Greg Craven's AGU Meltdown and Climate Science in General

I follow the happenings in climate science because I am a closet nerd. Once upon a time, my math skills were above average. So I can read a few of the technical papers published and actually understand a portion of what I am reading. Some of the peer reviewed articles published are quite humorous in a nerdy kind of way. The college courses I managed to stay awake during did not prepare me for the quality of scientific discourse found in our modern society. At the recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, the F-bomb was dropped.

The AGU is a science organization who's members are primarily scientists involved in geophysics. Geophysics is basically Earth Sciences like Oceanography, Meteorology and Seismology, fields that most of my classmates avoided because the average pay sucked. There are a few members of the AGU that are not real scientists. For some bizarre reason, the AGU invited one of these scientist wanna be's to speak at their annual meeting. This person, a teacher at Central High School in Monmouth, Oregon, uploaded a youtube video a few years back. I can only assume that the success of his alarming video inspired qualified Earth Scientists to allow him to be on a panel discussion at the AGU meeting.

Mr. Craven took it upon himself to dominate the panel discussion, much to the chagrin of the more qualified members of the panel. During what was described as a rant, Craven dropped the F-bomb a few times. F*** science this or that as he was trying to communicate the need to battle climate change/climate disruption, formerly know as global warming, at all costs.

Some believers in climate change/climate disruption, formerly know as global warming, are so impassioned by the urgent need to do everything now, they are often pulling stunts that tend to make more average guys actually try to figure out if there is something to this global warming mess. Fewer average people are willing to accept any climate predictions and more people skeptical of global warming are being heard.

The skeptical side is not without its Cravens. There are plenty of whack jobs to go around. The most vocal whack jobs get the most press so the average guy has to really dig deep to get a clue of what the truth may be. Since I am just as qualified to be a whack job as anyone else here is my middle of the road opinion.

1. A doubling of carbon dioxide caused by man's activities will lead to an increase in average global temperatures. If everything else is ignored, carbon dioxide doubling alone will lead to about 0.75 degrees C of warming, plus or minus 0.25 degrees C. This is not a hard and fast number. You cannot find a hard and fast number. It is an estimate based on several scientist's estimates published various places on the internet. After reading many papers and doing my own crude calculations, this is my number. It should equally perturb the majority of both believers and skeptics, giving it reasonable validity.

2. An increase in temperature caused by carbon dioxide will lead to an increase in water vapor which is also a greenhouse gas. This increase in water vapor will also lead to an increase in convection (thunderstorms, hurricanes and such.) Additional water vapor will tend to increase temperatures while increased convection will tend to decrease temperatures. After careful study and flipping several coins, these impacts will virtually cancel each other. There is of course a margin of error associated with my estimate of approximately plus or minus 0.5 degrees C. A comprehensive study on the changes in convection would be a nice thing. For now all I could find was the usual hand waving about more severe weather. Note: Variation in cloud cover is not included. Clouds both reflect and retain radiation. Where they retain radiation most, the high latitudes, they have the greatest impact on average global temperature as it is currently calculated. One of those quirks of math you know.

3. Other greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, nitrogen oxides and fluorocarbons can contribute to man-made warming. Methane is potentially a major factor in global warming. Methane also tends to be self regulating to a point. That means it reacts with more stuff and generally last about 8 years before it turns into something else. All of these gases have a variety of reactions. Currently, they are claimed to add a little to warming component, though considerably less than carbon dioxide even though they have greater potential for back radiating heat from Earth than carbon dioxide. Natural methane release tends to follow global temperature and regional temperature. There are a lot of question marks with these gases so my wild ass guess is plus or minus 0.5 degrees.

4. Aerosols added by man to the atmosphere have a potential cooling effect. Nature also adds aerosols though volcanic eruptions, dust storms and fires. Some portions of these aerosols can cause warming once they are no longer airborne. Black carbon from coal fired processes is given its own warming category which is about 1/3 to 2/3 of the total cooling of combined aerosols. So to simplify things a little I am going to keep aerosols as a cooling component with a small value since nature also plays a role. Minus 0.25 will be my aerosol component.

5. Solar energy change may contribute substantially to climate. That may sound strange since the sun provides all the energy used in figuring out the radiative balance that greenhouse gases are supposed to be changing dramatically. The sun has cycles about 11 years in average where its energy felt on Earth varies about 1 Watt/Meter Squared. At a maximum this variation could cause a 0.75 degree variation in average surface temperature. Since it has a repeatable cycle, generally there is no observable long term temperature variation since it averages out to zero over the cycle. There are periods where that average solar output is higher or lower for a longer period of time. These are solar minimums, which are fairly well known and often given names. The maximums rarely are given names, though the current one is called the modern maximum. The minimums are up to fifty percent less than the average so they could produce 0.38 degrees cooling by themselves. The maximums so far are a fraction of that above the average energy with 0.1 degrees a generous allowance for their warming potential. The sun also has longer cycles that may cause real ice ages. If that happens, my estimates are totally screwed. (Craven wishes that he had used screwed instead of the F*** bomb.)

