Jeff's Lunchbreak

This past weekend, I got into a discussion with a couple friends about global warming. This was a different group than the one that inspired this blog entry, Global Warming - It's Real, And We're Causing It. These two had several arguments against global warming, not just a general distrust of the science. Like I wrote in that other entry, I'm far from being an expert in climate science. I've kept up with it a bit, but I've mostly trusted that the actual experts know what they're talking about, and when they said that there's a very, very high probability that global warming is human caused, I believed them. Well, arguments from authority don't carry much weight when people are giving you specific reasons why they doubt a theory. So, I had to do a little deeper research into their claims.

Below is the response I sent to them via e-mail. Since it's so long, I'm not going to put it in blockquotes. Also, since I'm posting this on my blog, I'm not going to use their real names. But rather than calling them John Doe I and John Doe II, I'll go with the first names from Comedy Central's news hour, John and Stephen.

[start of e-mail]

John & Stephen,

John, I know you're used to these e-mails. Stephen, this is just what I do after discussing something controversial - backing up what I said with a few references and doing a little more research. It looks like you do about the same - [my wife] gave me the articles you found.

Okay, first I guess I'll try to cover a few of the things we discussed over the weekend. There were a few points brought up that stuck out to me: 1) CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, 2) 30 years ago climatologists were predicting an ice age, while now they're predicting global warming, so how can we trust what they're saying, 3) Current data indicates that we're actually headed into a cooling period, 4) Mars ice caps are melting, indicating that increased solar activity is responsible for the recent warming trend, and 5) Sensors used to take measurements of polar ice were flawed, so we can't trust those measurements. I probably got a few of those wrong, mixed up a few with claims I've read on the Internet, and there are probably a few that I forgot, but that's mostly what I remember. So, I tried looking up those claims and here's what I came up with.

1) CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.

I guess you already looked this up, Stephen, since you wrote on the printouts you gave [my wife] that CO2 actually is a greenhouse gas. Just to give a little information for John, though, here's some more info, mostly summarized from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect). Most of the electromagnetic radiation the sun emits is in the visible spectrum. Greenhouse gases, pretty much by definition, don't absorb light in the visible spectrum, so most of the radiation from the sun makes it all the way to the surface of the Earth. There, it does get absorbed by numerous objects. As these heat up, they will radiate some of that energy back out in the infrared spectrum. Now, greenhouse gases, again pretty much by definition, do absorb light in that spectrum. So, the gases absorb that infrared radiation and heat up. Some of that heat will be transferred to surrounding gases, with some of it eventually making it back down to the ground. Some of it will be radiated back out in all directions - some back towards the ground, and some out into space. So, the net result of having greenhouse gases in an atmosphere is that the temperature of the planet will be higher.

The main greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is water. It provides around 36% of the heating. Next comes carbon dioxide, at around 9%. It's a little difficult to calculate how much heating each gas provides, since they interact with each other. For example, if you remove all the CO2 and water from the atmosphere, we would lose more than 45% of the greenhouse heating.

Here's another link, showing the actual absorption spectrum of CO2, and giving a more detailed explanation of how the absorption works on a molecular level:
http://www.wag.caltech.edu/home/jang/genchem/infrared.htm

There are other greenhouse gases, as well. Some are more effective on a pound for pound basis (such as methane). However, because their concentrations are so much lower, their total effect isn't as great.

One argument I have heard, is that carbon dioxide may be a result of warming - that some mechanism causes more CO2 to enter the atmosphere as the temperature increases. This argument is usually in response to the historical trend of global temperature vs. CO2. However, we can be pretty darn sure that much of the reason CO2 levels are rising right now is because of people burning fossil fuels. All that carbon was sequestered underground, and we're releasing it faster than it can be sequestered again. So, knowing that CO2 is definitely a greenhouse gas, if there's a mechanism that causes CO2 levels to rise with temperature, it's a feedback that's going to make the current situation worse.

2) 30 years ago climatologists were predicting an ice age, while now they're predicting global warming, so how can we trust what they're saying.

I wasn't paying much attention to climate science 30 years ago, so I can't speak to this directly. I do know that the way the media currently presents science is pretty bad. Look how much the media hyped the recent announcement of finding methane on Mars and how it could be indicative of life. The reality is that the current scientific consensus is much more conservative - it may be life, but there are many other possibilities it could be, and we just won't know until we get more data. So, if science reporting 30 years ago was anything like it is today, I could easily see the media playing up reports far more than what was the actual scientific consensus.

