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Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
You readers here at Watts Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
We Talk About Politics Because The Science Is Uncertain
You readers here at Watt’s Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
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Jim
September 4, 2010 6:51 am
*****
Ian W says:
September 4, 2010 at 5:00 am
The major impact on climate will come from increasing the amount of the land surface used for agriculture (as you state 3% – 33%) and especially ‘turning deserts green’. Plants survive by using a kind of ‘total loss’ circulation system. They take water in through their roots and transpire that water out through the stomata in their leaves. This transpiration can be at a surprisingly significant rate with mature trees transpiring more than 100 litres of water an hour in summer. All those desert areas in Libya, the Negev going green are doing so by using cubic kilometers of ‘fossil water’ (Google it).
*****
You are making the unstated assumption that in the future, more land will be required for food. You obviously haven’t considered the implications of, via genetic engineering, crossing corn with bull kelp. 😉
jlc
September 4, 2010 7:01 am
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
This is clearly wrong. Perhaps the statement is intended to refer to “33% of potentially arable land”.
Antarctica, Greenland, 2/3 of Canada and Australia , much of central Asia, the Sahara, the Himalayas and other mountain ranges are not cultivated and never will be.
Athelstan
September 4, 2010 7:06 am
Mr. Fuller, your sapience and humanity exudes through your words, I always read your posts on SF Examiner and have much time for your clearly reasoned points of view.
Mr. Fuller here, we must agree to differ.
My word! I have read many learned papers, opinions and much scientific literature on the effects of MM CO2e on likely effects on the earth’s atmosphere.
It all adds up to squat, and no man on this earth can stand up and hold his hand on his heart and espouse, “we are certain, man’s activities which produce emissions of CO2 do and will cause warming of the atmosphere.”
If we knew a little more about cloud physics and the thermodynamics thereof we would be a bit further down the line of understanding but we do not and we ain’t!
OK so geology is my thing, what do I know of climatology?
Palaeoclimatology, stratigraphy, the fossil record, petrology -that’s what, the long view, that’s what.
– We must put a lid on the hype, hysteria and governmental interference in something they know less about than the political sphere they profess that they do know about.
Let us not, mix our ‘spheres’ up, governments and politically motivated shills and failed politicians should not trespass into the [atmo]sphere of earth sciences and climatology.
But they do, that is where I have a problem with politicians, one of their great cries is; “save the planet, a warming of 1.5/2 degree C, is imminent!” No it isn’t.
JimB: September 4, 2010 at 4:50 am “In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
Do you have a reference for this? I do a fair amount of travel, and I can’t even begin to reconcile that with what seems to be reality.
I’m in the same boat with Jim, and for the same reason. We don’t even have one-third of any *continent* devoted solely to agriculture.
Joel Shore
September 4, 2010 7:22 am
Gary P says:
This estimate comes from the global climate models. The whole CO2 hypothesis relies on the absorption of IR by CO2. The Earth emits the most IR from the tropics where it is the warmest. If the CO2 absorption of IR is going to warm the atmosphere it is going to warm the atmosphere the most over the tropics. All of the models predict a warming of the atmosphere at mid altitudes over the tropics. This predicted warming of the atmosphere by the models is not controversial. The fact that the measured temperatures over the tropics shows no warming is not controversial.
Yet somehow the proven fact that the models are wrong is controversial.
You have a large number of confusions here. The troposphere has more than radiative effects going on and the pattern of the warming is not simply determined by what you seem to think it is. In fact, the largest warming at the surface is expected to be in the arctic region (and the antarctic region too eventually…although there is a lag time on that because of the thermal inertia of the southern oceans).
The tropical tropospheric amplification that you speak of (whereby the higher altitudes of the tropical troposphere warm more than the surface) has nothing to do with the warming being due to increased CO2…It is simply due to the fact that the temperature structure there is expected to closely follow the moist adiabatic lapse rate. And, the difficulties in observing if such amplification of the long term (multidecadal) temperature trends is occurring is complicated by the fact that the satellite and radiosonde data both have problems that can contaminate those long term trends. In fact, there are significant differences between different empirical data sets and even different analyses of the same data sets. Interestingly, the amplification is predicted by the models and seen in the empirical data for short term fluctuations in temperature (such as that due to ENSO), so the data and models are in good agreement over the timescales where the data is known to be reliable. (And, at any rate, this whole issue has nothing to do with the mechanism causing the warming.)
By the way, one structural aspect of the warming that is predicted to be different for the mechanism of greenhouse gases than other warming mechanisms like solar is that greenhouse gas warming is predicted to cause cooling of the stratosphere while the the troposphere warms…and that is indeed what is seen. (To be fair, some of the cooling of the stratosphere is understood to be due to stratospheric ozone depletion.)
