are between the ice ages.

Your interpretation would make the entire Pleistocene one single 2.5
million year long ice age, which might be understood to be formally
correct in a geological forum, but doesn't represent popular usage,
where this period is described as consisting of a succession of ice
ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

   "Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice
    sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this
    definition we are still in an ice age..."

[...]

   "Within the ice ages (or at least within the last one), more
    temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods
    are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials,
    such as the Eemian Stage."

Speaking of Eemian,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian_Stage
  "The warmest peak of the Eemian was around 125,000 years ago,
   when forests reached as far north as North Cape (which is
   now tundra) in northern Norway well above the Arctic Circle
   at 71.1725°N 25.79444°E. Hardwood trees like hazel and oak
   grew as far north as Oulu, Finland. Sea levels at that time
   were 4-6 meters higher than they are now, indicating greater
   deglaciation than today (mostly from partial melting of the
   ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica)."

Popular usage and technical usage conflict here, that's the
problem.  Technically Rich is right: we're in an interglacial--
a warmer period where ice melts--but we're still in an Ice Age.

If Rich were a geologist, talking to an audience of geologists, you
might be right, but since Rich is not a geologist, and
sci.electronics.design is not a geological forum it's rubbish, as you
very well know.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[James Arthur]

bill.sloman@ieee.org wrote:

James Arthur wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
Rich Grise wrote:

[snipped: When's the next Ice Age?]

We're not even done with the LAST one yet! We're simply getting closer to
an end in the current lull. >:-

Wrong. This is an interglacial, not an ice age.

[...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
"Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice
sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this
definition we are still in an ice age..."

[...]

"Within the ice ages (or at least within the last one), more
temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods
are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials,
such as the Eemian Stage."

[...]

Popular usage and technical usage conflict here, that's the
problem. Technically Rich is right: we're in an interglacial--
a warmer period where ice melts--but we're still in an Ice Age.

If Rich were a geologist, talking to an audience of geologists, you
might be right, but since Rich is not a geologist, and
sci.electronics.design is not a geological forum it's rubbish, as you
very well know.

Since we all know we're not covered with ice, the technical
sense was the only sensible way to interpret what Rich meant.
And he was right.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 05:57:18 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article <tdsmq4d25ce63l7ahcp7k7q9s2u0bnu6kq@4ax.com>, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 05:18:24 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article <locmq4tbuacer9il8f9dpn11sicrs5484o@4ax.com>, D from BC wrote:
On Sun, 1 Mar 2009 16:01:53 +0100, "Bill Sloman"
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5918/1187

Martin van Calmhout - a formidable Dutch science journalist - reviewed
this article in Science in yesterday's Volkskrant. One of the authors -
Henk Brinkhuis - is a professor at Utrecht.

It talks about a 5C drop in global temperature over 100,000 years some
34 million years ago during the Eocene-Oligocene Climate Transition.

The paper is based a new technique for recovering paleolthic
temperatures, by measuring the the relative concentrations of
particular organic chemicals in the cell wall of single cell fossils,
which allowed the authors to clarify what what actually going
on during the transition, when the Antartic ice-sheet seems to
have made its appearance

The authors can't come up with an explanation for why it happened
as fast as it did. Explanations for the transition do exist, but they
seem to envisage a slower cooling.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06853.html

No doubt the denialists will blame the sun, as usual.

When's the next ice age due?

If not for AGW, good chance within a few millennia. We have probably
already averted it and then some.

If not for AGW, a century or two from now could easily repeat the
"Little Ice Age" of 2-3 centuries or so ago, with noticeable downturn in
first half of 22nd century appearing likely on basis of MAO and longer
term sunspot cycles.

Which might kill a billion people and wipe out a good chunk of a
million species.


Should we set new global surface and/or lower
troposphere temperature highs at those times when we should be repeating
"little ice age" as a harbinger of "next real ice age", then we end up
being shown that AGW is for real and that we have given ourselves warming
that will probably persist through the next several millennia and
probably be reinforced to multi-mega-year highs by the time the
"should-be-coming next ice age glaciation" would end maybe 90,000 or so
years from now.

And the plants love the CO2 we're feeding them.

Just a few or several months ago I asked for how much has plant growth
improved as a result of the atmospheric CO2 uptick since the Industrial
Revolution.

As best as I can remember, it's 7% or about that according to someone
giving an answer and probably providing a cite. (IIRC and the usual
similar "horse puckey disclaimers"). From atmospheric CO2 increase
around 35% from the 280 ppmv having some consideration being
"pre-Industrial-Revolution-baseline") as of when I asked the question
resulting in that answer.

