Category Archive

Last day of AbSciCon tomorrow. The conference has been useful and thought provoking, though I have almost reached my saturation level for absorbing new information from fifteen minute talks. I present my talk on the climate of the Archean Earth (2.8 billion years ago) tomorrow morning. I also didn’t realize this until I arrived here, but apparently I have my name on four abstracts at the conference!

A Revised, Hazy Methane Greenhouse for the Archean Earth, J. Haqq-Misra, S. Domagal-Goldman, P. Kasting, J. Kasting

Synthesizing Archean Models and Data: A Self-Consistent Evolutionary History, S. Domagal-Goldman, J. Kasting, J. Haqq-Misra

Sustainability and the Fermi Paradox, J. Haqq-Misra

TPF-SETI, S. Domagal-Goldman, J. Haqq-Misra

Compared to the other conferences I’ve attended, it’s quite rewarding to feel like I’ve contributed something to the astrobiology community. More on the conference when I get back this weekend!

My friend Shawn just started a new blog, Models for Life, where he will discuss sports, climate, politics, and life from a scientific modeler’s point of view. Shawn and I also share many similar research interests, so I’m sure he’ll have some interesting astrobiological tidbits to share.

I took the trek to Punxsutawney, PA Friday night to witness the peculiar American tradition of seasonal forecasting by use of small, hibernating rodents. Phil, the groundhog of infamy, has been providing this service for upwards of a hundred years, thanks to a special elixir that grants him longevity. Though Phil paid our department a visit on Tuesday, for some reason a night-long excursion to see the groundhog in action seemed like a good idea.

The crowd stayed occupied between 2am and sunrise with a combination of classic rock and chants of “Phil! Phil! Phil!” Finally as the sky brightened, the full contingency of the Inner Circle took charge and produced Phil–the prognosticator of prognosticators–from a giant stump in the center of the stage. The senior member of the Inner Circle took Phil into his confidence where, using his special knowledge of groundhogese, he informed the crowd of 30,000 that Phil had seen his shadow and six more weeks of winter would follow.

Though Punxsutawney is touted as the “weather capital of the world”, the flurry of celebration seemed to have little concern for the actual prediction; people were more interested in groundhog veneration than the actual forecast. If deification can be attained by amassing followers, then Punxsutawney Phil is well on his way to godhood.

Though limited to the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water and lacking any experimental methods, some of Aristotle’s insights foreshadow the paradigm shifts brought on by the discovery of fossils and radioactive dating.

But these changes escape our observation because the whole natural process of the earth’s growth takes place by slow degrees and over periods of time which are vast compared to the length of our life, and whole peoples are destroyed and perish before they can record the process from beginning to end.
–Aristotle, Meteorologica XIV

Although several years old, this paper by Changnon et al. (2000) makes an excellent observation regarding our perception of the increasing severity of natural disasters. Over the past fifty years the total cost of damages due to weather related events rose from ~$100 million to ten times as much, but the cost per person has remained constant:

…the results collectively indicate that the major cause of trends in losses related to weather and climate extremes is societal factors: the growth of wealth with more valuable property at risk, increasing density of property, and demographic shifts to coastal areas and storm-prone areas that are experiencing increasing urbanization.

Our pattern of continuous growth creates the opportunity for more damaging storms as we settle into high risk regions and construct expensive structures. Perhaps the many prophets of doom throughout history simply realized the long-term consequences of unsustainable growth and therefore included meteorological catastrophe as inevitable from our lifestyle.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Matthew 24:6-8)

A great and rich power will be subject to serious natural disasters, particularly earthquakes and flooding, and rend the nation from end to end, causing enormous conflict, despair, and misery. The wealthy power will be bankrupted attempting to deal with its disasters. (Nostradamus, Times of Trouble)

Various prophets have had different ideas of the things to come, but they all saw in our world a sign of the times.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s provides a stark example of climatological impact on human settlements, with considerable and memorable devastation of agriculture, economics, and daily life. Drought in the Great Plains, however, is not an uncommon occurrence; in fact, there is even some degree of cyclicity to these drought patterns in the United States. The extremes of the Dust Bowl were certainly pronounced due to several other factors, but the possibility of extensive crop failure is an inherent risk of living in such an environment.

