Two press release on this this week, both below
From the University of Manchester
Researchers discover particle which could ‘cool the planet’
In a breakthrough paper published in Science, researchers from The University of Manchester, The University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.
These invisible chemical intermediates are powerful oxidisers of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, produced by combustion, and can naturally clean up the atmosphere.
Although these chemical intermediates were hypothesised in the 1950s, it is only now that they have been detected. Scientists now believe that, with further research, these species could play a major role in off-setting climate change.
The detection of the Criegee biradical and measurement of how fast it reacts was made possible by a unique apparatus, designed by Sandia researchers, that uses light from a third-generation synchrotron facility, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source.
The intense, tunable light from the synchrotron allowed researchers to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species – molecules that contain the same atoms but arranged in different combinations.
The researchers found that the Criegee biradicals react more rapidly than first thought and will accelerate the formation of sulphate and nitrate in the atmosphere. These compounds will lead to aerosol formation and ultimately to cloud formation with the potential to cool the planet.
The formation of Criegee biradicals was first postulated by Rudolf Criegee in the 1950s. However, despite their importance, it has not been possible to directly study these important species in the laboratory.
In the last 100 years, Earth’s average surface temperature increased by about 0.8 °C with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades.
Most countries have agreed that drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required, and that future global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F).
Dr Carl Percival, Reader in Atmospheric Chemistry at The University of Manchester and one of the authors of the paper, believes there could be significant research possibilities arising from the discovery of the Criegee biradicals.
He said: “Criegee radicals have been impossible to measure until this work carried out at the Advanced Light Source. We have been able to quantify how fast Criegee radicals react for the first time.
“Our results will have a significant impact on our understanding of the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere and have wide ranging implications for pollution and climate change.
“The main source of these Criegee biradicals does not depend on sunlight and so these processes take place throughout the day and night.”
Professor Dudley Shallcross, Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry at The University of Bristol, added: “A significant ingredient required for the production of these Criegee biradicals comes from chemicals released quite naturally by plants, so natural ecosystems could be playing a significant role in off-setting warming.’
From DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia, UK partners publish groundbreaking work on Criegee intermediates in Science magazine
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  IMAGE:Sandia combustion researchers Craig Taatjes and David Osborn discuss data found from the detection and measurement of Criegee intermediate reactions. The apparatus seen on the left was used to make…Click here for more information. |
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LIVERMORE, Calif. — In a breakthrough paper published in this week’s issue of Science magazine, researchers from Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, the University of Manchester and Bristol University report direct measurements of reactions of a gas-phase Criegee intermediate using photoionization mass spectrometry. (visit www.youtube.com/SandiaLabs to see a short video of Sandia combustion chemists discussing the research.)
Criegee intermediates – carbonyl oxides – are implicated in autoignition chemistry and are pivotal atmospheric reactants, but only indirect knowledge of their reaction kinetics had previously been available. The article, titled Direct Kinetic Measurements of Criegee Intermediate (CH2OO) Formed by Reaction of CH2I with O2, reports the first direct kinetics measurements made of reactions of any Criegee species, in this case formaldehyde oxide (CH2OO). These measurements determine rate coefficients with key species, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and provide new insight into the reactivity of these transient molecules.
The detection and measurement of the Criegee intermediate reactions was made possible by a unique apparatus, designed by Sandia researchers, that uses light from a third-generation synchrotron user facility, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source, to investigate chemical reactions that are critical in hydrocarbon oxidation. The intense tunable light from the synchrotron allows researchers to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species – molecules that contain the same atoms but arranged in different combinations.
In the present case, CH2OO can be distinguished from its more stable isomer, formic acid (HCOOH), because of their differing thresholds for photoionization. The Manchester and Bristol researchers recognized that this apparatus could elucidate not only combustion reactions but also important tropospheric oxidation processes, such as ozonolysis.
