There are thousands more entries like this – “worst deluge in living memory”, “the worst rains ever witnessed”, “floods and rains the like of which no man has seen” – but you get the gist. This vast database shows that any notion that our rain, right now, is getting “worse” is farcically incoherent. What does “worse” even mean? Worse than what? Worse than the Ice Age? Worse in the sense of “colder”? “Spittier”? What?
February 2, 2014
"Perhaps man-made climate change is all in the mind... in our instinctive terrors, we always think that something wicked this way comes..."
"... especially from the sky: as a punishment from God, for things we have done. This paranoia, should it exist, would be hardwired into the human psyche, so we would rarely notice it – as the mind deceives itself," writes Sean Thomas, cherry picking from a database of centuries of expression of British fears about unusual weather:
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Global Warming is a secular expression of Puritan religious philosophy. "We are not supposed to be happy and comfortable in this life," so goes the thinking, "and so if someone is happy and comfortable they must be doing something wrong, and whatever is making them happy and comfortable is evil".
And there is nothing a good Puritan wants more than an excuse for a righteous hategasm.
The problem with Athiests: all humans have spiritual appetites that cannot be suppressed, only redirected to something else - usually a "righteous cause" or a "Dear Leader" or themselves.
Better to worship a God in heaven than a god on earth.
Well, we know from geological evidence that climate does, in fact, change. We also know that in the 250 years we've had periods that were much colder and warmer than others. We also know that, worldwide, there is a air pollution problem (for instance, China is the number one polluter of mercury emissions in the US). What we don't know is if anything man is doing can out weight the cycles of the sun or volcanos. And, even if man is influencing climate, what can be done about it. Regardless of what North America and Europe do, nothing at this point out weighs what China and India do - and they're not stopping their economies. So, the best thing, in my mind to do is to prepare for a future where the world is either slightly warmer than it is now or colder than it is now. Be Prepared.
The truthful scientists are not afraid to speak out freely that the infrared absorption spectrum at the levels needed to create the "greenhouse effect " as if there exists a glass dome over the mid atmosphere is not there in CO2 trace gases in the mid atmosphere. Period.
Therefore the theoretical (but oddly never seen) CO2 caused atmospheric warming effect is a total hoax with not a shred of fact to it.
That is why the historical data had to be changed by the con-men playing Climate Science games of pretend heat rising and pretend sea level rise acceleration.
And the President of the United States of America is the head of the "carbon is a pollutant" snake.
"The problem with Athiests: all humans have spiritual appetites that cannot be suppressed, only redirected to something else - usually a "righteous cause" or a "Dear Leader" or themselves."
Atheists are only a problem to conformity fascists.
Scientists of every rank,
For shame, all in the tank.
Their claim of manmade CO2, then
Was really manmade C9H9N.
On a scale of 1 to 10 from barely noticeable to a tragedy causing global catastrophe:
A. Man made global warming 1-2
B. Large meteorite strike 8-10
C. Major eruption of Yellow-
stone Super Volcano 10
I've been saying this for years -- it's just a modern-day version of "the Gods are angry! We must doooooo something!!!" Here they've simply substituted Gaia for God.
Anthropological global warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.
That would be a matter of judgment. There have been many millenarian movements of different kinds through history.
Climate Scientology.
Hagar -
Yes, but they have not had the power of mass media to spread the falsehoods as they do today.
Better to worship a God in heaven than a god on earth.
The worst violations of human and civil rights have occurred and continue to occur when we worship material things and empower mortal gods. The justification or rationalization will vary, but the underlying causes or motivations do not.
Nah, it's just grandiosity. "What's happening to us is more important than whatever has happened to everyone else."
This expresses the basis for all environmentalism. We have sinned and punishment is due to us. There is no coincidence here. Progressives thought that when they abandoned God guilt would disappear. The only things that disappeared were forgiveness and redemption. In parallel to this, as they perceived humans to be the paramount beings, was the sense that we are, or should be, in control of everything that happens. Our lack of control of weather and climate are just more evidence that we have done wrong.
On the plus side, with time this false consciousness will be revealed. Some day (if in fact it isn't already so) Al Gore will be the personification of the stupidity of a past age.
Human activity does affect the environment as both a source and sink. This is observable at local levels. There is no conclusive evidence that human activity produces a significant effect at other levels, including global. There is no conclusive evidence that those effects are not mitigated by natural processes. In the absence of conclusive evidence, it is advisable to pursue reasonable mitigation strategies (e.g. evolutionary); but, there is neither a cause nor justification for revolutionary change.
