The methane problem

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Andre, Dec 17, 2013.

  1. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Then that is great and it will compete with petroleum - in Brazil. From the thirty years I spent in a European oil company, I am convinced most oil companies are more than open to alternative energy sources, if they are genuinely economic (i.e not dependent on the changing winds of politically driven subsides). The economics in temperate latitudes will be rather different, though. And, as others have pointed out, your figures for the proportion of global energy needs that sugar cane can satisfy need clarification.
     
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  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Actually, what it shows is δ[sup]18[/sup]O levels.

    δ[sup]18[/sup]O is the ratio of [sup]18[/sup]O/[sup]16[/sup]O. It gets used as a proxy for water temperature because the process of evaporation and precipitation effectively depletes rainwater of [sup]18[/sup]O and enriches it with [sup]16[/sup]O. When this fractionated water vapour is precipitated at the poles, the net result is enrichment of the ice caps in [sup]16[/sup]O and enrichment of the oceans in [sup]16[/sup]O. The more ice is present, the stronger the deviation.

    Using δ[sup]18[/sup]O as a temperature proxy has the added advantage that temperature data can be extracted from (for example) Limestone.
     
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  5. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks Trippy.
    I see from Wiki that a rise in δ18O levels means a lowering of temperature
    "If the signal can be attributed to temperature change alone, with the effects of salinity and ice volume change ignored, a δ18O increase of 0.22‰ is equivalent to a 1 °C (1.8 °F) cooling."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Δ18O

    Right.
    So during the Younger Dryas the amount of δ18O in the Northern Hemisphere increased then decreased, showing that temperature fell then rose.
    At the same time, Northern Hemisphere CH4 levels fell then rose.
    The way the graph is set up makes it a bit tricky because the scales are in opposite directions.

    In Antarctica however, there is a dramatic increase in δ18O levels, and consequent lowering of temperature, happening over a much longer period of time. This must be caused by something other than CH4 levels, which in the Antarctic behaved just as they did in the North.
    Something other than greenhouse gas concentration has caused a change in temperature.
    Is this the problem?
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2013
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  7. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    No problem.

    The key consideration here is around ice volume change - there is evidence to suggest that it did.

    More or less. Some of the signal may or may not be due to changes in ice cap volume.

    The first thing to understand is that climate is one of the factors that influences δ18O. So there may, for example, be some factor (other than temperature) that controls the timing of the signature in Antarctic ice cores.
    The second thing to understand, and this is important when considering the lag time between methane and temperature, is that the trapping of gas bubbles is not something that happens instaneously, it takes time to occur and requires the burial of surface snow to a certain depth. Until that happens, the pore spaces are in contact with the atmosphere, and it is something that takes time. How much time it takes is dependent on the rate of precipitation and is something that we have to model. It's one reason why I laugh when certain groups of people raise this issue.
    The third thing to understand is that throughout the climatic record, Antarctic ice cores always lag behind greenland ice cores. Greenland icecores warm before antarctic ice cores and cool before antarctic ice cores. To the best of my recollection nobody is quite sure why, but, in my personal opinion I don't think that it's a coincidence that modern climate change also sees antarctica lagging behind greenland. This time around, we attibute it to the existence of the circumpolar current, which effectively isolates (to some extent anyway) Antarctica thermally from the rest of the climate.
     
  8. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    What is your point about CH[sub]4[/sub]? While it stands second to CO[sub]2[/sub] as a greenhouse gas, it contributes only a fraction of the harm. And yet its levels are relatively flat while CO[sub]2[/sub] is escalating. Where does this line of inquiry lead?
    None of that matters since CH[sub]4[/sub] is not the issue.

    But since CH[sub]4[/sub] is not the issue that's all moot. What difference does it make?

    It's all a question of concentration. Your analysis should begin by inquiring into the levels of each and the amount they contribute to the overall budget for climate forcing. It might be best for you to change your tack by starting at the top level view. What are the contributors to climate change? I suggest you start with a discussion of the following.


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    Either that or you left out the other forcing components shown in the above illustration.