Ozonolysis, or the cleavage of carbon-carbon double bonds through reaction with ozone, is a reaction that plays a key role in a number of fields, including synthetic chemistry and tropospheric removal of unsaturated hydrocarbons. In the 1950s, Rudolf Criegee proposed that ozonolysis of alkenes occurs via the carbonyl oxide biradicals, now called Criegee intermediates. Criegee intermediates also have been calculated to be markers of critical chain-branching steps in hydrocarbon autoignition chemistry.
However, until 2008 no gas-phase Criegee intermediate had been observed, and rate coefficients derived from indirect measurements spanned orders of magnitude.
In the Science publication, Sandia researchers reported a new means of producing gas-phase Criegee intermediates and used this method to prepare enough CH2OO to measure its reactions with water, SO2, nitric oxide (NO), and NO2. The ability to reliably produce Criegee intermediates will facilitate studies of their role in ignition and other oxidation systems.
In particular, the present measurements show that the reactions of CH2OO with SO2 and NO2 are far more rapid than previously thought. Moreover, the Bristol and Manchester investigators demonstrated that these kinetics results imply a much greater role of carbonyl oxides in tropospheric sulfate and nitrate chemistry than models had assumed, a conclusion that will substantially impact existing atmospheric chemistry mechanisms. For example, SO2 oxidation is the source of sulfate species that nucleate atmospheric aerosols. Because the oxidation of SO2 by Criegee intermediate is much faster than modelers assumed, Criegee reactions may be a major tropospheric sulfate source, changing predictions of tropospheric aerosol formation.
This capability breakthrough was funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) within the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy, and conducted using the Advanced Light Source, a scientific user facility supported by BES.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.
What frightens me about this is that someone might get the bright idea to synthesize this stuff and try spraying it everywhere in hopes of cooling the planet. Not particularly inviting when the globe is already cooling.
totally cool!!!!!!!!!!!!
lol, so, I guess Spencer and Lindzen won the argument and clouds definitely cool the planet. That’s nice that accepted science finally realizes this. Are we now going to see apologies from the warmists for all the snide and nasty behavior regarding clouds?
Wow! Exciting indeed.
Another indication of how much more there is to know and discover out there!
Me thinks this is very interesting. I read about it the other day. Me thinks the ability of this new identified trace particle to substantially affect climate is as much a pipe dread as AGW. Then I am not a physicist so what do I know.
Mike Bromley the Canucklehead:
And trigger the next Ice Age. Wonderful.
We may be witnessing a metamorphosis. A few hundred billion more dollars could easily find their way into the hands of the alarmists for them to “research” this exciting development. They would then be able to deploy this solution and save face by claiming that their efforts saved the planet. Of course the only proof that they will have will be the cyclic cooling trend that is already in the works.
Monsanto will be selling these invisible MonCriegee biradicals as a GM licensed product, All natural producing production of MonCriegee biradicals patients will be prosecuted or destroyed in order to protect the planet saving MonCriegee biradicals from abusive use by nature or skeptics. Anybody caught breathing or digesting the product will have to purchase a right of use license. Snarc off!
Yes mike I think you’ve nailed it.
Mike Bromley the Canucklehead says:
January 13, 2012 at 8:21 pm
What frightens me about this is that someone might get the bright idea to synthesize this stuff and try spraying it everywhere in hopes of cooling the planet. Not particularly inviting when the globe is already cooling.
They get this stuff from red wine? Kidding! ☺
Interesting stuff. Thanks.
Clive
Up here we have snowflakes. I am pretty sure they cool the planet at most stages of their part of the hydrologic cycle.
May I have a grant please?
While normally I love hearing about cool science news, I read too many dystopian stories where this sort of discovery gets badly out of hand. I’m not worried about the planet, it’s resiliant, but we sure can make life hard for ourselves without half trying.
IPPC: The science is settled!
The fast reaction speed with SO2 and NO2 means that the half-life of “creegys” (oxyformaldehyde or polar diradicals) is very short. There’s even a chance that they react with other atmospheric species (especially in the presence of UV radiation), such as H2O, as mentioned above, or with each other to produce…methane! O, the horror! I’m skeptical. I’d like a second opinion.
