Science News: Sulfur stalls surface temperature rise

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/332152/title/Sulfur_stalls_surface_temperature_rise_

A new study demonstrates why global surface temperatures defied a decades-long trend and didn’t continue to rise between 1998 and 2008: Pollution-spewing, coal-burning power plants in Asia, while emitting warming greenhouse gases, simultaneously sent cooling sulfur particles into the atmosphere.

During that decade — sometimes cited as evidence to deny global warming — these Asian emissions mostly balanced one another and dampened the effects of natural cooling cycles associated with the sun and ocean temperatures.

A team of scientists led by Boston University’s Robert Kaufmann reached this conclusion by analyzing factors contributing to global surface temperature, including human-caused emissions, the 11-year solar cycle and a shift from warming El Niño to cooling La Niña climate patterns. Without human input, temperatures would have been expected to cool, based on the La Niña shift and decreasing solar radiation.

After simulating temperature change over the decade based on these factors, the researchers identified the smoking gun behind the steady temperatures: sulfur particles spit into the atmosphere by coal-burning power plants. Sulfur aerosols reflect light back into space and counteract the warming effects of greenhouse gases.

“This looks like a very solid, careful statistical analysis of the factors influencing recent global temperature changes,” says climate scientist Michael E. Mann of Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study. “There is a clear impact of human activity on the ongoing warming of our climate.”

The study was published online July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most of the greenhouse gases came from China, where coal consumption more than doubled between 2002 and 2007, accounting for 77 percent of the rise in coal use worldwide, the scientists report. During that same period, Kaufmann says, global sulfur emissions increased by 26 percent.

From 1998 to 2008, these human-generated emissions effectively canceled each other out.

“Humans do two things to the planet,” Kaufmann says. “They warm it by emitting greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, and they cool it by emitting these sulfur aerosols.”

Sending sulfur into the air isn’t helpful, though. In addition to causing respiratory problems, sulfur aerosols combine with water vapor to form acid rain, which harms ecosystems and damages buildings. “You wouldn’t want to increase the amount of junk in the air to decrease the effects of global warming,” cautions climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The researchers did a good job teasing apart the factors influencing global temperatures during the decade studied, Schmidt says. He compares global warming to driving a car: Humans are stepping on the accelerator, but bumps in the road vary the car’s speed. On shorter time scales, these bumps include things like the 11-year solar cycle and El Niño/Southern Oscillation events, both of which peaked early during the decade.

Because uncontrollable natural forces affect climate, it’s even more crucial to regulate human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, says Caspar Ammann, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. When sulfur emissions are reduced, “What you will see in the short term is a relative rapid rise in temperature, because you have taken away the brake,” Ammann says. Kaufmann says China has begun using scrubbers at its coal-burning facilities to reduce sulfur emissions — similar to what happened in the United States after passage of the Clean Air Act more than four decades ago.

Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta notes that decadal oscillations in ocean currents might be at least as likely to explain the observed stall in temperature rise as increased sulfur emissions from China.

But Kaufmann says that when sulfur is removed from the analysis, the model falls apart. “Only sulfur aerosols can explain the recent pattern,” he says. “Diminishing the importance of aerosols is inconsistent with the data.”

wow I'm impressed

http://antzinpantz.com/kns/archives/45393

This is what the Owl-Gore types believe:

1. man causes global warming through CO2 emissions

2. CO2 emissions come from burning fossil fuels like oil and coal and creates smog

3. smog causes the ozone hole to grow

This is what they also believe:

A. global warming slowed as China burned more ….. wait for it ……. coal!

B. smog from that burning masked the greenhouse effect

C. burning coal releases sulphates that reflect solar energy back into space, cooling the planet

Got that? We cause global warming by burning coal but stop global warming by burning coal.

Wrap your head around that.

Can these people be any more ****ed up?

Now, go find some enviro-nazi moonbat and have them explain how they can morally justify their position on “man-caused global warming.”

Bring some popcorn to pass the time watching their heads explode.

Got that? We cause global warming by burning coal but stop global warming by burning coal.

Wrap your head around that.

Are you playing dumb or are youy really having a hard time wrapping your head around an interplay of 2 variables?

Burning coal releases CO2 and sulfur into the atmoshpere. Sulfur blocks a portion of energy from coming in, CO2 traps a portion of energy from going out. PM me if you have additional questions.

two variables?....OMG ....what happened to the rest of them?

"If I don't understand it, it must be witchcraft"

Always best to sacrifice a virgin or two....just in case

This is like watching a 4-year-old argue about the Theory of Relativity.

We have solved global warming and ya wanna talk physics?

Dude we are in control now,we got plenty of coal(acid rain is a minor problem)

We have solved global warming and ya wanna talk physics?

Dude we are in control now,we got plenty of coal(acid rain is a minor problem)

I'll get a keyboard breathalyzer if you will.

I'll get a keyboard breathalyzer if you will.

I like you

but I just started drinking,it mellows me out

---------- Post added July-30th-2011 at 12:45 AM ----------

OK ,ya don't want snark try this

http://www.thegwpf.org/science-news/3452-why-hasnt-the-earth-warmed-in-nearly-15-years.html

Where is the test of the hypothesis that sulfates are indeed responsible for the lack of warming? In this paper, it’s simply “modeled-in” as it fits the data well. That’s correlation, not causation.

