From the American Society for Microbiology, a comprehensive report that suggests the need to integrate microbial processes into climate modeling. As they say: “The sum total of microbial activity is enormous, but the net effect of microbes on climate-relevant gases is currently not known…”
I think it is a very good idea, and the full report follows this press release.
Report seeks to integrate microbes into climate models
The models used to understand how Earth’s climate works include thousands of different variables from many scientific including atmospherics, oceanography, seismology, geology, physics and chemistry, but few take into consideration the vast effect that microbes have on climate. Now, a new report from the American Academy of Microbiology, “Incorporating Microbial Processes into Climate Models”, offers a plan for integrating the latest understanding of the science of microbiology into climate models.
“Climate scientists and microbiologists usually work in isolation from each other, and yet their work is intimately connected. Microbes are critical players in every geochemical cycle relevant to climate. “
“The sum total of microbial activity is enormous, but the net effect of microbes on climate-relevant gases is currently not known,” says Edward DeLong of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-chaired the report with Caroline Harwood of the University of Washington.
The past two decades have witnessed an explosion in scientific recognition of the diversity of the microbial world. New DNA-sequencing technologies spurred by the Human Genome Project have made it technically and economically possible to sequence the collective DNA from whole microbial communities. This approach, called metagenomics, has revealed a previously undreamed-of degree of diversity in the microbial world. These microbial community analyses many “‘omics” approaches, such as proteomics and metabolomics, that together provide a detailed picture of community function, potential and change over time.
The report is based on a colloquium convened by the Academy in 2011. Experts in diverse disciplines in microbiology as well as computational and climate modeling participated in the meeting designed to identify specific efforts and activities that will lead to improved integration of microbial biology, biogeochemistry, and climate modeling.
“While the gap between these disciplines is daunting, the need to bridge it is urgent and the science and technology needed to begin to do so is within reach,” says Harwood.
The report suggests a multipronged approach, breaking the challenge into manageable parts. The first recommendation is to choose a few specific biogeochemical cycles that are important, microbially driven and tractable to serve as demonstration projects. Specifically, the report identifies methane, carbon storage and nitrous oxide.
Other recommendations include:
- Assess current data collection methodologies and develop a monitoring/data collection strategy
- Implement validation processes to integrate data collection, modeling and experimentation
- Facilitate and provide incentives for collaborations and interdisciplinary training
- Address technology needs
“There is clear evidence that microbes can have an enormous impact on climate.. In light of the increasingly urgent need to understand and find ways to mitigate climate change, the centrality of microbes in global biogeochemical cycles, can no longer be ignored,” says DeLong.
A full copy of the report and more detailed recommendations can be found on the Academy website at http://bit.ly/aamclimate.
The American Academy of Microbiology is the honorific leadership group of the American Society for Microbiology. The mission of the Academy is to recognize scientific excellence, as well as foster knowledge and understanding in the microbiological sciences. A full list of Academy colloquia reports can be found at http://academy.asm.org/colloquia. For more information about the American Society for Microbiology, visit http://www.asm.org.
Ditto to Gary Mount, (11:24 PM).
In addition to his comments consider this. For each new variable the programmer must establish a range of values the variable may assume, and the relationship of the variable at each value to all the other variables. If the programmer is honest and competent there will be sensitivity analyses performed on all those values and relationships.
A program with a thousand variables or a thousand and ten variables is one massive set of assumptions about how those variables interact.
My programming days are years past so maybe it is better now. But I suspect that such complex models are still best suited to playing with sensitivity analyses to learn how the outcome varies as the factors are changed.
Thirty years ago I fought with people who believed we were predicting the future with models and who believed that if we could just increase the number of variables and the accuracy of variable values we could predict the future perfectly. It appears that much of the current climate debate is a continuation of that same battle.
If any of the above is outdated or the product of aged memory I would be delighted to have Gary Mount or other computer gurus correct me.
If you can bear to go there,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_%28ecology%29
have a good table on the relevant quantities.
Conclusion: Humans will never rule the world.
its a power grab by the bacteriologists.
first they undermine our concensus on ulcers by throwing H.Pylori at us, now they are trying to undermine our concensus on radiative feedback mechanisms.
I read once that 10% of a human by weight, was not human at all, but passenger bacteria
by cell count, it was 90%
If you have not parametrized properly the main constants, (CO2 sensitivity, suspension particles, etc) do NOT add any new parameter. This is clearly another wagon added into the gravy train.
That would be 0.
