A more sophisticated and detailed presentation on global warmng. Written understandably. Thanks, Jim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "J.E. Shields" <jshields@indy.net> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 1:13 PM Subject: [pbs] Climate Change Was: Is there a U.S. version of phytosanitary requirement > Pamela and all, > > That is a good blog written by Cliff Mass. Sensible and realistic. > Thanks > for pointing it out. > > I'm not a climatologist; I'm a biochemist. Still, I took some > thermodynamics a very long time ago. There is nothing contradictory in > the > weather we are seeing just now and the proposition that we humans are > warming the climate unnaturally. The Earth's atmosphere-ocean system is a > huge heat engine. The gasoline or diesel engine in your car or truck is a > much simpler heat engine. Both sorts of "engine" are governed by > thermodynamics. > > The data are irrefutable: The earth's atmosphere and oceans are warming > at > a rate much faster than the history of the last 1,000,000 years or so > suggest they should be. The difference between 100,000 years ago and > today > is the presence and consequences of about 6 billion additional members of > the species Homo sapiens. > > Why are some parts of North America and Europe colder this winter? > Because > the Earth's atmospheric engine is accelerating, fueled by the extra heat > accumulating under our CO2 blanket. The more energy you put into a > system, > the farther away from equilibrium you can drive it. Give the engine more > energy, and you can drive it up steeper gradients. The jet stream loops > north in Alaska and south in the Midwest, when it should be somewhere in > between, It is being driven away from equilibrium.