Climate Change - Norfolk, Virgina

Watched "Need To Know" tonight on PBS concerning Climate Change and rising oceans onto land.  Specifically, Norfolk, Virgina.  First, the documentry started with man-made causes being the culprit for ocean from properties being flooded during high tides, then, they describe the history of Norfolk some 400 years ago being wetlands and being covered over, now causing the lands to sink.
Anyone in the area know the facts as to whether or not the area is sinking or that the ocean is rising?  Surely, I would suggest the situation is about sinking land and little to do with Global Warming/Climate Change, though they can impact areas.

We haven't seen much rise in ocean levels from global warming yet.  So any flooding that is happening now is unlikely to have much to do with ocean level rise due to global warming.  The models predict that will change within the next 50 years, though.  And observations over the last few years indicate that the models are looking over-optimistic about how long it will take.  So rising ocean levels due to global warming can be expected to have dramatic impacts eventually, but that hasn't happened yet.

So far, the biggest impact of global warming on the oceans has been the acutely rising acidity, as the oceans soak up huge amounts of the CO2 we're producing, converting it to carbonic acid.  As the ocean acidity rises, it will become less able to soak up CO2, which isn't particularly good news, since our production of CO2 is constantly going up at ever-increasing rates.

A couple of factors that are climate change experts appear to have not factored are the sun with its sun spot activity and the simple fact that the size of our galaxy is millions of light years wide.

The latest sunspot activity is set to cool the earth...

Here in OZ we have a leader who belives taxing us with a carbon tax will reduce global warmimng!


RADU

Sun spot activity is cyclical, and doesn't really have a long-term climactic impact.  Sun spots regularly come and go on approximately an 11 year cycle (it varies a bit).  The next maxima is expected around 2013, then sunspots will decrease again to a minimum sometime around 2019, just like they were in 2005.  That cycle is constant, and doesn't really have climactic impact.  However, over time, the sun is changing, and burning hotter.  So eventually, the rising solar temperatures will have a significant impact on the Earth.  However, the time frame for that is more on the terms of 500 million to a billion years from now.  Not a serious concern.

A carbon tax is actually something that could have a significant impact.  Even a small tax would help, even though it wouldn't severly impact the usage of fossil fuels.  But the revenue could be pumped into R&D for renewable technologies, giving us other options on a quicker time frame.  A larger tax would have a greater impact, since more expensive fossil fuels would give people greater incentive to avoid using fossil fuels.  And when we have incentive to do things, we actually are capable of doing rather amazing things.

There are some big problems with a carbon tax.  The biggest is that it is a "regressive" tax, having a greater negative impact on the poor than on the wealthy, who can easily afford a carbon tax.  Another is that we really need something like this on a global scale, and it's not enough for just OZ to address the issue.  And another is that instituting something like a carbon tax is tricky, as it can be difficult to measure, and the methods we use to measure and assess the tax will have a significant impact.  Another is that there are a lot of very wealthy entrenched interests that will be hurt by a carbon tax, so are fighting it tooth and nail.  And even if a carbon tax materializes, those same interests will do their very best to twist the way the tax is assessed, so they get loopholes for themselves.  So there are a lot of logistical nightmares involved in a carbon tax.

The eleven year cycle is the most common number cited, but not the only one. Over the past 150 years the sunspot minimum to minimum time has been from 9 to 14 years, so it is not exactly a clock. Plus there are longer term cycles that have much less precision than 11 +/- 2-3 years. These cycles can overlay the common 11 enhancing peaks and minimums. The Maunder Minimum was 1645-1715, that was 70 years at the minimum and resulted in the Little ice Age. i suggest that 70 years was "Long Term" to those that were freezing in summer.  

Data on sunpots has only been accumulated since 1610 and accurately since 1874.

The sun rises and sets on a well documented cycle, check back on the sumspot cycle in another 200 years for more predictability.

Paul in PA

The PROPOSED carbon tax is TAXING the polluting GENERATORS, giving to the needy and then giving to the very coal fired polluting generators!  mean while middle OZ pay dearly with huge power cost increases so the polluters can continue to spew forth their CO2

We have just had the S American volcanoe cloud across our southern OZ capital city and NZ , closing airports on two successive occasions in last  two weeks. The extent of that pollution far greater than that emission's from OZ.

Try and tell our ratbag Prime Minister that the tax from OZ will save the world! She is a communist stooge for getting 90%   percent of OZ to be lambs for slaughter! Getting rid of middle class money so her labor party can be the  MANIPULATORS of dependent dominations


RADU

Paul in PA:
The Maunder Minimum was 1645-1715, that was 70 years at the minimum and resulted in the Little ice Age.