"And there is nothing a good Puritan wants more than an excuse for a righteous hategasm."
Spoken like a true hater. Easy to spot.
Personally, I'd like to see a return of the Pied Piper, who will lead off all those brats who've been mis-educated in Amerika at my expense.
All this AGW is about one thing...dorks getting laid. Let's face it, these climate scientists were nerds in HS, the zit faced losers in Science and Chess Club. AV. Never had a date. Never went to prom. And now they can be rock stars. If it costs the world trillions, well so be it.
The first question I have always asked the climate change proponents is:
"You do realize thatt the earth is currently in the middle of an ice age right? Human history has happened within a warm interval of it."
The second is:
"What exactly is the temperature that Earth is supposed to be at?"
"...Sean Thomas, cherry picking from a database of centuries of expression of British fears..."
No, he cited writings that showed that weather extremes are not unusual occurrences.
Weather extremes differ from climate change because weather is locally measured - and the British Isles have weather that differs from Wisconsin.
Scientists already project from sun spots that reduced storm activity on Sol will cause the sun's rays to cool and that trend is not expected to change until about 2040. So let us climb outside of our hefty egos and admit that humans are but Lilliputians in the fate of Earth's future in God's universe.
Honestly, we cannot afford global warming spending and Chicken Little anymore. Michael Crichton got it right in the Jurassic Park Prologue:
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years . . .
Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us . . .
A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
Dismissing theories of climate change as a secular religion is too generous to those theories and unfair to religion. The point of using a religious for scientific theories is to ignore the theory and focus instead on the motivations and world-view of the theories proponents. While that can be entertaining, it's just a form of the same failure to address the work while focusing on the work's maker under discussion in the Woody Allen post.
For the same reasons that Allen's movies stand or fall on their own merits, theories of climate change and anthropogenic causes for it stand or fall on the evidence and the science. all the rest is distraction designed to avoid dealing with the main issue. What's truly odd is that those engaging in that strategy of distraction are usually on the receiving end of the 'personal attack, forget about the merits' treatment. It happens all the time in debates over public policy, economics and many other areas, where the lefty argument is, basically, that the guy offering a conservative policy agenda is a Republican, and thus anti-gay, likely racist and certainly a greedy and grasping rip-off artist. So no need to address the arguments on their merits. That way of confronting an opposing position doesn't get any better when the tables are turned.
Use of a religious metaphor to attack climate change is also unfair to religion. The underlying point of the metaphor here is that proponents of climate change theories are reality-denying delusionists, lost in a fog of agenda driven belief. If that's what you think religion ia about at its core, you don't know much about it and probably don't know too many religious believers.
It is not jus about getting laid. There are huge amounts of money in it too. Look up global carbon trading credits.
Of course, you can argue that making huge amounts of money is also about getting laid.
I am skeptical about the magnitude of and CO2 induced warming, but to suggest that the mechanism has no basis in science is ridiculous. Absorption and re-emission of IR photons at a particular percentage of collisions is quantum mechanics. The most successful theory in physics that makes predictions that are accurate to our ever increasing ability to measure them, even though people are trying to break QM all the time.
It sort of bothers me that we pretend that anybody trying to poke holes in the fabric of the CAGW theory are in the pay of the oil companies, but anybody trying to poke holes in QM, for example, are proper scientists doing the Lord's work.
I think the anthropogenic global warming movement is related to the leftism of elites. It is a form of buying indulgences, an old and honorable custom of elites going back to corrupt bishops in the Middle Ages and to child sacrifice to Baal in the ancient land we call Israel.
The Aztecs knew it well so it wasn't just European.
The fact that leftism is so secure in the New England area is a remnant of the Puritans.
According to anonymous sources close to Gore, the former Senator and global warming activist became so enraged after seeing televised images of snow falling in Cairo that he was literally chasing his second chakra around the hotel suite with a hockey stick.
Gahrie, re "What exactly is the temperature that Earth is supposed to be at?"
The true temperature for the earth occurred August 15 to August 18, 1969. We need to get back to it.
From the Lefty's bible, Wikipedia:
The last 3 million years have been characterized by cycles of glacials and interglacials within a gradually deepening ice age.
The Earth has been getting colder for the last three million years....far longer than humans have existed. That's science...right?
