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Climate change shock: Burning fossil fuels 'COOLS planet', says NASA
Express UK ^ | December 21, 2015 | By JON AUSTIN

Posted on 12/21/2015 7:02:17 PM PST by Swordmaker

BURNING fossil fuels and cutting down trees causes global COOLING, a shock new NASA study has found.

Major theories about what causes temperatures to rise have been thrown into doubt after NASA found the Earth has cooled in areas of heavy industrialization where more trees have been lost and more fossil fuel burning takes place.

Environmentalists have long argued the burning of fossil fuels in power stations and for other uses is responsible for global warming and predicted temperature increases because of the high levels of carbon dioxide produced - which causes the global greenhouse effect.

While the findings did not dispute the effects of carbon dioxide on global warming, they found aerosols - also given off by burning fossil fuels - actually cool the local environment, at least temporarily.

The research was carried out to see if current climate change models for calculating future temperatures were taking into account all factors and were accurate.

A NASA spokesman said: "To quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth.

"Both values are projected global mean surface temperature changes in response to doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations but on different timescales.

"TCR is characteristic of short-term predictions, up to a century out, while ECS looks centuries further into the future, when the entire climate system has reached equilibrium and temperatures have stabilized."

The spokesman said it was "well known" that aerosols such as those emitted in volcanic eruptions and power stations, act to cool Earth, at least temporarily, by reflecting solar radiation away from the planet.

He added: "In a similar fashion, land use changes such as deforestation in northern latitudes result in bare land that increases reflected sunlight."

Kate Marvel, a climatologist at GISS and the paper’s lead author, said the results showed the "complexity" of estimating future global temperatures.

She said: "Take sulfate aerosols, which are created from burning fossil fuels and contribute to atmospheric cooling.

"They are more or less confined to the northern hemisphere, where most of us live and emit pollution.

"There's more land in the northern hemisphere, and land reacts quicker than the ocean does to these atmospheric changes.

"Because earlier studies do not account for what amounts to a net cooling effect for parts of the northern hemisphere, predictions for TCR and ECS have been lower than they should be."

The study found existing models for climate change had been too simplistic and did not account for these factors.

The spokesman said: "There have been many attempts to determine TCR and ECS values based on the history of temperature changes over the last 150 years and the measurements of important climate drivers, such as carbon dioxide.

"As part of that calculation, researchers have relied on simplifying assumptions when accounting for the temperature impacts of climate drivers other than carbon dioxide, such as tiny particles in the atmosphere known as aerosols, for example.

Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and a co-author on the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said: "The assumptions made to account for these drivers are too simplistic and result in incorrect estimates of TCR and ECS.

"The problem with that approach is that it falls way short of capturing the individual regional impacts of each of those variables," he said, adding that only within the last ten years has there been enough available data on aerosols to abandon the simple assumption and instead attempt detailed calculations.

But, rather than being good news, NASA has concluded the lack of taking these factors into account means existing climate change models have underestimated at the future impact on global temperatures will be.

NASA researchers at GISS accomplished a first ever feat by calculating the temperature impact of each of these variables -- greenhouse gases, natural and manmade aerosols, ozone concentrations, and land use changes -- based on historical observations from 1850 to 2005 using a massive ensemble of computer simulations.

The spokesman said: "Analysis of the results showed that these climate drivers do not necessarily behave like carbon dioxide, which is uniformly spread throughout the globe and produces a consistent temperature response; rather, each climate driver has a particular set of conditions that affects the temperature response of Earth.

"Because earlier studies do not account for what amounts to a net cooling effect for parts of the northern hemisphere, predictions for TCR and ECS have been lower than they should be.

"This means that Earth's climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide -- or atmospheric carbon dioxide's capacity to affect temperature change -- has been underestimated, according to the study."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which draws its TCR estimate from earlier research, places the future estimate rise at 1.8 degrees F (1.0 degree C).

But the new NASA study dovetails with a GISS study published last year that puts the TCR value at 3.0 degrees F (1.0 degees C).

Mr Schmidt said: "If you've got a systematic underestimate of what the greenhouse gas-driven change would be, then you're systematically underestimating what's going to happen in the future when greenhouse gases are by far the dominant climate driver."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerosols; agw; climatechange; coal; fossilfuels; gas; giss; globalcooling; globalwarming; ipcc; nasa; oil
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1 posted on 12/21/2015 7:02:17 PM PST by Swordmaker
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To: Swordmaker

Rut Roh. So now we want to burn them? What?