Given these inherent environmental risks, it is no wonder that the many of the indigenous people groups of this land chose a nomadic lifestyle. By developing permanent settlements in high-risk areas we are almost inviting disaster to strike. We can certainly take preventative measures to protect ourselves, but we cannot prevent the recurrence of dangerous environmental conditions. A nomadic lifestyle, on the other hand, takes advantage of an area when it is safe and fruitful; at the same time, nomads do not become attached to a particular region, allowing them to avoid the constant barrage of negative impacts that accompanies permanent settlement–especially in environmentally variable areas.

Scientific models get a lot of press in the climate change arena, but models for all sorts of processes are commonly used every day, usually without question or concern.

At a baseball game, for example, the distance of a home run is not directly measured but instead is calculated from a computational model based on the ball trajectory and other variables. (Indeed, there have been cases when an out-of-the-ballpark home run bounced off a pillar, causing the reported distance to be much larger than the actual distance.)

For that matter, any mathematical description of a system is a model. Mathematics do not define reality; they are simply a tool for description. Our electronics, economics, politics, and science are all based on models at some level. Climate change skeptics are sometimes quick to dismiss the use of models in understanding the climate system, but the basic use of models to understand physical (or social) systems is so prevalent that most people take it for granted.

Although climate models may have limited application in long-term forecasting, they can be robust tools for understanding some of the basic mechanisms of the climate system. The use of models in prediction is often emphasized in popular coverage of climate science, yet the success of models in research often employs these computational methods to diagnose, rather than predict, aspects of the immensely complex climate system.

One of my current research projects illustrates this use of modeling to address the impacts of climate warming. In response to a global increase in greenhouse warming, the wind patterns and general atmospheric circulation of the atmosphere will be altered. (In particular, warming could lead to a weakening and latitudinal broadening of the trade winds in the tropics.)

To explore this problem, I am using a 3-dimensional model of the atmosphere. The ocean is represented by a 50 meter “slab” (i.e., the ocean can absorb heat, but there is no oceanic circulation) and all terrain is absent. The model also does not differentiate between different atmospheric gases; rather, the effects of increased carbon dioxide are simulated by making the atmosphere thicker or thinner.

I mention this to point out that the model is by no means a realistic recreation of the atmosphere-ocean system. Instead, this simple model is actually an easier way to tease apart some of these basic responses. The results of this study will not be able to provide an accurate prediction for how much the tropical circulation will change, but (hopefully) it will be able to provide a mechanism as to why these changes occur. By treating the problem in a slightly simplified manner and acknowledging the limitations of the technique, climate modeling is an unparalleled approach in uncovering, piece by piece, some of the complex interactions of the atmosphere.

The success of models as diagnostic tools does indeed provide a basis for discussing the impacts of future climate warming, and some of these results may have implications for how the climate system will respond. Diagnostic results can be coupled with observations and perhaps used to predict impacts in the near future, but this is a subtle-yet-important difference from the development of a full-blown climate prediction model. Both tools are used in research, with varying degrees of success, but this important distinction often gets lost in popular and political criticism of scientific climate tools.

All tools have limitations, and therefore all results (models and observations) have inherent limits. While being forthright about these limits is necessary, it is equally crucial that these results not be dismissed outright. We will never have any scientific result about the climate system–or any other science, for that matter–that is free from caveats, yet even with our inherent constraints there is a great wealth of things we can learn.

One of the biggest challenges in addressing global climate issues is the lack of an experimental control. If we had a twin solar system with an exact duplicate of Earth, then we could experimentally determine the effects of doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide, for example. Unfortunately, we are limited to a single planet with which to experiment.

Since we cannot predict the outcome of anthropogenic (or mesopogenic) influences on climate with an experimental control, we turn to computer models as a tool for understanding the climate system. In general, climate models are mathematical descriptions of atmospheric and oceanic processes; they range in complexity (e.g., include soil processes, vegetation effects, etc.) and in resolution (what are the smallest details that can be resolved?) depending on the intended application. Some complex models strive to fully represent the climate system–and eventually be as useful as an experimental control for Earth. Yet this approach to climate modeling has two flaws:

1) No matter how good the model resolution, there will always be some process too small for the model to resolve. (In fact, the only way to escape this would be to resolve details down to the quantum level–and then the non-determinism of the quantum level would pose an entirely new problem!)

2) Even with a comprehensive model of the climate system, we do not know the initial conditions well enough. (In order to predict the behavior of the climate, we need to know it’s previous state.)