I found a fairly recent paper in the journal of the American Meteorological Society doing a literature search on climate research during the 60s and 70s. They found that a small minority of papers predicted global cooling, but that the majority actually were predicting global warming even then. So, it appears that the scientific consensus on global warming hasn't changed in the past 30 years, and has just gotten stronger. Here's a short blog entry describing the paper, which also has a link to the full paper:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/

3) Current data indicates that we're actually headed into a cooling period.

For your reference, John, here's one of the articles Stephen printed out for me:
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

My main take of that article is that there's not enough information in it to predict that we've actually started a cooling trend. Average global temperature is influenced by quite a few factors, and thus fluctuates quite a bit from year to year. Global warming doesn't predict that every year will be warmer than the last, only that the trend is to higher temperatures. Just look closely at the graph they've provided. Several other periods show similar valleys, quickly rebounding to higher temperatures. Maybe this recent drop was the biggest, but not by a lot. Unless these temperatures stay low for a longer period than previous valleys, there's no reason to believe that this is a long term trend.

The only mechanism the article gives for why temperature might be decreasing is "reduced solar activity." Looking at the article linked to in the original article, the mechanism claimed seems to be the Sun's magnetosphere shielding Earth from cosmic rays, and the effect that has on cloud formation. The solar activity being described is not the solar irradiance. If solar irradiance were decreasing, I would fully expect that would decrease the Earth's temperature. How could it not? But actual measurements of solar irradiance show it to be pretty darn constant. It does vary slightly over an 11 year cycle (same as sun spots), but that variance is only ±0.65 W/m² about a 1366 W/m² average, or about 0.1% total variance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

Hmm, I just found another record of solar irradiance in the NASA link a few paragraphs below. It looks like the current valley in solar irradiance is a little lower than the previous two valleys, but still not very far off from the average - maybe abut 0.15% total variation. It looks like we're right about at the minimum, and getting ready to start receiving more energy from the Sun again.

The links between other properties of the Sun and Earth's climate are more tenuous. I've seen a few studies claiming such links, but none that seem to hold up to scrutiny from other scientists. If either of you could send something showing a strong link, I'd be interested in reading it. That same Wikipedia article linked above discusses some of these proposed correlations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#Global_warming

This article also addresses proposed correlations:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180

As far as what could have caused the cooling, it looks like it my be due mainly to La Niña. NASA's Goddard Institute has a good discussion of this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

I also found a report from June of last year that predicted this cooling. According to the link below, most climate models ignore short term effects such as El Niño and La Niña. For long term forecasts, they're not that important. For short term forecasts, however, they can have big impacts. The authors incorporated ocean currents into their model to give more short term predictions, and as I already said, they predicted the recent cooling.
http://www.ifm-geomar.de/index.php?id=4192&L=1

4) Mars ice caps are melting, indicating that increased solar radiation output is responsible for the recent warming trend.

The solar irradiance trends linked above show that the melting of Mars ice caps definitely isn't due to solar radiation, since solar irradiance hasn't changed by more than a fraction of a percent, and has actually been on the downward side of the cycle for the past few years. I'm not sure what other properties of the Sun would influence the ice caps on Mars.

A National Geographic news clip on this mentions that a Russian scientist, Habibullo Abdussamatov, thinks increased solar irradiance is heating both planets (again - see the actual measured solar irradiance in the Wikipedia link), but other scientists offer explanations for other factors that drive Mars' climate, including that the wobble of it's tilt axis is more pronounced than Earth's.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Wikipedia also has a section on this. The consensus seems to be that no one's exactly sure what's causing the Martian ice caps to melt, but it seems to be a local climate phenomenon, not a global one. With Mars' thin atmosphere and lack of oceans, it doesn't have the same thermal buffers as Earth, so smaller phenomena can have a larger effect. It mentions that dust storms could have darkened the ice caps, increasing the amount of solar energy they absorb, causing them to melt faster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars#Evidence_for_recent_climatic_change

Here's another article discussing the southern Martian ice cap:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

I guess the short of it is, although people have hypotheses, no one's exactly sure what's causing Mars' ice caps to melt, because it's another planet that we haven't been able to study in enough detail to know the intricacies of what drives its climate. Although the solar irradiance argument put forth by Abdussamatov is almost certainly wrong.