    It's one thing to try to grapple with paleoclimatology, but to what end? Are you expecting a rise in methane levels. and if so why? But note: human emissions deplete the atmosphere of hydroxyl free radicals which naturally consume excess CH[sub]4[/sub]. Therefore at some point our deliberate stubbornness not to take effective correction action will indeed suddenly turn the CH[sub]4[/sub] into a deadly component. In other words we've turned it into a ticking time bomb. Other than that, I can't follow you purpose here. It might be helpful to come out with a direct statement of whatever thesis you're propounding here.

    The Earth evolved an atmosphere that contains gases which elevate the global temps. to levels higher than the theoretical baseline (no such gases present).

    B. what we think that happened in the geologic past
    If you mean scientific thinking, then the speculations about specific concentrations of specific greenhouse gases is a work in progress. If you mean whether we merely think the greenhouse effect is real, then, no. That's easy enough to confirm yourself, or you can have your kid do it for you as a school science project. (After that you should read up on the discoveries of folks like Arrhenius, Tyndall and Callendar)

    First you should define what those agendas are. Compare the agendas of the many branches of physical and life sciences which are reporting the bad news vs. the agendas of the political and religious organizations who are objecting to the reports and attacking the reporters. Which side would you depend on to teach your child how to conduct the science project I just mentioned, and especially to progress from that level of analysis to learning about how to measure the greenhouse properties of any particular gas? For sake of argument, you can consider two scenarios, one in which you are grooming the child to be a pastor and a second case of grooming her to be a surgeon.

    That's infeasible. C not can proceed on the basis of A. It only has access to B. Hence you see why folks here aren't sure what your point is. But if you mean to speak to the actual science, it seems you need to speak directly to the questions posed in the science fair project above.

    The key here is to live and breathe (while you can) the product of B. For that I strongly encourage you to trace for yourself the key events leading to the discovery of anthropogenic climate change, long before these issues were politicized in a well orchestrated attack on Al Gore and the opponents of religious fundamentalism and social conservatism insofar, and the relentless attacks on science by an illiterate mob.
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Cap'n K:
    I should hasten to add that there are a number of lines of evidence completely independent of isotopic evidence that lead us to believe that the younger dryas, older dryas, and where it exists the oldest dryas were cold and that the allerod, and where it exists, bolling periods were warm.
    There's colioptera evidence suggestin the average temperature in the UK was 5C. There's evidence preserves in peat bogs of the climatic changes, there's evidence relating to dust from the sahara of he climate changes (warm/wet versus cool/dry), and there's evidence of floral changes preserved in pollen records. The name comes to us because one of the indicators, as I recall, was the replacement of the pollen from evergreen evergreen an deciduous species such as birch, aspen and pine with alpine and tundra species such as Dryas octopetla. So any hypothesis that asserts that the allerod was cooler than the younger dryas must account for the fact that the flora and fauna of the younger dryas tell us that the climate was cooler and drier. An assertion that is backed by other independent lines of evidence.
     
  10. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't look like a lag, it looks like some definite event occurred in the Antarctic region.
    It is a constant and protracted trend.
    A change in ocean currents maybe. Something like that.
    It does look interesting, but I'd like to know what Andre is proposing.

    @Andre. What do you think happened?
     
  11. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not thinking about caused things what happened, I just want to align what really happened with what we think that happened. As it seems that I created a lot of confusion, I aligned here the records with the events and periods that I mentioned:

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    All data found in
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/icecore-varlist.html

    The top graphs show the CO2 and CH4 concentrations. The lower graph the d18O of Antarctica (EDC or Epica Dome C) and Greenland (NGRIP) which is supposedly a proxy for paleo temperature (but there are more problems than these misalignments). Obviously there is a lot to tell too about the Oldest Dryas / Mystery interval (Denton, Broecker, Alley PAGES 2006).

    But sure, let's discuss pollen, peat bogs, diatoms and mammoths. A great pollen source is here.

    Maybe looking at some earlier posts here, I could loosely drop an alleged quote of Eleonora Roosevelt
     
  12. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    As a courtesy to the reader it would help to give a specific page to the data in question. NOAA's data archives are massive and not easily sifted through by the average person trying to follow your posts. Also it would be helpful to give us the link to the site where you got the actual plots.

