Talk:Global cooling/Archive 2

message: I have filed Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SEWilco. William M. Connolley 22:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SEWilco]] 

message: OK - as this page has stabilized a bit, I've found authors for each reference (except one unknown) and alphabetized the list. Please correct any errors (couple of shakey choices there). I would like to add abbrev. authors in place of the current numbered inline links (a la Harvard style) for ease of correlation. But won't without consensus here. Note, I don't mean a link to the ref as the notes thingy did - keep the inline link and create a means of finding it in the refs - as I've done at Kyoto Protocol (which still needs a clean-up). Comments ??? - Vsmith 02:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I took out the new para entirely. Even after SS'ing sane-ising, its still just a rehash of material from GW and temperature record of the past 1000 years and there is no point doing it again. William M. Connolley 15:43, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New para removed: why 

message: As I am not a climatologist / enviromentalist (just a chemist by education), I didn't want to edit these topics without getting some clarification from those "in the know". The problem I have is the apparent inconsistancy between these two topics.
In the "Global Cooling" WIKI, it sounds as though the theory had mass appeal in the scientific community during the 70s, but has lost steam in modern times. The mechanism of action behind this theory: aerisols and particulates in the atmosphere reflect sunlight from reaching Earth, thereby reducing the amount of heat derived from the sun.
In the "Global Dimming" WIKI, this is a relatively new theory that has been gaining popularity in the scientific community. It was first described in the late 80s (1989, according to the WIKI's source) and additional empirical evidence (such as the "down-time" in the airline industry following 9/11) has supported this idea. The mechanism of action: aerisols and particulates in the atmosphere reflect sunlight from reaching Earth, thereby reducing the amount of heat derived from the sun.
So am I right in assuming that "Global Dimming" is just another way of saying "Global Cooling"? If so, then both WIKIs need to be changed in order to reflect the dicotomy of how the scientific community reguards these (this) theory. If, on the other hand, there is a distinction between the two theories, I think it would make a good addition to the two pages to have a section describing this distinction.
Pyth007 00:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Global cooling had several proposed mechanisms. It didn't have much support. And "global dimming" occurs during a period of net warming William M. Connolley 09:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So "Global cooling" refers to the net global temperatures whereas "global dimming" refers more to the aerisol mechanism? If correct (or at least along those lines) maybe a brief mention / link to global dimming under the Physical mechanism / Aerisols heading... Pyth007 14:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  GC is the temperatures. GD is the (direct) radiation, although its linked to a slight cooling tendency William M. Connolley 15:28, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Another thought... Some parts of the global cooling WIKI suggests that the current scientific community discredits this theory completely (sort of like saying "Oh, those foolish scientists of the 70s"), yet the ideas behind this theory are not flawed, but rather the theory failed based on the lack of understanding the complete picture (as the middle part of the WIKI depicts). So in the "The Present Level of Knowledge" section, the first paragraph may need to be altered to reflect this growing understanding of all forces at play. For example "shown the cooling concerns of 1975 to have been simplistic and not borne out." is incorrect in that the cooling concerns are still in play (in terms of global dimming), but that the overall global temperature concerns have been rectified to reflect other pieces of information, such as the effects of greenhouse gases. Pyth007 15:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you're wrong (also wrong to be discussing it here!). No-one is worried about *cooling* now. People are worried that the cooling tendency of aerosols may have masked some warming and led us to underpredict future warming; but thats very different to a concern about the possible effects of cooling William M. Connolley 15:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict)Actually, it's more like "the foolish popular press of the 70s". Even back then, imminent global cooling was never a mainstream scientific opinion (unless you interprete iminent on a geological time scale). And please: A Wiki (lower case) is the whole (Wikipedia is a Wiki). It is composed of individual articles (or pages). --Stephan Schulz 16:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  (I hope this doesn’t come across as sounding too harsh; I don’t want to start a flame war) 1) “I think you’re wrong”: I’m sorry, but the whole point of this conversation was to clarify a few questions I had. So I’m wrong in having a question?! I was always taught that there’s no such thing as stupid questions! Background: while I was setting up labs for a local community college, a professor mentioned that he wanted to show a video on GD. Since I had never heard of that term before, I looked it up in wikipedia, and what I read sounded vaguely similar to the theory of GC that I had heard of in the 70s. So I looked up GC and sure enough, one of the mechanisms of action were the same. I asked a question and felt that your previous answers had guided me in the right direction (GC = global climate change; GD = mechanism of localized cooling by particulates)(Thank you, BTW, for those answers) If this assumption is wrong, then please clarify what this distinction is or where I am in error… 2) “also wrong to be discussing it here”: If talking about the global cooling page in the discussion section of the global cooling page is the wrong place to have such a discussion, then where the HECK is such a discussion supposed to take place?! I thought it would be more “kosher” to raise questions about the page in the discussion section than to go to the actual article and make changes based on my sole assumptions. 