Prions are just proteins. They do not have metabolism. Despite of what some biologists may say, they are not alive.
Besides, CO2 is not polution, it is plants food. It is good to exhale CO2. Carbon footprint is more a political term than a scientific term.
@ur momisugly Urederra
You say: Andrew says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:15 pm
I want to know what the Carbon Footprint of a prion more than a Prius…but that’s just me.
“That would be 0.
Prions are just proteins. They do not have metabolism. Despite of what some biologists may say, they are not alive.
Besides, CO2 is not polution, it is plants food. It is good to exhale CO2. Carbon footprint is more a political term than a scientific term.”
I know a prion is just a little bit of protein, but it drives cows ‘crazy’ so the fart a bunch, die, infect all their cow friends and Old McDonald has to release a bunch of carbon moving around dead cows his farm with his diesel tractor…I believe that would how ‘one’ would calculate the Carbon Foot print of a PRION, correct?
A BIG problem, as I see it, is the ‘scientists’ are but Pawns in the big game of Chess we are all playing. The ‘Knights and Rooks’ or the politicians and the ‘multinational corporations’ like GE, ADM, BP, etc are using the ‘Pawns’ to manufacture a CRISIS…so they can rescue us and protect us…thus gaining more power and money. I believe that is referred to as TYRANNY…also a political term.
I was attempting to make a point by pointing out the ABSURDITY of the whole debate through use of sarcasm…but maybe I was not effective…
But come one…I used the term “Fungus Amongus”…I didn’t think I needed a (SARC) tag…lol
How about a totally new look at the CO2 programme, the biggest causation of CO2 increasing is US, people that is. Why not have a grant for less children? it would be cheaper than carbon credits, the capital investment is mimimal, a quick snip and the results last a lifetime.(OT?maybe)
How does DeLong propose to mitigate climate change? We have to live with it and adapt as we have before.
@tallbloke
We’re probably just bus drivers created by microbes. They know (swarm intelligence) that they have to get off this rock before the sun incinerates it a few billion years from now. So they need a reliable way to find and relocate to a more suitable planet that’ll be a good habitat for several billion more years. So they cobble up a tool-using species that can build telescopes to locate suitable new abodes and spaceships to get there. One might wonder how many times they’ve done this already.
Little known fact: there is far more and more diverse microbial DNA in the human body than human DNA. There are more non-human microbial cells in your body than human cells by a wide margin. It’s controversial whether individual humans could survive without the microbes that are a part of us. That’s not so odd if you think about it in terms of buses. After all, there wouldn’t be buses if there weren’t passengers needing rides…
Interestingly this conincides with a recent Scientific American article I just began reading minutes before seeing this article where the article begins by talking about microbes that form crusts in desert sands and without these microbes horrific sandstorms would be far more common. My monthly dead-tree edition of SciAm goes into the magazine rack next to the crapper so unless an article is very very interesting or there’s something causing me to visit the head more often the SciAm articles get read at the rate of several paragraphs per day. I know, I know, too much information… 🙂
Doug Cotton, since you pointed to the open thread, I’ve responded there.
This is but another example of people holding out their hand at the begging bowl of climate change, these people need a good wedgie and a stern talking too.
So the computer climate-predicting software, a.k.a. climate models shall have bugs introduced into the system. Haven’t these models already been infested with bugs that had made these models predict things that never occur? So now we shall introduce the effect of real bugs on the climate…. I thought the science had been settled long time ago..LOL
When it comes to the variables that need to be incorporated into a computer model, perhaps the most influential variable of all is the total number of climate scientists and their associated “Algorythmists”, multiplied by their propensity to write papers and make public pronouncements, who are totally, or largely, financially dependent on the AWG gravy train. The mental processes needed to figure this in are completely beyond me but perhaps Mr. Mount can help.
If you Google “rain making bacteria Barbara Nozière” you will find details of work which showed that bacteria can make it rain by releasing powerful surfactants. Presumably lower surface tension allows drops to coalesce and thus rain out: this will reduce the amount of water in the cloud and lower its albedo. Then read:
quote The effect of synthetic surfactants on the hydrobiological mechanisms of water self-purification by Sergei Ostroumov | Papers by Sergei
A discovery: it is the first time it is proved that synthetic surfactants (and detergents) give rise to inhibition of the ecological mechanisms that improve water quality in aquatic (freshwater and marine) ecoystems. unquote.
The big push into synthetic surfactants was after WWII. I wonder what that did to the albedo?
