Category Archives: Environment

Climate Change Science – Tornadoes

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TornadoThe events in Dallas as graphically displayed all over the news with dramatic videos made me think about the predictions of tornado activity in the climate change models. I really don’t know much about it but here’s to the internet and research!

First things first though. Why is it that the plural of tornado and volcanos can be correctly spelled with an “e” or without an “e”? If anyone knows the answer please help me out. I like it better without so no one yell at me for grammar errors … that means you mom.

Ok, back to the question at hand. What effect, if any, does a change in average temperatures on the planet have on tornado activity? It certainly seems like the tornados have been big and damaging in recent years but the spread of population has something to do with that. In that past tornados might hit in areas that were unpopulated but are now homes to large and small cities.

Tornados are rated by the Enhanced Fujita scale with EF5 being considered the highest. There is also the Fujita scale and the TORRO scale but it doesn’t really matter as we are simply trying to determine if tornados have gotten more severe and frequent as the temperature on earth has risen over the last century. Yes, by the way, the temperature has risen, I’ll get to that soon.

The United States is a good place to test for increased activity as we have four times as many tornados as all of Europe and far more than any other single country. This apparently has to do with being in the middle of a large continent that has both a very hot region (Mexico) and a very cold region (Canada). In the United States records for the last decade indicate about 1,200 tornadoes a year. Adequate records do not exist before 1976 making comparisons to different eras all but impossible. Still, the mechanisms of weather that trigger tornadoes are fairly well understood.

When cool and warm air meet the conditions are right for tornados which generally occur in the Spring and Fall when seasonal temperatures are in fluctuation. The mostly deadly tornado happened in 1925 but the largest outbreak in frequency, again in the extremely short record keeping history, occurred in three days of April 2011 when 353 tornados eclipsed the previous record of 148 in a similar period of time. A significant statistical outlier although the short time frame of record keeping makes for much guesswork. With such little time frame to work with the best guess seems to be that tornadoes might come in ten-year cycles and the 1980’s seem to have been a low cycle.

Tornados also tend to occur between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. apparently connected to the fact that this time frame is also when peak atmospheric heating is in place. The recent Dallas area tornadoes occurred in the late morning.

Any guess as to the effect of global climate change on frequency and severity is, at this time, merely speculation. Warmer sea temperatures increase atmospheric moisture content which can increase severe weather, including tornadoes, particular in the cooler seasons. The change in sea temperature, which I covered yesterday, can also effect jet stream patterns which might in turn have some influence on tornado frequency and severity.

But, all the evidence at this point doesn’t seem to indicate a direct relation between increased tornado activity and the increased temperature the earth is currently experiencing. Nor does evidence rule out such influence.

So, if anyone tells you the increase in tornados is without a doubt caused by climate change or that climate change is absolutely not responsible for bigger and more frequent events … you tell them they need to go back and get more evidence!

What do you think?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Thermohaline circulation

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Thermohaline CirculationThermohaline Circulation is a fancy term but it is an important factor in the climate of the earth. The basic ideas is that the oceans of world circulate water in relatively stable patterns and this movement of water dramatically affects the weather.

These patterns can be disrupted by a number of factors and such events seem to be related to large weather change in previous time periods. Cold water from the polar regions moves into warmer areas causing cooling while hotter water from equatorial regions moves to the poles in a warming pattern.

This movement is created by wind on the surface and differences in salinity and temperature below the surface at depth. Tides also play a role in certain places of the world. There is a lot of technical type information about salinity, temperature, tides, and wind but I don’t want to get into that. I simply want to suggest that this global movement of water is a fact and it has a profound effect on our climate.

It sends warm water to the poles which has a tremendous effect on melting sea ice and it is a component in the oceanic sink which removes a large percentages of CO2 from the atmosphere. The amount this affects removal of CO2 is not fully understood at this stage. I spoke about Greenhouse Gases and the importance of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere yesterday. The effect of water temperature on weather patterns is clear to anyone who has lived near a large body of water. Again, I don’t want to get all technical on that topic.

It is thought that Ice Ages are counter intuitively related to warmer temperatures because the influx of fresh water from glacial melt stops the flow of warm water to the poles which causes fast drops in temperature.

The main idea though is that if there is an influx of fresh water from melting ice that this thermohaline circulation will be disrupted and have a dramatic effect on our climate.

Again, I’m not trying to argue for or against human influenced climate change … yet. I’m just talking about the dynamics involved and hopefully the next time you discuss this highly volatile topic you’ll be slightly better informed.