6. Natural variation is the greatest unknown of the lot. If solar variation, which is natural, was significantly greater than all other forms of natural variation, we could see a definite 11 year temperature cycle globally. We don't. There are a lot of scientists on both sides of the debate that have things to say about solar variation. Trust me, any of them that says it's the sun stupid or climate was driven by solar influences until circa 1950 when greenhouse gases took over, are full of crap. They are full of crap mainly because they use outdated solar reconstructions and/or have limited logical mental resources. Their arguments are flawed. For the warmers, even if greenhouse gases warming were as strong they say, there would be a solar signature on the higher temperature average. For the skeptics, the signature would be so obvious there would be no discussion. The problem is there are decade long changes in weather patterns call oscillations. I am not talking about the El Nino and La Nina changes. There are Atlantic, Pacific and India ocean oscillations that change weather patterns for many years. These patterns have a somewhat predictable progression but not a very predictable impact on average global temperature. The impact on global temperature is hard to determine because the oscillations can synchronize or not and not every cycle is as strong as the last. When all the natural oscillations, including solar, synchronize, they can produce much more climate change than the estimated 0.7 degrees C bandied about climate change advocates. Solar may contribute to the shifting or synchronization of the big time multi-decade oscillations, but that jury is still out. Should this current solar cycle be a true minimum, there may be enough data to figure this relationship out somewhat. I say somewhat because too many scientists are already biased in their opinions. There needs to be plenty of fences mended or a few very vocal climate science or non-science advocates ,"Cravenised"

The correct answer for "What will be the average climate in the year 2100?" is, I don't know. Using Craven logic this would mean damn the global economic consequences, full green ahead! Using a little more sane logic, it would mean "Let's study this stuff better and take prudent actions to hedge our bets, just in case warming may cause problems.

Up-dating national electrical grids is prudent. They are in sad shape anyway. To take full advantage of unreliable energy sources like wind and solar power, it has to be done.

Like it or not, less polluting both in the normal sense and related to greenhouse gases is a prudent choice.

Nuclear energy in terms of fourth generation power plants is a prudent choice. Is that a perfect solution? Not by a long shot, but a prudent step.

Coal gasification is a prudent step because economic chaos is not. Well, I should clarify that a bit. Global economic chaos that would make the great depression look like the roaring twenties would very nearly solve the global warming problem. A sizable percentage of global population lost to famine, war and disease would significantly reduce greenhouse emissions. Do not forget the global chaos created by that little great depression not too many generations ago. Why did I throw this in? Check out Craven's overly simplistic logic in his Youtube video.

Alternate portable fuel infrastructure is a prudent step. Batteries sound like a wonderful idea, but until they are solid state batteries, they are just a pipe dream. Hydrogen has potential as a portable fuel either as a gas or as a component in synthetic fuels either gaseous or liquid. Hydrogen can also provide a solution to the less reliable sustainable energy sources like wind, solar and tidal. Think of hydrogen as a battery. Unlike the misleading commercials and ignorant bloviations of pretty boy politicians, hydrogen can be produced much cleaner than a battery of any type. Hydrogen can be produce from water using electricity created by any means you like. Yes, it is flammable and can be explosive, pretty much like gas or petrol if you prefer. There are risks that are being addressed, impressively in my opinion.

Fuel cells are more efficient that the ancient internal combustion engines for converting hydrogen to energy. Reading up on the abilities of fuel cells is prudent. Whether you like it are not they will be in your future. What feeds them, hydrogen or synthetic fuels is a question.

Biomass for fuels requiring food stocks or land dedicated to food stocks is insane. Algae and other plants that can be grown in arid or other environments not suited to food stocks is a better choice. It is down on the list because it may tend to be over emphasized to the detriment of better long term solutions.

What started this whole rant was Greg Craven's public meltdown and a simple question about what I expect the average global temperature to be in the year twenty-one hundred. I have already given my answer, I don't know. If you really want a number, the current average temperature plus 1.5 or minus 2.5 degrees. Check again in about twenty years and I may be able to reduce that margin of error.

Oh, back to Greg Craven. Is he a bad person? No, he is a high school physics teacher that has just discovered the Peter's principle.

This article has not be reviewed by nor is it endorsed by Associated Content, Yahoo! or anybody else. The editorial opinion expressed here is solely the opinion of its opinionated author. Now back to fishing.