Observations and climate model results confirm that human-induced warming of the planet is having a pronounced effect on the atmosphere’s total moisture content…”When you heat the planet, you increase the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture,” said Benjamin Santer, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
“The atmosphere’s water vapor content has increased by about 0.41 kilograms per cubic meter (kg/m²) per decade since 1988, and natural variability in climate just can’t explain this moisture change. The most plausible explanation is that it’s due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases.”
Using 22 different computer models of the climate system and measurements from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager, atmospheric scientists from LLNL and eight other international research centers have shown that the recent increase in moisture content over the bulk of the world’s oceans is not due to solar forcing or gradual recovery from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The primary driver of this ‘atmospheric moistening’ is the increase in carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“This is the first identification of a human fingerprint on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere,” Santer said.
I’ll leave to you to guess which finger it is.
Aside from my smartass remark, work your way through the questions discussed at the end of the article. Of particular note is “atmospheric moisture content is one of the large-scale environmental conditions that influences the genesis and development of hurricanes” – a dialectical change witnessed just the other week with Hurricane Humberto.
Misanthropic Scott, well of course nuclear power has negatives, but so do fossil fuel plants. If the effects of global warming are as bad as you say, then you should be calling for more nuclear plants, which are certainly achievable. The fact that they take ten years to come online is irrelevant, as the impact of global warming takes decades.
#58 – ROFL! 🙂
Most of the science is going to end up slowly being backtracked to fit the new data. That’s how science works after all. The HOCKEY STICK that was supposed to be proof of global warming has been dropped in the face of new investigation. Basically the guy who created it won’t make his methodology public, and the hockey stick couldn’t be independently verified.
Then they said that 1998 was the warmest year on record, and so many of the warmest years happened recently. Well it turned out there were some mistakes in that data, and in fact the warmest year is 1934, and many of the warmest years happened around then.
At some point scientists will catch on to just how much clouds and aerosols matter. If you change those variables slightly in the models, it creates as much effect as doubling greenhouse gas emissions.
tinyurl.com/2kqlh8
#9, Scott,
Can I get extra credits for my decision not to reproduce?
Gee Scott, The world would be a better place with more people of your mind set.
(Hey, ya got that $5 ya owe me?)
#31 – ‘Clearly, in your mind, the construction of wind turbines, solar panels, and underwater turbines is far greater than the amount of land destroyed by building a nuclear plant and mining for uranium (a nasty business), or mountaintop removal, or oil pipelines and oil spills and drilling rigs.’
The fact remains that Bambi won’t have place to live. It takes more wind, solar, and tidal plants to produce as much power as a modern nuclear power plant. Thus the land use is greater and just as damaging to the enviroment.
‘Nuclear power is far better than fossil fuels. I’ll agree with you there. However, as for it being available now, it takes about 10 years for a plant to come online. It also takes about $2GB (gigabucks) provided by the government, paid for by taxpayers, and then given to the power company for free. No wonder the power companies love them.’
Nuclear isn’t purfect & should not be long term solution. And it is expensive, now. But to make enough power that ‘we’ demand, how will solar, wind & tidal plants be any cheaper? And electric companies will love alternative sources for electrical energy too, as long as they are in control!. If the politcal BS wasn’t in the equation, I doubt it would take 10 years to get a new plant on-line.
‘Let’s not forget about the waste they produce, the security necessary to protect both the plant and the waste from terrorism, the fact that no one wants the waste carted through their backyard, the fact that we have no place to store the waste, etc.’
Let’s also not forget that a lot of new technologies regarding nuclear waste & recycling have been uncovered since the days of 3 Mile Island. France has done very well with recycling nucear waste to a fraction of what our plants make. Uranium isn’t our only choice. Thermium (sp?) plants have shown impressive numbers with lower operating temputures. All power plants are a ‘terrorist threat’. Nuclear plants are actually more difficult to infiltrate than solar , wind, & tidal. Real damage requires access to the core. Not easy by any account. And setting off the core, which would take a huge boom, wouldn’t be easy either. Regardless, any power plant of any type requires proper training & procedures of their security personnel. By the way, many nuclear power plants arounf the country are located in ‘park like’ out door setting. Singing birds and all.
‘I mean that the EV-1 was a good car that went 200 miles on a charge. I mean that Tesla Motors has a car that does 0-60 in 4 seconds and goes 250 miles on a charge with a 3 hour recharge time. Cars like this are good enough for a large percentage of the population. Tesla is also working on a sedan. Toyota made a RAV4 too. I mean the cars work. That we don’t have them can be explained more fully by watching the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”’
But are they cost effective? Are they less polluting to build and drive? What’s making that electricity for that 3 hour charge? What is the overall enviromental footprint to make these cars? And you didn’t aswer the second part of my question regarding recycling of electric cars and their components.
