Global cooling

[mac]

GT--British policy issues aside, you are wrong on particulates (soot). Technological advances made it possible to develop diesel power plants, for trucks and cars, that meet California's tough particulate standards. It required regulation to get the manufacturers to make those changes--as well as earlier changes to reduce crankcase emissions from, as you say, petrol cars. Before those regulations, gasoline-powered cars were a much larger cause of cancer than the, at the time very dirty, diesel fleet.

I lived this stuff.

Reducing NOX emissions reduces power. It may make diesel a less desirable power source in reducing CO2 emissions, but that is a different question.

[nw30]

Just when the warmers think they have it all figured out, comes this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MASSIVE GLOBAL COOLING process discovered as Paris climate deal looms
'Could explain recent disagreements'
30 Sep 2015 at 11:28, Lewis Page

As world leaders get ready to head to Paris for the latest pact on cutting CO2 emissions, it has emerged that there isn't as much urgency about the matter as had been thought.

A team of top-level atmospheric chemistry boffins from France and Germany say they have identified a new process by which vast amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted into the atmosphere from the sea - a process which was unknown until now, meaning that existing climate models do not take account of it.

The effect of VOCs in the air is to cool the climate down, and thus climate models used today predict more warming than can actually be expected. Indeed, global temperatures have actually been stable for more than fifteen years, a circumstance which was not predicted by climate models and which climate science is still struggling to assimilate.

In essence, the new research shows that a key VOC, isoprene, is not only produced by living organisms (for instance plants and trees on land and plankton in the sea) as had previously been assumed. It is also produced in the "micro layer" at the top of the ocean by the action of sunlight on floating chemicals - no life being necessary. And it is produced in this way in very large amounts.

According to an announcement just issued by the German government's Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research:

Atmospheric chemists from France and Germany, however, can now show that isoprene can also be formed without biological sources in the surface film of the oceans by sunlight and so explain the large discrepancy between field measurements and models. The new identified photochemical reaction is therefore important to improve the climate models.

Global models at the moment assume total emissions of isoprene from all sources - trees, plants, plankton, the lot - of around 1.9 megatons per year. But, according to the new research, the newly discovered "abiotic" process releases as much as 3.5 megatons on its own - which "could explain the recent disagreements" between models and reality.

"We were able for the first time to trace back the production of this important aerosol precursor to abiotic sources. So far global calculations consider only biological sources," explains Dr. Christian George from French lab the Institute of Catalysis and Environment, in Lyon.

VOCs such as isoprene are known to be a powerful factor in the climate, as they cause the formation of aerosol particles. Some kinds of aerosol, for instance black soot, warm the world up: but the ones resulting from VOCs actually cool it down substantially by acting as nuclei for the formation of clouds. It has previously been suggested that production of VOCs by pine forests could be a negative feedback so powerful that it "limits climate change from reaching such levels that it could become really a problem in the world."

With the discovery of the new abiotic sea process, the idea that cutting carbon emissions may not be all that urgent is looking stronger.

For the rest~
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive_global_cooling_factor_discovered_ahead_of_paris_climate_talks/

[gronquist]

Goodness gracious, nw. You love the title, don't you? "Massive Global Cooling.." Can't you understand that this non-biologic process has already been in existence for MILLENIA, before 'biologic' causes of global cooling were being monitored?

It's nice reading 'news' when it suits your cause, how ignor- .. I mean, convenient.

ps. -yes, I read the whole article. Unimpressed, to say the least. Keep trying to convince me. It's entertaining.

Doc G

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Why bother N.W.?

You, a non scientist quote from an (excitable) article which itself quotes from research by members of the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (presumably THEIR qualifications for the positions they hold are adequate) and YOU are ridiculed and called ignorant.

This, because a doctor is unimpressed by either you, (or their research), to say the least! Amazing arrogance!

[mrgybe]

GT..........you beat me to it. Sneering arrogance from a closed mind.

[nw30]

Maybe if I referred to myself as patient NW, Doc G wouldn't have shown so much arrogance.
Medical doctor or just a PhD, there is something about having Doc or Dr. in front of your name makes you special, or just arrogant.
Sorry, I'm just a lowly Mr., and please forgive me for that.

[LHDR]

GT, I think you are missing the important point gronquist is making.

His point is that the process described in the research paper, formation of isoprene at the surface of oceans, has been occurring for "millennia". So, it has always been part of the energy balance of the earth. It is not a process that is induced by global warming to serve as a feedback mechanism to counteract warming (at least, no one is suggesting that). As such, this newly discovered process does not affect man-made global warming.

I think this important clarification by gronquist is worth "bothering", isn't it? As a consequence, the newspaper title is somewhat misleading to excite and (successfully) fool the right wing into believing that this process could serve to counteract global warming and delay action. Another sentence from the newspaper article shows in no uncertain terms that the intention is to mislead rather than inform:
"With the discovery of the new abiotic sea process, the idea that cutting carbon emissions may not be all that urgent is looking stronger. That's probably good news, as it has emerged lately that efforts to cut carbon emissions to date are having the unfortunate side effect of poisoning us all."

Please, GT, don't tell me that you endorse this kind of propaganda.

By the way, I glanced at the referenced research article, can't judge the science, so I have no problem assuming that it is solid. As expected, it does not discuss warming, cooling or climate. Simply a non-propagandistic, solid piece of research.

[mac]

Ah Gronquist, I was about to say that it was the first ever posting by NW that had the potential to have some technical merit. Of course, it didn't take much looking around for reviews to suss out that NW got it, directly or indirectly, from Breitbart. It also doesn't take much to notice the differences between the reserved comments of the researchers and the "we don't have to worry about climate change" conclusions that are built into all Guardian articles. It repeats the mistaken conclusion that warming has flat lined, now known to be erroneous--by any competent or unbiased journalist.

What is missing, and I would fall over if NW actually understood what I mean here, is some idea of scale. Many here have pointed out that climate models do not account well for the damping factor of increased cloud cover with increased temperature. As LHDR pointed out, these chemicals are already present and part of climate signals or noise that don't show trends. Are they of the scale of a 5% damping, a 10% damping, or something greater? That, of course, is why we have peer review.

[mac]

So rather than rely on Breitbart, filtered through a right wing rag, I went to the research institute's web site. They put their uncertainty boundaries around the generation of isoprene as somewhere between perhaps 5% of that generated by trees and on the same order of magnitude. In other words, this might matter a lot--or only a little.

There has been a recent spate of research on cloud formation and the role of tiny aerosols in that formation. This is not the first or only--but apparently it is one that showed up on denier crawlers to repost to knuckledraggers.

Cloud formation, as I have said for a number of years, is an important potential damping factor for global warming. Here, from a less dubious source, involving an earlier publication, is a way of saying that:

[nw30]

mac from these last 2 posts of his:
"suss out that NW got it, directly or indirectly, from Breitbart"
Source bashing.
"filtered through a right wing rag"
Source bashing with conviction this time.

"apparently it is one that showed up on denier crawlers to repost to knuckledraggers."
Denier bashing.
"It is unfortunate that the right wing response to climate change is to block research, forbid discussion, and sign up for campaign contributions from pig oil."
Denier bashing with conviction this time.

I love making you work, even if you like to make it personal.
It's very illustrative.