5) Sensors used to take measurements of polar ice were flawed, so we can't trust those measurements.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly which measurements you were talking about. I did see a mention of something in a recent entry on Carl Zimmer's blog (he happens to be one of my favorite science writers). Was this what you were referring to?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/02/22/a-wrinkle-in-ice-or-not/

I still don't know as much about global warming as I do about other fields, but the more research I do, the more confidence I have in the science. But, I could still be wrong. Keep sending me articles you think show global warming to be wrong. If it is, I'll change my view eventually. If the scientists are right, though, then the next thing to discuss is what to do about it. Do we even try to reduce our carbon output, or do we just adapt to any changes global warming causes? Personally, I think it will be somewhere in between. Trying to eliminate carbon output cold turkey would be more costly than adapting to the changes from global warming. But not doing anything about carbon output and focusing solely on adaptation would probably be more expensive than a little up front cost on energy research right now.

-Jeff

[end of e-mail]

If I get any responses from them that show anything I wrote to be wrong, I'll be sure to add it here. I also let both of them know that I was putting a copy of this here on my blog, so maybe they'll post their comments here.

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 27 | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBacks (0)

Depending on where you are in the world, you may call tomorrow something else, like Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. But from where I'm from in Pennsylvania, it's called Fastnacht Day. Traditionally, you make potato based donuts, called fastnachts, supposedly as a way to empty your larder of all the fatty, sugary foods in preparation for the Lenten fast. My elementary school even used to give out donuts with the lunches on this day. So, in celebration of Fastnachts, here's a recipe on my main site on how to make fastnachts, and a link to the (not so thorough) Wikipedia article.

You're supposed to wake up early to make the fastnachts on Tuesday morning (they're freshest that way), but I usually make them the night before. They keep pretty well in a brown paper lunch bag. I also like to put a little bit of powdered sugar into a ziploc bag, and a mix of granulated sugar and cinammon into another one, to coat the fastnachts just before eating them.

Doughnut Picture from Wikimedia Commons

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 23 | Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, my wife asked me why I write so much about my atheism on my blog. What am I trying to accomplish? Aren't I concerned about the possible negative consequences considering how prejudiced people can be towards atheists down here in the south?

One reason why I write so much about it is that writing things down helps me to organize my thoughts. When I'm simply thinking about things, I can have dozens of thoughts bouncing around in my head, and I may dwell on some of those thoughts, without following others to their logical conclusions. Writing those thoughts with an idea that someone else is going to read them forces me to present them coherently and to try to see the thoughts all the way through. Still, there wouldn't be any reason to publicize such writings if that was the only reason I did it.

There are actually several audiences I have in mind when I write my blog entries. One is the group of people who are very religious and have an open mind. I don't expect to 'convert' those people to atheism, but perhaps they will begin to question certain aspects of their religion and be a little less dogmatic (for example - the Christians who use the Old Testament to condemn homosexuality, but have no problem doing chores on Sunday, eating shrimp, or wearing a polyester/cotton blend shirt).

Then, there are the people who have already started to question things. I would hope that they find my essays informative and helpful. I would also hope that one more voice on the web helps them to see that they're not alone in having doubts.

The final audience is the group that's prejudiced towards atheists. The term, atheist, carries such a negative connotation in our society - many people even take it as a personal insult to be called an atheist. A recent study found atheists to be the most distrusted group out of all the options in the survey (which included other groups such as Muslims, homosexuals, Hispanics, conservative Christians, recent immigrants, Jews, Whites, and African-Americans). There really isn't any reason that it should be that way (or frankly why any of those groups should be distrusted). It's a term that simply describes one aspect of your view of the universe, and says nothing about your nature or what type of person you are. So, I would hope that those people who are prejudiced towards atheists would read my blog entries, and even if it changes nothing about how they view religion for themselves, that they will at least realize that most atheists aren't evil, amoral, hedonistic, or any of the other stereotypes that many believe. We're just normal people who happen to believe in one less thing than most.

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 20 | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBacks (0)

In honor of Darwin Day, I figured that I'd post an entry related to evolution. Here is my review of Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, written by Donald Prothero, Ph.D. Let me say right at the beginning that the book was very good, and that I recommend it.