The modelers have managed to get results that up till the last decade matched the surface temperatures. (Hansen’s homogenized, bent, twisted, spindled and mutilated temperatures more than the satellites.) The only way that they could have done this was to tweak other parameters in the model to force fit the results. They managed to get the elephant to wiggle his trunk. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
These are not empirical models…They are mechanistic and there is way more data to compare to than there are “free parameters”. These parameters are generally adjusted to get good agreement with more specific data (e.g., cloud parameters to get aspects of clouds right). Neumann’s quote only applies to a well-chosen model. It is true that I could come up with a four-parameter empirical model that does a good job fitting the historical global temperature record. However, it is also true that I could present you with a million-parameter model that you could not fit the record with no matter how hard you tried.
If it was merely a matter of fitting, then one would expect that the parameters could be adjusted in a way that fits the historical temperature record (and agrees as well with other climate data) but does not predict significant future warming in response to greenhouse gases. Even if you believe that there is a vast conspiracy among the nearly 20 groups that have developed these models that has hidden this fact, you could still have expected one of the skeptics to have used one of the publicly-available models like NASA GISS Model E to demonstrate this. And yet, this hasn’t happened.
GM
September 4, 2010 7:25 am
Alexander K says:
September 4, 2010 at 6:20 am
I am not a scientist either, but when the recently-deposed British Prime Minister announced during the last Copenhagen conference that the science is settled, and anyone who doubted that he branded a ‘flat-earther’ was a step too far in the direction of villification of the citizenry for me to swallow.
Unfortunately, the inescapable conclusion is that there isn’t much difference between the motivations and intelligence level of flat-earthers on one side and the majority of the crowd around here on the other
Thomas Fuller: You wrote, “Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.”
Actually, it is controversial. The basics are understood for a world without oceans. But the oceans have their own “greenhouse effect”. They are warmed by Downward Shortwave Radiation (Visible Sunlight) to depths of about 100 meters, but they are only capable of releasing heat at the surface. John Daly discussed this in his post “The Deep Blue Sea”. http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm
Under the heading of “Which ‘Earth’ would be warmer?” he discusses the difference in global temperature between an earth comprised only of land and one that was only ocean. He writes, “It is difficult to estimate how much warmer the ocean planet would be, but comparisons of data between the larger absorbed radiation and the much smaller re- emitted infra-red from the oceans, suggest that the ocean planet could be about 8 to 10 degrees warmer than the land planet. The key would be the ocean planets’ inability to radiate as much heat from the ocean surface at night as it collected to 100 metres depth in the daytime.” And he continues, “In reality of course, the real earth is a mixture of the two, with oceans being predominant covering over 70% of the planet and with a complex atmosphere of many gases. This being the case, we can estimate that the Earth is about +6 deg warmer, simply due to the radiative imbalance in the ocean. Fortunately, the real oceans can also cool themselves by evaporation and direct heat exchange with the atmosphere.”
Tom_R
September 4, 2010 7:47 am
>> In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. <<
I find that number hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that 33% of the land area is even arable. Much is covered in ice, desert, or mountains.
Your statement about temperature increase with CO2 doubling is correct in general, but not in detail, as others have pointed out that a doubling of CO2 (ignoring all other factors) would cause a temperature increase of about 1.1 C. That means that going from the 390 ppm now to 780 ppm would cause the planet to be 1.1 C warmer. Going to 1760 ppp would cause the planet to be 2.2 C warmer. 2.2 C is far from a problem, and getting to 1760 ppm is so far in the future that we can't predict what technological breakthroughs will arise in the meantime. There is no justification for using the guns of government to force people to live a lesser lifestyle just to prevent 2.2 C increase in the far future.
You say: by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
The problem is that ARE trying to tell us the what the temperature will be in 90 years time. Whist down-playing uncertainties.
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 7:56 am
Mr Fuller, you state: ”Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable…”
There is a very big problem with the CO2 blinders of the IPCC and most climate scientists. Their vision is so narrow they never really consider the other option – a cooling planet.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expressed it better than I in Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried? “Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future. Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can shift gears within a decade….
But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur…“
This blindness can be seen in this peer reviewed paper “Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….”