    I for one am at a loss to understand why you picked an era of cataclysm to try to draw conclusions about climate forcing in the modern era. The more it may seem to you to be clarification, the more muddled it becomes since there is no particular science you are advocating for or against. It's great to rely on NOAA as a resource for data, but don't stop there. Ask yourself what the relevant branches of science have to say about interpreting the data. Consider some of the treatments given by the IPCC, the geological societies, oceanographers, or (gawd forbid) the physics community - and be sure to look to the National Academy of Sciences as well.

    If you are looking for confirmation of biogenic methane, then even the IPCC will stipulate to that. But if you're hoping this line of reasoning leads to a conclusion that your grandchildren and their grandchildren can continue to pollute the atmosphere without altering the balance of nature, then, no, there is no valid logic that arrives at that conclusion, and certainly not one that's in any way linked to Dryas. If anything Dryas reveals that sudden changes can be catastrophic, even if they are mostly confined to particular regions of the Earth.

    Great minds are at a minimum true to themselves and the world around them. What thesis are you pursuing? What does the Dryas event (if it turns to be properly called an event) have to do with this thread? What does methane have to do with the current state of the climate and the forecasts made by climatologists?

    Perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt should have just urged for clarity so that all these great minds would think alike, joined together in a common purpose of behaving responsibly when faced with the consequences of our impact on the the planet.
     
  13. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    889
    Plots are mine, you can reproduce them using:

    Monnin, E., et al 2004 Evidence for substantial accumulation rate variability in Antarctica during the Holocene, through synchronization of CO2 in the Taylor Dome, Dome C and DML ice cores. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 224, 45-54, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2004.05.007

    Stenni, B., et al. 2006. EPICA Dome C Stable Isotope Data to 44.8 KYrBP. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 2006-112.

    NGRIP dating group, 2006. Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05). IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 2006-118. NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.

    Blunier and Brook 2001 which gave rise to the methane scaremongering that Billy is still worrying about.

    Which in turn puzzles me. Why void now evidence that once was poster child to prove global warming? A significan shift of the goal posts. Maybe read Alley's Two Mile Time Machine.

    I guess you want to suggest that the Firestone's extraterrestrial event is an alternative cause of the onset of the Younger Dryas. There are a few issues, though. Sure, there could have been a comet, the most likely candidate crater in the right Quebec province being Charity shoal. The problem however is showing in Blunier 2001. The Younger Dryas is "business as usual" (quoting Alley pp 117), all the Dansgaard Oeschger events have d18O, dD, deuterium excess (for instance Masson Delmotte 2005 )and CH4 fingerprints, identical to the Younger Dryas. So how many comets would you need to get the picture complete? It seems that we are left to search for a more earth generated mechanism.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2013
  14. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    I've just looked at the graph again and I realise I've got things back to front for the Younger Dryas period.
    The Antarctic shows a trend of lowering temperature, and the Northern regions show the same trend, but with some occurrence which raised temperatures rapidly for a short period.
    Whatever happened, happened in the Northern Hemisphere.

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  15. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    See why below that the:World COULD produce 14E12 / 14E7 or 100,000 times more alcohol than it would need for liquid fuel.
    The US would import alcohol instead of produce it. Poor countries would produce it, getting may low skilled job, with out cutting down a tree and with increased food production:
    here you can see a breakdown by country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country

    For example, 0.89% of Brazil's land (8,514,877 km^2) is in “permanent crops” that is mainly either Eucalyptus (Harvested about once per decade, for paper pulp.) or orange trees and 6.93% in annual crops, mainly soy beans with very tiny fraction of that (~1%) growing sugar cane. I.e. 92.18% is natural forest, pasture (> 40% abandonded or never used & < 60% occupied for cattle - See ref of BrasKem below), cities, lakes etc. Or too steep for machine cultivation, but not for hand planted and cut sugar cane. (I think Brazil is world's largest supplier of paper pulp, orange juice and beef by pounds sold but not by dollar value as Brazl's cows are not “finished” in feed lots, but walk to get the grass they eat; making their beef leaner and tougher, but better for both cow an human's health, with zero risk of mad cow disease.)