Many people seem to expect climate models to serve as a replacement for a control case, yet I doubt that this function for climate models will ever be feasible. Part of this perception stems from our use of models in weather prediction. Contrary to stand-up comedians, meteorologists have actually made tremendous strides over the past 30 years in the ability to provide accurate weather forecasts several days in advance. The weather system operates on a short enough time scale that these forecasts are possible and even useful in emergency response and disaster prevention.

The success of weather prediction, then, can create the perception that the same accuracy should be possible for climate prediction. Since climate operates on longer time scales than weather, the limited supply of climate data over time makes it difficult to achieve this degree of predictability. (If we had 100-200+ years of complete climate data, then we could make better long-term climate forecasts.)

This does not mean that models are useless in understanding climate trends, though. Though we may never realize a model capable of duplicating the climate system, models are certainly a crucial tool in understanding the underlying mechanisms.

Stay tuned for part 2: Climate Models as Diagnostic Tools

One of the popular indicators of climate projections is the long-term (equilibrium) temperature increase from a doubling of pre-industrial atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, known as the climate sensitivity. The IPCC concluded that the climate sensitivity is likely (probability of 0.66) in the range of 2° to 4.5°C; this is a probability distribution, though, and the tail of the distribution extends out to 8°C or more.

Gerard Roe and Marcia Baker revisit the applicability of climate sensitivity with their Science article “Why is climate sensitivity so unpredictable?” They point out that uncertainties in climate sensitivity have not changed much and elegantly show that the shape of this probability curve is an unavoidable feature of the climate system:

…it is evident that the climate system is operating in a regime in which small uncertainties in feedbacks are highly amplified in the resulting climate sensitivity. We are constrained by the inevitable: the more likely a large warming is for a given forcing (i.e, the greater the positive feedbacks), the greater the uncertainty will be in the magnitude of that warming.

Thus, our current estimate of the climate sensitivity may be the best we can do. Placing bounds on climate sensitivity is a hot topic because it is perceived to have enormous political impact. Myles Allen and David Frame, however, think it is time to “Call off the quest” in constraining this quantity. Given the unavoidable uncertainty in the climate sensitivity, it would actually be politically and environmentally dangerous to set target carbon dioxide targets (i.e, maintain atmospheric CO₂ at a certain level). If we knew that the impact of CO₂ doubling would be 2°C, then we could plan accordingly and stabilize with a moderate increase; the climate sensitivity is not well-constrained like this, though, so even if we stabilize at our target concentration there is no guarantee that the warming will stop after 2°C. Furthermore, a target CO₂ concentration will be politically difficult to change once in place.

Instead, it is more likely that our decisions will be made based on current observations of the climate system. Rather than hard-and-fast target levels, projections will be continually adjusted; 50 years from now, we will have as many additional years of data to refine climate forecasts. Instead of basing our response to climate change on the climate sensitivity (which is inherently uncertain), we will use current trends in climate observations. This stabilization strategy of adapting policy based on continually refined projections is a safer approach since it is not based on a statistically uncertain quantity as the climate sensitivity.

The climate sensitivity is not likely to be refined much further, but that does not mean it is a useless quantity. We have a good probability distribution for the consequences of doubled atmospheric CO₂, with lower and upper bounds on this distribution. The debate is not whether or not our emissions will amplify warming but rather the amount of warming due to a net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Climate sensitivity provides a range of possible outcomes and associated probabilities. Though this should not be the basis for personal and political action, it can certainly serve as a source of inspiration.

Over the next week or so I’ll be exploring some of the ideas and discussions generated from the UW Graduate Climate Conference.

Inevitably, whenever my field of study comes up in conversation I get the question, “So, is Global Warming real?”

It’s the kind of question that can’t really be explained in a two-minute party conversation. I usually try to emphasize the news media’s need to portray exactly two sides to every issue and the television ratings that are generated by a good controversy. I also point out that many of the issues debated in politics are different than the scientific discussion–there is some uncertainty as to the degree to which anthropogenic activity affects the climate, but the climate is certainly warming.

The climate system is immensely complex. The various biogeochemical cycles of the planet operate on timescales from days to millions of years; the earth’s climate has certainly had a rich and diverse climate history. Yet the basic mechanism of greenhouse warming is remarkably simple. Certain atmospheric gases–such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane–are efficient absorbers and emitters of infrared radiation. If this effect were not in place (i.e., take all the water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane out of the atmosphere) the temperature of the planet would plummet to -19 degrees Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit).

