Skeptics and Deniers: Let's Talk Global Warming

First of all, I'm terribly sorry for such a late post. A lot of things are happening lately and I was just caught in the midst of a storm of deadlines, assessments, etc. I can truthfully say, though, that this post took a long time to write. Climate skepticism is one big issue, so quite a lot of research and thought went to this post. 

As written on the previous post, this series is going to be about the book written by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years which was published in 2006. Over 16 chapters, the authors argue that the current rise in global temperature is not due to greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activity but part of natural cycles in the Earth's climate. Instead of trying to reduce gas emissions, they say, we should prepare for the effects that follow. 

Honestly, I began reading with a little doubt - how far could anyone challenge something that persists and prevails in education systems, political conversations, and scientific research? Climate skepticism wasn't a concept that I was greatly familiar with; as a firm believer in the influence of human activity on global warming, I decided to read this book to see what the other side was thinking about.

After a couple of hours of reading, I could see why it had caused such a sensation.  It quoted 'Greenhouse Warming Advocates" and "alarmists" and then directly refuted the details. This was a truly effective way to get the readers to question everything they had learned through primary and secondary education, newspapers and presentations. I began to realize that there may have been imperfections and flaws in the explanations for human impact on global warming. However, I noticed some serious errors and flaws in the book as well. Here's an example of a point that I found to be misguided or unfounded:

- What the book says: The rise in temperature caused by human industrial activity is insignificant. There has only been a few degrees increase. 
  What I noticed/realized: Nowhere in the book is ocean acidification mentioned. A huge bulk  - 25%, according to Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory - of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is dissolved in oceans and other water bodies like rivers and lakes. The reaction with water forms carbonic acid which eventually gives a bicarbonate ion and hydrogen ion, increasing the water's acidity. This is a reason why the actual number of degrees increase in temperature has not been increasing as much...although this may change when the threshold for the maximum carbon dioxide for absorption is reached.

As you can see, there are some aspects of the story in the book that I cannot agree with. Throughout the series of these blog posts, I will give a glimpse of what the book says, as well as my own opinions and questions that I had while reading this book. 

Now, I will talk briefly about the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, a point that the authors make early in the book. Remember, the opinion in this book is that big alterations in our climate are not due to human activity but through inherent cycles of change that the Earth goes through anyway. It will give you a hint as to how they set out their story, as well as the science that is important to know in understanding how the Earth's climate system works. 

One crucial "linkage" between the Earth's climate and the changes in the sun is cosmic rays. Under normal conditions, the sun emits a "solar wind" that shields our planet from cosmic rays that "bombard the rest of the universe". When the sun is weak, more cosmic rays reach the Earth's atmosphere. Here is a direct quote from the book: "... more of the cosmic rays get through to the Earth's atmosphere. There, they ionize air molecules and create cloud nuclei. These nuclei then produce low, wet clouds that reflect solar radiation back into outer space. This cools the Earth."

We must consider another aspect which, of course, concerns the ozone layer in our stratosphere. According to climate models mentioned in the book (Ah, climate models! Another matter that has to be discussed, maybe in the next post), "a 0.1 percent change in the sun's radiation could cause a 2 percent change in the Earth's ozone radiation, affecting atmospheric heat and circulation." When the sun is in a more active state, there is an increase in the ultraviolet rays reaching the Earth. Below is a diagram of how ultraviolet rays break oxygen molecules, some of which turn into ozone. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Derivative work by Smartse

What do you guys think? Do you think factors such as the sun's cycles of change give enough reasons for believing that we aren't really responsible for global warming? Why do you think our teachers, politicians and non-governmental organizations tell us otherwise? Why are some people so adamant on denying our impact on the Earth's system? 

If you would like to share your ideas, please post comments below! 

Next post will be on the authors' reasons why the "Greenhouse Theory fails". 

Read part of the book here: 

http://www.reasontofreedom.com/unstoppable_global_warming_by_s_fred_singer_and_dennis_t_avery.html

Reading "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years"

Recently, I was strolling through the library aisles when I came across "Unstoppable Global Warming" by Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. From the cover, I could immediately see that the book was about how mankind isn't responsible for "global warming" - or, the recent surges in global temperature. In fact, according to the book, the climate change phenomena are a result of 1,500-year climate cycles that the Earth has been going through for 4.5 billion years.

