The Greening Of The North: Real, And Caused By Climate Change

Space Daily ^ | 06/19/2002

[brat]

More excrement from the Loony Left.

[countrydummy]

I am in total agreement with you on this! When are they ever going to give it up! We had snow the first part of June! No at all that usual here! This gets on me ever loving last nerves!

[lavaroise]

bump

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[cogitator]

Just where in this article is it "shown" that this particular climate change is "a direct consequence of human activities?"

It doesn't say that anywhere. All it says is that the observed climate change is "most likely" due to human activities.

[Bernard Marx]

It actually says:

We have shown that the biosphere is indeed changing, due to a climate change that most likely is a direct consequence of human activities (principally in the industrialized countries).

There is absolutely no evidence in the article as posted that the change is "most likely" a direct consequence of human activites in the industrialized countries. This is pure propaganda/unfounded speculation. There is no discussion of possible causes; just a remarkable leap to pin the blame on humans activity in "industrialized countries."

The biosphere is in a constant state of change and the possible causes are many and varied. The article ignores mountains of real evidence that biosphere change is caused by long-term natural processes unrelated to human activity. The work of these computer modelers cries for objective peer review as well.

[alaskanfan]

Just wondering cogitator, do you suppose that these large wildfires we are currently experiencing in the western U.S. have any impact on global warming?

[cogitator]

Just wondering cogitator, do you suppose that these large wildfires we are currently experiencing in the western U.S. have any impact on global warming?

Though they're impressive, they aren't widespread enough. However, the black soot aerosols they produce is likely to be of importance, but you need hundreds of thousands of cooking fires (as in India) or poorly-controlled industrial pollution (as in China) to have a substantial impact.

[cogitator]

There is absolutely no evidence in the article as posted that the change is "most likely" a direct consequence of human activites in the industrialized countries.

Your statement above is entirely correct. The implication of human activities comes from other sources.

[tom paine 2]

You're not using your Wall O' Water protectors. we live just south of Green Bay. Our tomatoes have fruit on them already.

[Reeses]

Though wildfires are impressive, they aren't widespread enough.

The wildfire/green house gas connection must be a taboo subject, I'm having trouble finding hard facts about it. My best estimation from searching many websites is that one acre of forest wildfire generates very roughly the equivalent of 200 cars worth of CO2 driven for one year. If America has 1,000,000 acres of wildfires this year, that possibly exceeds the total CO2 output from all automobiles combined. That's a fairly significant source of CO2. Why is there no mention of this anywhere? I find this curious.

[RightWhale]

If America has 1,000,000 acres of wildfires this year, that possibly exceeds the total CO2 output from all automobiles combined

All of it due to the very practices advocated by the environmentalists. Seems quiet the past few days as far as agitation by the environmentalist groups. Once the fires have cooled, they will come out of their hobbit holes and treat us all to their continued rant, no change.

[cogitator]

You've got me intrigued. Did you find these sites?

Boreal Forest Fire Studies

Excerpt: "The hypothesis we are testing in this interdisciplinary science investigation is that the interannual variations in the fire regime in the boreal forest are responsible for a significant portion of the interannual variations in the seasonal amplitude of the atmospheric CO2 record at high northern latitudes."

Biomass Burning and the Production of Greenhouse Gases

Table 6 is vital. It summarizes the total CO2 released from biomass burning annually as 3546 Teragrams carbon per year. (3.5 petagrams? I always forget what comes after tera-).

Table 8 puts biomass burning at 40% of all CO2 emissions, which are 8700 teragrams.

I also found was U.S. fossil fuel production of CO2 in 1999 (EPA site) at 6746 Teragrams, a little under twice as much as total global CO2 emissions from biomass burning. That would make the U.S. responsible for 77% of global CO2 emissions, and I know that isn't right!

So let's see what else the EPA says:

http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/emissions/national/co2.html (National Carbon Dioxide Emissions)

Says nothing about "natural" biomass burning!

Argh.

Here's an interesting press release from 1997:

GOVERNMENT INDIFFERENCE FUELS INDONESIAN FOREST FIRE DISASTER

Excerpt: "[1] Up to a million hectares of forest are burning in Indonesia (mainly Kalimantan and Sumatra), releasing 220-290 million tonnes of CO2 (for reference, this amount is equivalent to 50 percent of the UK's annual CO2 emissions.) The fire is also threatening over 1 million hectares of peat forest, and an additional 20 million tonnes of CO2 could be released if just the top ten centimetres of peat were to burn."

