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Kinda reminds me of the effects of volcano on the world climate. One of the most notable cases was the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. It was one of the main reasons 1816 was dubbed "The Year Without a Summer". A snowstorm hit Quebec in June and frost happened in the Hudson river in June as well. Crops died out and some people died due to the unexpected cold weather.
But, I thought the volcano erupted due to the massive population of islanders! They built so many cook fires and added so much weight to the island that it caused a shift in subsurface strata which caused the mountain to erupt.
This study isn't about global warming as such so far as I can see but rather how air pollution originating in Asia is appearing to influence downwind effects on the intensity of precipitation in North America and further indirect effects across the globe. My main point of contention is how much impact human related activities actually have on global climate as a whole. My gut reaction, as baseless in scientific convention as it may be, is that human impact on climate is real, but it's not as apocalyptic or influential as it is made out to be.
Without any access to anything more than an abstract from this study it is hard for any of us to make any informed decision other than to say the researchers suggest some degree of increased precipitation over the North Pacific and nearby land areas, they've provided no suggestions AFAIK as to the implications of that research or any any further findings in regards to a possible wider global impact of pollution in Asia.
I cleaned out the dust from my old bedroom a few weeks ago. I released it out of the window, on a clear sunny day, and just 10 minutes later a black cloud formed directly overhead, and it rained like cats and dogs. Next time, I just put the dust in a plastic bag.
Send that to Fox 5. They need a new cover story.
Just to "clear the air" (pun intended) , Blocking sunlight can change weather and temps...both local and global...
Surface smog and Stratospheric ash from volcanoes are different ballgames. When ash goes into jet stream that gets carried around and effects temps. If the amount of ash is small it only effects local level around where the volcano is.
Surface Smog dissipates. There have been strengthening storms in the Pacific past when there was no smog. Atlantic Ocean & Gulf of Mexico has bomb of storms.
Storms need latent heat to strengthen either from atmosphere or ocean. The extra heat is what churns them into a vigorous system. I didn't see them mention anything about winds which is whats needed not to shear off a system. The smog I agree will effect the rainfall FOR THAT AREA but strengthen storms and effect weather around the globe??
Sounds like another case of grasping straws and maybe not understand meteorology or looking at the past events. Correlation does not imply causation.
Everything has happened before guys!! Stop listening to these claims. Just roll your eyes.
The link says specifically strengthes Pacific Storms. Why is that so bizarre? Why don't you explain why;. I haven't read the link carefully, nor the paper so I can't judge. I may not be qualified to judge, but then again neither are you.
Quote:
I suggest you start reading what other scientists have researched and post here your findings that climate has always changed with or without these claims.
Of course the climate has changed from natural means, but that's rather irrelevant to the thread topic. The fact that the climate (or in this case, Pacific storms) can change from natural means says nothing about whether they can from human-caused means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cambium
I wonder if that California heat/dought was still the biggest American news story of the winter. Jumped the gun on that one huh.
I still think it is. Droughts are a big deal. You could argue either way, I don't really care. But why are you bringing this up, it's part of this thread.
Why is this absurd? Aersols (particles from cloud formation) affect cloud formation. This effect sounds plausible.
Agreed. I fail to see any alarmism, it'd be different if they were saying pollution from Asia is the sole/leading cause of climate change in general, but they're not, unless I misinterpreted the article.
Pollution has always been around, and it does have an effect on the climate, however, it doesn't mean every storm in the Northern Hemisphere will become supercharged behemoth by the year 20XX, that's alarmist talk (which is absent from the article).
The link says specifically strengthes Pacific Storms. Why is that so bizarre? Why don't you explain why;. I haven't read the link carefully, nor the paper so I can't judge. I may not be qualified to judge, but then again neither are you.
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It says affects weather systems around the world too. Still believe it?
I tried to explain 850mb temps control the surface temps and you argued against me. I'm trying to tell you pollution and smog doesn't strengthen storms & affect weather systems across the globe and it seems like your arguing that as well.