The title of the book is a bit misleading, in that it leaves out a major theme that was covered. A good portion in the beginning of the book is spent debunking creationism. Perhaps some readers are aware of Duane Gish's Evolution? the Fossils Say No!, and so notice the play on words and realize that Prothero's book was partly in response to Gish. For others (such as me before I read the book), the allusion isn't so obvious. In any case, Prothero devoted a good bit of space to pointing out the errors in many creationist arguments, including a detailed explanation on how the Grand Canyon was formed through slow geological processes and not through a catastrophic flood, along with the evidence on how we know this.

Also in the beginning of the book, Prothero spent some time explaining science & paleontology, which is what you'd expect for a book intended for a lay audience. His explanation of cladistics was very good.

Finally, on page 145, Prothero started Part II, which presented the evidence and explanations of the history of life on this planet. He started right from the beginning, with a few theories on abiogenesis. Consequently, his first chapter from Part II didn't really have any fossil evidence. As soon as he progressed in time to when organsims developed hard parts that could fossilize, the book finally lived up to its name. He tried to cover a little bit of everything, from pre-cambrian single celled organsims, on up to very recent mammalian evolution. Obviously, with a 400 page book trying to cover that much territory, he couldn't go in depth into any particular topic, but he did give a very good overview. He did tend to cover vertebrates in more detail than any other lineage, but I suppose that's because that's what most readers would be most interested in.

Since the book was about fossil evidence, it included a great deal of photos and drawings of fossils. To give a sense on what was in the book, below is one of my favorite figures, illustrating the transition from seal-like mammals to walruses. (I apologize for the poor quality of these images, especially along the edges, but I wasn't about to ruin the binding on my book just to make it lay flat in the scanner.)

Another good example of the way fossils were presented is the figure below, showing the homology between non-avian dinosaurs and birds.

As would be expected in a book about evolution, there were many cladograms (family trees). They were almost all well illustrated with representative members of each lineage, such as the one below.

The center of the book contained several pages of color plates. These included some nice color photos of fossils, as well as some artistic renderings of what the animals might have looked like in life.

I did have a few reservations. For one, I would have liked to have seen even more photos & illustrations of fossils. In some sections, Prothero mentioned fossils in the text, but had no illustrations to show the reader what they actually looked like. In several sections, Prothero made statements to the effect of, a highly trained paleontologist can see that... I realize that expertise is important, but Prothero came off as a bit condescending in several places. I would have preferred to have seen wording like careful observation shows that...

Overall, it was a very good book, and very informative. I'd already read a few books on evolution prior to this, but they had dealt with much more specific topics, such as the transition from sea to land, or human evolution. This was the first book I'd read that covered such a wide range of transitions, with so many photos and illustrations to support it. If you're already familiar with the creationist arguments, or have a good lay understanding of how evolution works, Part I can be a bit of a slog, although I can see how those chapters would be very informative to people without that background. But once you get to Part II, it's a very informative, fun to read book.

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 12 | Permalink | Comments (48) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the man who presented evolution in such a way and with sufficient evidence that it became obvious that it was the explanation for how life developed on this planet. Others had ideas of transmutation before Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace even came up with a theory of natural selection very similar to Darwin's at around the same time, so it's apparent that humanity would have eventually recognized how evolution works. But Darwin's genius in presenting all the evidence for evolution in the way he did certainly gave the field a huge head start.

If you're looking for a way to celebrate Darwin Day, DarwinDay.org has a list of events from around the world. If you're in the DFW area, the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science is having Drinks with Darwin from 6:30 to 8:00. If I was just a little closer, or if this was the weekend, I'd probably go. However, I think I'm just going to have to content myself with watching the lineup of evolution documentaries on The Science Channel (and maybe the episode of Walking with Dinosaurs on Animal Planet).

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 12 | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I may have missed making any blog entry last week, and completely missed updating the non-blog portion of my site last month, but I can at least put up something today. Here's the list of the top 10 most popular pages from my site for last month. No surprises for this month - the list's pretty much the same as months past.

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Programming
4. Factoids Debunked & Verified
5. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
6. Downloads
7. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
8. X-Plane as an Engineering Tool
9. Theoretical Max Propeller Efficiency
10. X-Plane, UDP, and Visual Basic, for X-Plane version 8

Posted by Jeff on A, Feb 5 | Permalink | Comments (41) | TrackBacks (0)