Orthodox climate scientists assume “early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started… The biggest problem with CAGW theory, is it assumes no changes in the energy from the sun as received by the earth. However during the 20th century the sun has been very active according to this paper and NASA This is no longer true as we enter the new century according to the Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission News ”A method for predicting the next Grand Episode…One of the results was the recognition of a transition from the Grand Maximum of the 20th century to another Grand Episode… Based on the above mentioned methodology and by using new data for the geomagnetic aa index we foresee that a Grand Minimum is immanent. Thus, a prolonged period of relative global cooling is forecasted. The relevant mechanisms are described….”The Forthcoming Grand Minimum of Solar Activity
Another peer reviewed paper, Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic, states: “..Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3° C above 20th century averages,…”
Are we headed into a period of cooling? Probably. Are we seeing the start of the end of the Holocene interglacial? Who knows, but given the length of the Holocene, that possibility should not be ignored as it has been due to the CO2 hysteria.
DirkH
September 4, 2010 7:57 am
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. ”
33% is correct only for highly developed nations with little space, like Germany.
I checked the CIA world factbook, entry for “World”.
Land use:
arable land: 10.57%
permanent crops: 1.04%
other: 88.39% (2005)
Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html
(Nice to see that GM has now lost the rest of his brains and doesn’t even try to argue with facts. Hi, GM!)
Olen
September 4, 2010 7:59 am
Scientists are looking at all aspects of man’s influence on this planet but so far they are still looking. They are also checking out the sun the earth and beyond.
The idea that CO2 being out of control as a result of the activities of man causing a dooms day climate around the world demands proof. The whole science of global warming becomes suspect when grants are awarded on the basis of a pro warming belief. And when there is an attempt to silence those who have doubts based on their own research there is real cause for concern for the reputation of science in general. When emails are exposed and we find out some scientists are rigging their claims there is reason for more than doubt. And when the Discovery and History Channels put a global warming disaster warning in their shows 24/7 and the US Congress wants to pass a disaster of a cap and trade bill and Al Gore expects to become a billionaire trading in carbon credits on the Chicago exchange in what would become a trillion dollar business trading on something naturally in the air then I think there is a good reason to doubt the whole thing.
The global warming crowd wants us to completely change our lives and our society based on their changing claims of sudden disaster. And they want us to do it based on their unproven claim. Does that not look suspicious and demand proof.
I have been in the science community for over five decades, and I can’t imagine any environment which is more political – outside of Washington. Science and politics are inseparable, and always have been through recorded history.
David, UK
September 4, 2010 8:02 am
R. de Haan says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:47 am
What the man said. Agree 100%.
Dusty
September 4, 2010 8:03 am
JimB says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:50 am
“…
‘In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.’
Do you have a reference for this? I do a fair amount of travel, and I can’t even begin to reconcile that with what seems to be reality.”
—-
I totally missed that so thanks for highlighting this assertion and asking the question. I did a little checking myself.
First I found an XLS spread sheet at USDA for the US (but nothing for World) which provides total cropland 1910 to 2006: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/majorlanduses/spreadsheets/croplandusedforcrops.xls
Total in 1910 was 330M. Total in 2000 was 344M. Total in 2006 was 330M.
Then, I found this table at the FOA (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) for 1990 to 2000: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/AC832E/ac832e03.htm#bm03.2
Bottom line for world for both 1990 and 2000 is 11.2%.
Now I’m sure there are qualifications to the data. US data includes all crops. I’m not sure what FOA includes as crops. US covers all cultivated land, not all cropland (such as idle, and cultivated for improvement but not harvested.) FOA’s has some cropland qualifications at the base of the table.
I’d like to see the source, too.
JustPassing
September 4, 2010 8:04 am
OT
Uncertain Climate – Episode 1
___________________________________________ http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tj525/Uncertain_Climate_Episode_1/
___________________________________________
In a special Radio 4 series the BBC’s Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin questions whether his own reporting – and that of others – has adequately told the whole story about global warming.
Roger Harrabin has reported on the climate for almost thirty years off and on, but last November while working on the “Climategate” emails story, he was prompted to look again at the basics of climate science.
He finds that the public under-estimate the degree of consensus among scientists that humans have already contributed towards the heating of the climate , and will almost certainly heat the climate more.
But he also finds that politicians and the media often fail to convey the huge uncertainty over the extent of future climate change. Whilst the great majority of scientists fear that computer models suggest we are facing potentially catastrophic warming, some climate scientists think the warming will be restricted to a tolerable 1C or 1.5C.
At this crucial moment in global climate policy making, Harrabin talks to seminal characters in the climate change debate including Tony Blair, Lord Lawson, Professor Bob Watson, former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell and the influential blogger Steve McIntyre.
And he asks how political leaders make decisions on the basis of uncertain science.
Jim G
September 4, 2010 8:13 am
Unfortunately, the actions “environmentalists” take to improve situations often make them worse. Many areas in my state were required to stop drilling for coal bed methane during Sage Grouse nesting. Sage Grouse were doing fine nesting near drilling rigs and not the least discouraged from their activities until drilling ceased at which point the raptors, which are much more circumspect of human activities and protected by the federal government, swooped in and ate the Sage Grouse. Protecting the environment many times has “unintended consequences”.
