What happened to Global Warming?

[dan_s]

Full Article: http://www.newsmax.com/SciTech/Economis ... de=12FBD-1

The Economist has been fairly consistent in its stand that carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources are the chief cause of global warming. But in an editorial this week, it sounds less certain.

Global warming predictions haven’t panned out as predicted in the past decade (are any of you shocked by this?), but the why is a bit fuzzy, the magazine admits.

Greenhouse gas emissions have soared during the past 15 years, the magazine notes, with 100 billion tons of carbon having been added to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. Still, both air and ground temperatures during that time have remained virtually unchanged.

In fact, the editorial notes, surface temperatures have been at the bottom of the projected range of various models since 2005. If they remain flat, they will actually begin to fall below projections shortly.

“The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now,” The Economist said.

But with global temperatures up by almost 1 degree Celsius in the last century, the magazine says, “the puzzle does need explaining.”

The Economist posits several theories that might explain why temperatures have leveled off.

Among them: a temporary lag between more carbon dioxide and rising temperatures between 2000 and 2010; the rising temperatures in the 1990s might have been an anomaly; or the climate is responding to higher CO2 levels in ways that scientists haven’t understood.

If the last possibility is true, the editorial notes, it “could have profound significance both for climate science and for environmental and social policy.” In other words, less drastic action would need to be taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than has previously been sought.

But The Economist does not give up on the fact that global warming is happening. Deep ocean temperatures are rising, and may explain where the predicted extra heat is going, the magazine says.

Buried deep in the highly technical piece, the magazine admits that evidence suggests something that global warming skeptics have long maintained: Natural variations in the earth’s climate likely play a bigger role than scientific models have said.

[v1427]

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... -to-worse/

[dan_s]

The dust bowl drought in the 1930 obviously had nothing to do with carbon emissions. Therefore, a period of drought is no proof of manmade global warming. No more than this past cold winter is no proof global warming is hogwash.

If Washington knows we have serious drought conditions coming again this summer, why don't they lower the ethanol requirements in motor fuels? Since we do not have a liquids fuels shortage why are we continuing to use so much valuable farmland for biofuel feedstock.

Big article in the Houston Chronicle this Sunday that says algae based biofuels are never going to amount to anything.

[dan_s]

Good stuff. Thanks for posting the link. BTW between Global Warming and Global Cooling, I choose warming. If the earth turns a lot colder in the 2020's the reduced farmland will cause a lot of problems for mankind.

[v1427]

the temperature in 1936 as of this date was 106 egrees in long breach

[prince_jake_33]

All food on earth comes from carbon dioxide plus the other required components.

The effects of an enriched CO2 atmosphere on crop productivity, in large measure, as positive, leaving little doubt as the benefits for global food security …. Now, after more than a century, and with the confirmation of thousands of scientific reports, CO2 gives the most remarkable response of all nutrients in plant bulk, is usually in short supply, and is nearly always limiting for photosynthesis … The rising level of atmospheric CO2 is a universally free premium, gaining in magnitude with time, on which we can all reckon for the foreseeable future.
The quantification of the enhanced growth due to higher levels of CO2 has been given by H. Poorter in an article in the journal Vegetation:


Increased Growth
Resulting from a
100 Percent Increase
in the Level of CO2
Plant
Type Proportional
Increase
C3 41%
C4 22%


About 95 percent of all plants on Earth are of type C3. C4 plants constitute only 1 percent but the C4 crops of sugar cane, corn, sorghum and millet are economically significant. The other 4 percent of plants are not economically significant. They include desert plants such as cactus.


The Effect of Temperature on Plant
Response to Higher Levels of CO2
Photosynthesis consists of chemical reactions. Chemical reactions procede at a higher rate at higher temperatures. The rule of thumb is that there is a doubling of the reaction rate for every 10°F rise in temperature. Plants grow faster at a higher temperature providing they have adequate levels of CO2, water, sunlight and plant nutrients. The C4 plants have a great response rate for a higher temperature than does the C3 plants.

A higher temperature without adequate level of the necessary ingredients for growth might produce no response or even damage. Sylvan Wittwer, quoted above, states that under most circumstances the availability of CO2 is the factor which limits growth. Thus with a higher level of CO2 in the air plants can grow faster with a higher temperature.

Plants transpire water vapor to keep an even temperature. There are tiny holes on the underside of plant leaves, called somata, which are the openings through which the plant absorbs CO2. With higher level of CO2 concentration in the air the somata do not have to be open as wide. The narrower opening means that less water is transpired and thus less water is required by the plants. In other words, higher levels of CO2 increase the efficiency of water use by plants. This was confirmed in experiments reported by K.E. Idso and S.B. Idso. They found that enhanced CO2 increased growth by 31 percent in plants with adequate moisture but it increase growth by 62 percent for plants in moisture-stressed condition. In effect, enhanced CO2 by