What cooling trend is that?
Hey Halfwise, I have snowflakes too. Doing a good job of cooling. It is minus 7 right now, going to minus 19 by Sunday night. Who decided cold was what we wanted?
Powerful oxidisers…that could clean up the atmosphere…What is the risk introducing a strong carcinogen into our atmosphere ? When I hear “oxidisers” that nasty and dirty desease pops up into my head.
Most of the uncertainty in GCMs is from aerosols and cloud formation. It sounds like this work will be useful in reducing that uncertainly somewhat.
This one (Note the gray arrow is labelled CO2. The other is rolling 10-yr temps):
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c015433764317970c-pi
“Dennis Nikols, P. Geo. says:
January 13, 2012 at 8:31 pm
…. Then I am not a physicist so what do I know”
But, you did stay at a Holiday Inn
“A significant ingredient required for the production of these Criegee biradicals comes from chemicals released quite naturally by plants, so natural ecosystems could be playing a significant role in off-setting warming.’
In other words, as there is more CO2, there are more plants and bigger ones, more Criegee biradicals, and thus more clouds and it cools. Result, without us having to do anything, the plants will naturally offset the warming (if any) of the CO2’s greenhouse effect.
Second, if CO2 actually warms the planet, this means in northern climes there will be a longer growing season, more and bigger plants, see above.
Warmer planet means more evaporation, more rain, less deserts, more plants, see above.
Ice age comes, less plants, less Criegee, less clouds, helps keep it from getting too cold and freezing the entire planet over.
Kinda explains how the planet has managed to keep such an even temperature despite everything, right? Soooo…what was it we were supposed to be so all fired up worried about agian?
Oh, this could not *possibly* go wrong.
Regardless of whether it comes from “Criegee biradicals” and or a host of other natural mechanisms, the climate system feedback to CO2 induced (or any other temperature forced) warming is “negative”. How anyone can look at the past 500,000 years of climate history and not understand that is simply beyond me.
“A significant ingredient required for the production of these Criegee biradicals comes from chemicals released quite naturally by plants, so natural ecosystems could be playing a significant role in off-setting warming.’”
Yeah, that’s is what has off set the warming! Crieglee biradicals have temporarily offset the warming. This has moved the tipping point of certain doom to exactly five years from now. So we must act immediately to stop the warming before it comes back and kills us all!
Oh wait. What off-setting of the warming? The warming is there! It is just hiding in the pipeline!
Oh wait, the warming isn’t hiding in the pipeline. It is right there in the surface temperature record. You just have to look at it using the appropriate statistical methods. If you subtract the ENSO and divide the AMO by the square root of the third derivative of the PDO, and then squint your eyes just right, there’s the warming!
Oh wait, the warming is there but you can’t see it. And you shouldn’t expect to be able to see it over such a short time frame. Warming doesn’t become visible for
1012131517 years. Yeah that’s it, 17 years!Oh wait. Uh, whats the story this week? The “quiet sun”, which we now think may have a convenient ad hoc cooling effect that will soon be overwhelmed by CO2, but which in no way could have caused any warming whatsoever between 1900 and 1998? Chinese aerosols? Low level volcanic activity? “Natural variation”?
Ooooh, look! Ocean acidification!
Yes JJ,
You have covered all the bases and if you haven’t Hansen and Co will dream up another excuse. Trouble is people have bigger issues to face than supposed whatever when they see snow in the middle of summer as we have just had in Victoria. Not forgetting the cost of power exacebated by REC and associated subsidies. My bullsh@t metre is focusing on a myriad of climate change “studies” proving they were right all along despite data to the contrary which makes me think they are close to panic as the great scam unwinds and the grants dry up. We need the US to defund climate science and the UN as part of their austerity measures. Sooner rather than later Obama or congress has to rein in spending and those spurious expenditures should be the first to go.
