From: ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2008)
Coal burning, primarily in North America and Europe, contaminated the Arctic and potentially affected human health and ecosystems in and around Earth’s polar regions, according to new research.
The study was conducted by the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reno, Nev. and partially funded by the National Science Foundation.
Detailed measurements from a Greenland ice core showed pollutants from burning coal–the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium and lead–were much higher than expected. The catch, however, was the pollutants weren’t higher at the times when researchers expected peaks.
“Conventional wisdom held that toxic heavy metals were higher in the 1960s and ‘70s, the peak of industrial activity in Europe and North America and certainly before implementation of Clean Air Act controls in the early 1970s,” said Joe McConnell, lead researcher and director of DRI’s Ultra-Trace Chemistry Laboratory.
“But it turns out pollution in southern Greenland was higher 100 years ago when North American and European economies ran on coal, before the advent of cleaner, more efficient coal burning technologies and the switch to oil and gas-based economies,” McConnell said.
In fact, the research showed pollutants were two to five times higher at the beginning of the previous century than today. Pollution levels in the early 1900s also represented a 10-fold increase from preindustrial levels.
Continuous, monthly and annually averaged pollution records taken from the Greenland ice core dating from 1772-2003 produced the results. And although data showed heavy-metal pollution in the North Atlantic sector of the Arctic is substantially lower today than a century ago, McConnell and his research partner, Ross Edwards, an associate research professor at DRI, said there is still cause for concern.
“Contamination of other sectors may be increasing because of the rapid coal-driven growth of Asian economies,” they wrote in the report. They argued the consequence may be greater risk to the food chain as toxic heavy metals from industrial activities in Asian nations are transported through the atmosphere and deposited in the polar regions.
Food chain contamination through toxic metal absorption from both the environment and from consumption of contaminated food sources could make its way to humans, who feed on long-lived land and marine animals such as caribou, seals and whale.
“Impacts on human health in the Arctic region haven’t been determined,” said McConnell. But he suggested cleaner burning coal technologies, or better yet reduced reliance on coal burning, may head off the potential problem.
Oh, and my problem with Mr. Talbot stems from the fact that he’s making the same arguments he was making 14 threads ago that have all been shown to not have basis. Maybe he’s arguing in good faith, but he’s extremely hard headed. I hadn’t read here for a while, and came back on the top thread and saw the same “the models predict this” horse hockey that was being spouted a week ago when he was asked if ANY of the models ever predicted anything accurately. No answer. That, to me, is trollery, possibly polite trollery, but trollery nonetheless.
One other note. I had my “conversion” after talking to the head meterologist at the University of MO a couple years ago. I was reading publications talking about all this “climate change” and decided to go up the ladder with my decision making tree, as weather(ie Climate) is pretty important to me. He’s the one who told me he didn’t beleive that there was enough information, and encouraged me to look around at all the sources I could find and make up my own mind. It didn’t take long to realize there are holes all over the AGW theory.
No big surprise here. Ever seen pics of Pittsburgh around 1900? Everything is covered in coal soot, even the children.
Philip_B — “Steven Talbot, all scientific predictions come from theories, not from models (except to the extent models are theories). ”
All theories are models, although not necessarly computer models. This is also true in climate studies. Climatologists simply write software to emulate their paper model and let it run, trying to extrapolate the consequences. Any failure here isn’t in the software (unless there are bugs of course) but in the paper model, i.e. the underlying understanding. Any understanding of anything requires a mental model merely to understand it… hence everything we think we know about everything is a model of sorts. Everything.
That said, I have a problem with this in that I don’t believe that a computer simulation ought to be substituted for real life observation nor let out of a lab to see the light of day. It’s purpose is to play with guesses re behaviours that are consequential to changes in the physical understanding. Using these for policy is silly, especially until such time as the physical properties are so well understood that everyone agrees that this is so. There should not be large magnitude changes of any sort e.g. “we used to use a flat parameter of X to substitute SH oceanic currents and upwelling and we found out later that this was inadequate” (this is similar to the changes in models used by GISS in 1988 vs the ones in use now.)