Tell me what you think!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Greenhouse Gases

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Greenhouse GasThe topic of the day is trying to define what greenhouse gases (GHG) are and what they mean to the climate of the world. Whenever people start talking about climate change I often find they don’t have a lot of knowledge about the science behind their arguments, either pro or con. One of the main concepts behind the climate change science is the increase of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Now, let’s start with what a GHG is considered. Technically they are gases that can absorb and emit infrared radiation. These gases have an important role in regulating the temperature on earth in that they reflect heat in all directions. Some of this reflection is back towards the earth thus creating what is called a greenhouse effect. The more of these gases in the atmosphere the more reflection takes place.

Primary among these gases is water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. These actually make up a small fraction of the gases in the atmosphere but the others, Nitrogen and Oxygen predominantly, do not reflect infrared radiation and thus do not play a role in the greenhouse effect.

At question in the climate change issue is the amount of these gases in the atmosphere. The idea is that a higher amount creates more reflection which in turn keeps more heat in the planet.

The amount is controlled by something called “sources” and “sinks”. Sources produce greenhouse gases and sinks remove them.

There are numerous sources and sinks of these gases interacting in what is called the Carbon Cycle. The two major sinks are forests and the oceans. Both, through various chemical processes, absorb the vast majority of these gases. The decay of plants is the largest contributor or source of CO2 although there are other sources as well including cows, insects, volcanic activity, and human activity.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by a fairly startling amount since 1958 from 320 parts per million to 391 ppm. At the time of the industrial revolution around 1750 to 1850 it was at 280 ppm. That calculates out to about a 40% increase in 200+ years since the industrial revolution or an increase of about 22% in the last 50 years.

The idea, again, is that more greenhouse gases reflect more radiation and the earth gets hotter.

The argument that this increase is caused my human activity is centered around the idea that the Carbon Cycle is a relatively closed system except for catastrophic events like super volcanos and meteor strikes. Barring these major events even a small increase in source activity without a corresponding increase in sink activity will eventually cause the system to become out of balance. Imagine filling your bathtub with water and the spigot puts in exactly as much as the drain lets out. Now, add 1% more to the spigot output and decrease the drain size by 1%. The eventual result is easy to predict, it’s just a matter of time.

That humans have increased the source output of greenhouse gases through their various activities is not in dispute nor is the idea that we have decreased the sink amount. But, both changes are quite small. The question then becomes does the earth have the ability through natural sinks to rebalance the system without changing human behavior? Or, perhaps the increase in CO2 is not related to the relatively small impact of humans at all but is caused by some other, as yet not fully understood, dynamic of the planet?

Anyway, that’s GHG for you. I hope this at least clarified some of the things you hear when talking about the volatile topic of climate change and gives you information to use in your arguments, pro or con.

See you tomorrow and if you want to clarify or correct anything please do so in the comments below!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Science Rocks

Science Week – Geology

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ScienceYep, you probably guessed it. Geology. It’s probably not the most exciting of the sciences but its study has incredible implications as far as they way we think about our world. And by that, I mean it presents tremendously strong arguments for critical thinking and against faith based thinking. That’s why I’m going to devote the last day of Science Week to Geology.

Geology is the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Simply the study of the planet we live upon. This study is a critical tour de force destruction of the proposals of the Bible and faith based thinking as a whole.

It is also important in preparing for natural disasters and is a great hobby for those of you who like to collect rocks like Andy Dufresne. It also leads to Paleontology which is a super cool science! Who doesn’t like dinosaurs?

But, onto the real reason for my post. How geological discoveries contradict faith based thinking with tremendously strong evidence. Now, there are faith based thinkers who are happy to acknowledge the Earth’s age of 4.7 billion years and allow for a deity that created the universe but those aren’t the thinkers I’m talking about here. I’m talking about those who take the bible as the literal and absolute truth.

Literal translation of the Bible places the Earth around 6,000 years old based on a counting of the ages of fathers and sons for many generation. A simple look at the stratification of river canyons seems to obviously indicate long periods of erosion which strip away layers of earth each with their own characteristic colors and compositions. This is called the Law of superposition. Basically, lower layers are older. It’s really quite simple, intuitive, and obvious. It’s only when we have faith based thinking wherein it must not be true that people find convoluted explanations that contradict the evidence.