Claude Harvey says:
January 13, 2012 at 10:59 pm
“Regardless of whether it comes from “Criegee biradicals” and or a host of other natural mechanisms, the climate system feedback to CO2 induced (or any other temperature forced) warming is “negative”. How anyone can look at the past 500,000 years of climate history and not understand that is simply beyond me.”
Great comment, and gets to the nub of the problem. The paleo data clearly shows that temperature leads CO2, thus the current IPCC cabal of cargo cult climate scientists have got the link between them the wrong way round. It would seem cause and effect can be denied, if it conflicts with a belief system.
That temperature lead CO2 levels can also be seen in the recent record, where the CAGW catastrophists find it harder to cast doubt than it is with the less reliable paleo record…
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/549/94485986.png
Make your own mind up about what’s really happening.
Looks like the Criegees mop up pollution and at the same time create clouds. Life seems to have developed some nice ways of controlling the weather. (like the Dimethylsulfid emitted by Plankton when it gets too hot). But don’t call it Gaia – it’s a free market of life forms each with their self interest, not a collective.
Kirkby about the CLOUD experiment and the creation of condensation nuclei by Dimethylsulfid + cosmic rays, 1 hour video:
When I started reading this I thought April 1st had come early. But I guess it really is true. There are reactions taking place in the atmosphere which serve as a negative feedback mechanism for temperature increases. Who’d of thought it?! Well I never!
Oh, and what’s this “about two thirds of the [0.8degC] increase occurring over just the last three decades”? Does that include the last 15 where it hasn’t warmed, and the last 10 where it may even have declined a little?
You just know some idiot in UEA is going suggest we seed the atmosphere with this stuff.
Pushing buttons to see what they do eh….Dont press the red one!
There might be a very short term one here (a forecast of GISS’s Dec. figure)–we’ll know within a week, when the actual Dec. figure is released by GISS.
http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/MSUvsGISTEMP.html
This is just but another misinformed idea, just like the year 2000 when most people thought the heavenly body was going to crush the earth, but it never happened!! Stop this guys, there is no shortcut, as long as we continue to emit the greenhouse gases to the earth’s atmosphere, the globe is never going to cool!
Just utter rubbish. They go from discovering a particle statistically to saving the planet in one giant leap for mankind. Searching funds ?
Very Curious! I have had in mind for about a year now, a short science-fiction piece (I have hopes of being a published writer someday), in which the governments of the Earth deploy a genetically-modified CO2 scavenger, which then goes astray, the end result being a much colder world (and the continent where they chose to test it, pretty much Dead).
I wonder how much longer it will be until someone tries to make use of this new discovery….
I do see a problem here: all the deforestation which had been (is currently?) going on in the Amazon. How long before someone points to this research and claims we are heating the planet, by cutting down the trees that (help) keep it cool?
I can feel another scam coming on
To keep in line with the first rule of climate science, when the models and reality differ in value its reality which is in error . The following template for climate scientists has been created .
“Its not getting as warm as the model predicted because, (fill in with excuse ) , the models themselves are still perfectly valid “
This stupid idea should be binned ASAP.
Every intervention by man to cure a supposed problem in nature has caused worse problems down the line and sometimes insurmountable problems.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. And the climate ain’t broke just naturally changing as it always has.
Early on, they state that the global temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees, a considerable proportion in the last 30 years.
That rang large warning bells for me.
First they have not attempted to reduced this figure for an allowance for UHI, which must be a substantial percentage of the increase over the last 100 years.
Second, they infer that the 0.3 degree increase over the last thirty years, (I think the figure was) suggests an acceleration in the warming (no doubt mirroring the exponential increase in human CO2 emissions). They fail to note that most or all of the increase since 1980 can be accounted for by the cyclic upturn in the temperature which occurs every 60 years or so (the up zig of the cyclic zig zagzag was from 1976 to about 2005).
I know nothing of their research, but the tone of their report suggests that they believe something should be done about the climate.
They have no evidence to back that up.
Climate engineering must be opposed with great vigor.
Nobody knows what harm could be caused by global scale experiments.