It’s one thing to claim that the science is improving as the GCM defenders like to claim, likening model changes as V 1.2 vs 1.0. This however is misleading and plain wrong. A revision indicates upgrade of a process such as incorporating newer data feeds or a slight algorithmic enhancement. It is absolutely *not* a revision change to admit that the entire SH oceanic system was added to the model rather than use a flat parameter. It is *not* a revision to completely add new aerosol handling or Svensmark’s cloud formation stuff. That is a re-thinking of the paper model that underlies the software. Claiming otherwise is just crap.
My guess is that since most people really don’t get models or software that we see all sorts of claims Pro and Con. My observation is that the most thoughtful commentary re models comes from engineers who work with this type of thing daily, and it’s telling that as a rule the more technical background you have the more dubious you are of claims using GCMs as the basis of the claim. It’s pure irony that the loudest claims of appeal to authority (e.g. claims of peer reviewed papers trumping all) are by the people with the least understanding of how all of this stuff works.
in all the comments about Kyoto you’ve made (somewhat alarmist), are you aware that were Kyoto fully implemented, we’d only get 0.05 oC to 0.07 oC of temperature mitigation? It’s well within the noise level of temperature variability–i.e., we would never be able to tell if Kyoto accomplished anything at all.
I’ve heard it would be 0.15 by 2100, but that’s still pretty darn small. Around 6 years’ worth according to IPCC projections.
Temperature saving due to full implementation of Kyoto-
Can Evan Jones or someone else point me to the source of this information please?
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-307.html
Second result from pasting:
Temperature saving due to full implementation of Kyoto
into a google search.
Mary Hinge (16:02:35) :
> Maybe now that it is in blackand white the rediculous folly of
> blaming soot for the rapid melting at the north pole will finally
> be tucked up and put to sleep….forever
Then why then is V. Ramanathan, James Hansen & Charlie Zender continuing to point out that even ongoing sootfall in the Arctic is significant?
So significant, in fact, that it’s the equivalent of CO2’s effect?
This is really nothing new, it’s been long understood that soot’s effects were more profound in the late 19th & early 20th C, with a great deal of “net” global warming caused by soot deposition in the boreal environs.
Add surface ozone’s effect and CO2 is the minority warming agent in the Arctic.
OK! glass wasn’t a good example. (Thanks for the info Jack)
Does anyone know about the Liquid-Like effect at metal/ice interfaces? I would guess that the positional stability of a plane in ice is more complex than relative differences in density!
leebert (19:23:00) :
“This is really nothing new, it’s been long understood that soot’s effects were more profound in the late 19th & early 20th C, with a great deal of “net” global warming caused by soot deposition in the boreal environs. ”
Could you post the links for the ice melt in the Arctic in the late 19th to early 20th century?
MarkW (05:15:38)
The water used in mining stays in a liquid form which can be reclaimed and reused down stream. Nuclear power plants produce water vapor which will return to earth some were. It could be an issue in arid regions.
By the way, my water bill went up. The reason given. “We are not selling enough water.”
Maybe leebert couldn’t post the links because there are none! If soot is responsible for the extreme melting event we are now witnessing then it should have happened on a regular basis since the industrial revolution, especially as soot levels aould have been much higher then. Therefore soot is not to blame!
What extreme melting event? Umm, arctic ice HAS melted on a regular basis.
“….arctic ice HAS melted on a regular basis.”
But not recorded at levels seen in last two years.
““….arctic ice HAS melted on a regular basis.”
But not recorded at levels seen in last two years.”
And? We haven’t been recording for very long at all. We have no idea what it might have done 100 years ago, 200, 300, 1000, etc.
“We have no idea what it might have done 100 years ago, 200, 300, 1000, etc”. No we don’t and as we haven’t too many written accounts we can assume it was pretty inhospitable and innaccessable during human written history. Speculation aside we have to work on available data and that shows an extreme rather than a regular melt.