    Data from the World Watch Institute show that sugarcane ethanol generates 9.3 units of renewable energy for each unit of fossil energy used in its production. In the case of corn ethanol (United States), the renewable energy generated by the ethanol produced is only 1.4, while for beet ethanol (Europe) this figure is 2.0. This advantage of sugarcane is largely due to the fact that the Brazilian plants are self-sufficient in terms of energy, since they use the co-products from the actual process to generate bioenergy.* In addition, the productivity of sugarcane is higher than that of other renewable resources. For comparison, sugarcane (Brazil) yields 6,500 ethanol liters/hectare; corn (United States) 4,200 liters/hectare.
    {Billy T notes: this World Watch Institute data, which Wiki quotes too, is a few years old. I will use the current actual data from BrasKem below.}
    So Brazil produces 4.6E8/1.8E^(-2) or 2.55E10 liters or of alcohol per year on 1% of its 340E6 hectares of arable land. A hectare is 1E4m^2 or 1% of a km^2 so on 1% of 3.4E6km^2. I.e. 2.55E10 liters from 3.4E4 km^2, or 75E6 L/km^2. (Wiki has old data and got only 65E6 L/km^2 = 6500 L/hectare and yield is still growing)

    Now from first wiki ref: World has 33,556,943 km² of open medows and pasture. The medows do produce wild life, and typicaly 50% of the pasture is not being used (in Brazil > 60% is not and yet Brazil is world's greatest producer of beef so at least 10E6 km^2 (1/3 of total) could be more productive economically. Thus, if true, world could produce 75E6 x E6 or 75 trillion Liters of alcohol annually. Or about 14 trillion gallons of equal chemical energy. (Alcohol has only 70% by volume of gasoline's energy content and 3.78 L make a gallon.)

    Now it gets more specultive to try to estimmate how much the world would need say 10 years hence when gasoline cars are all esentially phased out. Most by switching to alcohol fuel, as Brazil has done, but some becoming battery powered, etc. I think if the demand is there, the alcohol production could expand as fast as cars could be replaced, and many more low skilled jobs created in the new liquid fuel industry than loss as gasoline ceases to be used.

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    This " won't post" graph agrees with your US 140 billion gallons of gasoline (in 2007) but it is falling (now only 134 billion) but lets assume world need 140 billion gallons as China and Indian comsumption off sets US and european decline. Because of its pollution problems China is restricking the sale of fossil fuel cars already.

    I.e. World in ten years COULD produce 14E12 / 14E7 or 100,000 times more alcohol than it would need for liquid fuel.

    My estimate that 3% (instead of the 1/3 this 100,000 times more than needed), but possible, of the arable land in alcohol production is extremely conservative.

    Note also that because all the land (assumed to be used in calculation above) is currently with little use and at least every 7th year the “sugar cane land” is producing soy beans etc. legumes for soil nitrogenization during crop rotation, food production would INCREASE. The main negtive would be some small reuction in the size of the herds of wildebeast, zebras gazelles. Etc. in Africa, but the many low skill jobs created for cane cutters etc. would significantly increase the economic well being there.

    -------------
    * The crushed cane not only generates all the heat needed for distillation, but nearly 5 % Brazil's electric power, reducing the need to burn fossil fuels for this. When credit is taken for saving, the 9.3 gain over fossil energy used (mechanical harvesting and cane transport to stills) becomes at least a 10 fold gain. In US natural gas is the fuel normally used, if available, for distillation heat.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 20, 2013
  16. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    There's no allegedly about it, the physics is sound, it's just not neccessarily a straight forward interpretation.

    You understand that the Bolling interstadial isn't present everywhere and so consequently there isn't an oldest dryas everywhere?

    Perhaps if you spent less time trolling by presenting irrelevant quotes out of context in what comes across as a thinly veiled attempt to insult those with viewpoints opposed to your own...
     
  17. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Yes they certainly do spend a lot of money sponsoring races of flat little light weight cars covered with solar cells and much more promoting hydrogen fueled cars. Neither has the slightest chance of replacing oil. - A blatant diversion to hide the truth that already, without subsidies and not assuming cellulosic alcohol is economically feasible, that the world needs to switch to carbon neutral alcohol or continue with global warming by fossil fuels.

    Alcohol can be shipped anywhere in the world at only slightly more cost per unit of energy delivered but the transport cost is a very tiny fraction of the total cost, which without any subsidies for the alcohol and even with the tax breaks the oil company lobbyist have achieved for oil (most important is the depletion allowance) alcohol fuel ANY WHERE IN THE WORLD is cheaper per mile driven than gasoline with only oil producing nations as the exceptions.

