#7 EM Debate - How about, An Essay Concerning Our Weather?

EM, I've been working with your next sentences and your concern for economy prosperity, (as though that justifies ignoring physical realities).  You got me to thinking how Republicans, and you, are approaching all this from way off in deep right field.  That would be, lost in the financial world as though that's all there was to understand or master about the world we live in.  Me, on the other hand, though I've learned to recognize the reality and need to deal with and accommodate the financial world, I appreciate a higher reality holds sway.

Being a handyman, I'm constantly reminded that dealing with the reality at hand demands remaining skeptical of my own pre-conceptions.  For me it's easy to remain extremely skeptical of the Republican "ever increasing growth and profits" mindset, instead I've found more security (and prosperity) in abiding by down to Earth realities.  Such as, it's not how much you earn, it's how much you spend, and such truisms.  

I bring all this up because I'd like to share an essay of mine, three decades in the writing.  I'm hoping it might help you get Earth's physical realities vs. human economic desires, into a more realistic perspective.  Here I'm reposted it December 17, 2015 version.  Enjoy.
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Twenty years ago I came across a cartoon by Mike Keefe in the Denver Post that captured an attitude I had found all too pervasive among my fellow Americans: the attitude of entitlement and detached disregard for understanding how our global climate system operates.

It inspired me to write an essay describing my understanding of our planet’s climate system, and it was published in the November/December 1995 issue of the Humanist magazine. Rereading it recently, I noticed some minor errors but the basic story remains as accurate today as it was back then. Since anniversaries are a good time to reflect on history and how far we’ve come (or not), I wrote a twenty year reflection which the Humanist printed in their recent Nov/Dec 2015 issue.  This is a slightly altered version and I've included a many links to further information.

I thank Mike Keefe for the permission to use his cartoon.

I think it’s worth recalling where our understanding of climate change was twenty years ago.  Though there were fewer media outlets back then, they were more objective and for the most part offered straightforward climate science information. After all, it’s not that tough a story to summarize, even if the details get devilishly difficult.

By ’95 we had learned that weather is the product of climate conditions and that Earth’s climate conditions fluctuated. We knew that CO2 and other greenhouse gases were a major regulator of those fluctuations.

At the same time we were also being forced to confront the reality that it was our own burning of fossil fuels and the machines behind our modern marvels and lavish lifestyles that were increasingly belching “gaseous insulation” into our atmosphere.

{1} Our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine

This is the first in a series of posts where I want to explore and describe this Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine that sustains us all.

For an introductory overview I will leave it to the NOVA/PBS/NASA video Earth From Space.  It isn't a complete review of our climate system, it's dedicated to looking at how all the natural forces that surround us come together to create the life sustaining biosphere on our one and only home planet.  Yet, it can't help but review a good deal of information about what's behind our global weather systems.

The documentary is a tour de force of our dynamic planet that I believe every curious student of life ought to watch and try to understand.  It would be wonderful seeing them produce a sequel that does focus on weather patterns and what drives them.  In the mean time I'll share the following video along with notes and appropriate links and time signature for easy reference.  

Please note, if viewing at YouTube you can link directly to a specific section of the video by adjusting the final digits of the url.  12:20 would be =12m20s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU0GhTmZhrs&t=12m20s 

Feel free to copy and share the following notes.

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Earth From Space Full HD Nova 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/earth-from-space.html

Published on Jul 15, 2014

YouTube channel Natural World 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU0GhTmZhrs

The groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth.

Featuring interviews with: 

Waleed Abdalati (NASA Chief Scientist):

Piers Sellers (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Emily Shuckburgh (deputy head, Polar Oceans Team, British Antarctic Survey

Jeff Halverson ( University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus, Meteorologist)

David Adamec (NASA Scientist)

Gene C. Feldman (NASA Oceanographer)

Charlie Bristow ( Birkbeck, University of London)

Holly Gilbert (NASA Solar Physicist)

Earth is more than a pretty postcard

It's deeply heartbreaking realizing how uncaring and disconnected people have become from the planet that sustains all of us.  It seems that the Republican/libertarian crowd despise our Earth and everyone who cares about her in the bargain.  I don't get it, though I keep struggling with understanding it and failing to find the words to describe both the resentful attitude Republicans have adopted towards our life giving Earth and to convey a sense of the wonder that people like me feel for our home planet.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to something as grand as our dynamic living planet it takes thousands of pictures to begin to touch on it's complex magnificence.

That's why I want to share three standout documentaries that are available on YouTube.  They are standouts because of how well they convey a realistic impression of this global organism we are all dependent on, and how it operates, along with a glimpse at how we are changing her.  Sure, there are some flaws and certain items I could take issue with, but learning is a cumulative process so minor flaws don't detract from the overall quality of these rich fact-based stories about our planet and it's ways.  All worth watching by those who are interested in learning about our mother Earth.

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Our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine

A digression, the Piers Corbyn Story

I'm active on the internet, commenting and responding to responses.  Once in a while a dialogue comes along I feel needs to be shared over here because of it's text book quality example of disconnect and climate science denial.

Although I didn't have time for this, especially not today, I'm a sucker for chasing such bones and since the name Piers Corbyn rang a bell but I couldn't place him.  I found myself googling him.  Oh yeah, that guy, Mr. the CO2 story is over Corbyn and his mini ice age machinations.  Eventually, I found myself listening to his YouTube "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12" video which turned out to be an epic example of Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Since I wasted so much precious time on this joker I'm going to get something constructive out of it by posting my findings over here.  I'll begin with P.M.'s phenomenal 700 word gish gallop dodge of the Earth observation sources I was sharing, such as NASA's summation of the evidence.  Following that I look at Piers' "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12." 

Then I share a most excellent documentary that looks at our global heat and moisture distribution engine's various components and how they interact, followed by a couple video shorts from a real expert on greenhouse gases Professor Richard Alley as he explains the reality of CO2.

This in turn is followed by a score of links spanning 2005 to a couple months ago - for those who are interested in learning more about this example of Unidirectional Skepticism Piers Corbyn.
  
M.P. wrote:

Global Warming "Hiatus" and the Global Heat Distribution Engine

Over at SkepticForum I continue hearing echo's of David Rose's erroneous claim that 'global warming stopped 16 years ago' and it makes no sense to me how such a disingenuous hoax lives on and on.

When I hear someone write or say there's been a pause in global warming, or some hiatus, I know I'm dealing with someone who doesn't have any conception of our planet's dynamic multi-layered climate system, it's sad. Worst is when they refuse to look at genuine information and learn from it.

If these types had a conception of heat and energy moving throughout our planet, they would appreciate that the global ocean plays a huge roll in heat absorption and circulation.  That's why I've collected this series of excellent educational videos to share.

It would be wonderful imagining skeptical folks giving this information a chance to soak in.  Understanding that scientific measurements do the best they can with what they have and they'll never be perfect.  But, that shouldn't stop us from learning what we can from the information they can gather.   Maybe then they'd realize that setting impossibly high expectations harms us all.