There is very little exchange of air between the northern and southern hemispheres, and basic climate science shows that most sulfates from China will rain out before they get across the thermal equator. In fact, there is a great deal of literature out there published by luminaries like the Department of Energy’s Ben Santer and NASA’s James Hansen claiming relative cooling of the northern hemisphere from sulfates, compared to the southern.

So, if it is indeed sulfates cooling the warming, given that there is no net change in global temperature, then the northern hemisphere should be cooling since 1998 (the first year in Kaufmann’s paper) while the southern warms. Here are the sad facts:

The opposite is occurring. Why this test was not performed eludes me. Perhaps that is because it provides yet another piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that we have simply overstated the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide.

Patrick J. Michaels is Senior Research Fellow for Research and Economic Development at George Mason University and author and editor of “Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of our Government and our Lives.”

more at link of course

"If I don't understand it, it must be witchcraft"

The converse of this is something like

"If I can overstate the problem and scare people then I can get money!!!"

Hint for the "global cooling", oops "global warming", Oh heck with it "climate change" chicken littles. The sky is NOT falling. I repeat the sky is NOT falling.

How does this work? The acid rain problem associated with coal is local but the cooling effect of burning coal is global?

The converse of this is something like

"If I can overstate the problem and scare people then I can get money!!!"

The other side of this, of course is:

"If I can show mainstream science to be wrong on this, I will become rich and famous overnight. I will be able to work on whatever I want in a prestigious university, get invited to conferencnes, and I will get a lot of money for research."

Hint for the "global cooling", oops "global warming", Oh heck with it "climate change" chicken littles. The sky is NOT falling. I repeat the sky is NOT falling.

I wish you were right, but you are very likely wrong.

Eggs are good or bad this year?

Depends on how much salt ya put on em...Oh wait,scratch that

---------- Post added July-31st-2011 at 02:40 PM ----------

How does this work? The acid rain problem associated with coal is local but the cooling effect of burning coal is global?

Careful there heretic,inconsistencies are obviously accounted for in the models....are you questioning the scientific method?

How does this work? The acid rain problem associated with coal is local but the cooling effect of burning coal is global?

Air temperature spreads globally pretty quickly. In addition, the northern hemisphere, due to the amount of land mass, and the fact that is more easily affected drives global temperature (e.g. ice ages are driven by northern insolation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles). The southern hemisphere, having much more water, is more stable.

Some what simplistically, let's say we have something that is good at conducting heat through the whole system., but let's say for some reason part of it absorbs heat more easily than the rest (let's say half is painted black and half is painted white and like all things w/ such color differences the black parts absorbs heat better and so is more easily affected).

What happens if you block the black part from absorbing as much heat as it was? The affect is local, but since the heat can be quickly distributed through the system, the effect is also system wide. The thing blocking the black part is local. If you have robust gravity, and you throw it up, it is likely to come down on the black part. The temperature results though are system wide.

Things are more complicated than that because, for example, people do expect Antarctica to be warming faster than it appears to be (we do have issues with measuring how fast Antarctica is warming because of lack of data so how Antarctica is warming (if at all) as a total continent is an area of debate). Partly, though, this is likely because other things are also changing in the southern hemisphere (more so than the northern hemisphere), such as wind and ocean currents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13161265

http://www.kuuvikriver.info/uploads/science/saturation_of_the_southern_ocean_CO2_sink_due_to_recent_climate_change.pdf

So we have multiple variables that are changing. I've said in the past, one of the issues with modeling climate change is things keep changing that aren't really related to climate. It is like trying to predict the gas milage of a car where every night somebody comes in and tinkers with the car. Knowing the history of the car, things about the gas put in the car, and the expected driving conditions give you some information, but its very difficult to deal with the other things that are changing in historically unprecedented manners that aren't directly related to the things you are trying to look at, but end up affecting it.

So, its to our benefit that China keeps pumping out lots of coal. They can deal with the horrific acid rain all they want but, globally, we get free air conditioning.

The converse of this is something like

"If I can overstate the problem and scare people then I can get money!!!"

How much money, for what, from where at what risk?

Do you understand how science funding works? Do you understand the concept of tenure, and how much is paid directly to the person for research as compared to their salary?

I can't pay myself more than a summer salary, which is related to my total salary, from grants total. The summer salary has to be tied to the amount of work I project I'm doing on the grant for that summer. I can't claim I'm doing 6 months of summer work on a total of 2 different grants. If I pull 3 months of summer salary off of one grant, then having another grant doesn't do me any good in terms of what I take home because I can't claim another months summer salary from it.

The vast majority of any grant, especially, grants beyond the first one go to things like equipment, supporting the institution, and paying other people and their tuition. The benefit to me is minimal, especially in the face of losing my job as once tenured something like major fraud is one of the few ways I could actually lose my job.

---------- Post added July-31st-2011 at 09:29 PM ----------

So, its to our benefit that China keeps pumping out lots of coal. They can deal with the horrific acid rain all they want but, globally, we get free air conditioning.

Short term yes. Longer term unlikely. The half life particles is less than the half life of CO2 and the CO2 will globally spread and in time will raise temperatures in areas beyond where the aerosoles are being released.

Now, if we develop some method to absorb and reuse/recycle/store CO2, then that changes.

"If I don't understand it, it must be witchcraft"

Therefore we must quickly go on the attack and ridicule the "fancy science" talk for the blasphemy it is. Next thing you know they will be wanting us to put toilet water on our crops instead of Brawndo.

Eggs are good or bad this year?

Best line of the thread so far.

I could go into a long story about in-laws and eggs benefits or not.