tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post267217029231225385..comments2024-02-23T01:30:06.101-08:00Comments on Early Warning: Bio-geoengineering - Musings on a Satellite PhotographStuart Stanifordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-51022012250494799722011-04-08T12:18:22.493-07:002011-04-08T12:18:22.493-07:00Stuart
Just found this article on albedo and it in...Stuart<br />Just found this article on albedo and it inspired a question.<br /><br />We know that placing an ice cube in a drink will lower the temperature of the liquid. The temperature will reach some minima and then all of the liquid will slowly rise to ambient temperatures.<br /><br />If we consider melting in the high latitudes it must be the case that any temperature rise is being countered by ice melting and that this will continue to be the case until all of the ice melts. It seems at this point there is a discontinuity and a sudden jump in temperatures due to the lack of any cooling effect due to ice melt.<br /><br />Extend this to all areas of glaciation, all of which appear to be melting, and there appears to be a future point at which we are committed to a sudden and immediate temperature increase.<br /><br />Was actually looking for your post on the cooking temperature of human proteins.BOPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08397257436471166836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-38141880093828106072010-10-05T13:41:31.877-07:002010-10-05T13:41:31.877-07:00Current warming is nearly 2 Watts per meter square...Current warming is nearly 2 Watts per meter squared. <br /><br />A small Christmas tree light is about 1 watt. So two of these small bulbs per square meter, 8000 per acre, more than 5,000,000 per square mile, giving off tiny bits of <br />heat, 24/7/365, over the entire surface of the earth is one way to think about our strange moment on Earth. And to understand, if only a bit, how this year has been one of the warmest in the last 1000 years, if not much longer than that.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18257268717607114462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-6392324299344987252010-10-04T06:42:29.997-07:002010-10-04T06:42:29.997-07:00Ha - amusing. The satellite photo above I really ...Ha - amusing. The satellite photo above I really did pick at random on Google maps (which didn't show it for sale). However, I see in Zillow that it actually has been <a href="http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1087-Yellow-Barn-Rd-Freeville-NY-13068/32818799_zpid/" rel="nofollow"> for sale</a> for over three months, if anyone wants it. Listed at $450k, but probably badly overpriced for this area at that.Stuart Stanifordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-83631581865853895902010-10-01T05:06:48.513-07:002010-10-01T05:06:48.513-07:00Ok, you won that argument ;-)Ok, you won that argument ;-)Alexander Achttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16845172528191878930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-6928132361607134112010-10-01T05:01:59.899-07:002010-10-01T05:01:59.899-07:00Alex:
:-) I think the pictures will be taken whe...Alex:<br /><br />:-) I think the pictures will be taken whether or not I look at them...Stuart Stanifordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-83850111623820912292010-10-01T04:44:11.721-07:002010-10-01T04:44:11.721-07:00Hi Stuart,
me thinks that even the possibility th...Hi Stuart,<br /><br />me thinks that even the possibility that yoz can look at such images means that you are not carbon neutral. And if you aim to, forget the aerial images :-)<br /><br />AlexAlexander Achttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16845172528191878930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-71644906095188507192010-09-30T04:47:30.639-07:002010-09-30T04:47:30.639-07:00Gary:
You raise a good issue that I also wondered...Gary:<br /><br />You raise a good issue that I also wondered about - what the effects are of forest vs pasture on transpiration and H2O. Obviously, it could potentially cut either way - water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas itself, which would tend to increase the greenhouse effect. However, if there's so much that it increases cloudiness, clearly that cuts the other way by increasing the albedo.<br /><br />I agree that issue could be important and I don't understand it.<br /><br />However, it seems less likely to be a factor in the kinds of situations the paper I linked to is talking about (do we use Barley variety A with a more reflective waxy coating and higher albedo, or B without).Stuart Stanifordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-11055905168479229062010-09-30T04:42:53.182-07:002010-09-30T04:42:53.182-07:00Mike: yes on driving. The general idea there is t...Mike: yes on driving. The general idea there is to use electric cars (personally, I bike around much of the time, but I probably won't in the depth of winter, and my wife won't even in summer :-)Stuart Stanifordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-54430518888362455812010-09-30T04:41:19.416-07:002010-09-30T04:41:19.416-07:00Robert:
Yes, I think this area was pretty much co...Robert:<br /><br />Yes, I think this area was pretty much completely cleared for farming in the century following the Sullivan expedition, but a lot of the more upland farms failed, especially during the great depression. The government reacquired much of the land for state forests, and there's also a lot of private forest where farms have been allowed to go back to nature. So now it's a quilt of forest, with remaining working farms wherever the glaciers left particularly good soil, especially in the valleys.<br /><br />I guess I would tend to agree that post peak, biomass production will become a higher priority and marginal farmland might become profitable again, and there would be a tendency for places like this to come back into production more. However, I think it will probably be a relatively gradual decades-long thing.Stuart Stanifordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182839827506265860noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-81475677939119790902010-09-29T16:42:09.146-07:002010-09-29T16:42:09.146-07:00My daughter got married at a friends nearby small ...My daughter got married at a friends nearby small 'farm' while at Cornell. I recall being told that almost all of the original forest was cleared but has been partially replaced with secondary growth. I assume that much of this will be lost post peak??Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13071103776144941751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-7764568514792445272010-09-29T10:43:43.374-07:002010-09-29T10:43:43.374-07:00There is a bit of a paradox with the albedo / ecos...There is a bit of a paradox with the albedo / ecosystem question. Healthy, complex ecosystems usually have a much lower albedo than degraded systems. Consider rain forests vs deserts. The argument from a thermal ecosystem perspective is that living systems evolve to degrade in incoming solar radiation as completely as possible. Any energy gradient that can be exploited by some organism, will be; and in the processes the energy is "used" by the organism rather than reflected back into space directly. In practice, the water cycle is an important part of this process. So although a forest may be very efficient at absorbing sunlight, you find that the forest floor is cool. Transpiration, powered by sunlight on tree leaves, generates evaporative cooling. Down wind, the water vapor pumped into the atmosphere by the trees might condense into clouds which will then reduce the albedo. One can argue that a low albedo is a signature of healthy forests, especially if accompanied by abundant downwind cloud formation.Garyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08580497879135994296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5235419263414453422.post-48293840975482537912010-09-29T07:09:30.809-07:002010-09-29T07:09:30.809-07:00Modifying plants to be more reflective does sound ...Modifying plants to be more reflective does sound promising. But, since plants need light mostly in the visible spectrum for photosynthesis, it doesn't seem likely that changing important crop plants to be highly reflective will be dramatically successful. <br /><br />Regarding albedo of land in western New York; don't forget there will be major seasonal differences. Those ponds generally freeze over all winter and will continue to do so in most winters, for a while anyway.<br /><br />When we lived in rural America 25 years ago - in northcentral PA - we found that the biggest chunk of our energy usage was driving. And we had to do more of it than we anticipated; to get the kids to the school bus, to visit friends, to buy groceries, etc.Mike Aucotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05692592170835103639noreply@blogger.com