The atmosphere keeps the surface above freezing with this effect of absorbing radiation emitted by the surface and re-emitting it. With this same mechanism, if we increase the concentration of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the temperature will increase–the math can be done at a high school level.

Since we know this fundamental relationship, we can then reason: if we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then it will have some effect on the surface temperature. The global carbon cycle is certainly robust, and we may very well not be able to account for all the sources and sinks of carbon, but emitting any amount of carbon dioxide will lead to some of it ending up in the atmosphere.

I’ve emphasized this point a bit because it is often confused or convoluted in the news media portrayal of the scientific discussion. There is certainly no question as to how human-induced activity could lead to warming surface temperatures. The uncertainties, rather, are 1) the magnitude of anthropogenic influence, and 2) the future projection of anthropogenic influence.

We can venture into these questions as well, though tentatively in some areas. We cannot claim to understand a system as complex as the climate, yet we also must face the things we can learn from it.

I’m heading off to the UW Graduate Student Climate Conference bright and early tomorrow morning–provided that we make it from Cincinnati to Seattle.

I’ll be presenting a poster on the climate of the Archean Earth, 2.8 billion years ago. (This was also my master’s paper and was recently accepted with minor revisions for publication.) Despite the faint young Sun, the warm ice-free Archean could have maintained by the interaction of the biota and climate system and perhaps stabilized with a thin Titan-like organic haze.

Greenhouse Warming of the Archean Earth [PDF, 754 kB]

Over a much longer time period than intended, I sketched out some of the primary scientific challenges to a common cultural worldview in our modern global society. The Copernican Revolution placed our planet in a typical galactic environment, and the discovery of fossils shattered the notion that life on Earth was permanent. The Darwinian Revolution placed humans in the same biological arena as the animals, and the realization of human-induced climate change make this assertion even more apparent.

The modern global culture is resistant to the full implication of these ideas, since acceptance would require a behavioral change. Humans are not the masters of the world but are a single organism on the planet, subject to the same environmental pressures and feedback as any other creature. Yet the lifestyle of the modern global culture is one of consumption; the rate at which resources are used increases with time. The ideas sketched above imply that no society can biologically claim to supersede the biosphere–that is, all creatures are a component of the community of life.

The modern global culture insists on living above the biosphere, yet because we are a part of this system it is biologically disastrous for our culture to maintain the status quo.

The theories of Copernicus and Darwin are not shocking to most people today, even though the implications of Darwin’s ideas are knowingly or unknowingly rejected at times. Today global climate change has taken the stand as the “controversial” scientific theory. The perceived controversy does not stem from division within the scientific community, though, but instead from the implications of accepting human alteration of the biosphere.

The global cultural worldview was shaken by the heliocentric and evolutionary theories because they challenged the notion that humans are not subservient to the biosphere but instead are masters of the world, whether by superior intellect or divine providence. Global climate change has taken this challenge one step further by showing our culture that consumption without regard can have real and lasting impacts on the biosphere. And in spite of the superior intellect that supposedly makes us “greater than the animals”, there is no obvious technological solution to a human-induced alteration of the climate system. It is much easier to try and explain any and all climate effects as “natural variability”, because acknowledging human-induced climate change implies that people are part of the biosphere. Just as Darwin’s ideas suggest, people are simply one of many animal species on the planet. And like any other species, natural selection is always in effect to remove harmful individuals–and species–from the gene pool in order to maintain the community of life.

My brother sent me this in an email yesterday.

I was reading Economics: A Very Short Introduction, and I found a part that made me think about global warming. I was watching CNN, and they were saying that the biggest producers of CO2 etc. are the ones who feel the ramifications the least. Coupled with that I found this quote:

“In contrast to poor countries, agricultural output is a small fraction of national income in the rich world. The share of agriculture in GDP is about 25% in the poor world; less than 5% in rich countries. Less than 10% of the population in rich countries live in rural areas. In contrast, more than 70% of people in poor countries live in villages; which gives rise to the thought that people in poor countries mostly work in economies that draw their production inputs directly from Nature–they are ‘biomass-based’ economies. Ecology is of direct concern to the world’s poor, in a way it isn’t to the world’s rich.”

