The CO2 generated by burning fossil fuel is not new. It was once in the atmosphere, absorbed by plant life turned into coal/oil/gas and is now once again being turned back into CO2 by burning. In order for global warming to take us beyond the historic temperature peaks there needs to be new CO2 in order that the global % exceeds the historic maxima. That is of course if CO2 is to blame. I am a systems engineer and as a systems engineer the most important things to rememeber are that; the devil is in the weeds, there are an awful lot of weeds and the bigger the system the greater the inertia and the more unlikely it is that a single mechanism will change its course.
The CO2 generated by burning fossil fuel is not new. It was once in the atmosphere, absorbed by plant life turned into coal/oil/gas and is now once again being turned back into CO2 by burning. In order for global warming to take us beyond the historic temperature peaks there needs to be new CO2 in order that the global % exceeds the historic maxima. That is of course if CO2 is to blame. I am a systems engineer and as a systems engineer the most important things to rememeber are that; the devil is in the weeds, there are an awful lot of weeds and the bigger the system the greater the inertia and the more unlikely it is that a single mechanism will change its course.
You are quite correct. But we don't need to go anywhere near "historic temperature peaks" for there to be a big impact on our existing civilisation - 1C more could do it.
Your analogy is not relevant. As a systems engineer you should also know that one bug can bring a system grinding to a halt.
Originally posted by paul m: The CO2 generated by burning fossil fuel is not new. It was once in the atmosphere, absorbed by plant life turned into coal/oil/gas and is now once again being turned back into CO2 by burning. In order for global warming to take us beyond the historic temperature peaks there needs to be new CO2 in order that the global % exceeds the historic maxima. That is of course if CO2 is to blame. I am a systems engineer and as a systems engineer the most important things to rememeber are that; the devil is in the weeds, there are an awful lot of weeds and the bigger the system the greater the inertia and the more unlikely it is that a single mechanism will change its course.
Here’s where you can correct me – there are 2 scenarios one of which is the right one
1) Back in the beginning of time, the earth atmosphere was mostly C02 (and much much warner then they are prediciting for now). Then algae and moss came along and started making Oxygen. Then came animals which ate things and gave off C02, while at the same time plants kept “fixing” CO2 as biomass (but not adding any). Therefore all of the C02 which was around at the dawn of time is now trapped in gas and oil deposits.
2) Everything wasn’t always C02. Sunlight hits the earth plants convert it it to biomass along with some C02 which then gets trapped under the ground when they die. (I.e. plants actually convert some sunlight to Carbon). Written like this – it doesn’t seem right so is probably the wrong answer. (Didn’t study biology past the age of 13).
If scenario 1 is the right answer – we better stop burning it (sooner or later), or the only things able to survive will be moss and algae.
Even if there’s no new C02 the problem seems to be that it’s not all been in the atmosphere before – well not in the last 650,000 years. (Probably since before the dinosaurs 65 million years ago?) as they breathed and ate plants – so a lot of 02 was around, and lots of plant matter had already fixed C02). We’re now burning all the stuff the dinousaurs ate, things that they ate and the things that they ate. Plus anything in between then and now that can burn, like peat bogs, or the amazon. Doh!
CO2 used to be in the atmosphere at much higher-levels and long before oxygen only when photosynthesis occurred by bacteria and plant life did oxygen appear. So without CO2 we would not be here today.
However, what you’ve overlooked in your scenarios and what the pro-AGW don't acknowledge is that this oil and gas is a natural process as the production of oxygen and irrespective as to how it eventually converts back to CO2 it will eventually convert back to CO2 irrespective of human activity - unless they think that this stuff will just sit there - which they probably do. Anyway back to reality, simply it won't it will eventually return to the atmosphere - it is highly likely that it will burn in vast quantities that result in huge CO2 gas clouds being ejected into the atmosphere killing everything air breathing creature in it's path and creating valley’s of deadly CO2 as was the case in the prehistoric period.
But this is ok as long as it is not us that burns it – maybe we have been doing life on this planet a service by gradually extracting an burning these substances rather than letting nature take it’s course.