Another Quote from article
""Since the Pacific storm track is an important component in the global general circulation, the impacts of Asian pollution on the storm track tend to affect the weather patterns of other parts of the world during the wintertime"
Let's leave climate change out of the conversation and focus on some of the other negative impacts using our atmosphere as a dumping ground may cause:
Particulates and aerosols are a major cause of respiratory distress. The infamous London smog of 1952 is said to have killed thousands. A similar Air pollution incident in Donora, PA (one of our U.S. states) occurred in 1948. It "only" killed 20 but sickened 7000 and had the air inversion that instigated the smog lasted longer than the 4 days it did (some of these air inversions can go on for weeks), the death toll would have easily passed four figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donora_Smog_of_1948). It should be noted that many Chinese cities, notably Harbin, have air quality that is chronically nearly as bad, if not worse, than Donora's during their "smog incident". On a year over year basis, Beijing, Nairobi, Mexico City, Denver (believe it or not!), Lima (Peru), anywhere in the southern San Joachin Valley and other large metropolitan areas are excessively smoggy and when the particulate concentrations rise, so do emergency room visits...
CO2 doesn't just warm the atmosphere. In fact, warming is not that big a concern in my humble opinion. Given how much CO2 gets evolved through our profligate use of hydrocarbon based fuels, agricultural practices, deforestation and the like, we should be seeing a lot more atmospheric CO2 than we presently are. Maybe as much as a third or 50% more than we are measuring today. So where is all that CO2 that should be in our atmosphere going?? It's not being sequestered by what's left of our forests nor is it being absorbed by our crops. Where it's going is in our oceans.
Well, that's great isn't it? Actually, no, it's not. Our oceans and seas are great CO2 sinks but in the process of dissolving all that excess carbon dioxide, we are also carbonating all of that water. Think Schweppes or any other brand of "soda" water. Stick a piece of pH paper in any of those brands and it comes out mildly acid. We are acidifying our oceans and seas. Too much acid - and we are really close to that point now, and our phytoplankton will die off. These critters provide the base of a very important food pyramid and also provide about 70% of the oxygen we breathe. Lose them and we are hosed. Screwed, blued and tattooed. What ever slang expression Australians, New Zealanders and western Europeans use to indicate we are in deep trouble. We can survive a 5 to 9 degree temperature rise; we can NOT survive a loss of 70 percent of our oxygen generating capacity.
Particulates will eventually settle out. It isn't just soot and gaseous CO2, either. There's arsenic, cadmium, lead, manganese, sulphur, mercury and a bunch of other common chemicals that are mildly to seriously toxic. All that eventually winds up on our farms and fields (or oceans) and if we are trying to double our food production to accommodate the nearly 9 billion people we expect by 2100, all those unpleasant amendments aren't going to help our efforts any.
Whether you believe in man cause climate change or not, there are other compelling reasons to mitigate air pollution.
Yes, clouds can become thicker and produce more precipitation. The author hypothesis is that the pollution leads to stronger storms. Obviously, increasing particles in the atmosphere leads to higher potential for condensation but where the line was drawn was when the author jumps to a conclusion that storms are therefore stronger in the Pacific and affect weather around the globe.
To say that the pollution has an enhancement is reasonable. To claim this process drives more storms is just not supported.
A great observation would be show higher amounts of pollution in precipitation with an origin from China say on the East coast of NA.
Another quote from it...
"To analyse this, researchers from the US and China used computer models to look at the effect of Asia's pollution on weather systems."
So in the study, they rely completely on model guidance and don't back it up with any supportive observations and never talked about the PDO, AMO, stratospheric, ect influences.
Something the general public won't have knowledge of.
Do you have proof that it doesn't? Instead of being violent, which many GW deniers seem to be these days, why not show us proof that the article is false.
The onus of proof is upon those who claim GW is the greatest threat to Earth since mankind inhabited it. The seas haven't covered FLA or other coastal areas, as predicted. The Arctic is covered with ice and Antarctica is in no real danger. On top of that, doesn't the GW crowd always preach to Americans how horrible WE are as WE have destroyed the Earth? How does China get to horn in on our action?
The sun's radiation plays more of a part of global climate change than anything puny little humans can do.
If you want to talk about Japan and global nuclear radiation you might have a point.
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