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| clouds and coal question http://www.envirolink.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18504 |
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| Author: | Ann Vole [ Sun May 27, 2012 2:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | clouds and coal question |
Personally I don't really care what direction the world's temperature is heading nor what is causing it to go that way but I am curious from a scientific standpoint what connection has been assigned to coal burning particulates and their influence on creating clouds and if those are high clouds or low clouds and what that means, if anything, to the expected influence on global temperatures. I have to admit that I only skim the recent conversations of CO2 vs clouds vs solar output for influencing global temperatures. |
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| Author: | Wayne Stollings [ Mon May 28, 2012 5:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: clouds and coal question |
| Author: | Johhny Electriglide [ Mon May 28, 2012 5:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: clouds and coal question |
From what I have studied, global dimming from coal soot is masking AGW variably downwind of coal fired plants, generally around 10% dimming. The soot cloud from India also contains their cook fire particulates and is 7 times as large as India itself. It is negatively affecting the crop yields in the Maldives and settling on to arctic ice, making it melt faster. The soots from China settle across the US, especially the NW where over 120 toxins from the coal plants of China were found. Some of the carbon soot is of carcinogenic size and there is a lot of mercury in it. US and European coal plants are a little "cleaner". Global dimming is also caused by heavy jet traffic. On the no fly days right after 9/11/2001, the US reported 2.5 to 3*F temperature spikes. Emissions of CO2 and other HGHGs is significantly higher now than then and jet traffic continues to mask much of it. Eventually, if people do not quit burning fossil fuels and doing slash and burn agriculture, the oil will run nearly out, HGHG levels will be much higher, and when the jets quit most of their flying, watch out!!! The temperature will then REALLY spike upwards. Future generations will pay the price of the denialism, greed, and pure selfish stupidity of the generations previous to them. The population crash survivors will have an increasingly malevolent world climate with rapid species loss to try to survive in. The tipping point of methane self release first from the tundras, then from the oceans at progressive depths will be passed. The tipping point of oceanic warming from less and less reflective ice will also be passed. It will be, geologically, rapid change, while the re-sequestering of atmospheric carbon will be a very long process. It took over 150,000 years back after PETM, and another 2 million or more to get back the species diversity. It happened at about 1/10th the speed, and had a 30% extinction level. This one will be far worse because of its rapidity (geologically) and the fact that there is more carbon in the system now than then. This will increase extinction level and recovery time substantially. The dimming is a temporary thing, and soots settle out in a few years. There is a very SMALL chance, that if somehow people did not crash themselves and burned all the coal, oil, natural gas, and forests, there could be a Venusian type runaway greenhouse effect. Then no life could ever exist again on Earth after the oceans evaporate away. That is an even worse scenario, but contemplated by Hansen and others. You really should care about the way AGW is headed, my dear(it could mean many more mosquitoes in Canada!). In a previous thread on the extra clouds from extra water vapor, from AGW, the result was a slight net positive in the upward climb of temperature, with HGHGs causing most of the temperature gain. Later, the self release of methane deposits will cause most of the heat increase. |
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| Author: | Ann Vole [ Mon May 28, 2012 11:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: clouds and coal question |
Thanks Johhny Electriglide... that is basically what I assumed but thought there might be new thinking or measurements to influence that thinking. The reason it is on my mind is that there is a push by the Chinese to phase out coal use... because of the heavy metals only... and figured that such a move has good and bad points including the loss of that shading effect. |
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| Author: | warmair [ Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:03 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: clouds and coal question |
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