Certain ideas are unpalatable to some people. Criticism of these ideas is often attempted in a logical or scientific framework, but opposition to the idea is often more fundamental than a disagreement in methods. Over the next week or so, I will devote separate entries to each of the four ideas listed below. Some of these ideas carry more modern dissenters than others, but the collective significance of these four ideas is important in understanding our place as part of the community of life.

1) Copernican Revolution - we are not the center of the Universe

2) Discovery of Fossils - extinctions happen

3) Theory of Evolution - we share ancestors with other creatures

4) Global Climate Change - we are capable of altering our environment

People often refrain from change until the status quo results in definite disaster. For example, a faulty structure may not be repaired until a passing storm destroys it, confirming the suspicions of instability, but too late for action.

The concern over global climate change cannot be as relaxed, though. If nothing is changed and scientific predictions end up being accurate, then we’re in serious trouble. There’s no rebuilding after a storm in the case of catastrophic global climate change. On the other hand, if people do act globally to the point that threats are averted, no one will believe it! If we are successful in combating mesopogenic climate change, many people will believe climate change was a hoax to begin with.

The Y2K scare is an excellent example of this. Many people today are still convinced that Y2K was a baseless scare without any significant consequences. In reality, government and industry spent tremendous amounts of time and money to fix critical systems in order to avoid disaster. Nothing happened when the clock struck midnight precisely because we had sufficient preparation.

Hopefully disaster is not a prerequisite for change, but in any circumstance the skeptics will never be satisfied.

Foresight’s only as far as you can peer into the past. –Mad at Gravity, “Historypeats”

Language is often an excellent indicator of thought patterns for a society. Implicit in any language are certain assumptions that people often take for granted.

I have commented on the use of the words anthropogenic and natural as they relate to human activity in the world. Since the distinctions anthropogenic vs. natural and anthropogenic vs. non-anthropogenic both carry unspoken assumptions, I present an alternative word.

Mesopogenic effects are caused by human societies who trace their agrarian roots to the Agricultural Revolution ~10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Today, this includes nearly every human society that practices a non-sustainable type of farming known as totalitarian agriculture.

Thus the distinction becomes mesopogenic vs. non-mesopogenic. An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption is mesopogenic. The rise of atmospheric oxygen in the late Archean was non-mesopogenic.

Of course, I don’t expect anyone to adopt this termonology; I just thought I should present a positive definition instead of several negative ones.

The Archean Earth had a very different climate compared with today. Earth was probably slightly warmer (and ice-free), with greenhouse warming provided by a carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon atmosphere. Oxygen levels were low, so these hydrocarbons could persist without photolyzing and escaping.

Around 2.3 billion years ago, this all changed. Photosynthetic bacteria grew in numbers and drastically altered the climate of the planet. As Earth became oxygen-rich, atmospheric hydrocarbon concentrations would have decreased, which may have triggered a global glaciation event that is observed in the rock record. Furthermore, much of the life that had developed on Earth could not persist in an oxygen-rich environment. In short, the rise of atmospheric oxygen was one of the most drastic episodes of climate change in Earth history.

Was this natural?

I don’t particularly find this question to be useful–because everything in the biosphere is natural! This includes humans, too. Our culture has identified its contribution to an increase in greenhouse warming, but this is not “unnatural”. Cyanobacteria use photons to gain energy via photosynthesis, and some people use gasoline to gain energy via combustion. It doesn’t matter if we use machines or if we knowingly decided a course of action: we are a part of the biosphere just as much as every other living thing on the planet.

True, we have the ability to see our effects and change our course of action, but we are not a special creature on this planet. We are not exempt from the laws that have governed life for 3.8 billion years, and it is harmful to pretend that we are above these laws. Climate change is a real problem today, and hopefully one that we can resolve; but referring to climate change as “unnatural” is a meaningless designation. Everything is natural.

There are various causes and beliefs that people try to sway others to accept. Often this can take the form of a simple conversation between friends: a political discussion, a religious debate, a socio-economic comparison, or a countless number of other issues. Often the goal of such an endeavor is to change a person’s mind–not a simple feat, but something that does occasionally happen.

One method used in changing minds is evangelism. The classic example of evangelism is the big-tent-revival characterizing certain religious movements, but evangelism is used in many secular arenas as well (political campaign rallies, for example). A problem with evangelism, however, is that it gives the false impression that it is easy to change minds. Using religious evangelism as an example, consider the “call to salvation” that occurs at the end of a powerful sermon. Many people many step forward to embrace a new religious ideology, to change their former style of life. This is often cited as an example of rapid conversion; namely, the people only need to hear a message with an open mind in order to accept it.