JF
tallbloke says:
February 15, 2012 at 12:58 am
In the light of Nikolov and Zeller’s theory showing that surface temperature is due not to atmospheric composition, but mass, we can re-examine the role of life on Earth has in maintaining that mass, rather then worrying about it’s effects on composition. This will lead to exciting new discoveries once the realization of the implications sinks in.
Close but no cigar. You need just enough GHGs to establish a lapse rate and the composition (especially H2O) is relevant in setting the heat capacity which also affects the lapse rate. Once these are set the GHE is determined by the mass, force of gravity and insolation. Increases in CO2 do change the mass and to this degree it has a minimal impact on the GHE.
Just The Facts Please says:
February 15, 2012 at 2:53 am
@tallbloke
We’re probably just bus drivers created by microbes. They know (swarm intelligence) that they have to get off this rock before the sun incinerates it a few billion years from now.
Heh. Well, it’s nice of the microbes to at least leave us with a sense of freewill. 😉
Brian H says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:33 pm
“As pointed out recently, the effects of phytoplankton on sunlight penetration of the oceans are considerable. And since that’s where most of the sunlight falls …”
And more…
Not only are the phytoplankton photosynthesizing and fixing nitrogen at the surface, they will be cranking out carbonic anhydrase which may have a significant effect on the rate constants for CO2 exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. A lot of people probably don’t realise just how slow the uncatalyzed reaction is. I’m still searching for other science that has given this due consideration.
Gary Mount says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:24 pm
In a “past life” I worked for a major computer manufacturer. While in Hamburg meeting with the people from the German Meteorological Center, I asked one of the scientists what the resolution was for paleoclimate reconstructions – answer 10000 Km^2. I quickly moved on in topic, as he appeared embarrassed to discuss it.
Upshot – don’t bother looking at current GCMs. Invent a new one. I’d recommend using some of the ideas that pop up in Willis’ discussions of data. You’ll probably make more progress in a year, than all the others have in 20.
Well, here’s one more thing the climate models don’t take into account. Perhaps the world climate is more complicated than “CO2 goes up, then it gets warmer?”
BTW: Somebody used to maintain a list of all the things linked to climate change (is it W.S. Briggs), such as increased allergies, more acne, etc. Is somebody maintaining a companion list of all the things not included in the climate models?
~More Soylent Green!
So we don’t know if it is in fact MGW, instead of AGW? If so we don’t get to label it as ‘catastrophic’, when they may be seeking a more amiable environment for themselves.
“Climate scientists and microbiologists usually work in isolation from each other, and yet their work is intimately connected. Microbes are critical players in every geochemical cycle relevant to climate. “
==========================================
Hysterical……
….so now microbiologists want a piece of the action too
Another scientific suckling crawls up to the climate sow for a long sweet draw from the public teat.
The CO2science index page on dimethylsulfide —
http://www.co2science.org/subject/d/dms.php
–and the last paragraph of the summary page:
“In conclusion, it is unfortunate that in light of the overwhelming empirical evidence for both land- and ocean-based DMS-driven negative feedbacks to global warming, the effects of these processes have not been properly incorporated into today’s state-of-the-art climate models. Hence, the warming they predict in response to future anthropogenic CO2 emissions must be considerably larger than what could actually occur in the real world. In fact, it is very possible that these biologically-driven phenomena could totally compensate for the warming influence of all greenhouse gas emissions experienced to date, as well as all those that are anticipated to occur in the future.”
The AGW cabal ignores DMS, and well they might, since it could wipe out the entire ’cause’ of the climategaters.
CO2science also has a project on the MWP. From the home page:
“Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 1050 individual scientists from 600 research institutions in 44 different countries … and counting!”
The Idso group should be invited to write some summary articles for this website.
Julian Flood said:
“The big push into synthetic surfactants was after WWII. I wonder what that did to the albedo?”
What did it do to the carbon cycle? A good bit of the plastic junk in the ocean gyres is detergent bottles. What does all that surfactant in the ocean do? Does it help or hinder CO2 exchange? Bacteria eventually break it down, but to what? Until we understand these things (and more), models are useless exercises.
Under warmer conditions, with increased CO2 (and humidity) I expect bacteria and algae to increase exponentially, sequestering ever-increasing amounts of carbon at the bottom of lakes and oceans. Of course that’s just wishful thinking, not science, until I can put numbers on it.
But in a related point, fossil fuel from dead dinosaurs sounds nowhere near as plausible to me as fossil fuel from ancient bacteria.
Why don’t they try getting water vapor into those models first. And is that Pandora’s box they have open in the picture?