True, but we don't really understand the sunspot cycle yet, and cannot predict it.  So we can't say anything like "The latest sunspot activity is set to cool the earth.."  That's something we'll only know after it happens.  As of now, all we can do is assume that the normal 11-year cycle (+/- a few years) will  continue, since that's what it's done pretty regularly most of the time, as far as we know.  And the normal cycle has a negligble impact on climate.

RADU:
We have just had the S American volcanoe cloud across our southern OZ capital city and NZ , closing airports on two successive occasions in last  two weeks. The extent of that pollution far greater than that emission's from OZ.
 

Umm, no...  The airports were closed because the volcanic dust eats up engines.  That's a temporary thing, and is unrelated to greenhouse gas emissions.

And when it comes to greenhouse gasses, volcanoes don't even come close.  Check out:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php

This states that depending on which numbers you want to use, our annual CO2 emissions exceed volcanoes by 80 to 270 times, with the most-preferred number being about 135 times.  So last year, our CO2 emissions roughly matched global volcanic emissions since 1875.

I don't know the details of the law that was proposed in OZ, but I agree that coming up with any GOOD such law is very problematic.  And it's true that such a law might not have any real effect...

Some scientists are now feeling that we could completely cease ALL emissions today, and the gasses already in the atmosphere will continue heating the Earth enough to cause major global loss of glaciers and ice sheets.  And that is expected to expose long-frozen bogs, which will begin emitting large amounts of methane, which will heat the Earth far more than all our global CO2 emissions for the last 200 years.  And the Earth won't stop warming until all the effects of THAT run out.  In other words, more and more people fear we've already crossed the "tipping point", and we're just in for the ride now, no matter WHAT we do to curb emissions.

Of course, that means we might end up trying other routes, like seeding the upper-atmosphere with yet some other compound/chemical in an attempt to reflect the Sun's energy out into space before it gets trapped in the atmosphere.  And if/when we hit that point, we'll REALLY know we're truly screwed...

Richard, I  understand that the particles can act as reflectors and therefore deflect light/heat . 

The silicon dust particles melt in jet engines and also block the ventruri  pipes used for speed determination.

We do not know the details  of our Carbon Tax that our PM keeps telling us we are going to have> Her minority government  is in power because of Greens who are demanding coal powered  generators are all closed  down!  Yet we have the same government happy to sell gas and coal by the boat loads to China, where pollution knows no bounds.

The problem of the climate change  is there is no expert across all the factors that make our earth exist.


RADU

Scientists can actually derive source of atmospheric carbon by fingerprinting it via the specific carbon isotopes.  The higher isotopes (particularly Carbon-14) is unusually low in atmospheric carbon, lower than what is normally naturally occuring via volcanism, et cetera due to two causes: 1.) preference to C-12 and C-13 by plants and 2.) decay over time of C-14 in fossilized plant matter, which both point to man's activity.

 I could see that the Al Gore and Obama Camps would not be very happy with the replies made to my question which is counter to their ideology, and why they may not be too enthused to do something that would benefit the economic conditions of our field of civil/surveying & construction.
You live up to the Lincoln and Washington mind set.  I'm proud of you and I agree with your posts.  Keep up the excellent work.

I'm not sure about that...

I don't think much of the "carbon offset" market.  And I sincerely doubt GW is having any effect on flooding in Norfolk, at least not yet.  But I'd expect my comments to be a lot more disturbing to most Republicans...

Gore's movie was based on the models we had at the time, some six or seven years ago now.  And of course, the big problem with using models is that they extrapolate known trends.  As time passes, more and more unforseen influences come into play, and the models diverge more and more from what we actually see.  So it's very possible that many things predicted in Gore's movie won't happen, or won't happen quite as portrayed.

But the scary thing is that those models from 2004 predicted that we'd be at a certain state right now, with a certain PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere, a certain amount of ocean acidity, and a certain amount of glacial melt.  And when we look at the world today, ALL of those are worse than what the 2004 models predicted.  So there's little comfort to be had, and as time goes on, things actually get scarier and scarier.

When I say that we might not be able to change anything by limiting emissions, that's not a GOOD thing.  If that's true, then it means we're too late, and the Earth will experience extreme change in a short timespan.  We might survive that change, but it won't be easy or pleasant.  And by the time the Earth hits a steady state again, if we're still around, we may find ourselves in a world that is intrinsically hostile to us, instead of intrinsically in harmony with us.  That's not a pleasant thought.