This is one occasion that the so-called cautionary principle should be imposed on scientific cowboys.
A virtuous ppm (parts per million) wonder to save the Earth from the evil ppm man made toxin?
I don’t buy ppm climate theories.
Mankind has only recently embarked on a quest to understand the infinite in a scientific way.
Every time we discover anything it opens a pathway to more unknowns, if we exist for long enough we might start to understand some things.
This little oddity in itself could cause some heartburn in some green and warming circles, which is to be applauded.
The last few months have seen the beginning of a death by a thousand cuts to AGW, the dagger thrusts seem to be coming from every point of the compass.
Because the aerosol optical physics misses a second optical effect, net AIE is probably slightly warming.
Makes good sense actually. AGW is nothing more than a set of equations, so we should fight it with these non-existent “things” that are nothing more than a set of equations.
Supermath fights Evil Dr Math. No reality involved; just billions of dollars for “scientists”.
“”The intense, tunable light from the synchrotron allowed researchers to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species – molecules that contain the same atoms but arranged in different combinations””.
I hope these nitwits don’t get the consensus to turn us into Venus.
dont let Gates see this or he will wanna go spray some..
The geoengineering gravy train began some time ago in Russia, where i suspect licensing procedures do not involve major public consultation exercises. Prof Izrael, is, i think, the same former Vice Chair of IPCC who once opined, off-message, that all this concern about global warming was misplaced and that the Russian academics thought natural cycles were the primary drivers (2001?). In 2004, Putin signed up to the Kyto carbon coupon scheme, and offered prof Izrael’s global ecology institute a fat percentage to research cooling our overheated planet. The results of the first experimental chem-trails are now in:
Russian Meteorology and Hydrology. Volume 36 Number 11 (2012) – Y.Izrael et al…A field experiment on modeling the impact of aerosol layers on the variability of solar insolation and meteorological characteristics of the surface layer.
In case any bureaucrats inclined to fund other bandwagoneers read this blog – take note (if truth matters int his game!):
1. All GCM models explained the lack of warming between 1945 and 1975 as due to sulphate aerosols from human emissions (and not natural cycles and changes in cloud cover and/or natural aerosols);
2. This error was exposed by three papers in Science in 2005 (read: Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory) but the authors did not point out the implications for the IPCC models; and although the IPCC admitted the error – it was buried in the working group technical reports and no implications were drawn on the models.
3. The implications are: land-based pollution is too small a percentage effect to influence global temperatures; most sulphur emissions are too low in altitude; the major heat gain on the planet is not where the pollution occurs and the pollution does not significantly affect the redistribution of this heat.
Any attempts to spray the planet would have to encompass the 30degreeNorth and 30degreeSouth zone over the major oceans and be prohibitvely expensive and virtually impossible to regulate and predict with any accuracy – and in any case, given that natural cycles are driving the natural aerosol and cloud patterns, we would have to know which way they were going (up or down) and for how long before we made any such interventions.
The whole issue is scientific lunacy….but that is not a good description….is there one word for cynical, self-serving manipulation of cash-laden bureaucrats riding on a fear-based ideology sown into the mass tax-paying consciousness?
Researchers looking at combustion chemistry [that’s fire] manage to prepare postulated intermediates for further study. Atmospheric chemists chip in with speculation about other oxidation reactions involving oxygen and ozone with naturally occurring organic species. Probability of significance to “climate change”: Very low. Very low before, very low now. What do they do to bang their own drum? Draught press release containing a few key words plus ‘coulds’, ‘mights’ and ‘maybes’, and let peoples imagination do the rest.
Next.
Thank God !! They’ve finally found a solution!
If only there were a problem.
Hamlet:
Well said, old mole, canst work i’ th’ earth so fast?
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
First the con … additional GHGs will warm the planet. And now the cure … a magical elixir to cool the planet. The sting continues …
To all geoengineers: keep your grubby hands off the planet. You do not know what you are doing, and the planet does not need your help anyways. Should the law of unintended consequences bite, you could be responsible for the loss of billions of lives. Do you really want that?