    Summary: Flex fuel cars and stations with pure alcohol fuel pumps like all have in Brazil, are the future, despite oil company spreading lies telling that would destroy the rain forest etc. Did you examine my post 32 reply?
     
  18. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    @Billy
    Brazil has 61.4 Million Hectares of arable land.
    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/arable-land-hectares-wb-data.html

    I think that your source has confused cutivated land with arable land.


    In geography, arable land (from Latin arare, to plough) is an agricultural term, meaning land that can be used for growing crops.[1] It is distinct from cultivated land and includes all land where soil and climate is suitable for agriculture, including forests and natural grasslands, and areas falling under human settlement. According to FAO report, the global land area without major soil fertility constraints is about 31.8 million square kilometers, and total potential arable land is about 41.4 million square kilometers.[
    http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Arable_land.html

    How much of the world's 32 Million square Kilometers of fertile land would have to be turned over to sugar cane production to feed the requirement for fuel? (1 Square kilometer is 100 Hectares). And how much of this land is in a country with a suitable climate?

    Brazil is in a very fortunate situation, having massive resources of virtually every kind of fuel, and a climate perfect for sugar cane growing.
    It's not just a matter of everyone doing what Brazil is doing.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2013
  19. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    889
    But there is a problem there. The textbooks will tell you that isotope ratios in precipitation are mainly determined by temperature at condensation and raining out (Rayleigh effect). Now condensation temperature is not equal to ambient temperature, because it is the dewpoint. The more arid, the colder the temperature at condensation.

    But if you look at isotopes accumulated at ice cores, the seasonal precipitation ratio is also a major factor. If the summers are drier, less 'warm' isotopic snow is added giving a "cold" impression and that probably is what Bjork et al (in the OP) see.

    Hence, isotopes in ice cores are not necesarily a reconstruction of the global temperatures. The physics may be sound but there are just too many variables.

    More later
     
  20. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    The title of the thread is "the methane problem".

    @Andre
    Could you explain to me, in two or three simple sentences, what the problem is?
     
  21. Andre Registered Senior Member

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    889
    Sure, there is no Bolling in Antarctica.

    Is that simple enough?

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    Maybe to guide your thoughts. We see a big jump in methane concentration somewhere around 14.5 thousand years ago. More greenhouse gas means higher temperature and we can clearly see that the methane increase -being a global signal- also implied Antarctica. Yet, there is no trace of isotope/temperature reaction in the Antarctic isotopes. None whatsoever,

    Does that help?
     
  22. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    No. as I stated:
    "here you can see a breakdown by country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_us...ics_by_country For example, 0.89% of Brazil's land (8,514,877 km^2) is in “permanent crops” that is mainly either Eucalyptus (Harvested about once per decade, for paper pulp.) or orange trees and 6.93% in annual crops, mainly soy beans with very tiny fraction of that (~1%) growing sugar cane. I.e. 92.18% is natural forest, pasture (> 40% abandonded or never used & < 60% occupied for cattle - See ref of BrasKem below), cities, lakes etc. Or too steep for machine cultivation, but not for hand planted and cut sugar cane."

    If you go to the link, you will see explicitly the arable land in Brazil is 7.82% of the total. I just quoted that broken down into permanent plus annual crop use. 0.89 + 6.93 = 7.82. So 0.0782 x 8,514,877 = 665,863km^2 =66.6 million hectares, which as these not precisely definable things go is same as your 61.4 million hectares especially as that changes with time. - Increases mainly by clearing, fires some intentional set, and by terracing steep hills.

    But it maker zero difference to the computed results how much arable land Brazil has, as that does not enter the calculation. Only the latest results of liters / per hectare or per km^2 do. I used those actually achieved last year by BrasKem. - Where, what country etc. is of no concern(except for temperature as "arable land" has rain, when speaking of the global potential.* I assumed 1/3 of the global unused (except by wild life -rabbits etc. mainly) meadows and pasture could be converted to much more economically productive use - growing sugar cane and providing many more low skill jobs than are lost in the high tech oil industry. I did note that especially in Africa, there might be some reduction in the size of the huge herd of wildebeest, zebras, and gazelles, etc. but not enough to reduce them as tourist attractions so of no economic import (and they are far from being an endangered species.) But there is such huge surplus of essentially unused economically land that could be growing cane, it is hard to predict where cane will expand - perhaps none of Africa will be growing cane. In some sense, Brazil's land is more valuable growing gain corps, so I would not be the least surprised to see Brazil importing its alcohol needs a decade from now. Less rich countries with cheaper labor and less fertile soil could be supplying Brazil's alcohol!