As for something that would "benefit the economic conditions of our field of civil/surveying and construction", Obama's done far more in that regard than the Republicans.  The "Obama stimulus plan" helped our industry a fair bit for a little while, despite the fact that 1/3 of the stimulus was wasted on tax cuts that lined the pockets of the wealthy without providing stimulus, and another 1/3 or so was wasted on Congressmen's pet projects that provided little stimulus.  True, it was nowhere near big enough to have a real impact - the residential housing market alone is bigger than the rest of the construction market combined, and a few improvement projects is a tiny dent in comparison - but it did a lot more to help our industry than anything that the Republicans have done.  In fact, as far as Republicans go, the main thing that comes to mind is that stuff in Florida and Texas, and the push to deregulate our industry.  And I don't think that's a good thing for our industry, or anyone who relies on our industry (including all property owners).

Mr. Hack,

I think your last sentence says it all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

http://www.unavco.org/community_science/science_highlights/glacial_rebound/glacial_rebound.html

It seems to me that "glacial isostatic adjustment" has far less of a political agenda than:

• "...Scientists can actually derive source of atmospheric carbon by fingerprinting...",
• "Gore's movie was based on the models we had at the time..."
• "I  understand that the particles can act as reflectors and therefore deflect light/heat ."
• "So eventually, the rising solar temperatures will have a significant impact on the Earth."

I'll bet you guys make much better surveyors than you do climatologists or meteorologists.

Old_Maps:
I'll bet you guys make much better surveyors than you do climatologists or meteorologists.
 

Please don't follow others' examples, and resort to insults.  Some around here seem to like that sort of thing, but I don't find it appealing myself.

I see nothing in the links you posted that is contrary to anything I wrote.  If you would like to join the conversation, feel free, but please actually join the conversation.  Don't just post vague links amidst vague insults.  The general atmosphere around here is bad enough, and needs no further encouragement, in my opinion.

When I was in college the question was not global warming, it was concern over the start of the next ice age. 
I recommend Michael Crighton's "State of Fear". In this novel he raises some interesting issues.

1) Environmental Policy should be based upon science.  Political movements wrapped in the mantle of 'science' should be unmasked for the shams that they are. Environmental policy is too serious. Those of us who truly believe in the stewardship of planet earth should demand nothing less.

2) Environmental Science should be vetted the same way medical science is, by double-blind studies. The reason for this is because scientists consciously or unconsciously find the results that the funders are seeking. 

3) 'Consensus science' is simply an expression of the collective politically correct thinking. It only takes one scientist employing the actual scientific method to uncover the facts of the observable cosmos. Examples of consensus science of the past include such things as the earth as the center of the universe, flat earth, spontaneous generation, the theory of humors, etc. The high priests of the age tout consensus science. The true scientist stands on the solid foundation of data observed,  the inferences that can properly be drawn from it and the repeatability of the findings.

It is only a novel but the Crighton asks some valuable questions. I enjoy writers like Crighton because he actually makes you think while at the same time entertaining. For example in another novel "Jurasic Park" he asks a very important question: When science finds out that it can do something, who is there to ask if it should be done? 

''Cap and trade' started from the idea that if one power plant owner follows the regulations and exceeds the minimum standards for reduction of pollution that they can sell the excess reduction as a credit to another power plant owner as a temporary measure to allow the polluter to stay in business while seeking to come into compliance.  The way you implement an idea really matters. If done properly this could create an incentive for the owner seeking to truly minimize pollution while allowing another who is behind the curve to stay in business and fund the other persons good practices.

That basic idea, not necessarily a bad one, has been morphed into a socialist scheme to have the 'haves' help the global 'have-nots'.  Whether or not the haves should help the have-nots is a discussion for another place. The trouble with this scheme (aside from its disingenuity) is that it does not reduce pollution one bit!  Having rich polluters make payoffs to indigenous peoples who have a lesser 'carbon footprint' does nothing to help the planet.

Recently I was driving north from NY on the Thruway and a h***** with a Jersey plate blasted past proudly displaying a bumper sticker that proclaimed "This vehicle is supported by a carbon offset" and the logo of some environmental group. Right. That is doing a lot of good.

BTW, apparently the filter thinks that the name of a recently defunct GM Division (the one that produced the civilian version of a military vehicle) is an obsenity! TERRIFIC!

Just wanted all to know that I was not lapsing into a vulgarity

The only bumper sticker aphorism that has ever remained with me says: "Don't believe everything you think!" Whether we believe that science is presenting us with a warning about climate change, or that human activity contributes to it, is not important. If we choose to drive through a red light it is only a warning that the odds of a vehicle colliding with us has been elevated. What is important is to engage reliable science.

A New York Times piece a couple of months ago can help bring us up to speed a bit on these sea-level matters. It contains a link to a recent Australian report on sea level change over roughly 150 years. In addition, you might be interested in reading a piece from the same publication what Norfolk, VIrginia, is doing in response to what they percieve to be an increasing risk along their shoreline.