Robert W;
Grubbiness isn’t the problem. Untrained clumsiness, however, …
Which leads towards the Inconvenient Observation that most of the “trend” happened in one year: 1998. That was some El Nino step-function! And it’s been leveraged to generate costs and downside economic consequences on an “unprecedented” scale ..
No thx, I’m already freezing.
CATHERRINE T. says:
January 14, 2012 at 2:01 am
“This is just but another misinformed idea, just like the year 2000 when most people thought the heavenly body was going to crush the earth, but it never happened!! Stop this guys, there is no shortcut, as long as we continue to emit the greenhouse gases to the earth’s atmosphere, the globe is never going to cool!”
Catherrine, you emit greenhouse gases when you exhale, so might I suggest:
YOU FIRST.
A solution in search of a non-existent problem.
Atmospheric chemistry & physics has been kicked around by political concerns for the last 40 years. Nothing to see here. Wait 10 years and they’ll discover that Criegee is irrelevant and the Liegee chemistry is the new thing, followed by Fiegee (you all know Fiegee factors). If you try simulating large-scale atmospheric-pressure chemistry & physics, you immediately come upon almost intractable problems because of the varying timescales (stiffness) and the chemistry of everything reacting with everything else using the most exotic species possible. It’s nice that they found a new reaction, but, it is probably completely irrelevant, based on a past history of irrelevant “major discoveries” in atmospheric chemistry.
R Gates will be along shortly to explain why this is but another ploy to undermine the ‘model’…
Tenuc says:
January 14, 2012 at 1:16 am
That temperature lead CO2 levels can also be seen in the recent record, where the CAGW catastrophists find it harder to cast doubt than it is with the less reliable paleo record…
Sorry, but the graph you did refer to is not the CO2 level, but the year by year increase in CO2 level. That indeed is influenced by temperature variations, but in all cases there is an increase of total CO2 over the past 50+ years. The latter is hardly influenced by temperature (about 8 ppmv/°C according to the past 800 kyr ice core record). See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
For the current temperature, CO2 levels should be around 290 ppmv, but we reached over 390 ppmv. That is far beyond the temperature influence on CO2 levels. In how far the increased CO2 levels influence(d) temperature, that is a quite different question…
CATHERRINE T. says:
January 14, 2012 at 2:01 am
This is just but another misinformed idea, just like the year 2000 when most people thought the heavenly body was going to crush the earth, but it never happened!! Stop this guys, there is no shortcut, as long as we continue to emit the greenhouse gases to the earth’s atmosphere, the globe is never going to cool!
Which part of “no statistically significant warming” do you not understand?
Quoted from the high priest of warmness, the one, the only, iiiiiiits Mr Phil Jones of UEA.
Duh!
At last, the mystery is solved. Now we know how the climate was screwed up and precipitated the ice age that formed the environment described in “Fallen Angels”.
Still not sure why humans think they have to try to “fix” everything that’s going on in the world. Ever think it might be natural evolution at work? Talk to any credible astronomer and you’ll learn that the Earth is at an extreme alignment, both within our own solar system (we complete a full “wobble” on our axis this year, what the Mayans predicted to happen on the winter solstice, happens every 26,000 years, our sun will also eclipse the black hole at the center of our galaxy) and within our own galaxy. We are on the upper outside edge of the arm we’re located at the moment, which is a more exposed position. MAYBE less interference with the natural world isn’t such a bad idea.
Damn these radicals, they seem to want to control everything and everyone. Now they are occupying wall street and cooling the planet at the same time. sarc off.
Wasn’t the science supposed to be settled. These biradicals seem to have unsettled the science. I bet Pachauri is a very happy man now, since the IPCC will have a new lease of life getting funds to develop new models that would show that unless we reduce carbon dioxide emissions that make trees and vegetation grow better and faster thus producing more Criegee biradicals and cause a new glaciation era, we are doomed. The IPCC lives in a funnel; everything they throw up eventually always ends going down the same anti-carbon hole.
