China's Coal Power Plants Mask Climate Change 464
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports on new research revealing that the huge increase in coal-fired power stations in China, up from just over 10 gigawatts (GW) in 2002 to over 80GW in 2006, has masked the impact of global warming in the last decade because of the cooling effect of their sulphur emissions. But scientists warn that rapid warming is likely to resume when the short-lived sulphur pollution – which also causes acid rain – is cleaned up and the full heating effect of long-lived carbon dioxide is felt. 'Reductions in carbon emissions will be more important as China installs scrubbers [on its coal-fired power stations], which reduce sulphur emissions,' says Dr. Robert Kaufman. 'This, and solar insolation increasing as part of the normal solar cycle, [will mean] temperature is likely to increase faster.' The effect also explains the lack of global temperature rise seen between 1940 and 1970 as the effect of the sulphur emissions from increased coal burning outpaced that of carbon emissions, until acid rain controls were introduced, after which temperature rose quickly. 'Warming due to the CO2 released by Chinese industrialization has been partially masked by cooling due to reflection of solar radiation by sulphur emissions,' says Prof Joanna Haigh. 'On longer timescales, with cleaner emissions, the warming effect will be more marked.'"
final proof of AGW/ACC derangement syndrome (Score:0, Interesting)
Note the buried finding ITFA that the the sun's changes might be, possibly having some influence on global temperatures. Sheesh.
Re:Scrubbers: A 1970s Tech Still Absent in China (Score:3, Interesting)
...atmospheric lifetime for CO2 is estimated to be thousands of years...
Really ? With all those trees ?
Really. The issue is that plants tend overall to release carbon dioxide at about the rate that they take it out of the air; it might be locked up for a while in their tissues, but it gets released again at death. What you need is to prevent decomposition of dead plants, either through burial somehow in an anoxic environment (e.g., swamp) or by converting the wood to something more stable (e.g., biochar), but both of those aren't actually that common as processes go worldwide.
The process that really seems to take CO2 out of the atmosphere is rock weathering (especially of non-carbonate rocks, of course) but that's really rather slow.
Not That Complex Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Grand claims are needed (if you're referring to the claim "anthropogenic air pollution very probably results in significant warming of Earth's climate", which is pretty much the biggest claim scientists made). There's a reason to think that way, and that reason has been questioned by tens of thousands of capable minds over the course of decades. Intelligent humans would listen to the warning, and act even when the above is not completely certain. Nothing can ever be completely certain, but scientific results will always be the closest thing.
By the way, we *are* able to predict the weather to a known level of accuracy, which is also rather high for short-term forecasts. Climate simulation is the same thing but much simpler (because we don't care about where and when it will be what temperature, only the average), but of course more difficult because of other reasons. That said, there are many uncertainties, some so uncertain that no value is given, but their range *is* known. The possible ranges can be read in the IPCC documents from 2007. This-and-that effect cannot be bigger than some limit, and these values are quite trustworthy, because if some effect was HUGE, then it would necessarily also be evident. The sun's impact is actually pretty well known - the changes in power output have been much too small to account for detected changes.
The temperature measurement network isn't grand, but it's also not giving out random numbers. We know that. The numbers don't look random. The signal-to-noise ratio is big enough that we can use those numbers, and other effects are accounted for (right, some thermometers are next to asphalt, but guess what - asphalt warms up the ground, there's now more asphalt than 50 years ago, thus asphalt indeed contributes to global warming (I suppose these effects go under the label of "land use" in IPCC documents if you want to look it up)).
Scientists are sceptics and continue to be that. But this means more than just questioning findings. Turns out the scientists have long ago researched the problem of how good their results are, and the 2007 report was groundbreaking indeed because then, for the first time ever, scientists concluded their results are "very probably correct". And mind you, their result was that the humans cause warming in the range of 0.6 - 2.4 watts per square meter. Of course there's always a tradeoff between dependability and accuracy of some result, now the numbers add up such that scientists can very confidently say something that's very approximate, but still useful.
By the way, the biggest uncertainty in climate forecasts is the amount of pollution humans spew out in the future. How would they know that? They wouldn't. We might be able to cut pollution by 50% in 20 years, or we might quadruple it in the same time frame. No way to know.
Sounds familiar. (Score:3, Interesting)
Revelation 16:8 The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.
Reading all the ways scientists anticipate we are screwing up the planet sounds like a refresher on Revelation.
- Jasen.
Re:The line from Corporate America (Score:3, Interesting)
Many countries don't have minimum wages... e.g. Denmark. Would they be banned from U.S. exports, too? I sincerely doubt anyone in DK is paid less than the U.S. minimum wage, unless working for free for whatever reason.
Personally, I dislike minimum wage. It just causes bureaucracy. The de facto minimum wage would be whatever welfare check is in place for the unemployed, or failing that, what you earn as a simple thief, which society would have to pay /anyway/.