I’m not a nuclear power fan boy & I don’t think oil is the right move either. But I don’t think we should play this hand from a ‘reactionary’ stand point. This country houses some of the greatest minds on the planet. If all the politcal BS could be restrained, and get these ‘geniuses’ the funding and support they require, we wouldn’t have to have these types of discussions. Maybe then a solar plant can produce more ‘cheap’ energy than any nuclear plant.
This story is a crock. The maximum water air will hold is 30 grams or .03 kg per cubic meter at 30 degrees centigrade. An increase of 0.41kg or 410 grams of water is simply bs.
BS just like everything about man made global warming, which can’t and wont explain why the polar caps on mars began melting at the same time as earth’s.
I blame the excess moisture to the San Fernando Valley porn industry.
I’d love to keep debating this but I’m going to spend a whole day driving to Indiana tomorrow and driving back on Sunday. Lots of exhaust . I know Fusion and OFTLO are there. Just think, one of you might see me. (Don’t start ram\ndomly smacking people hoping it’s me! 😉 )
You’re gonna put a couple 500 lb. sandbags in the trunk, keep it in second gear the entire trip – AND leave the gas cap off, I presume… 😉
#71, B.,
Your numbers look about right to me. I don’t picture a cubic meter as holding more than three grams of water. Damn, I got too much crap to do so maybe someone else could research this. Only I thought the standard temperature was 20 C.
OK, time to lock up the dog and hide the marshmallows. iHotAir(YOP) is headed this way.
#65 – MikeN,
Actually, we probably don’t have decades. We may not even have one decade. Of course, the effects take years. But, so does getting rid of the carbon. It is not definite when we will cross one of many tipping points sending us into a positive feedback loop of warming. Further, the warming we already feel now is from carbon emitted 10 years ago. We are committed to 10 more years of warming from today’s carbon, even if we were to shut down all sources now.
#70 – Lowfreq,
The fact remains that Bambi won’t have place to live. It takes more wind, solar, and tidal plants to produce as much power as a modern nuclear power plant. Thus the land use is greater and just as damaging to the enviroment.
Again, you are forgetting about the mining operations, the gravel pit for all the concrete, etc.
You are also forgetting that for wind power, the towers are quite far apart and can be put on land leased from farmers that the farmers continue to farm. They farm the area between the windmills. It’s a near total win, except for the birds and bats, of course. But, more of them will die of global warming than will die from hitting wind turbines.
BTW, feel free to do your own search for rates. Every search I have done comes up with nuclear far higher in cost per kilowatt hour than any of the renewables. As for how to get enough power, build lots of turbines and solar concentrators and PVCs and tidal turbines.
Are electric cars cost effective? Definitely!! Just remember to factor in the subsidies for oil, the cost of the Iraq war, the health costs, and all the rest. Gasoline is about $15/gallon. We just pay it in our taxes instead of at the pump.
#71 – B Cook, #75 Mr. Fusion,
Read the quote from the full article again:
the total atmospheric moisture content over oceans has increased by 0.41 kg/m2 per decade since 1988
I interpret this as the total water in a column of air over a square meter of ocean. This is not water per cubic meter.
#67, MikeN:
Obviously, because some of the research is or was wrong, it negates the science completely.
Because, you know, I’ve always disliked evolution, gravity, quantum mechanics, string theory, the theory of relativity…
After all, these theories weren’t perfect to begin with and some were based on bad science, so they’re obviously worthless!
#9 “have no effect on our quality of life, except for CFLs”
CFLs and LEDs are an mammoth ecological disaster in the making. I originally come from the lighting / lamp industry (+20 years).
To make a incandescent light bulb is easy and very environmentally friendly. Glass bulb, argon gas, tungsten filament, brass base and tin solder. Bida bop bida boom!
To make a fluorescent lamp (of any type) Light is produced by passing an electric arc between tungsten filament electrodes in a tube filled with a low pressure mercury vapour and argon / krypton gases. The arc ionises mercury vapour which generates visible and ultraviolet light. This UV energy is absorbed by the halo phosphor coating on the inside of the tube causing it to fluoresce, converting the ultraviolet into visible light.
The manufacturing process for the glass tubing is nasty as the phosphors are suspended in a volatile liquid which is used to coat the tube and the liquid is evaporated (into the air!). In the US there are strict regulations on how much fluorescent tubing can be coated per day – as it has an such an environmental impact. (So get them made in China – easy!!)