3) “People are worried that the cooling tendency …; but thats very different to a concern about the possible effects of cooling”: I’m trying to understand the logic in this sentence. To me this sounds like a contradiction (perhaps just a confusion as to what you mean by “cooling”). On the one hand, people are concerned about the masking effects that cooling due to GD has on previous predictions of the extent of GW, but on the other hand, there’s no concern about any effects that cooling due to GD has… Or were you referring to the glacian possibilities (and other gross climatic events) that GC suggested as no longer being the concern facing environmentalists (but that GD’s cooling still poses a concern)? 4) Again, (and maybe this is just a problem with semantics) I feel that the first paragraph under “The Present Level of Knowledge” completely undermines the ideas that were going on in the 70s. As evidenced by GD, part of the mechanism of action behind GC was not flawed -- just the end result of that theory. I think it would be more correct to say something like: “More has to be learned about climate, but the growing records have shown that the earlier climate theories to have been too simplistic, and that the dire concerns about possible continuing drops in global temperatures have not borne out.” Similarly, one could say that the “Ideal Gas Law” is simplistic in that it didn’t address all of the forces occurring within a gas. However, it would be wrong to say that the IGL doesn’t bear out (meaning doesn’t hold a shred of truth / knowledge) since certain ideas (eg the inverse relationship between pressure and volume) do indeed bear out. It’s only when considering those other forces (that the simplistic IGL neglects, such as attractions between gas molecules) that a complete understanding of molecular interaction can occur. Likewise, it’s our understanding of all influences that will yield an accurate model of climate change. I think that the earlier part of the article did address this correctly. The paper by Rasool and Schneider and the NAS report sections go into how the overall climate model was in dispute when considering both cooling as well as warming factors, and -- I believe -- were correctly summarized by the “Climate science has improved” section. I’m mainly concerned with how that one small paragraph was phrased. Pyth007 19:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, you're wrong. On a warm, sunny day, go into a black tent. No direkt sunlight will strike you, but I promise you will be very warm! Light coming from the sun and being absorbed by the atmosphere before it strikes the ground still heats up this atmosphere. The energy does not magically vanish.--Stephan Schulz 05:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not possible that I am wrong.  This entire discussion on aerosols and other substances that reflect the suns rays isn't something I'd even heard about before 2 days ago.  Your black tent analogy is irrelevant because if the sun WERE shining directly on the black tent... the tent would be warmer wouldn't it? <--this was my entire point, maybe you misunderstood what I was trying to say. So Direct sunlight or lack of direct sunlight does cause temperature changes.  Really, this is a funny conversation since you need only look as far as seasonal changes of temp to see that this holds true.     :  So apparently aerosoles reflect sunlight.. and ice reflects sunlight (thus helping to keep the earth cooler in relative terms)... but aerosoles reflecting sunlight don't keep the earth cooler? Cowboy357 05:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's not possible that you are wrong, we can of course stop this discussion now. Have you considered running for Pope or Dalai Lama when the job comes up again? Otherwise: In the tent analogy, no direct sunlight is striking you, but you will still be warm. Likewise, sunlight that is absorbed on the way from the sun to the ground by the atmosphere will not strike the ground, but still heat the atmosphere. And some aeorosols reflect sunlight and can excert a cooling effect (most famously sulphate aerosols). Some, in particular soot, will absorb sunlight rather greedily. The same holds for gaseous components - they can absorb sunlight in certain frequency bands. --Stephan Schulz 06:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  So your black tent analogy is correct after all.  The tempurature is not effected by sunlight hitting the tent or not, all else being equal. (sheesh)  Cowboy357 02:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, this is called a "positive feedback loop". Ice reflects sunlight (i.e. it is not absorbed, the energy bounces back into space). Melt some ice, more dark ground or water exposed, more energ absorbed, it gets warmer, some ice melts...--Stephan Schulz 05:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Again, makes no sense.  Why would ice reflect sunlight, but not the aerosoles?  I have no idea if aerosoles reflect sunlight, again, the wiki info regarding this is very conflicting and illogical.  But according to Wiki, they DO reflect sunlight, hence Global dimming.  So how is it that Ice reflecting sunlight contributes to keeping the earth cooler, but other things reflecting sunlight, don't? Cowboy357 05:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, "aerosols" is a term describing any fine particulate matter suspended in the atmosphere. Some kinds of aerosols reflect light, some absorb it (some may do both, depending on wavelength ;-). Reflective ones cool (usually), absorbing ones will be neutral or even have a warming influence (if over a high-albedo ground that would reflect the part that is now absorbed). --Stephan Schulz 15:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