The systems I deal with are massive and I have yet to find one brought down by a single fault, although you're right one thing can bring the system down (see computers), but natural design seems to be more resilient than man made. And in a system as large and as complex as the earths atmosphere I think this is unlikely, the system is so big and has so much inertia that short term observations are hardlly a basis for major decissions. We are concentrating on the last 100 or so years, yet the historic(ice core et al)temperature data sets just do not have the fidelity for us to say catagorically that the temperature is rising faster now than it ever has before. Going back to the bit about new CO2 though; I know that once the atmosphere was pretty much all CO2 (possibly depends on the theory) but I was really thinking about once life had really got going. Volcanos are cited by both sides as adding CO2, great or small depending on view point, but from the perspective of life most of it (CO2) is recycled. (an awful lot is tied up in rocks of one type or another and another big chunk is disolved in the sea and barring to major disasters is likely to stay there) 1C rise a major impact? some will win some will lose, depends on the perspective and the ultimate effects.
Not related to my original post; Personally I think the world is warming but I think the jury is out on the true cause, rate and ultimate effect. The polar bears and penguins have survived greater temperature excursions in the past, as have we humans and we at least were far less developed. The biggest losers it seems at the moment will be the developing nations and if the developed nations were to give them the technology that allows a low carbon economy to exist at a high level of technology then they too could develop. Trouble is I think that the US and Europe want to sell the technology rather than give it away and with debt levels and corruption being what they are this probably will not work. As an aside; I once saw a proposal for redistributing sea water into below sea level desert regions by building canals and tunnels in order to create large bodies of inland water to encourage rainfall, more heat = more evaporation + plenty of particulates = more cloud = more rainfall = less desert. anyone know what happenned to it and would it have worked?
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Originally posted by Steve_M:
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The CO2 generated by burning fossil fuel is not new. It was once in the atmosphere, absorbed by plant life turned into coal/oil/gas and is now once again being turned back into CO2 by burning. In order for global warming to take us beyond the historic temperature peaks there needs to be new CO2 in order that the global % exceeds the historic maxima. That is of course if CO2 is to blame. I am a systems engineer and as a systems engineer the most important things to rememeber are that; the devil is in the weeds, there are an awful lot of weeds and the bigger the system the greater the inertia and the more unlikely it is that a single mechanism will change its course.
You are quite correct. But we don't need to go anywhere near "historic temperature peaks" for there to be a big impact on our existing civilisation - 1C more could do it.
Your analogy is not relevant. As a systems engineer you should also know that one bug can bring a system grinding to a halt.
We are concentrating on the last 100 or so years, yet the historic(ice core et al)temperature data sets just do not have the fidelity for us to say catagorically that the temperature is rising faster now than it ever has before.
The geological record is interesting in that it demonstrates that there isn't such thing as a "correct" climate, and that small changes can bring big climate changes.
We can make assessments of the causes of changes to geological climates (continents moving can cut off ocean currents, or cause mountains to rise that absorb CO2, Milankovitch cycles cause subtle redistributions of solar radiation which then lead on to stronger feedbacks, such as CO2 rises), but obviously we don't have enough observational evidence. But it would be wrong to say that, as we don't know the details, the changes "just happened because it is natural for change to happen". All the changes will have reasons.
In the 20-21st century, we have a lot of observational evidence, and evidence of the amount of energy coming into the earth and the amount of energy going out, and we have a physical understanding of many of the phenomena which gives us a chance to make a better assessment of what is going on.
New CO2 ...Is that like 'new' labour - only joking!!
Did you see the pictures of the 'lake' on ethane/methane on saturn's moon..forgot it's name ...is this really how this planet made it's first steps on the evolutionary ladder?
Have they/ are they likely to use this planet as a model at all..they said it was very similar to ours......
I think the really crucial thing though is not what happened millions of years ago, but what is happening now. We live on THIS version of earth. Not one that was around a long time ago. Sure we can burn the CO2 and life will continue. Heck, we could prob burn it all and humaity will continue. However, the problem/worry is that if we do the earth we know today could change dramaticlly (as it has over that long period of history). We can probably cope with it using technology (such as rising sea temperature), but really its whether we want it to change, or whether we want to risk it changing. I would guess not as this could have impact on many aspects of our life.
Though, the earth will change again over the millions of years in the future and we will have to live with it (if we are still around).