Thoughts:
1. Team Posers by 1990 was telling the world, “The science is settled. Global warming is real.”
2. In 1997 biologist (not climatologist or meteorologist) Steven Hare discovers the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. This much-bigger-than-El-Niño cycle proved that the climatologists didn’t know about all the mechanisms that could possibly be going on in the (supposedly settled) science of climate.
3. Move forward to 2010. Team Posers again was telling the world, “The science is settled. Global warming is real.”
4. In 2011 CERN’s CLOUD study showed that Henrik Svensmark’s suggestion that cosmic rays might seed cloud formation is all but certain. This proved that the climatologists didn’t know about all the mechanisms that could possibly be going on in the (supposedly settled) science of climate.
5. In 2012 Criegee biradicals/intermediates are found at Sandia NL to actually exist and that
Once again, this has proved that the climatologists don’t know about all the mechanisms that could possibly be going on in the (supposedly settled) science of climate.
How many more new discoveries does it take for the policy makers to realize the claims of omniscience by these posers are just freaking wrong?
Let’s give credit to Singer and Christy and Spencer and Lindzen and Svensmark and Soon and Baliunas for continuing to think for themselves and not get caught up in the error cascade. Through their efforts a sane climate policy might some day exist. (and WUWT and CA, too!)
Steve Garcia
@Brian H 8:34 am:
Nope. There was a huge step function in 1976-1977. THAT was the one during which most of the trend happened. 1998 was just the overall high point after the step had already pushed the temps into a different regime.
Fair enough; I’d forgotten that temps fell back after 1998.
And don’t forget the Great Dying of the Thermometers circa 1990. My eyeball/quickie before-and-after suggests an instant 1.5K change of “Global Average” there, too.
@Brian H –
Yeah, the Great Dying of the Thermometers. That just “coincidentally” happened to be right when the Hockey Stick blade started. No cause and effect there.
I was first told that in about 1999 by a meteorologist I happened to work with, who is no longer among us. He was a modeler, too, in his early days. He was not happy about them taking 85% of the meteorological stations off line in 1990 just when the capacity to handle MORE stations was becoming more easily done and much more powerfully processed. He said we should be ADDING stations, not removing 6 out of every 7 from the database. He sounded correct then, and he sounds correct now.
It is just too fishy, IMHO, that the “blade” started then.
I think 1998 was just when they reached their limit of how much they could fudge the numbers with their adjustments, without getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And I think it is retained artificially near that limit, because it is untenable philosophically to let it go down to where it really should be, while they can’t push it any higher, for the same reason 1998 was their limit.
When every adjustment is UP, when no one else is allowed to see their work (I guarantee it is in their lab books), and when they react so insecurely to any questioning of their work, and when thefeel they have to control OTHER people’s work being published – these are the actions of people who know they have either reached the Peter Principle ‘top’ or they are covering up their feelings of being frauds. Michael Mann’s bullying is a compensatory strategy; I think the guy is scared out of his wits that the bubble is going to burst. He is likely to go down in scientific history as one of the biggest frauds ever. And he is doing everything he can to forestall that day of reckoning. That is the main thrust of his lawsuit.
I don’t trust the record as it is recorded. I think the graphs they put out are artifacts – intentional artifacts – of the processing, and that there is no underlying warming occurring, outside of normal and natural variation. And that, I believe is quite small. (I’ve gotten into the dendro stuff of late, and the ‘divergence problem’ threatens to bring the entire edifice down around their heads – because without tree-rings, there ARE no records beyond 1655 and the start of the instrument record. Trust me: tree-rings do NOT have a linear correlation with temperature. The tree-ring record seemed like a good proxy, but after being given enough time, it has proven that it is not.)
But the 1976-1977 step change was real. But it was found – correctly, IMHO – to be the cause of the PDO. The leveling off not long after 1998 should actually be a decline, and it would be – if they weren’t artificially bumping up the numbers.