The gradual intensification of this ice age over the last 3 million years has been associated with declining concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, though it remains unclear if this change is sufficiently large to have caused the changes in temperatures.
One of the reason's the Earth has been getting colder is because the amount of CO2 has been going down! Perhaps we should be pumping even more CO2 into the air? Science...right?
Similarly, the initiation of this deepening phase also corresponds roughly to the closure of the Isthmus of Panama by the action of plate tectonics. This prevented direct ocean flow between the Pacific and Atlantic, which would have had significant effects on ocean circulation and the distribution of heat.
Wait..you mean the Earth might do things entirely unrealated to humanity which could have a drastic effect on the climate? do we fill in the Panama Canal, or make it far wider?
This recent period of cycling climate is part of the more extended ice age that began about 40 million years ago with the glaciation of Antarctica.
The Earth has been in an ice age for the last 40 million years...at some point in the future, there is going to be a sheet of ice one mile high on top of Chicago and Detroit again.
You know what climate scientists call the warm periods in ice ages (like the one we are in now)?
climate optima.
If humans did anything to alter the climate, it would be the invention of agriculture. That was 10,000 years ago and might possibly be the reason we haven't had another severe ice age since. The Little Ice Age was mild but very inconvenient for the "scientists" living off the AGW hysteria. So they decided to eliminate it from records.
I still subscribe to the indulgences theory.
traditionalguy:
"Therefore the theoretical (but oddly never seen) CO2 caused atmospheric warming effect is a total hoax."
It's not a hoax. How much more reassuring it would be if it were.
The far more interesting, and more frightening, phenomenon is how a group of highly educated, intelligent, and influential people manage to fool themselves - and fool themselves all in one direction, while insisting their critics are politically motivated.
If someone's lying, well, then, you just have to discipline and shun them, and let them serve as an example. When they are absolutely sincere and convinced, and wrong, and can't allow for the possibility that they might be, and anyone who tries to point it out must be malicious or a paid liar; when honest people have their doubts behind closed doors, but don't speak up because they'd be seen as traitors to the group they've worked hard to join - that's a lot harder to fix, or to avoid the next time.
I know a good many of these people. They're not lying. They are absolutely convinced and sincere. N.B.: This is not a defense of what their field is doing.
@Tyrone,
They also pick a snapshot and declare it the "perfect" state. This is the perfect global temperature, anything else is BAD. That is the perfect amount of trees. No more, no less. We must ensure that the three snail darters don't ever die out.
We must stop the logging because we've decided that logging is what accounts for the demise of the Spotted Owl. So, logging was reduced drastically, and the spotted owls weren't coming back. Turns out the barred owls are eating the spotted owls.
So their solution, because they've decided what the "right" number of spotted owls is, is to kill the barred owls.
@JPS...Science runs experiments to measure the outcomes of Theories that many believe to be true. Fine.
But once the experimental and historical data comes back that disproves the strongly believed in theory, and the only reaction is to hide the data, then a hoax is all you have left.
It is very possible that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has decreased because it has been getting colder over the last several million years, rather than the other way around.
Good God, Althouse, some if these comments are stunningly hateful. I haven't been around this blog long enough to know, like you do, who to just skip over.
I know I'll be skipping over JoyD from now on.
Before Global Warming catastrophism, we had Global Cooling catastrophism. And Population Bomb catastrophism. And Running Out of Minerals catastrophism. And Inundation By Lower Races catastrophism.
Anybody remember the Millerites?
I wonder what Al Gore will be hollering about next in his The End Times Are Coming traveling medicine show. I don't know, but I'm sure that "Heretics! Sinners! Blasphemers!" will continue be his refrain.
JoyD, would you like to list which comments you find stunningly hateful?
I think Americans (and Congress) are repeating the mistake of the Israelites in the book of Samuel.
They decide everything will be easier if they had a king, so Samuel warns:
"his is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
Except, of course, that the Americans who pay taxes would be THRILLED if it was only 1/10 of their earnings that was getting redistributed to Cronies...
Anyway, the fact that 1/2 of Congress CHEERED when Obama announced he planned on usurping their constitutional role tells me that we've given up. We tried the whole 'self-rule' thing. It got old. We're tired. Now give us a king, dagnabbit!
Bishops hill blog is a good place to go if people want to read more about this topic.
I am waiting for the glaciers to grind into paste the Nobel Prize Committee which gave Al Bore an award.
It's religion without a church.