Evangelism would be incredibly powerful if this were true, but a person’s life journey plays a much larger role in determining their acceptance of an idea. The drug addict who turns to Jesus is not making an immediate rejection of their former lifestyle in favor of a new faith. Rather, their experiences up to this point have led to an undesirable result, and the evangelical message reached them at a proper moment. AFter all, addicts can certainly be aware of their addiction (or at least the consequences), even if they take no action to change the situation. And, of course, not all converts had a large obstacle to overcome: some of these new converts have simply been on a personal philosophical journey that led to acceptance of the evangelist’s message.

Leaving the religious example, the concern over global climate change is another issue that requires a change in worldview. Evangelism to raise concern over our culture’s impact on the climate system is useful, but it is useful in the sense that it reaches out to people who are at the point where they are ready to accept this paradigm shift. These people are not making a 180-degree shift in worldview, but their journey in life has led them to the point where this message makes sense.

How are minds effectively changed, then? Evangelism should not be completely abandoned, but perhaps the one-on-one coffee shop conversations are more effective–not only because the message can be tailored to the individual, but also because these conversations contain an important personal element that is lost when addressing a crowd.

“Too hot, too cold, and just right.” This not only characterizes bowls of porridge in the classic fairy tale, but it also describes Venus, Mars, and Earth, respectively. When considering the habitability of a planet (where habitability requires the presence of surface liquid water), Earth is at a nice happy medium between the other terrestrial planets. However, just like bowls of porridge, planets do not remain the same temperature throughout time.

The Sun (and all other main sequence stars) brightens about 30% over its lifetime. This means that earlier in the history of the Solar System, all of the planets received less energy from the Sun. For Earth and Mars, this has presented some problems to be solved because above-freezing temperatures are recorded in the geologic record. There must have been some atmospheric warming and/or insulating device that allowed such conditions. As for Venus, it is entirely possible that the faint young Sun did not immediately trigger the runaway greenhouse seen on the second planet today. Venus may have been very Earth-like in it’s early history, complete with oceans and plate tectonics–and who knows, maybe even life. But as the Sun increased in luminosity and positive feedback in the Venusian system continued to intensify, the planet eventually reaching something similar to its present state.

Unlike porridge, however, this hot planet will stay warm. Maybe Mars will have a revival as the Sun continues to brighten. Geocentrically, though, the Earth’s climate will certainly change as a result of this gradual brightening. A temperature of “just right” is only good for a limited time.

String theory suggests that at the most fundamental level matter is expressed as different vibrational modes of the same “string”. On a planetary scale, I just read a paper (Williams and Holloway, 1982) that examines this type of variation on a theme for planetary atmospheric dynamics.

The basic idea was to study the dynamics of the Earth for faster and slower rotation rates. Without changing the size of the planet, the atmospheric circulation for various rotation rates matched the observed features of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and possibly Uranus and Neptune. In other words, there is a unity between general trends in planetary circulations that are independent of planetary mass and composition. This type of argument seems reasonable from general Newtonian principles, but it is interesting to compare these calculations with observations from NASA missions to find a much better agreement than one might expect.

It’s understandable from non-science people, but I have encountered this statement from students, professors, and atmospheric science textbooks. Let me say it once more just to be perfectly clear: the atmosphere does not trap radiation, and the atmosphere does not behave like a greenhouse. (Yes, this means that the “greenhouse effect” was poorly named.) How does the atmosphere keep us warm, then? By absorbing radiation emitted by Earth’s surface and re-radiating it back. These are different photons; there is no “trapping” at any point in the process.

What about greenhouses? Well, a greenhouse is based on the same principle as regular houses, insulation, and blankets: the suppression of convection. A blanket keeps you warm by reducing convection in your immediate vicinity. Try opening all the doors and windows in your house (or a greenhouse) and see if it still works. Just try not to fall into the all too common atmospheric trap.