This law is further reinforced by something called the fossil record. The idea is that in each layer of the earth we find fossils. The lower we go the more primitive the species that are found. This is called the Principal of Faunal Succession. For example, in the stratified layers that contain dinosaur fossils we find no human fossils. This is tremendously strong evidence that dinosaurs existed long before humans which contradicts literal Biblical translations. This method is so powerful that geologists can look at the fossil record, pinpoint a “missing link” and then go find a layer of the earth where that creature should reside and soon enough, they find it. This has happened again and again.

It seems patently obvious to me that if all animals were created at the same time, as suggested by literal biblical translations, they would be evenly distributed through the layers. They are not, this is fact.

There is also something called Relative Dating which again shows a particular sequence of rock layers one piling upon the next the whole world around. Absolute Dating is a method by which a more precise age of rocks is determined. There are various methods each which present further strong evidence of the age of the earth and the progression of fossil species in each layer.

Geology also gives us the field of Plate Tectonics. Any five year old when first presented with a globe immediately recognizes that North America and South America fit together like pieces of a puzzle with Europe and Africa. Plate Tectonics shows us that the earth is a fluid place with the continents drifting. Again, this is fact. This also goes into the Faunal record where we find a species in bands that include South America and Africa clearly indicating the two were once joined. If the two were always separated then one species would not exist in both places. We find this evidence again and again in the fossil record.

It doesn’t take even a modicum of intelligence to put together the pieces. But, faith based thinking doesn’t want the earth to function like this so it is forced to come up with bizarre explanations for easily understood phenomenon.

Plate Tectonics also explains why we find little fish-like fossils high in the mountains. Faith based thinking tells us there must have been a flood. If that was the case, of course, we would find fish fossils of many different, modern species in the mountains. We don’t. We find only ancient species. It’s all so apparent once you eliminate your preconceived notions and look at the simple facts.

That’s my point today. Use your critical thinking skills. Look at the evidence, make strong conclusions. This sort of thinking is not just about geology, it is about how you lead your life, the decisions you make, and ultimately how much happiness and success you have.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed Science Week. Next week is Dumb Platitudes I saw on Facebook week so stay tuned for the fun!

As always, Like, Pinterest, PlusOne, Tweet, Stumble, Digg, and all the rest if you think someone you know might find this topic, the stunning excitement of geology, interesting.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Nuclear Power – Final Conclusion

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Nuclear PowerI spent time two days ago talking about how Nuclear Power works and yesterday I spoke about the pros and cons of it. Today I’ll weigh the various arguments and come to a conclusion. Hopefully you will tell me where I made all my mistakes with comments!

The pros of nuclear power are strong and obtaining energy independence from foreign powers, some of them inimically opposed to freedom and our way of life, is a powerful motivator for me to endorse it.

There is a big part of me that wants to support nuclear power simply because of its natural origin. There is something romantic about turning to the power of the stars to make our own energy grid work. The stars are the source of all the heavy metals in the world and in no small sense we are made of star stuff.

I also support alternate energy like wind, solar, and geothermal. I think the economic potential for those sources of energy are tremendous although there is some upfront cost. The world’s demand for energy will only increase in the coming years and the nations with the technology to provide renewable and nuclear energy technology will see a steady source of revenue.

If a nation doesn’t have a source of revenue then their place in the modern, connected world, is bound to diminish. In a future post I’d like to spend some time talking about how computer technology did far more to help the economy of the United States and the western world than did any politician. Thank you Claude Shannon, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and a host of others.

But, back to the problem at hand, nuclear power. Nuclear proliferation is a serious issue and the more material available to make a nuclear bomb the more chance it will fall into the hands of someone who wants to use it to murder people. That being said, I’m not convinced that if the United States refuses to build nuclear reactors this threat diminishes. Other nations will continue to gain the ability to make such material and the number of nuclear reactors in the United States doesn’t substantially increase that risk in my opinion.

As far as accidents are concerned it certainly weighs on my decision by I do think Generation III plants are significantly safer than current models and Thorium reactors will be about as safe as any other form of energy. The damage to the world from coal and oil currently far outweighs that of nuclear.

Still, there is the pesky problem of waste. To me that is the biggest negative to the idea of building new plants. The more plants we have the more waste is generated.  We currently store all this waste on site, at the plant, and the security is not particularly great. The risk of proliferation is moderately high and would become more dangerous for every plant we built.

If we become a nation dependent on nuclear energy sources we are going to have to deal with the waste problem. This is a big enough issue for me to put on the brakes. At the moment I think would have to oppose building of new plants.