Steve Garcia
I see a less earth-threatening application: scrubbers for coal fired power plants removing SO2 from emmissions in a contained environment. Then can we shut down the EPA? And turn up our heaters?
Discovered at Lawrence Livermore… with Sandia researchers?
Can’t possibly be real; no CRU input or Mannish modeling.
37% of the Criegee biradicles from plant produced ethene reacts with SO2 and NO2 to form cloud producing aerosols and some formaldehyde. The remaining biradicles (63%) go on to form formic acid which then breaks up into a few smaller molecules, one of which is CO2. How about that? Oh, and by the way, we don’t want too much formaldehyde in the atmosphere as it’s carcinogenic. So let’s not even think about throwing lots of these biradicles up into the air in the hope that we can cool the planet.
Do you think Lefty can also sell us Criegee particles?
Regarding CERN’s CLOUD experiment, IIRC, it was explained by Jasper Kirkby that unknown chemical processes in the atmosphere seemed to have a huge impact on cloud seeds formation, a sort of multiplier effect on cosmic rays effect…Here we are maybe !
Certainly the CLOUD results and the Criegee biradicals are significant. They are both actual controlled laboratory experiments, so they are steps on the road to a science-based understanding of the climate. It is like the difference between the ancient Greeks reasoning (without empirical evidence) – which amounts to conjecture – and the hard sciences like chemistry. There is far too much conjecture in climatology and too few controlled experiments which which to nail down the fundamental principles.
It is pretty obvious from the emails that climatological opinions are like rectums – everybody’s got one. They have these HUGE reconstructions, with what looks like 80-90% of the fundamentals being candidates for the Vague Understanding of the Year Award.
Even though climatology is an Earth Science, its methodologies far too often look like something we would find in a psychological or anthropological study. By that I mean it is 10% fact and 90% interpretation. As I said, everybody’s got one.
When I see actual lab experiments going on, I don’t know whether to cheer or cry – cry because how can they have a ‘science’ in which so much is left to interpretation? Christy and Lindzen and Spencer must shake their heads a lot when talking to the other climatologists. The utter belief that models are the same thing as real experiments – holy bejeezus, folks!
Briffa has known now for over 20 years that there is a Divergence Problem. In all that time, how many experiments has he proposed in order to begin trying to get a handle on the fundamentals? I’ve done a decent amount of reading on that subject, and so far Briffa hasn’t done it. He just keeps on saying there is a problem, but doesn’t do anything about it. What kind of scientist goes two decades wringing his hands about a problem, instead of doing something about it? The actual divergence actually goes back to 1940, and Briffa has known about it for most of his career.
The Manchester guys knew about the Criegee biradicals, evidently, for years, and when they actually got a chance to access to one of the few pieces of equipment with which to start logging some results – to just SEE what happened (with evidently no preconceptions about what Criegee biradicals do) – they jumped all over it. And WHAM BAM KA-POW, BATMAN! They got results! And the results themselves drove the process of understanding.
Experiments that can allow researchers to collect and quantify EVIDENCE – what a radical idea! It is nice to see for a change.
Steve Garcia
It really does get up my nose that the media and governments think the people can only cope with a simple cause and effect situation – one factor causing one effect. So, more CO2 = hotter and less CO2 = colder has become a simple mantra which all can understand; it fits well with this patronizing view of general intelligence. Daniel’s piece on cloud seeding, suggesting that both atmospheric chemistry and cosmic rays are influential is probably closer to the truth. But of course there are now two influences which may well work in tandem. Far too difficult for the simple masses to cope with so let’s just stick with CO2 – it’s also got a better tax raising potential too.
Well, since heliospheric compression is behind all these ‘discoveries’ —the more compressed the molecule is the more it is detectable— the info will not be applicable after the non locality event at the end of the year. we will mythologize it and ‘know’ it exists but be unable to reproduce it. Fluff, NASA name gas cloud that envelopes our solar system among others, is being energized with neutrinos from space which compresses our gas envelope, the heliosphere. This periodic 5,000 y cycle will end ephemerally as it began.