7% increase of plant growth from 35% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration? For a simple approximation at a mathematical relationship,
I see log(1.07)/log(1.35) indicating plant growth rate being proportional
to atmospheric CO2 concentration raised to the .23 power, though I suspect
such power to increase towards unity when our planet is/was "more CO2
starved" and to correspondingly decrease when atmospheric CO2
concentration increases past the 370-380 ppmv or whatever that was
relevant to 7% increase of plant growth that I remeber (how correctly?)
being result of increase from pre-industrial-revolution-"baseline" that
was/"was" 280 ppmv.

That's a great calculation for people who don't believe in evolution.

John

 

On Mar 6, 2:37 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 05:57:18 +0000 (UTC), d...@manx.misty.com (Don





Klipstein) wrote:
In article <tdsmq4d25ce63l7ahcp7k7q9s2u0bnu...@4ax.com>, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 05:18:24 +0000 (UTC), d...@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article <locmq4tbuacer9il8f9dpn11sicrs54...@4ax.com>, D from BC wrote:
On Sun, 1 Mar 2009 16:01:53 +0100, "Bill Sloman"
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5918/1187

Martin van Calmhout - a formidable Dutch science journalist - reviewed
this article in Science in yesterday's Volkskrant. One of the authors -
Henk Brinkhuis - is a professor at Utrecht.

It talks about a 5C drop in global temperature over 100,000 years some
34 million years ago during the Eocene-Oligocene Climate Transition.

The paper is based a new technique for recovering paleolthic
temperatures, by measuring the the relative concentrations of
particular organic chemicals in the cell wall of single cell fossils,
which allowed the authors to clarify what what actually going
on during the transition, when the Antartic ice-sheet seems to
have made its appearance

The authors can't come up with an explanation for why it happened
as fast as it did. Explanations for the transition do exist, but they
seem to envisage a slower cooling.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7190/full/nature06853.html

No doubt the denialists will blame the sun, as usual.

When's the next ice age due?

 If not for AGW, good chance within a few millennia.  We have probably
already averted it and then some.

 If not for AGW, a century or two from now could easily repeat the
"Little Ice Age" of 2-3 centuries or so ago, with noticeable downturn in
first half of 22nd century appearing likely on basis of MAO and longer
term sunspot cycles.

Which might kill a billion people and wipe out a good chunk of a
million species.

Should we set new global surface and/or lower
troposphere temperature highs at those times when we should be repeating
"little ice age" as a harbinger of "next real ice age", then we end up
being shown that AGW is for real and that we have given ourselves warming
that will probably persist through the next several millennia and
probably be reinforced to multi-mega-year highs by the time the
"should-be-coming next ice age glaciation" would end maybe 90,000 or so
years from now.

And the plants love the CO2 we're feeding them.

 Just a few or several months ago I asked for how much has plant growth
improved as a result of the atmospheric CO2 uptick since the Industrial
Revolution.

 As best as I can remember, it's 7% or about that according to someone
giving an answer and probably providing a cite.  (IIRC and the usual
similar "horse puckey disclaimers").  From atmospheric CO2 increase
around 35% from the 280 ppmv having some consideration being
"pre-Industrial-Revolution-baseline") as of when I asked the question
resulting in that answer.

 7% increase of plant growth from 35% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration?  For a simple approximation at a mathematical relationship,
I see log(1.07)/log(1.35) indicating plant growth rate being proportional
to atmospheric CO2 concentration raised to the .23 power, though I suspect
such power to increase towards unity when our planet is/was "more CO2
starved" and to correspondingly decrease when atmospheric CO2
concentration increases past the 370-380 ppmv or whatever that was
relevant to 7% increase of plant growth that I remeber (how correctly?)
being result of increase from pre-industrial-revolution-"baseline" that
was/"was" 280 ppmv.

That's a great calculation for people who don't believe in evolution.

Implying that you think that plant growth is CO2 limited at the
moment?

It's more likely to be sun-light limited; in fact paleontology
suggests that planets cut down the number of stomata on their leaves
as the CO2 level in the atmosphere rises.

http://bioweb.usu.edu/kmott/Complexity_Web_Page/Stomata.htm

http://faculty.washington.edu/ktorii/stomata.html

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

On Mar 5, 11:29 pm, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
 James Arthur wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
 James Arthur wrote:
bill.slo...@ieee.org wrote:
 Rich Grise wrote:

[snipped: When's the next Ice Age?]