text: "Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler". This is a reasonably complex topic, and not made easier by people who inject all kind of nonsense into the debate (I've read all of these: "Earth cannot get warmer thanks to the second law of thermodynamics", "there is no such thing as an average temperature, hence it cannot increase", "temperature is a tensor field", "the Earth's magnetic field shields us from sunlight, global warming is due to the 15% reduction in magnetic field strength we had in the last 30 years"...). --Stephan Schulz 05:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about this for the change in that sentence: “More has to be learned about climate, but the growing *data* have shown that the earlier climate theories to have been too simplistic, and that the dire concerns *popularized in the media* about continuing drops in global temperatures have not borne out.” (*'s noting the changes to my previous...) I was also thinking that "records" sound too unscientific. The "Farmer's Alminac" has temperature records; climatologists, however, work with mathematical models and scientific data. Also, what would you think of adding this sentence to the end of the "Physical mechanisms -- Aerosols" section: Although the temperature drops foreseen by this mechanism have now been discarded in light of the warming predictions of modern models, this mechanism forms the basis for the idea of "Global Dimming" -- a phenomenon which may be masking the true nature of Global Warming. Pyth007 12:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I added the second suggestion. But "t records" is fine... see temperature record William M. Connolley 15:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Reverted it back, as there is no scientific controversy about it.--Stephan Schulz 02:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global Dimming = Global Cooling? 

message: Cut from article:
:This appears to be a clear rebuttal of those, such as SEPP who think that "the NAS
"experts" exhibited ... hysterical fears" in the 1975 report.
Whose point of view is it, that this is a "clear rebuttal of ... SEPP"? Please attach a name to this POV and then put the sentence back into the article. --Uncle Ed 20:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't need a named source. Ed, please stop being silly. The assertion by SEPP about hysteria is rebutted by the tone of the report... yes? Your editing here and elsewhere is getting pretty close to vandlaism William M. Connolley 21:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disagreement with SEPP 

message: A known fact is that the eruption of Tambora volcano sending tons and tons of debris into the atmosphere caused a "year without a summer" in 1816.  A way to control light from the sun is to block it as the volcano eruption did.  
There has been a ground swell to cut CO2 emissions.  Why not go the other way and block the sunlight.
We need to do a study as to how many tons of aerosol particles would be needed at an altitude of five miles or so to start a global cooling.  There are not many items on blocking sunlight.  Global warming may be countered with artificial global cooling.  We then would have control over how much particle material to seed the atmosphere.  By controlling the blockage of the sun's light we would have a thermostat.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.234.50.217 (talk • contribs) .
:Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this. Apart from the fact that I'd rather not experiment any more with the planet while still living on it, injecting aerosols into the atmosphere has a number on undesireable side effect. For sulphate aerosols, believed to be responsible for both the pre-1970s cooling trend and volcanic cooling, among these is acid rain.--Stephan Schulz 06:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Artificial Global Cooling