[nth]

what evidence does this author have that CO2 increase caused more plants and algae to grow?

in labs, this scenario is true, but no survey over any fields have identify increase plant foliage or algae due to elevated CO2. On the contrary, for all the plant studies I have read all point to nutrient and water as the limiting factors to plant growth. It was never about CO2.

[marko]

Good points from both nth and pea-jay. Based on nth's point and my point about decay, I think that we can rule out the ice-age scenario.

Pea-jay's point adds weight to the "greenhouse effect run amok" scenario.

Still, I am not sure. Why is petroleum necessary for coal mining? I understand that lots of energy is necessary, but why can't miners shift from petroleum-powered to coal-powered (or steam-powered) machinery? I imagine that such machinery either doesn't now exist or isn't produced in significant amounts, but if petroleum prices keep rising, it will be produced. It just seems inevitable to me that coal production and consumption, and consequently the release of soot and ash, will increase.

Also, while open pit mining may be the cheapest and most profitable way to mine coal now, when energy is cheap, it may not be the most energy-efficient way. I am obviously no expert on mining, but perhaps there are less energy-intensive ways of extracting the coal. Instead of removing the mountain, maybe you build tunnels into it, as they did in the old days.

[nth]

marko,

i agree with you that increase oil prices will force the industry to change its practices and go back to labor intensive coal mining instead of machine intensive. as long as the transition is gradual, people will be able to apply technology to save on energy to harnest coal.

the idea that coal costs more now to mine than old days- i agree it does cost more, but it is same for NG, Oil, and other fossil fuels. as you deplete the resource, you need to spend more energy to find more and the ones you do find are going to be smaller and maybe deeper or harder to reach- not develop regions. i think the key thing here is that all major coal areas are developed already. any new areas will be smaller in amount, so not as profitable, especially with infrastructure costs rising.

[BlisteredWhippet]

So basically the idea is that when we stop producing huge amounts of CO2 like we've been doing for decades, all those plants and algae that have lived off our CO2 will suck all the remaining CO2 out of the atmosphere. Trouble is, the heat from the sun will no longer be trapped inside. Our CO2 blanket has been eaten up. So since there's nothing keeping heat in, it will get cold. Very cold. Ice Age Part 2 cold.

Thats quite inaccurate. The limiting factor to most kinds of plant growth is phosphorus. CO2 is necessary and beneficial for plant respiration but you need minerals and nutrients as well. Unfortunately the glacial processes that took millions of years to deposit phosphorus in the soil humus has been largely reversed by human intervention since 1850. Most of that convenient phosphorus was used early on as fertilizer or detergent. Poor farming and wastewater disposal practices deposited much of this essential mineral into our rivers and oceans.

The intersection of CO2 and glaciation has been explored in various theories... all of which are too complex to explore here. This is all so pedestrian... the really useful aspect of these theories and associated studies are clear- don't F*@# with mother nature.

[Permanently_Baffled]

link

But the new Swiss and US research indicates the dimming in the past has now been reversed, possibly because of reduced atmospheric pollution.

Can this research be true?, are we not burning more fossil fuels than ever or are we just burning them cleaner?

[Doly]

I think we are burning them cleaner. But CO2 is still a problem, though.

[Ebyss]

In that case we're really screwed. The dimming was the only thing slowing down global warming, now it's just going to speed up coz we'll be burning less oil (what with the Peak and everything).

[bobcousins]

Actually, this is not a crackpot idea. The ice age is very real. The amount of CO2 varies roughly with 3 orbital oscillations. I think the analysis is a bit off though, as the planet becomes frozen less biotic activity occurs and so less CO2 is generated, probably it is also scrubbed out of the atmosphere (weathering etc).

There was an article about this recently in Scientific American, the full paper is here http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf. Look at the graph on p.263.

After peak oil we will hit a glacial period, in a few thousand years. I don't think peak oil will wipe out civilisation, but a glacial period certainly will.
In fact what we need to do is burn as much fossil fuel as we can, changing the orbit of the planet is not an option.

[TrueKaiser]

*sigh* and you think thats going to happen like he described?
it's just another alarmist chicken little site, just this one covers peak oil, which is not the end of the world.

[J]

I think if you consider the Earths ability to buffer and rebound from catastrophe, you might not worry so much. We were struck by the dinosaur killer Chixlub and yet the planet maintains life quite well. A supervolcano eruption will tip the climate on its ear, but it resolves itself. The gradual buildup of CO2 will have an effect on climate, but it seems we have weathered much worse here on the planet.

Now, mind you, man only just survived the eruption of the Toba supervolcano, but with population as great as it is today, survival should be something reasonable to expect, even if there is climate change. Technology will help, but it is knowledge that should enhance our ability to survive as a species.