"Icebergs?!? All ahead full!"

NYTimes: "Sea-Level Study Uses TIde Guage Data," April 7, 2011
NYTimes: "Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea," November 25, 2010

LJOConnor:
When I was in college the question was not global warming, it was concern over the start of the next ice age. 


 

Yes, and this is often cited as a reason to ignore global warming.

The only problem is that it's a distortion of the truth.  For the most part, it goes back to a single 1971 study that misunderstood the cooling trend that was then happening.  That trend has since been primarily attributed to sulfer aerosols, which our factories were pumping like crazy into the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures and creating acid rain.  Fortunately, that was an easy problem to solve, and factories stopped emitting so much sulfer.  That fixed the acid rain problem, at the cost of removing one of the things that was acting against global warming.

The misunderstanding of what was causing the brief cooldown was also conflated with the newly-discovered Milankovich cycles, which was thought to predict a new ice age in about 10,000 years.

Those misunderstandings were then popularized in stories in Time and Newsweek.  And the stories in Time and Newsweek failed to have all the caveats of the scientific studies, which said that they hadn't yet come to an understanding of or conclusion about what was causing the cooling trend, or how long it could be expected to continue.  And the public, which only read the popular news stories and not the scientific studies, got the very wrong impression that a new ice age was starting.

Unlike today, there was never wide-spread scientific consensus that we were heading toward an ice age - in fact, outside of that one study, there were pretty much no predictions of an impending ice age.  There were never warnings on every front of science, growing ever worse on an almost-daily basis, the way we have today.  Implying that the two situations are even remotely alike is a gross mischaracterization and a re-writing of history.  It does, however, provide a nice little sound-bite argument for FUD campaigns that like to ignore all science done over the last 40 years.

For what it's worth, though, I agree with your assessment of the carbon offset market.

LJOConnor:
3) 'Consensus science' is simply an expression of the collective politically correct thinking. It only takes one scientist employing the actual scientific method to uncover the facts of the observable cosmos. Examples of consensus science of the past include such things as the earth as the center of the universe, flat earth, spontaneous generation, the theory of humors, etc. The high priests of the age tout consensus science. The true scientist stands on the solid foundation of data observed,  the inferences that can properly be drawn from it and the repeatability of the findings.

 

You also have to be very wary of arguments like this.  One problem is that it is very easily abused.  In a sense, all science proceeds "by consensus".  So how do you discern between "real science" and "consensus science"?

You gave some pretty darn good examples.  Things like the geocentric theory of the universe, spontaneous generations, and humors illustrate the growth of science.  Those things actually made sense, given the context of understanding at the time.  But it is a fallacious argument to say that, just because we once believed something that we now know is incorrect, that ALL SCIENCE is incorrect.  Attempting to use this argument to disprove GW is like saying that we once treated most illnesses by sticking leeches on people, so therefore all our current medecine is invalid.  It is an error in logic.

You can also get into other problems, such as talking about the "flat earth".  True, once upon a time, the "flat earth" theory was common.  But since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, that has not been true.  Contrary to the popular story many of us heard in grade school, Columbus and crew KNEW the Earth was round, and had absolutely no fear of "falling off the edge".  The fear was that many scientists of the time said that Columbus was using bad estimates of the size of the Earth, and there was no way that his crews would last until they reached the Orient.  And as it turns out, the prevailing science of the time was right.  Columbus just got lucky that there was an "unknown" continent in between Europe and Japan, which allowed his crew to survive.

You talk about a "solid foundation of data observed", but when it comes to Global Warming, we HAVE that.  We have tons and tons of observed data, and all our observations point to Global Warming.  Countless scientists in hundreds of different branches of science have all explored their own paths, and ended up at the same conclusion.  Trying to say that all of these thousands and thousands of scientists over all disciplines of science and decades of work are all suffering from a mass delusion, or are all part of some consipiracy, is simply ridiculous.  An awful lot of those scientists wanted to disprove GW, but their efforts have done nothing but help confirm it.

At this point, there is no doubt whatsoever that GW is happening.  The unknowns are how fast and how much things will warm up before other factors kick in to help get the Earth back to a steady state, what precisely the impact of that warming will be, and whether or not the Earth will be a good habitat for humans (or even if humans will still be around) once it finally achieves the next steady state.

There is also no doubt that the Earth will survive, and will not be destroyed by our emissions.  The doubt is about whether we can start living in a sustainable fashion before we drive ourselves into extinction, or at the very least, before we destroy our current civilization and send ourselves back into another Dark Age.