We're not even done with the LAST one yet! We're simply getting closer to
an end in the current lull. >:-
Wrong. This is an interglacial, not an ice age.

[...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
   "Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice
    sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this
    definition we are still in an ice age..."

[...]

   "Within the ice ages (or at least within the last one), more
    temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods
    are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials,
    such as the Eemian Stage."

[...]

Popular usage and technical usage conflict here, that's the
problem.  Technically Rich is right: we're in an interglacial--
a warmer period where ice melts--but we're still in an Ice Age.

If Rich were a geologist, talking to an audience of geologists, you
might be right, but since Rich is not a geologist, and
sci.electronics.design is not a geological forum it's rubbish, as you
very well know.

Since we all know we're not covered with ice, the technical
sense was the only sensible way to interpret what Rich meant.
And he was right.

And we all know that during an ice age, Canada and most of Northern
Europe are covered with ice-sheets.

They aren't at the moment, so this isn't an Ice Age. Rich is wrong,
and your claim that he is right is delierately wrong-headed.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Tim Williams]

"Richard Henry" <pomerado@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:81b042c6-42b6-429b-b822-6607d80e897b@i20g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

And speaking of disposal, I don't see why we don't just heap all the
waste
into a deep hard-rock mine shaft (below the water table)...

A couple of points:

If you have punched a hole through the water table, you cannot be sure
that your deposit will always be below it. Gravity never sleeps.

I would suppose the combination of hard rock and capping concrete would help
with that, but hydrogeology is out of my scope. Probably a fair bet stuff
like Kr and Xe would seep up through fissures anyway (although those aren't
a big deal in and of themselves, but it does imply others could get
through).

I wouldn't underestimate the capability of future drillers.

Well that's the nice part about it. The idea is, it sinks low enough, fast
enough, that by the time you reach the worst part of it, you're not drilling
anymore, you're poking at ooze. ;-)

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

 

[Richard Henry]

On Mar 5, 11:55 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use.  In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly.  That's scary, John.
Tim
The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.
The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.
You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.

But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2.  Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.

That's still a judgement call.

Of course.  I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant.  Don't you?

Compared to what? It is a relatively small energy per unit area, but
summed over a very large area. The integral of infinitesmal
quantities may be of a significant order. To dismiss it as
insignifcant without proof, or at least some investigation, is foolish.

 

[James Arthur]

Richard Henry wrote:

On Mar 5, 11:55 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 5, 10:19 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@verizon.net> wrote:
Richard Henry wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:07 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 17:55:57 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
My objection to widespread fusion power is simple to see with some
multiplications and a couple of centuries use. In fact, Sloman understood
my statement correctly. That's scary, John.
Tim
The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter of heat onto us. The
surface area of the earth is about 5e14 m^2, about 100,000 m^2 per
person. So if everybody consumes a kilowatt, which is unlikely, the
relative energy is insignificant.
The prime indicator of human misery is low availability of power.
Cheap electric power would lift a lot of people out of ghastly
poverty. Some people actually want to purge the planet of the pest
that is Man, and choke off energy supplies in the process; their
policies will indeed kill a lot of people, especially kids.
You numbers are nice, but the use of "insignificant" is a judgement
call.
I figure 7e9 people burning 100 W (=2.4kWHr/day) to improve their
lives tremendously yields an equivalent forcing of 1.4 mW/m^2.
That's an insignificant increase.
But for the total impact of humanity: human bodies need about
100 W worth of food to live, so you might want to double the
above to allow for that, then multiply it by some food
production efficiency factor, and add in the fact that people
burn O2 and emit CO2. Those factors set a lower limit on what
human CO2 emission is possible, even without industrialization.
That's still a judgement call.
Of course. I judge 1.4mW to be insignificant. Don't you?


Compared to what? It is a relatively small energy per unit area, but
summed over a very large area. The integral of infinitesmal
quantities may be of a significant order. To dismiss it as
insignifcant without proof, or at least some investigation, is foolish.

Compared to the other much larger heating sources in the picture,
what else?

As to the integral being possibly large, it's trivial--you can
multiply 100 W x 7e9 and dismiss that quantity by inspection.

Wiki the solar influx and compare. Or just read the quotes in
this very reply and compute it yourself--the info's all there.


Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Martin Brown]

John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 05:57:18 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:


As best as I can remember, it's 7% or about that according to someone
giving an answer and probably providing a cite. (IIRC and the usual
similar "horse puckey disclaimers"). From atmospheric CO2 increase
around 35% from the 280 ppmv having some consideration being
"pre-Industrial-Revolution-baseline") as of when I asked the question
resulting in that answer.

7% increase of plant growth from 35% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration? For a simple approximation at a mathematical relationship,
I see log(1.07)/log(1.35) indicating plant growth rate being proportional
to atmospheric CO2 concentration raised to the .23 power, though I suspect
such power to increase towards unity when our planet is/was "more CO2
starved" and to correspondingly decrease when atmospheric CO2
concentration increases past the 370-380 ppmv or whatever that was
relevant to 7% increase of plant growth that I remeber (how correctly?)
being result of increase from pre-industrial-revolution-"baseline" that
was/"was" 280 ppmv.

That's a great calculation for people who don't believe in evolution.

Why do you say that?

Only some plants growth rates are limited by CO2 concentration. Many
plants growth rates are limited by the available light intensity and/or
other environmental factors like water, temperature and humidity.

You also need water and plants tend to struggle to get it reliably
everywhere but in the humid tropics with daily rainfall. The result is
that they vary the stomata openings for diffusion according to water
stress. And the devious plants of the Crassulaceae and related C4 plants
using CAM photosynthesis only open their stomata only at night to
capture CO2 so as to avoid unnecessary daytime water loss.

One of the early papers of photosynthesis yield measured against CO2 and
light intensity is online at:
http://jgp.rupress.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/21

If I have done the sums right to convert from umoles CO2/litre to ppm
you can multiply by 37 so the range they tested was about 160ppm to
9000ppm. The peak productivity was around 5000ppm in ideal conditions.

At high light intensities where the process is truly diffusion limited
the yield tracks CO2 almost linearly, but at lower light intensities the
improvement was around 10% for a doubling of CO2 concentration. This is
still worthwhile enough that commercial greenhouses exploit it.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:18:50 +0000, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 05:57:18 +0000 (UTC), don@manx.misty.com (Don
Klipstein) wrote:


As best as I can remember, it's 7% or about that according to someone
giving an answer and probably providing a cite. (IIRC and the usual
similar "horse puckey disclaimers"). From atmospheric CO2 increase
around 35% from the 280 ppmv having some consideration being
"pre-Industrial-Revolution-baseline") as of when I asked the question
resulting in that answer.

7% increase of plant growth from 35% increase in atmospheric CO2
concentration? For a simple approximation at a mathematical relationship,
I see log(1.07)/log(1.35) indicating plant growth rate being proportional
to atmospheric CO2 concentration raised to the .23 power, though I suspect
such power to increase towards unity when our planet is/was "more CO2
starved" and to correspondingly decrease when atmospheric CO2
concentration increases past the 370-380 ppmv or whatever that was
relevant to 7% increase of plant growth that I remeber (how correctly?)
being result of increase from pre-industrial-revolution-"baseline" that
was/"was" 280 ppmv.

That's a great calculation for people who don't believe in evolution.

Why do you say that?

Only some plants growth rates are limited by CO2 concentration. Many
plants growth rates are limited by the available light intensity and/or
other environmental factors like water, temperature and humidity.

You also need water and plants tend to struggle to get it reliably
everywhere but in the humid tropics with daily rainfall. The result is
that they vary the stomata openings for diffusion according to water
stress. And the devious plants of the Crassulaceae and related C4 plants
using CAM photosynthesis only open their stomata only at night to
capture CO2 so as to avoid unnecessary daytime water loss.

One of the early papers of photosynthesis yield measured against CO2 and
light intensity is online at:
http://jgp.rupress.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/21

If I have done the sums right to convert from umoles CO2/litre to ppm
you can multiply by 37 so the range they tested was about 160ppm to
9000ppm. The peak productivity was around 5000ppm in ideal conditions.

At high light intensities where the process is truly diffusion limited
the yield tracks CO2 almost linearly, but at lower light intensities the
improvement was around 10% for a doubling of CO2 concentration. This is
still worthwhile enough that commercial greenhouses exploit it.

And conventional farmers will exploit it too, as they select breeds
that do better as the CO2 level rises. Plants are of course presently
optimized for, or lagging a bit behind, the existing CO2 levels.
Future-gen crop plants may have a very different response to CO2,
because they will have been designed to do so.

Most agriculture can provide lots of water and sunlight and
fertilizers, so adding CO2 might have substantial affects on yields.
Plants may also shift to needing, say, less water if they have more
CO2, which would benefit marginal farming cases.

John