I gave a seminar today based on my paper that was published in The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The talk was well attended, with many graduate students and a few professors (we filled up the room), and the audience asked a number of good questions. All in all a success, although sadly the videographer ran out of tape before the talk was over! Oh well…in any case, here’s a link to my slides:

piracy_cyclones.ppt [2.5M]

Methane clathrates don’t get much press, but they’re there…watching…waiting…holding out until just the right moment. Of course, we really don’t have a very good idea of the amount of oceanic methane clathrates, or even what the sea temperature threshold is before they are released (or how quickly the release will occur). So what do we do? Ignore them! Climate modelers cannot incorporate something so uncertain into a global warming prediction, so they may as well not exist. Methane is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but ignorance is bliss. And unfortunately, in this case ignorance is the current state of knowledge. Methane what?

In order to further the cause of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Bobby Henderson graciously revealed The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on the 28th of this month. Bobby also included some of the work done by the FSM Enlightenment Institute, including a study conducted by Michael B. Larson and myself. The work will also be published in an online periodical later this month, so for now I will simply provide the abstract to our study. The full article is found on pages 149-153 of Bobby’s book. (I still have mixed feelings about this being my first publication. Fortunately, I am also co-author on a peer-reviewed journal article currently in preparation. That should offset things a bit.)

Piracy as a Preventor of Tropical Cyclones (abstract)
Recent hurricane seasons have been characterized by intense and frequent tropical cyclones. One contributor is increased sea-surface temperature, which is caused by decreased upwelling of cold deep-ocean water. We demonstrate that decreased Pirate activity results in less upwelling. This suggests that the only viable solution to intense tropical cyclones is to increase Pirate activity.

Recent developments in Christianity (over the past 50-100 years) have given way to “doom and destruction” interpretations of the book of Revelation that were not held by former generations. Of course, the early church saw the book as a sign of hope in that the persecuting Roman empire would eventually fall. And even the quickest of surveys of ancient literature across many religious tradiations indicates the people of that time were much more accustomed to reading and interpreting apocalyptic literature. But no matter, Falwell and Roberton and Dobson are convinced otherwise, so we’ll work with that.

Let’s assume the modern conservative interpretation of the book of Revelation for now. What exactly is the purpose of all this death and destruction? Things have been going pretty well on Earth for a few billion years, so why stop now? I think that even a conservative literalist would have to admit that the problem is more than simply ticking off God on the wrong day. Doom and destruction rain down on Earth because humanity has taken the world into its own hands and arrogantly believes it knows what is best. So, do we? Maybe, but I have my doubts. But I also have my doubts about four horsemen raining down war, death, famine, and pestilance as the world’s armies gather in the valley of Megiddo while reconstruction of Babylon nears completion. Besides, the horsemen are not particularly relevant to the modern story. Let’s try climate change.

Human-induced climate change and overpopulation are two primary indicators that our species is in fact living as if we know how to best run this planet. Forget about the fact that have only been around for a few million years, and civilization for only ~20,000 years; as far as people are concerned, the community of life was directionless until human cities started appearing. Speaking in more spiritual terms, God created a world in balance, but this balance wasn’t good enough for us. In this case, could there be a more fitting conclusion to the era of humanity? Forget sulfur rain and the Beast–climate change brought about by humanity’s misappropriation of natural resources is better than the apocalypse. We don’t need any supernatural entities to come down from the sky to point out our arrogance; we can do that on our own.

The Gaia Hypothesis is a nice excersize with case studies such as Daisyworld, but often the discussion ends there. Of course, “Gaian” mechanisms were present all throughout Earth’s history, regulating the climate in order to preserve the existance and future of life on the planet. And ~4 billion years of continuous life on Earth are testament to some sort of regulating mechanism; whether you want to call it Gaia or biosphere feedback (or God, or Shiva, or FSM) is not terribly relevant.

But now consider the “impending doom” of human-induced climate change. Has humanity risen to the point where Gaia is dead? Do we have such a mastery over this planet that regulation has been taken from Gaia and into our hands? Phrased differently I think many people are of this opinion: the marvels of civlization and technology are certainly indicitive of humanity’s conquest of the planet. But Gaia is still working, perhaps even stronger than ever. The only purpose of Gaia is to preserve the continuity of life on Earth–but not necessarily human life. If humanity is indeed a threat to the rest of the biosphere, then the simplest means of preserving life would be to remove the offending species. And what better way to accomplish this than to allow humanity’s own activities to be its downfall. Gaia is not a supernatural being or force, but is simply an expression of the history of life on this planet. Climate change has been an integral part of Earth’s history, and it is neither a good or bad thing. But every climate change has been accompanied with mass extinction; mass extinction can be good for the community of life as a whole, but can mean bad news for individual species–in this case, humans.