Can you believe in global warming, and profess atheism?
Good God, Althouse, some if these comments are stunningly hateful. I haven't been around this blog long enough to know, like you do, who to just skip over."
And then comes you with a stunningly stupid comment.
AGW: The West had its day in the sun and now it's turn to don sackcloth and ashes so the Chinese and the Indians can have their day in the sun.
@JoyD
When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.
Matthew 10:23
I am skeptical about the magnitude of and CO2 induced warming, but to suggest that the mechanism has no basis in science is ridiculous. Absorption and re-emission of IR photons at a particular percentage of collisions is quantum mechanics. The most successful theory in physics that makes predictions that are accurate to our ever increasing ability to measure them, even though people are trying to break QM all the time.
Ok, there is a little science there. The first problem though is that a significant level of positive feedback is assumed in most of the models used in all those peer reviewed papers. Thus, a certain amount of direct affect from CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas is supposed to create significantly more warming. The estimated feedback though has not been empirically proven to be that great - rather it appears to be closer to zero, if not negative.
Something else to keep in mind - CO2 is essential for plant respiration. In other words, it acts as plant food. So, in a higher CO2 environment, plants tend to grow better. This has multiple effects, including changing the plant's albedo. It also affects the cloud cover.
Finally, the big unknown is the ocean. The oceans sequester a lot of heat and CO2. It is just very hard to test except at the surface, even from space.
So, the problem isn't that CO2 is a mile greenhouse gas, because it is, but there really isn't that much in the atmosphere (approx 400 ppm or .000400 = .04% = 4%%). And more importantly, the feedback is not well understood, nor can it yet be erasures at all accurately.
@Unknown (2:07 PM), you say "The true temperature for the earth occurred August 15 to August 18, 1969. We need to get back to it."
On those dates I was in basic training at Fort Bliss, TX, and I can assure you that it was too damn' hot!
Back to the drawing board for you.
"Bishops hill blog is a good place to go if people want to read more about this topic."
I highly recommend his book, "The Hockey Stick Illusion". A must read.
Enough slander of Teh Puritanz already!
You would think that once scientists discovered they could do it, they would have measured the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere. Oh, wait, they did! Several times from the early 19th century. What did they find? That CO2 concentration actually hasn't increased!
A big problem in all of this is the use of proxies, most of which are actually piss poor. The weird ass assumption that the main factor in tree growth is CO2 has always struck me as hopelessly bizarre and exceedingly arrogant.
Personally, I am not interested in the political battle: is there or is there not climate change I am interested in being good care takers of the earth - which is the only home we have right now. When the air and water are this dirty it's time to clean it up.
Oh, and geologic evidence is that we are in an interglacial period which is part of a period of glaciation. Meaning, another ice age is likely imminent in geologic terms.
As for how fast it could happen; anyone remember the younger dryas. Yes, the circumstances were unique, but the broader point is that catastrophic change is a natural occurrence and there's not much we can do about it.
Sunsong,
The air and water USED to be really dirty. I mean, when rivers catch fire and people could almost walk across Lake Erie...
Surely we should do what we can to minimize pollution. And companies don't deliberately pollute.
But we shouldn't try to go back to the pre-industrial age. Actually, the more prosperous a society is, the less pollution generally occurs. With wealth comes the resources to pollute less and clean up more.
"CO2 concentration actually hasn't increased!"
Huh?
.. and then along comes Jimbino @ 1:33pm to prove Tyrone's point about the loss of redemption.
pst314,
You left out the New York City Buried in X Feet Of Horse Manure crisis.
tyrone,
Dude, are you a sockpuppet for George Orwell or something? Your 1:22 PM is profound.
sunsong said:
I am interested in being good care takers of the earth - which is the only home we have right now.
Again, there's that hubristic notion that humans can influence Earth's climate one way or another on the macro scale envisioned in the warmist's belief and support system.
"Care takers." Good grief. If you believe the Earth is a god, just come out and say so! I like to know if I'm dealing with a rationalist or one of Gaia's vestal virgins.
The wonders of short term memory, or cherry-picking data points.
Chef-- Actually, Christians also believe that they should be stewards of earth-- not b/c earth is a god to be placated, but b/c it's a gift from God and he put us in charge.
So.... if your dad gives you the keys to the Ferrari, you're not going to want to run it into a tree.