However, if the government suddenly showed the political will to not only come up with a plan to transport and create long term storage for nuclear waste but also to actually put that plan into operation, then I would change my mind. I have a hard time envisioning the current government of the U.S. coming together to do that but perhaps with some prodding from an educated electorate anything might happen.

Tell me what you think in the comments, Like, Tweet, Stumble, +1, or otherwise interact!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

P.S. I had a provocative comment from Erick at Patriot Fire about my post on Crony Capitalism. Thanks Erick and keep them coming! Feel free to disagree with me any time as long as you can explain your position! 🙂

Nuclear Plant

Nuclear Power – Pros and Cons

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Nuclear PowerToday I’ll try to examine the arguments for and against Nuclear Power. It’s a controversial subject to say the least and I think it definitely needs a further study. It is also an incredibly important argument because energy is the driving factor in many of the issues the world and the United States face.

The need for energy in the modern world continues to rise and how we get that energy and who profits from payments for that energy is a key to future economic power. The rise of the fundamentalist Islamic state was certainly fueled by oil money more than any other factor and the revenue that will be generated by future, ever increasing, energy demands is a topic well worth discussion.

Wikipedia, as usual, rises to the occasion with an excellent article about the debate over Nuclear Power but I’ll try to summarize here as best as possible.

Energy Source

There is little argument here. Nuclear power is a tremendous energy source, just look at the sun, and has the potential to provide all the energy the world needs for the almost infinite future.

Energy Security

This is not about the safety of nuclear energy but about how a country can cut dependence on other nations for their energy demands. Again, for the United States, there is little argument here. Nuclear frees us from foreign dependence. We don’t have the oil reserves to sustain ourselves. I know, I know, we have shale. People, it doesn’t count. It’s not really feasible as a substitute for Light Sweet Crude and it’s not even better than coal for simple power plants. It’s filthy, expensive to extract, and basically not worth talking about compared to nuclear. If anyone tells you the U.S. has huge deposits of oil this is what they are talking about and they are, essentially, lying to you.

Reliability

Again, nuclear beats out wind, tide, and sun for its reliability. Always on, always ready. However, there is argument that nuclear plants are likely to shut down under extreme conditions. I see this but frankly, so are conventional plants. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that nuclear power is less reliable than other sources.

Economics

This is a difficult one to track down. The basic idea is how much does it cost to produce the same amount of energy from nuclear, coal, wind, sun, tide, etc. There are a number of studies on this and it is absolutely true that while at initial glance nuclear power seems cheap there are factors including massive government subsidies to start up plants. Many people will quote the cost of energy in France, very low, but they don’t take into account that the entire nuclear system was built with government money.

Fairly reliable data indicates nuclear costs more than coal, gas, and hydroelectric but less than others. However, as infrastructure for solar and wind increase their cost will drop. It’s a tough one to answer directly. I’d say it’s fair to call nuclear competitive.

Environmental Impact

This is one that nuclear appears to lose, hands down. But, on closer examination it actually does quite well, particularly in comparison to coal which has a large negative impact. Miners lose their lives, filth enters the air and water, etc. Nuclear is largely clean except if disaster strikes. But, when disaster strikes it is bad. Oil spills are bad as well. Clearly, wind, wave, and solar have a lesser impact but solar panels require chemicals to produce and wind turbines take their toll on wildlife. In conclusion I’d have to side with renewable energy on this one.

Waste

Ah, the Achilles Heel of nuclear power. What to do with the waste. One possibility is Thorium reactors which don’t produce nearly the large amount of toxicity of uranium and plutonium reactors. Still, they produce highly toxic waste. Storing this waste is a huge problem, not in that we don’t have vast tracts of land available to store it, but do we have the political will to open up those lands and drive the waste across the country to them?

Accidents

Another thorn in the side of nuclear power. Accidents happen and in nuclear power they can cause utter devestation. Still, oil spills cause far more damage every year than nuclear accidents. France has been on the nuclear grid for many years without a single mishap. Still, the more plants out there increases the chance of accidents like in Japan.

Proposed Fourth Generation plants are definitely safer and Thorium plants actually have very little chance of disaster as they cool naturally over time if a mishap occurs.

Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

This is yet another problem for nuclear power. The byproduct of Uranium and Plutonium plants is material that can be converted into a powerful nuclear bomb. If stolen this presents a huge danger to the world. Thorium plants produce less dangerous material but still presents dangers.

All right, I’ve gone on pretty long here. I’ll save my conclusions until tomorrow but hopefully you have a better idea of the pros and cons of nuclear power.