Gary
September 4, 2010 8:20 am
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.
Tom, perhaps you meant to write “arable” land rather than an implied total land surface area. Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land#cite_note-4 ) cites an FAO report ( ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/agll/docs/wsr.pdf ) with 1994 data indicating that about 14.6 million km2 of the 41.4 million km2 of gross potentially arable land is actually utilized (approximately one third) . Total land surface is abut 149 million km2. 50 million km2 under agricultural production just don’t sound right.
Jacob
September 4, 2010 8:20 am
I have nothing against Tom’s rantings, even if they are sometimes wrong (mostly they are right).
I come to this blog to learn new FACTS, facts mean to me mostly numbers – about climate.
Tom’s rantings don’t contribute towards this end.
Cal Smith
September 4, 2010 8:24 am
The AGW alarmists/politicians are magicians. As everyone knows the secret to being a good magician is the ability to distract your attention and CO2 is their chosen distraction vehicle. Though I have great differences with Tom on political philosophy, I am very much in agreement with him on the need to recognize that mankind does have a huge impact on the environment. I take seriously the biblical injunction for us to be good stewards of God’s creation. If we can’t impact the environment there would be no need for such a directive. How “we the people” can be good stewards and not turn the problem over to the “ruling class” is our biggest challenge.
Ian W
September 4, 2010 8:24 am
Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 6:51 am
*****
Ian W says:
September 4, 2010 at 5:00 am
The major impact on climate will come from increasing the amount of the land surface used for agriculture (as you state 3% – 33%) and especially ‘turning deserts green’. Plants survive by using a kind of ‘total loss’ circulation system. They take water in through their roots and transpire that water out through the stomata in their leaves. This transpiration can be at a surprisingly significant rate with mature trees transpiring more than 100 litres of water an hour in summer. All those desert areas in Libya, the Negev going green are doing so by using cubic kilometers of ‘fossil water’ (Google it).
*****
You are making the unstated assumption that in the future, more land will be required for food. You obviously haven’t considered the implications of, via genetic engineering, crossing corn with bull kelp. 😉
No assumptions are being made at all.
Since the time of Paul Ehrlich’s ‘Population Bomb’ there has been a huge increase in irrigation creating areas for crops that otherwise would be arid. (Google turning desert green) Similarly in existing areas such as California and the mid-west, there has been increase in irrigation.
In many areas huge amounts of ‘fossil water’ that has been absent from the hydrologic cycle for millenia has been piped to the surface and evaporated into the atmosphere by plant transpiration. The amounts are high enough to be measured in cubic kilometers and start causing concern near coasts on salinization of the aquifers from the ocean.
This extra humidity from transpired water vapor is NOT a feedback to increased atmospheric temperature – it is a direct cause of it.
You have a touching faith in genetic engineering. Monsanto won’t tell you this but genetically engineered crops are not the reason for the global increase in crop yield – but they are the reason for increasing natural resistance to Monsanto herbicides. See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20675 and read about the “fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost €400000 in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds..
Charles Higley
September 4, 2010 8:27 am
Mr Fuller said: “CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere”
Actually, the effect is probably about an order of magnitude or more less than you mention. It is a little known fact that the IPCC scientists bumped an important thermodynamic factor up by 12-fold to change CO2’s effect from 0.1 to 1.2 deg C, while covering this slight of hand with a statement applauding how constant this factor had been historically (when they had just changed it themselves!).
Thus, the effect of CO2 is not settled as far as the knowledge of many people. Yes, CO2 contributes to keeping our atmosphere warmer than it would be without it and water vapor, but its effect has been artificially augmented.
Then they assume water vapor to be positive forcing (positive feedback) factor, making the effect of CO2 much greater, by about 20-fold.
In reality, water vapor is part of a huge global heat engine (in grade school we call it the water cycle) which carries heat to the upper troposphere where it is lost to space. This heat engine is a large negative forcing factor (negative feedback) such that warming ramps up the engine which works to bring the temperature down, at which time the engine slows down again. This modulation is basically what keeps our climate so steady, leaving the longer term changes to changes in orbit, solar factors, and natural cycles of the ocean.
What we know about climate, you can write a nice IPCC report, if you leave some stuff out. What we don’t know about climate, you can fill a library of gigantic size, but we really don’t know how big.
BTW, isn’t the heat trapping ability of CO2 logarithmic? And somewhere around 400 ppm we reach the point where CO2 has absorbed all the suns energy it can absorb, since there really no more sunlight available in the CO2 absorption bands? The old painting a window with successive coats of white paint to make the room darker experiment.
melinspain
September 4, 2010 8:27 am
Mr. Fuller:
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
Please, wehere do you get this figure from?
“And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
Hard to get. Suppose your figure is correct, in what amount can this affect the world climate that is dominated IMHO by the atmosphere, the oceans, the clouds, the 24 hour rotation (12 hours night, 12 hours day) and the inclination of the its axis (seasons)?
“It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this.”
Again how “hugely” is the world climate affected by this?.
“As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.”
When they are full what is their water surface compered to the world oceans, seas and lakes?. Reservoirs are, among many others, ones of man greatest achievements.
Thanks.
*****
Ian W says:
September 4, 2010 at 5:00 am
The major impact on climate will come from increasing the amount of the land surface used for agriculture (as you state 3% – 33%) and especially ‘turning deserts green’. Plants survive by using a kind of ‘total loss’ circulation system. They take water in through their roots and transpire that water out through the stomata in their leaves. This transpiration can be at a surprisingly significant rate with mature trees transpiring more than 100 litres of water an hour in summer. All those desert areas in Libya, the Negev going green are doing so by using cubic kilometers of ‘fossil water’ (Google it).
*****
You are making the unstated assumption that in the future, more land will be required for food. You obviously haven’t considered the implications of, via genetic engineering, crossing corn with bull kelp. 😉
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
This is clearly wrong. Perhaps the statement is intended to refer to “33% of potentially arable land”.
Antarctica, Greenland, 2/3 of Canada and Australia , much of central Asia, the Sahara, the Himalayas and other mountain ranges are not cultivated and never will be.
Mr. Fuller, your sapience and humanity exudes through your words, I always read your posts on SF Examiner and have much time for your clearly reasoned points of view.
Mr. Fuller here, we must agree to differ.
My word! I have read many learned papers, opinions and much scientific literature on the effects of MM CO2e on likely effects on the earth’s atmosphere.
It all adds up to squat, and no man on this earth can stand up and hold his hand on his heart and espouse, “we are certain, man’s activities which produce emissions of CO2 do and will cause warming of the atmosphere.”
If we knew a little more about cloud physics and the thermodynamics thereof we would be a bit further down the line of understanding but we do not and we ain’t!
OK so geology is my thing, what do I know of climatology?
Palaeoclimatology, stratigraphy, the fossil record, petrology -that’s what, the long view, that’s what.
– We must put a lid on the hype, hysteria and governmental interference in something they know less about than the political sphere they profess that they do know about.
Let us not, mix our ‘spheres’ up, governments and politically motivated shills and failed politicians should not trespass into the [atmo]sphere of earth sciences and climatology.
But they do, that is where I have a problem with politicians, one of their great cries is; “save the planet, a warming of 1.5/2 degree C, is imminent!”
No it isn’t.
JimB: September 4, 2010 at 4:50 am
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
Do you have a reference for this? I do a fair amount of travel, and I can’t even begin to reconcile that with what seems to be reality.
I’m in the same boat with Jim, and for the same reason. We don’t even have one-third of any *continent* devoted solely to agriculture.
Gary P says:
You have a large number of confusions here. The troposphere has more than radiative effects going on and the pattern of the warming is not simply determined by what you seem to think it is. In fact, the largest warming at the surface is expected to be in the arctic region (and the antarctic region too eventually…although there is a lag time on that because of the thermal inertia of the southern oceans).
The tropical tropospheric amplification that you speak of (whereby the higher altitudes of the tropical troposphere warm more than the surface) has nothing to do with the warming being due to increased CO2…It is simply due to the fact that the temperature structure there is expected to closely follow the moist adiabatic lapse rate. And, the difficulties in observing if such amplification of the long term (multidecadal) temperature trends is occurring is complicated by the fact that the satellite and radiosonde data both have problems that can contaminate those long term trends. In fact, there are significant differences between different empirical data sets and even different analyses of the same data sets. Interestingly, the amplification is predicted by the models and seen in the empirical data for short term fluctuations in temperature (such as that due to ENSO), so the data and models are in good agreement over the timescales where the data is known to be reliable. (And, at any rate, this whole issue has nothing to do with the mechanism causing the warming.)
By the way, one structural aspect of the warming that is predicted to be different for the mechanism of greenhouse gases than other warming mechanisms like solar is that greenhouse gas warming is predicted to cause cooling of the stratosphere while the the troposphere warms…and that is indeed what is seen. (To be fair, some of the cooling of the stratosphere is understood to be due to stratospheric ozone depletion.)
These are not empirical models…They are mechanistic and there is way more data to compare to than there are “free parameters”. These parameters are generally adjusted to get good agreement with more specific data (e.g., cloud parameters to get aspects of clouds right). Neumann’s quote only applies to a well-chosen model. It is true that I could come up with a four-parameter empirical model that does a good job fitting the historical global temperature record. However, it is also true that I could present you with a million-parameter model that you could not fit the record with no matter how hard you tried.
If it was merely a matter of fitting, then one would expect that the parameters could be adjusted in a way that fits the historical temperature record (and agrees as well with other climate data) but does not predict significant future warming in response to greenhouse gases. Even if you believe that there is a vast conspiracy among the nearly 20 groups that have developed these models that has hidden this fact, you could still have expected one of the skeptics to have used one of the publicly-available models like NASA GISS Model E to demonstrate this. And yet, this hasn’t happened.
Unfortunately, the inescapable conclusion is that there isn’t much difference between the motivations and intelligence level of flat-earthers on one side and the majority of the crowd around here on the other
Thomas Fuller: You wrote, “Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.”
Actually, it is controversial. The basics are understood for a world without oceans. But the oceans have their own “greenhouse effect”. They are warmed by Downward Shortwave Radiation (Visible Sunlight) to depths of about 100 meters, but they are only capable of releasing heat at the surface. John Daly discussed this in his post “The Deep Blue Sea”.
http://www.john-daly.com/deepsea.htm
Under the heading of “Which ‘Earth’ would be warmer?” he discusses the difference in global temperature between an earth comprised only of land and one that was only ocean. He writes, “It is difficult to estimate how much warmer the ocean planet would be, but comparisons of data between the larger absorbed radiation and the much smaller re- emitted infra-red from the oceans, suggest that the ocean planet could be about 8 to 10 degrees warmer than the land planet. The key would be the ocean planets’ inability to radiate as much heat from the ocean surface at night as it collected to 100 metres depth in the daytime.” And he continues, “In reality of course, the real earth is a mixture of the two, with oceans being predominant covering over 70% of the planet and with a complex atmosphere of many gases. This being the case, we can estimate that the Earth is about +6 deg warmer, simply due to the radiative imbalance in the ocean. Fortunately, the real oceans can also cool themselves by evaporation and direct heat exchange with the atmosphere.”
>> In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. <<
I find that number hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that 33% of the land area is even arable. Much is covered in ice, desert, or mountains.
Your statement about temperature increase with CO2 doubling is correct in general, but not in detail, as others have pointed out that a doubling of CO2 (ignoring all other factors) would cause a temperature increase of about 1.1 C. That means that going from the 390 ppm now to 780 ppm would cause the planet to be 1.1 C warmer. Going to 1760 ppp would cause the planet to be 2.2 C warmer. 2.2 C is far from a problem, and getting to 1760 ppm is so far in the future that we can't predict what technological breakthroughs will arise in the meantime. There is no justification for using the guns of government to force people to live a lesser lifestyle just to prevent 2.2 C increase in the far future.
I found this quite interesting and worth posting once again in regards to CO2 and temp trends. In Phil’s own words.
The original ~
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Guest post from this site ~
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/
You say: by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
The problem is that ARE trying to tell us the what the temperature will be in 90 years time. Whist down-playing uncertainties.
Mr Fuller, you state:
”Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable…”
There is a very big problem with the CO2 blinders of the IPCC and most climate scientists. Their vision is so narrow they never really consider the other option – a cooling planet.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expressed it better than I in Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?
“Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.
Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can shift gears within a decade….
But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur…“
This blindness can be seen in this peer reviewed paper
“Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….”
Orthodox climate scientists assume “early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started… The biggest problem with CAGW theory, is it assumes no changes in the energy from the sun as received by the earth. However during the 20th century the sun has been very active according to this paper and NASA This is no longer true as we enter the new century according to the Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission News
”A method for predicting the next Grand Episode…One of the results was the recognition of a transition from the Grand Maximum of the 20th century to another Grand Episode… Based on the above mentioned methodology and by using new data for the geomagnetic aa index we foresee that a Grand Minimum is immanent. Thus, a prolonged period of relative global cooling is forecasted. The relevant mechanisms are described….” The Forthcoming Grand Minimum of Solar Activity
Another peer reviewed paper, Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic, states:
“..Solar energy reached a summer maximum (9% higher than at present) ca 11 ka ago and has been decreasing since then, primarily in response to the precession of the equinoxes. The extra energy elevated early Holocene summer temperatures throughout the Arctic 1-3° C above 20th century averages,…”
Are we headed into a period of cooling? Probably. Are we seeing the start of the end of the Holocene interglacial? Who knows, but given the length of the Holocene, that possibility should not be ignored as it has been due to the CO2 hysteria.
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. ”
33% is correct only for highly developed nations with little space, like Germany.
I checked the CIA world factbook, entry for “World”.
Land use:
arable land: 10.57%
permanent crops: 1.04%
other: 88.39% (2005)
Source:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html
(Nice to see that GM has now lost the rest of his brains and doesn’t even try to argue with facts. Hi, GM!)
Scientists are looking at all aspects of man’s influence on this planet but so far they are still looking. They are also checking out the sun the earth and beyond.
The idea that CO2 being out of control as a result of the activities of man causing a dooms day climate around the world demands proof. The whole science of global warming becomes suspect when grants are awarded on the basis of a pro warming belief. And when there is an attempt to silence those who have doubts based on their own research there is real cause for concern for the reputation of science in general. When emails are exposed and we find out some scientists are rigging their claims there is reason for more than doubt. And when the Discovery and History Channels put a global warming disaster warning in their shows 24/7 and the US Congress wants to pass a disaster of a cap and trade bill and Al Gore expects to become a billionaire trading in carbon credits on the Chicago exchange in what would become a trillion dollar business trading on something naturally in the air then I think there is a good reason to doubt the whole thing.
The global warming crowd wants us to completely change our lives and our society based on their changing claims of sudden disaster. And they want us to do it based on their unproven claim. Does that not look suspicious and demand proof.
I have been in the science community for over five decades, and I can’t imagine any environment which is more political – outside of Washington. Science and politics are inseparable, and always have been through recorded history.
R. de Haan says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:47 am
What the man said. Agree 100%.
JimB says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:50 am
“…
‘In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.’
Do you have a reference for this? I do a fair amount of travel, and I can’t even begin to reconcile that with what seems to be reality.”
—-
I totally missed that so thanks for highlighting this assertion and asking the question. I did a little checking myself.
First I found an XLS spread sheet at USDA for the US (but nothing for World) which provides total cropland 1910 to 2006:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/majorlanduses/spreadsheets/croplandusedforcrops.xls
Total in 1910 was 330M. Total in 2000 was 344M. Total in 2006 was 330M.
Then, I found this table at the FOA (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) for 1990 to 2000:
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/AC832E/ac832e03.htm#bm03.2
Bottom line for world for both 1990 and 2000 is 11.2%.
Now I’m sure there are qualifications to the data. US data includes all crops. I’m not sure what FOA includes as crops. US covers all cultivated land, not all cropland (such as idle, and cultivated for improvement but not harvested.) FOA’s has some cropland qualifications at the base of the table.
I’d like to see the source, too.
OT
Uncertain Climate – Episode 1
___________________________________________
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tj525/Uncertain_Climate_Episode_1/
___________________________________________
In a special Radio 4 series the BBC’s Environmental Analyst Roger Harrabin questions whether his own reporting – and that of others – has adequately told the whole story about global warming.
Roger Harrabin has reported on the climate for almost thirty years off and on, but last November while working on the “Climategate” emails story, he was prompted to look again at the basics of climate science.
He finds that the public under-estimate the degree of consensus among scientists that humans have already contributed towards the heating of the climate , and will almost certainly heat the climate more.
But he also finds that politicians and the media often fail to convey the huge uncertainty over the extent of future climate change. Whilst the great majority of scientists fear that computer models suggest we are facing potentially catastrophic warming, some climate scientists think the warming will be restricted to a tolerable 1C or 1.5C.
At this crucial moment in global climate policy making, Harrabin talks to seminal characters in the climate change debate including Tony Blair, Lord Lawson, Professor Bob Watson, former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell and the influential blogger Steve McIntyre.
And he asks how political leaders make decisions on the basis of uncertain science.
Unfortunately, the actions “environmentalists” take to improve situations often make them worse. Many areas in my state were required to stop drilling for coal bed methane during Sage Grouse nesting. Sage Grouse were doing fine nesting near drilling rigs and not the least discouraged from their activities until drilling ceased at which point the raptors, which are much more circumspect of human activities and protected by the federal government, swooped in and ate the Sage Grouse. Protecting the environment many times has “unintended consequences”.
Tom, perhaps you meant to write “arable” land rather than an implied total land surface area. Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land#cite_note-4 ) cites an FAO report ( ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/agll/docs/wsr.pdf ) with 1994 data indicating that about 14.6 million km2 of the 41.4 million km2 of gross potentially arable land is actually utilized (approximately one third) . Total land surface is abut 149 million km2. 50 million km2 under agricultural production just don’t sound right.
I have nothing against Tom’s rantings, even if they are sometimes wrong (mostly they are right).
I come to this blog to learn new FACTS, facts mean to me mostly numbers – about climate.
Tom’s rantings don’t contribute towards this end.
The AGW alarmists/politicians are magicians. As everyone knows the secret to being a good magician is the ability to distract your attention and CO2 is their chosen distraction vehicle. Though I have great differences with Tom on political philosophy, I am very much in agreement with him on the need to recognize that mankind does have a huge impact on the environment. I take seriously the biblical injunction for us to be good stewards of God’s creation. If we can’t impact the environment there would be no need for such a directive. How “we the people” can be good stewards and not turn the problem over to the “ruling class” is our biggest challenge.
Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 6:51 am
*****
Ian W says:
September 4, 2010 at 5:00 am
The major impact on climate will come from increasing the amount of the land surface used for agriculture (as you state 3% – 33%) and especially ‘turning deserts green’. Plants survive by using a kind of ‘total loss’ circulation system. They take water in through their roots and transpire that water out through the stomata in their leaves. This transpiration can be at a surprisingly significant rate with mature trees transpiring more than 100 litres of water an hour in summer. All those desert areas in Libya, the Negev going green are doing so by using cubic kilometers of ‘fossil water’ (Google it).
*****
You are making the unstated assumption that in the future, more land will be required for food. You obviously haven’t considered the implications of, via genetic engineering, crossing corn with bull kelp. 😉
No assumptions are being made at all.
Since the time of Paul Ehrlich’s ‘Population Bomb’ there has been a huge increase in irrigation creating areas for crops that otherwise would be arid. (Google turning desert green) Similarly in existing areas such as California and the mid-west, there has been increase in irrigation.
In many areas huge amounts of ‘fossil water’ that has been absent from the hydrologic cycle for millenia has been piped to the surface and evaporated into the atmosphere by plant transpiration. The amounts are high enough to be measured in cubic kilometers and start causing concern near coasts on salinization of the aquifers from the ocean.
This extra humidity from transpired water vapor is NOT a feedback to increased atmospheric temperature – it is a direct cause of it.
You have a touching faith in genetic engineering. Monsanto won’t tell you this but genetically engineered crops are not the reason for the global increase in crop yield – but they are the reason for increasing natural resistance to Monsanto herbicides. See http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20675 and read about the “fields overrun with giant pigweed plants that can withstand as much glyphosate as farmers are able to spray. They interviewed one farmer who spent almost €400000 in only three months in a failed attempt to kill the new super-weeds..
Mr Fuller said: “CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere”
Actually, the effect is probably about an order of magnitude or more less than you mention. It is a little known fact that the IPCC scientists bumped an important thermodynamic factor up by 12-fold to change CO2’s effect from 0.1 to 1.2 deg C, while covering this slight of hand with a statement applauding how constant this factor had been historically (when they had just changed it themselves!).
Thus, the effect of CO2 is not settled as far as the knowledge of many people. Yes, CO2 contributes to keeping our atmosphere warmer than it would be without it and water vapor, but its effect has been artificially augmented.
Then they assume water vapor to be positive forcing (positive feedback) factor, making the effect of CO2 much greater, by about 20-fold.
In reality, water vapor is part of a huge global heat engine (in grade school we call it the water cycle) which carries heat to the upper troposphere where it is lost to space. This heat engine is a large negative forcing factor (negative feedback) such that warming ramps up the engine which works to bring the temperature down, at which time the engine slows down again. This modulation is basically what keeps our climate so steady, leaving the longer term changes to changes in orbit, solar factors, and natural cycles of the ocean.
What we know about climate, you can write a nice IPCC report, if you leave some stuff out. What we don’t know about climate, you can fill a library of gigantic size, but we really don’t know how big.
BTW, isn’t the heat trapping ability of CO2 logarithmic? And somewhere around 400 ppm we reach the point where CO2 has absorbed all the suns energy it can absorb, since there really no more sunlight available in the CO2 absorption bands? The old painting a window with successive coats of white paint to make the room darker experiment.
Mr. Fuller:
“In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%.”
Please, wehere do you get this figure from?
“And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate.”
Hard to get. Suppose your figure is correct, in what amount can this affect the world climate that is dominated IMHO by the atmosphere, the oceans, the clouds, the 24 hour rotation (12 hours night, 12 hours day) and the inclination of the its axis (seasons)?
“It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this.”
Again how “hugely” is the world climate affected by this?.
“As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.”
When they are full what is their water surface compered to the world oceans, seas and lakes?. Reservoirs are, among many others, ones of man greatest achievements.
Thanks.