The book expresses its doubts about the Greenhouse Effect - the absorption of solar radiation by greenhouse gases such as CO2 and N2O; the emission of GHGs from human activity cannot have an effect as large as a global temperature surge. The writers of this book assert that instead of trying to cut down on the production of such gases, we should try to develop the adequate technologies and other measures to prepare for the changes in climate for the years to come - inevitable, because that is how the Earth's system has always been, going through repetitive circuits of warm periods and little ice ages. 

* Anyone who's been following my blog will know that what I believe in doesn't agree with what the book says. I've talked extensively about global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change, all from a point of view that is quite the opposite of that of the book. But in the last few years, I've met people who share the book's ideas - surprisingly not a very small number. Investigating what the book says is a way of figuring out what they believe in and clarifying or reinforcing my own knowledge.

For the next few months, I'll be posting about my reading of this book, with picture and weather posts in between. I hope it will interest you as much as it did to me; after all, global news are often scattered with articles about climate change, and in order to interpret them in the most accurate or balanced way, we should be armed with the appropriate knowledge. 

Cheers :)

Discovering Petrified Wood

At the end of my last blog post, I asked you what the picture below showed:

Wood...with a "metallic, rocky texture"

And the answer is...petrified wood!

Blocks of it were scattered around the bonsai park of the Hwa Dam Forest Arboretum in Gwangju. When I first touched one, I couldn't believe it was a type of "wood" because it felt just like the veneer of polished marble. The entire shape was of an ordinary log, but there was nothing less than extraordinary about it. It  Below are some pictures:

Looks like silvery paint brushed over an oily surface

There were even massive sculptures made of this material along with a notice board that explained briefly how this came to be:

Can you see two sculptures lurking in the background?

The sign talks of "the tree that became a stone" and as much as this sounds like something out of a fairy tale or a fantasy novel, the formation of this magnificent matter can be explained quite scientifically. 

Petrified wood, also known as silicified wood, is a type of fossil...or more accurately, "fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation". It is formed when a tree's organic materials get replaced with minerals such as silica, calcite, pyrite and quartz. This occurs when the wood becomes buried in sediment through which dissolved solids flow through. The plant's lignin and cellulose decay, making room for stone mold to set. It is essential that there is protection from oxygen and various organisms to prevent aerobic decomposition. Petrified wood is an incredibly unique fossil: its original outline and shape are preserved without getting compressed or impressed like other types do. In fact, it would be quite accurate to say that it represents an three-dimensional record of the initial form. 

Enjoy more pictures! :)

Continued From The Last Post: Why is Changma Changing?

In the last post, I introduced the changing patterns of the Korean Monsoon (Changma) and how this crucial part of Korean summers was making all of us - including me - quite confused. I wanted to investigate what factors were contributing to the changes in Changma; in today's post, I'll talk about the relationship between Eurasian snow cover and Korean summer rainfall. While I was researching specifically for information that pertains to Korea, I found quite a lot more research done on other regions such as Punjab of India - if you are interested in Eurasian snow cover and the rainfall in your own country, I'm sure you'll find a huge number of research papers done on that topic :)

The first document I used for my little research was the Korean Meteorological Administration's Changma Report of 2011. I was incredibly impressed with its rich content of diagrams and graphs, although the explanations and reasoning for the information they provided was a bit lacking. Still, I was able to find the work of many researchers such as Bamzai & Shukla 1999, Bhanukuma 1988 and Liu & Yanai 2002. I'll put the links to all the information I used at the end of this blog post. 

Before I go further, though, I realize that changes in rainfall patterns are part of climate change, and climate change may be considered a natural phenomenon. On the other hand, the biggest contributor to the recent change in climate is thought to be global warming. With my own experiences and research scientists' statements and findings*, I also agree that the increased global temperature and rainfall variability are anthropologically related. Please tell me what you think in the comments below - debate on climate change is always interesting :)

Western Eurasia is considered a unique geographical region where there is notable inverse correlation between winter snow cover and the subsequent summer monsoon rainfall in South East Asia. This inverse relationship is observed especially when the snow cover was greater or less than usual for both winter and the consecutive spring season. 

When the snow cover of Eurasia's western region is greater and eastern region less than usual in the spring, Korea's summer rainfall tends to increase. With excessive snow cover anomalies, the cooling and cyclonic circulation anomaly in the lower troposphere appear over northern Eurasia. This leads to a huge circulation response and then a weakened East Asia summer monsoon with deficient rainfall. Eurasian snow cover forms more than 60% of the Northern Hemisphere's snow cover, thus the changes in its snow cover give rise to massive changes in the nearby regions. 