HOWEVER-- I think there's room for debate over what Stewardship means. Some people think it means leaving it perfect and not using any of its resources-- so... keeping the car in the garage, waxing it, polishing it, but... never taking it out on the road lest something happen.
I tend to lean more towards the 'God gave us fossil fuels b/c he wants us to USE them' school. But we still have the responsibility to find cleaner and better ways to use them. And not to waste things. And to use the resources we've been given to help other people... particularly those in the third world.... so, for instance, using DDT in Africa can still be good stewardship.
There's room for debate on all of these things. There's no '10 commandments of environmentalism.' The problem is that purveyors of one viewpoint in particular seem to want to shut down all discussion and create crises in order to control other people.... which is not really good stewardship at all, but is just straight up Stalinism.
All I know is, back in the day, I used to tell my platoon sergeant that if God wanted us to run, why did he give us internal combustion?
The far more interesting, and more frightening, phenomenon is how a group of highly educated, intelligent, and influential people manage to fool themselves
Worse - I still routintely encounter Leftists who are completely unaware that the climate models have been proven false. 15 years of observable data which destroys the theory of AGW and my liberal friends haven't a clue.
Its like shooting fish in a barrel. Thanks Algore!
Fen, I too constantly run into people who have great faith in the gospel of CAGW, because, you know, the science is settled, but who don't know that there's been no global warming for ≥ 15 years, and when you tell them, they don't care.
I'd say CAGW is a religion not science, but that sells religion short. In my religion, Christianity, we believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, but we are taught that we have to be prepared to change our opinion if someone proves that he has found the corpse of Jesus.
Anything different is automatically worse. Change of any kind is terrible. The world should stay exactly like it was sometime in the recent past when everything was perfect.
It's always good to get travel writers to rebut the science that's actually being done on a subject.
A large part of my problem with the movement to somehow stop climate change is their rhetoric.
Sometimes I think I will join the warmies' side because they have no clue as to how to talk to people who are skeptical about AGW.
I just wish that their every solution wasn't basically left-wing.
The thought processes described by Thomas are not indicative of how the issue is being analyzed by scientists. Thomas' thinking is more typical of that found in comments sections on internet message boards. Wishful thinking, lacking, pe
Tim,
It is possible to believe that quantum mechanics is correct without believing that a bunch of "climate scientists" are applying it correctly.
Certainly, we must all hope the Warmists worst predictions are wrong, because we all know what is going to happen to all the petroleum in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran .....
Namely, the locals are going to pump it out and sell it to the highest bidder, and all the Priuses in San Francisco won't do anything to stop them.
Then there is the coal ...
Dear Godfather & B:
We are stardust, we are golden -- and we've got to back to the gar-ar-den.
GF - if you were part of the war machine instead of supping ambrosia at The Aquarian Exposition, bad on you. (Drafted?)
"It is possible to believe that quantum mechanics is correct without believing that a bunch of "climate scientists" are applying it correctly."
Without doubt, that is one reason why I am skeptical, where I part with the skeptical is that portion that denies the possibility of a greenhouse effect, when pretty good science that doesn't rely on complicated models with exaggerated feedbacks puts the effect at about 1.2C per doubling of CO2. An untroubling number in my opinion.
tim in Vermont:
not sure what you mean by "No basis in science." QM says that particles can transition barriers impenetrable under classical mechanics because "probability" instead of "determinism." (I know, sloppy language). I could come up with a list of goofy and ridiculous things to say about how we REALLY ought to do transportation based on QM that has a lower impact on the environment and in one sense of the word be perfectly justified in claiming "a basis in science."
Atheists are only a problem to conformity fascists.
I love self-parody.
"Then there is the coal ..."
The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. We will come up with something better than fossil fuels, I think. It is also instructive to think about the fact that all of that coal and oil was generated from atmospheric CO2. We were getting close to carbon starvation for plant life had we not started venting the stuff back into the atmosphere.
Unknown. QM is the explanation, the effect was empirically measured before QM was discovered, if it wasn't properly understood.
You show me your transporter beam, or whatever it is you are hinting at, and we can argue about whether it has equivalent standing in science as the greenhouse effect.
Kirk Parker "pst314, You left out the New York City Buried in X Feet Of Horse Manure crisis."
Ha! Thanks for reminding me of that one!
"The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. We will come up with something better than fossil fuels, I think."