So here again we see that forest fires are a substantial source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Now I wonder: why aren't they counted as significant? One answer that I saw in passing is that much biomass burning (not specifically forest fires) is considered not to be a net source of CO2 to the atmosphere if crops are re-grown, because plant growth is a CO2 sink. This probably doesn't apply to major forest fires.

I found a nice diagram here:

Understanding the Global Carbon Cycle

It's Figure 2 in a frame that I can't grab from. The units are in petagrams: I had to check the fossil fuel flux number to be sure. Now here's the key: the net flux to the atmosphere from land for "bacterial respiration" is 60 petagrams. Bacterial respiration of organic matter adds CO2 to the atmosphere the same way that burning organic matter does. So based on the numbers found, that would mean that biomass burning is about 6% of the CO2 released by bacterial respiration, which is in approximate balance with the CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by primary production (photosynthesis).

Whew. So my unanswered question is: when the carbon cycle modelers do their thing, do they just figure biomass burning is another form of bacterial respiration, since the effect on organic matter is the same and the delivery of CO2 to the atmosphere is the same? My guess is that the answer to that question is yes. But I don't really know.

[cogitator]

See reply 33 (probably the one above this post).

[cogitator]

Replying to myself: after five more minutes of thought,
I think the answer is definitely yes. That's because
the fire only accounts for the release of a small amount
of the CO2 equivalent in the organic matter/wood. But
once the fire has passed, the bacteria get to work on the
dead wood -- and it's that flux of CO2 that is really significant. The weird thing from a climate change perspective is that it's really hard to predict (if it's possible at all) the net effect on fire frequency. Some
areas could dry out and have more frequent fires, while other areas could be wetter and have less frequent fires. So in the whole context of global climate change, I suspect that the amount of CO2 released by fires and subsequently by bacterial respiration of deadwood amounts to no significant change.

[RightWhale]

Alaska tundra fires and taiga fires are an annual thing and are pretty much ignored unless they threaten a [legal] cabin. A 100,000 acres fire is an everyday occurrence. If they have burnt 400,000 acres in Arizona it's a big deal to the locals, but overall it isn't all that unusual.

Also, interesting they would use petagrams sometimes rather than tons in their data. Makes bigger numbers. Like measuring produced oil in barrels and spilled oil in gallons. Makes one immediately suspect the motives.

[cogitator]

Also, interesting they would use petagrams sometimes rather than tons in their data. Makes bigger numbers. Like measuring produced oil in barrels and spilled oil in gallons. Makes one immediately suspect the motives.

Perhaps, but the reasons could be more mundane. Gigatons is the same as petagrams, and some of the older sites that discuss global warming using gigatons. But gigatons risks confusing metric tons (which it represents) with short tons. Petagrams is clearer.

[alaskanfan]

but you need hundreds of thousands of cooking fires (as in India) or poorly-controlled industrial pollution (as in China) to have a substantial impact.

Perhaps then you could explain to the listeners why India and China were excluded from the Kyoto accord that the liberals have waved in front of our faces since Mr. Bush's election?

[cogitator]

Perhaps then you could explain to the listeners why India and China were excluded from the Kyoto accord that the liberals have waved in front of our faces since Mr. Bush's election?

The useless Kyoto Protocol's emphasis is on CO2 emissions. The exclusion of India and China was a political decision because the Kyoto Protocol ostensibly addressed current greenhouse gas producers, and India and China weren't considered major at the time, though there potential growth in emissions was obvious. The significance of black soot aerosols to global warming has only recently been recognized. Because black soot emissions are also hazardous to health (particularly large particle emissions from fires and industrial pollution), the idea of getting China and India to cooperate more on global warming issues by controlling black soot has been offered on the dual basis of climate and health benefits.

[alaskanfan]

The useless Kyoto Protocol's emphasis is on CO2 emissions. The exclusion of India and China was a political decision because the Kyoto Protocol ostensibly addressed current greenhouse gas producers, and India and China weren't considered major at the time, though there potential growth in emissions was obvious.

So essentially it was a political/economic decision rather than being based on environmental issues?

Therefore President Bush's decision to disregard this issue is not an environmental decision.