But all of the above information still doesn't specifically answer why Eurasian snow cover influences the rainfall other regions...so what it is about the snow anomalies that cause changes in precipitation patterns? Persistent Eurasian snow irregularities in winter and spring cause changes in the temperatures of the surface and atmosphere. This causes albedo and soil hydrological effects; these are particularly important because they widen the difference between the land and sea thermal temperatures and the monsoon that follows. Albedo is known as the power of reflection of a surface (ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it). Snow albedo is particularly more variable: 0.2 for dirty snow, 0.4 for melting snow, and 0.9 for freshly fallen snow. 

I think this explains at least an important part of the relationship between Eurasian snow cover and Korea's Changma...but it's important to realize that although a lot of studies have been done on this topic, there is little data spanning many decades. Also, most of the research I found was focused on the Indian or Chinese monsoon, rather than other regions of Asia. If you happen to know a good source for information that is specifically about Korea, do tell me :)

Next post will be about an absolutely AMAZING discovery I made on my trip last weekend to Gwangju - see the picture below:

Can you figure out what this is? It looks like wood...

but there is also a metallic/rocky texture! 

* Before the 1970s, the variation and monsoon rainfall in East Asia  showed generally varying increases. Since the 1970s, global precipitation's divergent data demonstrated increases that almost coincided with increases in global temperature anomalies during the same period. For further information, please check out this research paper.


 - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.784/full
 - http://www.pmd.gov.pk/rnd/rnd_files/vol5_issue10/8.%20The%20Effect%20of%20Eurasian%20Snow%20Cover%20on%20the%20Monsoon%20Rainfall%20of%20Pakistan.pdf
 - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.784/pdf
 - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167498711400036X
 - http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/q-and-a-climate-change-and-the-monsoon/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Science&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=Blogs
 - http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/04/south-asian-monsoon-is-on-the-change/
 - http://web.kma.go.kr/eng/

Whimsical Weather - the Monsoon/Changma

It's already mid-July, and the Korean peninsula should be under a really heavy monsoon or "Changma", as we call it here. Although it rained during early morning on Friday in Seoul, it remained sunny throughout the day. It was slightly humid, but bearable. The sun was out and there was even a slightly cool breeze when I walked on the sidewalk. This would have been considered a pretty pleasant summer day, but there's also something to worry about: the Changma is starting really, really late.

See any sign of rain, anybody? (Photo taken at Yangjaecheon)

Having lower levels of humidity and not having to worry about rain boots, rain coats and umbrellas may be convenient to most of those who live in the city, but this means big trouble for the farming industry and the natural environment. When I watched the news last weekend, I was astonished at how some small lakes had dried up in the countryside, leaving only a threadlike streak of water in the middle of cracked soil. Last night, though, I was relieved to watch the report of rains falling throughout the country. That the Changma has begun is evident, but there are reports of low levels of precipitation compared to the previous years'. A Changma during which there is little rain is called "Dry Changma", and this year's definitely one of those. Even if the rain has been becoming heavier in some regions, the accumulated rain volume remains less than a quarter of last year's. Low levels of rain also mean many hotter days, so Seoulites must brace themselves for the suffocating warmth!

And why is any of this so significant? Here, summer has always meant Changma; the stickiness and the omnipresent beads of precipitation are things we've always accepted as the norm. The Changma is such a consistent part of the season that its vastly changing patterns observed in recent years can become a source of confusion and bewilderment. And of course, as I mentioned, vastly negative impacts on the environment.  

Whereas a Changma as late as this is not something Koreans are used to (yet), a Changma that is irregular, heavier and extends to the autumn months has become a somewhat common trend in the last few years. Since the rain season is such a crucial part of life in this country, it is important to be aware of at least a few factors that influence its fluctuating patterns. A lot of research has been done on this subject - not just the Korean Changma but that of entire South East Asia - which deal with Eurasian ice cover, marine and continental temperatures among other factors. 

The next post will be about such factors; it will be posted by the end of this month! Cheers :)

http://w3.sbs.co.kr/news/newsEndPage.do?news_id=N1002467806
http://news1.kr/articles/?1768511
http://www.kjdaily.com/read.php3?aid=1405338616324842001