But every time a new energy source is discovered/invented, the eco fanatics will come up with reasons why it should not be used. Because their goal is not a cleaner earth but an earth devoid of industry and modern civilization--a romantic longing to return to a mythical, utopian agrianism in which we are all once again peasants scraping out a subsistence living on farms...except of course for the eco activists who will be supported by taxes so they can continue to guide us ignorant folks down the right path.
"We've got to get ourselves back to the Garrarrdeennnn!"
"We've got to get ourselves back to the Garrarrdeennnn!"
One of the most famous sixties anthems of vacuous, childish cluelessness: a veritable circle-jerk of self-praise.
"I am skeptical about the magnitude of and CO2 induced warming, but to suggest that the mechanism has no basis in science is ridiculous."
The mechanism might be there. The question is how is that mechanism affected - perhaps even overcome - by the umpteen other independent variables in the AGW models. When someone states that a model predicts such and such, the proper question to ask is how accurate have previous predictions been using that model. In the AGW models, not so very good.
The problem is the number of independent variables that are put in (or left out). A good model would control and test for each independent variable. How you do that on a global scale is anyone's guess.
I once designed and ran a two month test to see if a change in procedures would increase cargo loads for C-5 military airlifters. When I briefed the results, the Commander asked why I hadn't included some other changes in the test. I replied that I had been asked to test one change. If I had added other changes, I would not be able to tell him what effect each change had made without running the test several times. He gave me a blank look, blinked, and said, "okay, I guess that makes sense."
"'We've got to get ourselves back to the Garrarrdeennnn!'
One of the most famous sixties anthems of vacuous, childish cluelessness: a veritable circle-jerk of self-praise."
The one I like is, "And if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."
Try selling that one today to the feminist community, let alone your spouse.
Well trashhauler, we don't disagree that much. I agree that pretending model runs are "experiments" is ludicrous. I just don't think it is unreasonable to expect some warming effect from adding CO2 to the atmosphere, even if the gas is a trace gas. I don't think we know very much at all, and the best we can do is observe, not predict. Observations so far are not that scary, and as the original post shows, people have a funny way of thinking things are different now than in the past "ou sont les neiges d'antan" and all that rot.
Yes, Tim, we mostly agree. Just one quibble, which I am not qualified to reconcile, is the question of whether CO2 is an independent variable, or a dependent one. There is some evidence (particularly core samples) that warming precedes an increase in CO2 levels.
If so, then we are chasing a symptom (and a relatively minor one) rather than a cause. In any case, the number of independent variables is enough for me to squint very hard at various AGW claims.
tim in vermont: I'm not personally advocating a transporter beam, just sayin that a scientific principle does not necessarily translate into the primary cause of some observed effect where the major variables affecting the observation are not functionally known and therefore are disregarded. See clouds, particulates, and relative humidity.
BTW, steam cycles are roughly 30-50% efficient, with the waste heat generally put into H2O. Thats a pretty big range, there's variability based on the type of plant (cooling system) and the environment it's in. The water vapor is pretty hot compared to other sources of atmospheric moisture and I'm sure that has some very important effects in terms of distribution, relative humidity, and atmospheric stay times, but I don't know what they are.
There's a nominal value of water evaporated per KWh of electricity generated of around 1.8 liters per kWh (aggregate, in the US). If you assume these values work world-wide, there are 117,076,000,000,000 kWh from fossil fuels, and 8,283,000,000,000 from nuclear in 2008 which ballparks to 6.5e11 liters evaporated from production of electricity. Oddly, hydroelectric plant cause an order of magnitude or so or more of evaporation per kWh. There are also other large causes of water evaporation, but this is only from electricity production. About 1.4e15 liters of water is evaporated from the oceans each day, so on a daily basis electricity production is estimated to increase the contribution of atmospheric vapor from by oceanic evaporation by 0.0466% (water vapor is 0.25% of the atmosphere, while CO2 is 0.0582% of the atmosphere).
The increaesed effects would be somewhat localized, but when the same effect is occurring all over the earth it might look like a global effect. It also should track pretty closely with all other CO2 drivers.
As the single largest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, it might be important to consider. However, I made some pretty big assumptions and therefore would not in my wildest dreams suggest that we ought to expand solar electric production or reduce electrical consumption.
Also, I have seen a couple of speculative papers with bounding calculations discussing the effects of removing enough solar or wind energy to impact electric production, and they suggest that there could be large changes in weather patterns by changing the distribution of energy in the environment.
This is all based on some quick google searches; I've scrapped most of it, but one url is http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33905.pdf
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