I rather think that human population growth brought on by cheap energy, which is the crux of the rest of these issues, is what the Earth is about to try and correct soon.

[eric_b]

What's burning/polluting the air over the US Gulf states?

I live in Wisconsin, and last week until about the 14th we had some of the nastiest, dirtiest
air lingering over us that I can ever remember. We were in a stagnant weather pattern
and air from NO and the south was being funneled up over us.

The sky was so hazy it was completely white, and at night it was nearly opaque on
otherwise clear days. It was so bad we actually has air quality warnings because of the particulate
levels in the air. This is not something I can ever remember happening around here in years past.

It was disgusting.



Here's a snippet from the viz full disk satellite shot from this afternoon - Sept. 18 .
You can easily note the extensize haze/smoke blanketing the Gulf from NO to
eastern Florida, then off the SE coast a tendril continues out to sea. I can tell you that
based on my many years of weather satellite observation this is about the worst I've seen it.

Is there something going on we are not being told? Refinery fires? Perhaps the gas people
are now burning is very dirty?

Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Cyrus]

God knows anymore.....

[Leanan]

Didn't Dubya waive the environmental regs for gasoline? Could it make that much of a difference, that fast?

There have also been a lot of fires in NO, due to vandals and broken gas pipes. Including chemical warehouses and the like.

[crossthread]

i have the answer...
It's the bonfire that was started a couple days ago burning derbis from NO....'
Look on the news sites you'll find it,, burning 24/7 expected too be burning for months..

[lotrfan55345]

Posting threads like these are letting the terrorists win.

[frankthetank]

eric~I'm over by LaCrosse and haven't been affected too badly, although i have noticed for a while that the sat images have shown really bad haze.

I caught this yesterday.
LINK



Sounds like pollutants and smoke (agricultural maybe?) being thrown northward from OPhelia.

A high pressure system transported moisture and pollutants over the Great Lakes and the region to the South, affecting air quality indices, as forecasted by AirNow. For individuals sensitive to air quality, some indices could reach unhealthy levels. Hurricane Ophelia, a portion of which appears in the lower right, was expected to impact some local weather and air quality conditions. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard the Terra satellite captured this image on September 11, 2005. In this image, haze stretches southwards from Canada, over the Great Lakes, and into the Midwest. This picture is actually a mosaic of satellite images acquired by different passes of the Terra satellite. The sharp line running diagonally through the image shows where those different pictures were stitched together. Haze is a generic term for visible air pollution, and can consist of dust, smoke, and other particulate matter

[eric_b]

eric~I'm over by LaCrosse and haven't been affected too badly, although i have noticed for a while that the sat images have shown really bad haze.
(...) SNIP

Frank, I don't think the hurricane was the cause, though it may have
entrained some dirty air into its circulation.

I'm wondering what the source of the smoke is. Usually if it's a forest fire the source is
easy to locate. For whatever reason haze and smoke have been unusually bad this year.

There have been some extensive dust plumes blowing off Africa this year (from the Sahara)
and wafting east across the Atlantic towards Florida. Last one began on Sept. 3/4 and lasted
for about a week. There has also been extensive burning in south America too. See this
snippet taken from the same satellite shot as OP:

SAT Image

So perhaps the smoke is originating from Mexico or the Carribean? Perhaps all
the way up from SA? Or perhaps fires in NO (they'd have to be VERY BAD fires to make
as much smoke are you're seeing in these images though). Refinery problems?

The media around here was quick to mention the particulate warnings, but not a
word was mentioned as to their source. I want to emphasize to people when stuff shows
up this clearly to a satellite 25,000 miles away from the Earth it's very bad. These are
very large amounts of smoke.

Ironic, we are starting to choke on our own waste.

[Novus]

What you are seeing is methane coming off of the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the GOM is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 34 degrees Celsius for those using metric. It is a sign of run-away global warming because that is the temperature which methane in water begins to boil off. The more methane that is released the hotter the earth will get and in turn will release more methane. This could be the tipping point that melts the ice caps.

[frankthetank]

I wasn't saying Ophelia was producing it, just that the hurricane was moving dirty air from one spot to another.

eric~If you want to see highly detailed sat shots from every day, follow this LINK Click on the area you want to see. Check out the images from South America...i've been following this pretty closely this summer, and i haven't seen a letup in the amt of smoke blowing right down the spine of the ANdes. They must be cleaning house with those rainforests ...

[UIUCstudent01]

What you are seeing is methane coming off of the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the GOM is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 34 degrees Celsius for those using metric. It is a sign of run-away global warming because that is the temperature which methane in water begins to boil off. The more methane that is released the hotter the earth will get and in turn will release more methane. This could be the tipping point that melts the ice caps.

I think I heard somewhere the heat from the GOM is causing hurricanes to be stronger...