    Also note sugar cane is a grass and will grow, with lower yield, on relatively poor soil. I. e. it is a good crop to put on land where grain crops economically would fail. Defining how much "fertile" land the world has is only slightly short of any body's WAG. - Why that term has little use or meaning.

    * It is also important to note that most of the Brazilian cane grown is not even in the tropics, just south of them in the state of Sao Paulo, to be closer to the main markets (Rio and Sao Paulo) Also there DNA has been sequenced and strains that can survive cold etc. are in development. Who knows; in a decade or so, sugar cane may be growing in Iowa with 65/42 increase in gallons of alcohol per acre increase and 10/1.4 times less fossil fuel used in production, but with only 0.7 of the joules per gallon. (data from my post 32)! Thus the net energy gain per acre is: 0.7 x 65/42 x 10/1.4 = 7.74 times more renewable energy than the stored (and thus limited) fossil energy used.
    It is inevitable that some day man will switch to a sustainable source for his liquid fuel and feed stocks used to make plastic, etc. WHY NOT NOW?
    Answer:
    Oil companies make great profit selling you more expensive fuel per mile driven, and spend huge sums on lobbyists and false anti-sugar cane alcohol ads (about destruction of rain forests, competes with food production,** etc.) or promotion of some non-competitive alternative like hydrogen fuel, etc. as a distracting smoke cloud to hide the facts. Read more in five-year old thread: "How DUMB can US voters be?"

    ** Actually if the huge supply of currently unused land suitable for growing sugar cane were doing so, then food production would INCREASE, as at least every 7th year, soy or some other food crop that adds usable nitrogen to the soil, is grown in the field that next year will again be growing sugar cane.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 21, 2013
  23. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I assumed that they were either made by you or by an anti-science rag. But in any case, for the benefit of readers it helps to be clear about where any information is coming from so we can better evaluate it. For anyone who may take an interest in plotting the data, I'm converting the cites you gave to links which probably contain the actual data you're addressing. Below are your cites followed by the links I believe you're referring to

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc-co2.txt

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc96-iso-45kyr.txt

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/ngrip/gicc05-holocene-20yr.txt

    ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/pa...summit/grip/synchronization/ch4_blunier01.txt

    If you see any discrepancies, feel free to correct me.

    . . . back to the discussion:

    What is "methane scaremongering"?

    Explain.

    What are you referring to?

    Is there a faster way to get an answer? Can you just summarize what this text adds to your thesis "methane is not a greenhouse gas" (paraphrasing; feel free to clarify if this is not your position).

    No I'm not suggesting any causes for Dryas. What I'm suggesting is that a question of data interpretation should begin with a survey of the published research. What do they say?
    What does this mean?

    I doubt many readers have this text. Can you tell us what Alley said and how it applies to this discussion?

    For the reader's benefit, I'll explain that you are referring to the analysis of various Dryas beds which, from chemical analysis, suggest that the climate anamoly was triggered by an impact event. Other relevant studies show a substantial massive influx of freshwater and the sudden reduction in population of certain organisms.

    Mechanism for what? It's still not clear to me what your thesis is. As far as I've been able to tell, it's "methane is not a greenhouse gas". If so, we should be addressing that question directly.

    Here I'll add a remark which may or may not address your concerns about interpreting Dryas data. Let me just cast this as a hypothetical: suppose it turned out that during some other era (not Dryas) when not even a grain of ET material fell from the sky, that there was evidence found of a deep notch in the concentration of methane and, at the same time, there was overwhelming evidence that no temperature anomaly occurred. Assume for the moment that you knew there was no impact event, leaving you to "search for a more earth generated mechanism". My question is this: where do you go from there? Is that the end of inquiry, or do you simply conclude "methane is not a greenhouse gas"? Again, correct me if this is not what you're driving at.
     

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