To make the finished lamp mercury metal is inserted into the CFL during filling of the carrier gas(es) argon / krypton.
This means you cannot just throw ANY fluorescent lamp into the rubbish as they contain mercury and poisonous mercury compounds, and phosphors which pollute the environment.
ALL fluorescent lamps must be properly disposed of and the processed requires energy!! All the “carbon” saving you guys think you saved are used by the disposal process!! What a goof!!
What has really happened is that lamp manufacturers get to sell you new products which makes the business world go around. Yay!!
Next phase is the LED lamps… Hee Hee. Gallium Arsenide is used to make LEDs – Arsenic is the key word here… Semi conductor manufacture is one of the nastiest industries ever conceived!! There are so many chemicals used that kill you. Any equipment used in semi-conductor manufacture requires decontamination certification before disposal or repair. Is there any wonder why China is now the LED manufacturing hub of the world? Toss LEDs into the rubbish? What about the arsenic, and the polycarbonate? These need to be reprocessed, don’t they?
Suddenly these “Green” light sources are no longer green are they? The humble light bulb is still the greenest light source there is despite all the political rhetoric to the contrary. Ask about the manufacturing and disposal processes.
Think about this. What product does everyone on the earth needs to buy? The humble light bulb. So how much can be made by getting everyone to switch to different more expensive light bulbs? BILLIONS of dollars!!
It is the most contrived marketing campaign ever.
Feeling a bit ‘raped’ about now? You should! 😉
Cheers
I think we will get hit by a meoter or comet before it all really matters. A big one that is…..
Sherman set the Wayback machine to 10,000BC the end of the last Ice age.
Scene: People are concerned about about the rapidly melting Ice cap up to 2 miles thick covering 97% of what is to become Canada and the northern US. Almost leader ‘Gored By Bush’ has reason for Ice melting.
Ogg: Why ICE melting?
Gored By Bush: We do this.
Ogg: Really, how we do this?
Gored By Bush: We make fire – fire make hot – hot make Ice melt – duh!
Ogg: Oh…
The end of the last Ice age caused by Global ‘Hotting’.
See? History does repeat itself! Yay! 😆
Cheers
#78 – M Scott
You are correct.
I have always enjoyed the hubris on parade of armchair “scientists”, “lawyers” and other such egotisitical self-appointed would-be “experts” who point the finger at professionals and confidently, nay, arrogantly, pass their illinformed judgement on them. Once in a great while they actually catch a real error – except that even in those rare incidents, it’s usually a typo or a misquote by a 3rd party.
Takes brass balls – and a notable lack of common sense – to fancy that the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories are going to publish, in print and online, a press release detailing research findings by an experienced, credentialled professional scientist in a given field which asserts a gross, fundamental error – in this case, a scientific impossibility – with no one noticing. No one except B Cook, that is.
“B Cook”, before shooting your mouth off, and calling something “a crock” you would do well to consider the overwhelmingly more likely scenario that your ego has blinded you to; that a world-class expert, at such a world-class institution would actually assert a scientific blunder so elementary is so unlikely that it is virtually certain that the error lies in your faulty amateur reading of that assertion. The press release specifies, as M Scott pointed out, the increase as occurring “in the atmosphere”, with the unit of interest being a square meter. If you were an actual scientist, and not a know-it-all anti-AGW ideologue in denial, you would of course instinctively recognize the “atmosphere” as being a sphere, and the square, NOT cubic, meter cited as representing a section of that 3D entity, the implied third dimension OBVIOUSLY being the height of the atmosphere itself.
You’re a shining example of the kind of modern person, who, courtesy of the myth of democracy, has been permitted, even encouraged, to believe that your layman’s ignorance is up to challenging the collective work of professional scientists at the top of their field on content. You don’t need any fancy-schmancy degrees, or any combined decades or centuries of hands-on research experience – just off the top of your head, you dismiss their claims as if it were the dimwitted guessing of a couple drunks on a park bench somewhere, never entertaining the far, far more likely scenario – that they are pros, and you merely an arrogant, conceited clown who can’t even read simple English…
Now, go clam up and let the grown-ups talk, OK?
#83 LTG
To expand on atmosphere measurement, it is a column of air above the area. Atmospheric pressure 14.7psi per sq inch in US measurements is the weight of the column of air above one square inch at sea level to space.
This only highlights that the general public cannot deal with complex issues as they need to be dumbed down and made simple. When something complex is made policy there cannot be any changes as this only confuses the masses. Fast food science – sounds logical so it must be right.
We live in a ignorant world and as such the ignorant masses are easily to lead.