Like, Tweet, Stumble, and comment if you feel the urge!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Nuclear Power Plant

Nuclear Power – from a Critical Point of View

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Nuclear powerNuclear Power is a controversial topic to be certain. In the next couple of days I’m going to try and look at the arguments for and against while applying my critical thinking skills to the debate.

I think first we have to actually define what nuclear power means. There are a lot of misconceptions and the topic is more than a little complicated. I don’t fully understand the nuances of the reaction by any stretch of the imagination but I’ll try to couch it in relatively easy to understand terms. By the way, this definition of a problem is critical in the analysis process. Read my Root Cause article.

Nuclear power plants, in their simplest concept, turn water into steam which is pressurized and fed into a steam turbine. The turbine then rotates and drives an electrical generator. Steam turbines of this nature account for about 90% of all electrical energy produced in the United States. A lot of this comes from coal and other non-nuclear sources but the basic process is similar.

Now, I know all my chemist and other scientifically knowledgeable friends and nieces will probably say this is too much of a simplification but my point isn’t really the process, so please bear with me.

In order to generate the heat to boil water and produce steam a nuclear reactor introduces an extra neutron into some uranium or plutonium. This generates a chain reaction wherein more and more of the uranium or plutonium splits into smaller elements and produces heat.

There are a number of arguments for and against nuclear power. I’ll get into the pros and cons tomorrow I just want to go over a few facts about how nuclear power is currently being used throughout the world.

It is estimated that about 16% of all electricity generated in the world comes from nuclear sources although because of ineffeciency of distribution it accounts for only about 2.6% of consumption.

The United States, France, and Japan are the leaders in production with France most of all depending on it for their energy demands. France in particular is used by proponents of nuclear power as a success story but there are nuances to that argument as well. Again, I’ll spend some time tomorrow talking about pros and cons.

Nuclear power also accounts for a huge percentage of the total energy produced in the universe. It’s what makes stars glow. That is something to think about.

I think I’ve laid out the concepts of nuclear power here pretty well and tomorrow I’ll talk about the pros and cons. I might end up having to split that into two articles because the arguments are complex and interesting and I like to keep these blogs relatively short so that you can read them easily during a break at work.

As always, tweet, comment, like, share, and otherwise tell your friends if you think this is worth reading.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist

Oxygen and Life

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There is a fairly angry debate going on about the ideas of human produced greenhouse gases effecting the long-term weather patterns on the planet. I’ll probably eventually blog about that sometime in the future but I thought I’d take on the role of oxygen and life forms. The reason I do this is because several people have told me, rightly so, that it is natural for the earth to have a much higher concentration of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and it has in the past. But, do we want a world with those levels?

I’m going with the theory that the earth is somewhere around 4.5 billion years old and if you have strong religious beliefs that go counter to this concept then this blog probably doesn’t hold much of interest for you.

So, the earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago and oxygen was basically absent and so was life. At about 3 billion years ago there is some evidence for life although this debatable. There was still no oxygen around. For a long while only simple, anaerobic forms of life existed.

About 2.4 billion years ago there was what is called the Oxygen Catastrophe. This essential destroyed most of the anaerobic life forms. The simple reason it occurred is that the iron that previously absorbed all the oxygen became saturated and then excess oxygen spread into the atmosphere. This combined with methane and made carbon dioxide which greatly reduced the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Still, greenhouse gases were in much higher concentrations than we see today.

About 300 million years later, in this still relatively low oxygen environment, we see the first emergence of multicellular animals. It seems relatively clear to me that as greenhouse gases decline and oxygen goes up so too does life increase.

We then see smallish life-forms until about 500 millions ago when there is a period called the Cambrian Explosion. It’s a relatively debatable “explosion” but one of the causes of the increase and diversification of animal species seems to be an increase in the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. There are arguments that it was not the major cause but simply one of many that happened to coincide at about the same time.

Since then there have been a number of catastrophic events wherein most of the species on earth were wiped out. There is again debate about the cause of these events but oxygen seems to be pretty clearly related. Less oxygen, less life. Which makes an awful lot of sense.

This blog isn’t about whether or not climate change is real or if so, caused by the industrial age, but I simply hope to point out that having the atmosphere gain levels of carbon dioxide and methane and lose oxygen is … to coin a phrase … bad.

So, let’s do what we can to keep oxygen levels stable. Whether or not you believe mankind is contributing to the measurable increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; it seems reasonable to try to reduce the emissions we can control.

Tell me what you think!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist