Jack. (01)
Scientific American of February has an article by Ruddiman (who has a
book in the press called "Plows, Plague and Petroleum" - rings a bell
somewhere? He hypothisizes that global warming began about 8000 years
ago due to beginnings of agriculture (CH4 emissions from wetland like
rice paddies) with also effect beginning about 5000 years ago (CO2 from
deforestation). Latter effect enhanced in last century, hence the hockey
stick graph. His data are based on analyses of ice cores. Without those
effects we would have followed the temperature pattern consequential to
solar radiation variations due to changing Earth-Sun geometry. That
would have already put is in the now still upcoming ice age. (02)
I thought it would be interesting to combine Ruddiman's hypothesis with
a Dutch newspaper report about politicians reviving notion of stepping
up nuclear. Given the choice, nuclear or global warming, talk is of
nuclear being less of these evils. However, nuclear would engender
resistance in The Neherlands whereas not so in France (different
populations, hence different attitudes). (03)
Googling for "global warming" brings up as top candidates a sight by the
Environmental Protection Agency and a strongly contrasting "consumers
rights" site. (04)
Mix all this in with what we find on the site you refer to (RealClimate)
and we have the beginnings of a heap of material that really takes a
cooperative effort to turn into a comprehensible digest upon which to
take a position. (05)
I thought I might do some item on Ruddiman and public attitudes, but it
is clear I would only add to the noise surrounding a complex issue. (06)
Which makes me wonder about the sanity of going ahead with Fleabyte as a
blog, to say nothing of my own sanity. (07)
Well, here is still pondering, (08)
Henry (09)
On Sat, 2005-02-19 at 11:48, Jack Park wrote:
> Here [1] is a really interesting blog, using TypePad. It's a bunch of
> climate scientists (or appears to be so) doing a useful job of
> discussing climate issues in light of the scary headlines starting to
> show up everywhere.
>
> Jack
> [1] http://www.realclimate.org/ (010)
--
This message is archived at: (011)
http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=yak&i=1108837012.3014.20.camel@localhost.localdomain (012)
|