Cheers
“The most plausible explanation is that it’s due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases.”
A “plausible explanation” is NOT a proven fact. Yet always buried in these socalled scientific studies are a lot of theories, suppositions, and assumptions. All cleverly worded, and compounded upon, to try and prove one thing. THAT COAL HAS TO GO. AND NUCLEAR IS THE BEST ANSWER.
So many claim that big oil and big coal are behind the anti-GW side of the debate. But nobody seems to think that BIG NUCLEAR doesn’t have a stake in this. They’ve been fighting an uphill battle of public approval, ever since the Three Mile Island near-meltdown. And the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
Just as the beef industry probably used the Atkins Diet to counteract the damage done by the Oprah anti-meat crusade. So the nuclear power industry could easily be using GW to scare us into accepting hastily build nuclear plants as better than the coal fired alternative. And probably all the other greener alternatives, when they get around to discrediting them as well. But a severely broken coal fired plant never turned their surrounding communities into ghost towns.
http://www.ukrainianweb.com/chernobyl_ukraine.htm
Our socalled “carbon footprint” is at least something we can deal with, and nature can assimilate to some degree as well. But severe radioactive pollution is not going to go away so easily. And it kill off EVERYTHING. Not just us unworthy citizen of earth. And it you’re going to make the assumption that “It can’t happen here”. Well we didn’t expect that bridge to collapes in Minneapolis. We’ve let 70,000 bridges become in severe disrepair. And what’s to prevent the same thing happening to dozens of additional nuclea reactors build to be a profitable venure for those pushing for them? “We can’t take the risk not to do something about GW?” We can’t take the risk of irradiating ourself out of existance either!!
All we need is more of these things, cranking out more toxic byproducts and waste materials that we haven’t come up with a plan to deal with. Other than to make more nuclear bombs out of. Which is another thing we don’t need to expand on. But it’s gonna happen. And eventually, some administration is gonna want to use them. Just because we’ll be lousy with them. Like those “scud busters”, we had a surplus of. And make up phony stats of their effectiveness, to justify making more. The worst thing that coal can be used to make as a weapon is plain simple black power. Yet the scaremongers want us to believe it’s capable of killing the entire earth! So forget about those mushroom clouds, and vote for nukes over coal.
Especially as all the oil tycons probably have already invested in the nuclear industry. You’re never going to starve those creeps out.
#83 – TIHZ_HO,
Thanks for the info on the manufacturing process for the CFLs. I’ll look into that further. However, your statement about the mercury content, while true, ignores two facts.
1) The amount of mercury in a CFL is dramatically less than is in the thermometer parents stick in their kids mouths or asses.
2) The amount of mercury in a CFL is less than will be produced by a coal fired plant producing the amount of energy a CFL saves over its life.
Otherwise, you’ve made some good points about them. I do still think that the energy savings is a win that makes them worthwhile. I also think that it’s an improvement in lifestyle because you can buy them in different color temperatures to get truly white light. However, the environmental concerns are still the big ones.
How about LED bulbs? They should be available soon.
#85 – Glenn E,
See? That’s how science works. Scientists are far more honest than the so called skeptics of today. They state their information with an appropriate level of confidence. This being a first study to show good data linking increased moisture content to human activity, they are conservative about how to state their case.
They also then go on to present their data. And there is data.
Then, some other scientists will attempt to reproduce these results. If they succeed then this starts to carry more weight. This is how science works. Findings are published. Others attempt to corroborate or disprove the results, back and forth, until an answer is produced. They’ve got some good data here. We’ll see what happens.
Global warming has already been through this process for many years with a great many published papers, the vast majority of which agree on the basic fact that we are affecting our climate.
The problem is, if we wait for perfect data, the change will be so dramatic that many species, and many humans will die as a result. This is a time to act decisively because we know we’re causing a problem.
The fact that we can’t predict the exact effects for your zip code on a particular date does not lessen the fact that we are causing a huge problem.
Nor does it change the fact that everything we need to do to combat global warming is something we need to do regardless of global warming. Nor does it change the fact that this could spark whole new industries and be excellent for the economy. For our health, for our national security, for our economy, we need to act now, even if global warming were not as thoroughly well documented as it is and even though we cannot predict exact local effects.
#86 “1) The amount of mercury in a CFL is dramatically less than is in the thermometer parents stick in their kids mouths or asses.”
While it is true that CFLs have less mercury than thermometers there are hundreds of thousands (millions) more CFLs than mercury thermometers …right? All ending up at the dump.