2 posted on 12/21/2015 7:04:15 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: Swordmaker

Fat is bad for you. No, it’s GOOD for you. No, it’s bad for you.

Rinse and repeat.


3 posted on 12/21/2015 7:05:19 PM PST by cuban leaf (The US will not survive the obama presidency. The world may not either.)
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To: Swordmaker

So ? Since when did facts make any difference to the fascists running the Global Warming scam ?


4 posted on 12/21/2015 7:05:40 PM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: Swordmaker

Just think what a nice place Earth would be if the only people living on it were the ultra wealthy liberals — and just enough peons to pick their arugula and clean their toilets.


5 posted on 12/21/2015 7:05:47 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Swordmaker

Oh noooooee.... we’re all going to freeze to death.


6 posted on 12/21/2015 7:06:20 PM PST by House Atreides (Cruz or lose! Do TG & Boogieman have to be asses every day?)
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To: Swordmaker

So all those electrostatic precipitators and bag houses were a giant mistake?


7 posted on 12/21/2015 7:08:06 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
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To: Swordmaker

What caused our last Ice age? Why did it melt? SUV’s? Coal plants? BBQ’s?


8 posted on 12/21/2015 7:08:15 PM PST by umgud
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To: Swordmaker

If it don’t affect the carbon credit rates, it don’t matter.


9 posted on 12/21/2015 7:08:52 PM PST by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: umgud

10 posted on 12/21/2015 7:24:15 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: Swordmaker

The new “settled science”? We are going into a solar minimum cycle, likely causing a ice age. Also, now burning fossil fuels cools the climate. Therefore we need to stop burning fossil fuels to save us from global freezing.


11 posted on 12/21/2015 7:30:21 PM PST by Hugin ("First thing--get yourself a firearm!" Sheriff Ed Galt, Last Man Standing.)
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To: Swordmaker

They are moving the goalposts again. First it was “global warming” and then it moved to “climate change” and, now that temps are indisputably not warming, the “settled science” will no pivot back to the coming ice age. An ice age that can only be prevented by slavery and de-industrialization.

Work-tongued, lying filth.


12 posted on 12/21/2015 7:33:30 PM PST by WMarshal (Who in the Republican Party will be brave enough to name Obama a traitor?)
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To: WMarshal

No worries, it can all be cured by a massive transfer of wealth...(the only real goal)


13 posted on 12/21/2015 7:41:46 PM PST by corlorde (Merry Christmas!)
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To: Swordmaker
I feel better already!


14 posted on 12/21/2015 7:42:08 PM PST by Delta 21 (Patiently waiting for the jack booted kick at my door.)
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To: Swordmaker

This can’t be right. The science is settled, we’ve agreed to spend trillions of dollars to stop global warming/climate change/climate disruption. Think of all those folks who spent three weeks in Paris, now they’ll have to start all over again. And that nasty man Ted Cruz has been right all along.


15 posted on 12/21/2015 7:43:34 PM PST by Timocrat (Ingnorantia non excusat)
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To: Swordmaker
"NASA has concluded the lack of taking these factors into account"

NASA: the newest 'denier'.

16 posted on 12/21/2015 7:43:48 PM PST by adorno (w)
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To: Swordmaker

So ...

Should we burn more fossil fuel or less?


17 posted on 12/21/2015 7:47:57 PM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: Swordmaker

Burning of fossil fuels in power stations and for other uses causes global warming and global warming causes terrorism . . . will the circle be unbroken?


18 posted on 12/21/2015 7:48:25 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: Swordmaker

Goobermint fortune tellers NASS-Ah and NOOO-Uh have looked into their crystal balls and foresee no Matter if the weather trends Hot or Cold, iss Man-Maid KliMate ChanGe!!

Settled Science - F evahboddee else!


19 posted on 12/21/2015 7:49:32 PM PST by Gasshog (DemoKKKrats: Leaders of the Free Stuff World)
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To: Swordmaker
A NASA spokesman said: "To quantify climate change, researchers need to know the Transient Climate Response (TCR) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) of Earth.

Gosh, you mean they don't know that? I thought 97% of all scientists knew that like the back of their hand.

20 posted on 12/21/2015 7:50:32 PM PST by P-Marlowe (Tagline pending.)
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