Are you forgetting all the related industries required to manufacturer CFLs and their ‘carbon footprint’? Plastic base, circuit boards, electronic components. What about their disposal?
CFLs like all fluorescent lights suffer from on/off cycles. Life expectancies for fluorescent lamps are calculated on average on/off cycles. If you leave a fluorescent lamp on 24/7 it will last for years and years. When people switch fluorescent lamps on when they enter a room and off when they leave they shorten the life. Do this enough times and that CFL lasts only about a year and a half or less.
When you see displays showing how long CFLs last compared to light bulbs they are left on 24/7…clever!! Try doing that same comparison but switch them on and off 20 times a day…the light bulb wins!! Try this your self. Put a CFL and a light bulb in a dual bulb light fixture. Run them on a Xmas light flasher and see which one dies first!
Temperature has a great effect on CFLs cold weather will dim them as the mercury is kept from vaporizing.
LED for primary lighting? White LEDs made with gallium nitride (GaN) maybe in years to come. LEDs are point source light. Bright in one direction only. In Shanghai LED building displays are everywhere and very beautiful – but as a primary light source? Net yet.
Cheers
PS; Having said all this I do have CFCs at home. At night we switch them on and only turn them off when we go to bed – not when we leave the room. Even then after about 1.5 years some have failed – these are all Philips CFL not Ying Yang CFLs.
TIHZ_HO, good posts. Mercury thermometers are rarely used any more, especially for children. We’ve been using a digital thermometer for 16 years, and the other most common types are glass gallium-tin or glass alcohol, and forehead strips.
#84 – T_H
“This only highlights that the general public cannot deal with complex issues as they need to be dumbed down and made simple. When something complex is made policy there cannot be any changes as this only confuses the masses.”
Y’see, from the social-psychological and socioanthropological perspectives, this ever-more prevalent phenomenon has it’s roots in both the ‘value-relativists’ who arose from the ’60s counterculture (“What’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you” morphed, in stages, into “truth is whatever the individual decides it is”), and it’s immediate predecessor, the ‘myth of democracy’, where the concept of each citizen having a equal say morphed into the ludicrous concept that having an identical right to an opinion somehow makes all opinions therefore equal in validity.
Opinions, it is said, are like anal sphincters; everybody has at least one, and most of them stink…
Welcome to the modern world, where any ignoramus – such as our right honorable fellow poster and would-be arbiter of scientific fact B Cook – can think his shallow, off-the-cuff, ignorant take on a complex issue to be equal to the concerted work of professional experts.
There was a time when scientists were given the benefit of the doubt by the lay public – when the average citizen was, paradoxically enough, sufficiently wise to appreciate his lack of wisdom relative to that of scientific experts, and to defer to they who knew more than he.
The introduction of mandated outcomes to address inequality of opportunity, added to the deliberate concomitant deëmphasis on intellectual merit as the criterion for inclusion in the decisionmaking process, have left the idiots ruling the dumbed-down roost and thinking they’re the informed ones. The society depicted in The Marching Morons and Idiocracy draws ever closer.
Scott, any calculations of land use for the various types of plants? The poster was comparing those, and you are talking about costs.
The article on top says per cubic meter. I had assumed per square meter, which is what another poster wrote.
Scott, nothing will be implemented within ten years anywhere close to the scale of what’s needed. Even the full Kyoto Treaty reductions are not enough to reverse warming. You say may not work, etc, but you have no idea. The fact is 10 year delays in implementing policy do not change things very much in the computer models. You may think I’m making stuff up, but I’ve had this confirmed by some top climate scientists working on the issue.
#92 – MikeN,
You’re right. Perhaps John should correct that in his cover. The text of both this blog topic and the cover article say “cubic meter” and then properly quote kg/m2. We should also note that this is only over the oceans. It is also a vertical column that presumably expands to greater than a square meter wide as it approaches the stratosphere.
#93 – MikeN,
Scott, nothing will be implemented within ten years anywhere close to the scale of what’s needed.
You may be right. We may also cross a tipping point before we do anything really significant. We need to do what we can to try to avoid doing so. How about a war on warming. the half trillion dollars we’ve spent on Iraq sure would have made a really good start.
As for land use, I think it will be difficult to find true statistics (if such a thing really exists) on total land use, including all mining for building materials, mining for whatever fuel is used, uranium, oil, gas, or coal, to power the plant, or land for wind, or solar. Further, truly identifying the land use of tidal power will be difficult. We should count the sea floor somehow too. Conventional small hydro plants may really shine by this standard.
Still though, when considering land use, the mining operations are important. We should also consider the health effects. Uranium miners in particular get a tremendously high incidence of certain health problems.