Electric Sun Brightening

The cause for the Electric Sun is a very interesting one. Today I gave some serious thoughts to so called climate change sceptics or global warming sceptics as labelled in the media. And I came away with a mixed bag of thoughts.

The predominant among them is the consequence of an electric weather system on Earth caused by the activities of an ELECTRIC Sun.
But close second is that 'sceptics' don't seem to deny that something is profoundly changing. Instead, they emphasise two plausible axioms: (1) Changes may NOT be irrevocable; and (2) We humans may not contribute to the current rapid climate change as much as we think we do.

In other words, vast greenhouse component in the atmosphere in the past may have been the consequence of global warming and not the cause. Indeed, just thawing permafrost alone could have contributed to a runaway warming that stopped the Gulf stream so many times in the past and in the end triggered ice ages. The cause? Electric Sun proponents possible answer: Vastly increased Sun activity out of literally nowhere. And it comes and goes they say.

We still need to become self-sufficient, as the current overconsumption of Earth is tragically unsustainable. The last time I looked the US was 9-11 times overconsuming Earth's resources per capita. Even Switzerland was overconsuming it 5 times. This means that if the rest of the world would be consuming so hard and fast, we would need 5-11 Earths every single year to meet those demands.

Make no mistake. We WILL run out of affordable oil pretty soon, then gas, then a little later coal. Global warming is occurring and it WILL dramatically reduce the amount of potable fresh water. And we DO contribute to it with all the greenhouse gases that we emit in rapidly increasing quantities.

The only thing different with a view to a vastly brighter Electric Sun is the Sun's contributions to our unfolding drama. But it IS playing out at a scale that is indeed planetary.

If it is any consolation they say, ALL the planets are warming up. And our Sun HAS become vastly more bright in the past decades literally out of nowhere. It was expected to be more intense as the 11 year clockwork period for it has come. But NOT as much as it is NOW.

The Sun in recent decades must be channeling OTHER energy they say, we don't know what kind.

We also don't know, they say, to what extent out weather is electric in nature. But if so, which is not proven but increasing hypothesised, our climate including perhaps the more intense El Nino Southern Oscillation (or ENSO) is a much more a consequence of a so much brighter and more intense electric Sun then previously thought.

Do we need to prepare for a change. Oh yes. Is it going to be big? Oh yes. Will it take at least a millennium (1000 years!) for things go back to normal? You bet! (For instance there may be at least a 1000 years natural delay in the feedback between the Atlantic and the Southern Pacific thermohaline circulation.

So what's the difference between what scientists labelled 'sceptics' say from the vantage point of an Electric Sun. Nothing in terms of what we need to do to slow our appetite and change to renewables. But the difference is big in terms of our guilt and inability to change things back.

Because what they say is that (a) We are not guilty as charged - the Sun is the culprit; and (b) no matter how hard we try, we cannot work against the Sun and hence cannot change climate back.

Quite a food for thought. And the fact that we should not be shameful for all of the current changes as they say is a helpful ploy to ACT. Indeed, it would be so much easier without guilt.

Ice age favours North

Another reason to start 'house cleaning' at the North Atlantic thermohaline conveyor belt. Ice age if it comes, may affect less the the Southern hemisphere.
http://www.theage.com.au/../2007/10/05/..1357944.html

We knew from earlier and Change-Climate-Back has reported on this at some length that the warming will actually increase ice in the Antarctic because snow precipitation there is still more than ice melting.

We have also reported that due to fresh-water leaks from melting ice in the North Atlantic the thermohaline circulation here (also known as the Gulf Stream) has already weakened significantly. Some estimate that decrease at 30%. The process may foreshadow a potential shut down of the circulation, which from earlier data appears to conclude in 3 short years substantially decreasing the mean temperature at the North - that is much of the northern part of the Northern hemisphere.

But it has received less public attention that the Atlantic and the Pacific ocean conveyor belts are linked though the connection appears less direct. There may also exist a substantial delay between a mass off water exiting the one stream and entering the other.

But the sum effect of that link according to a report by Timothy Burrows published in the journal Science is that when it works the south exports heat to the north. But when the link is broken, there is no more export and the cooling of the Northern hemisphere is offset by a relative heating of the South.

This appears to have happened many times over, most notably at the end of the last Ice Age called the Younger Dryas geological event around 13,000 years ago. This meant rapid cooling for the North right after rapid Global Warming at the end of the Ice Age called the Pleistocene geological epoch. It was due to the same process that is happening now - the rapid mass melting of the Northern ice sheets that accompanied rapid global warming shut down the Gulf.

Back then the Southern hemisphere actually got warmer with the mean temperature here being 2 degrees higher than it is now.

Let's avoid hysteria NOW

Every problem can be turned into a solution. Most with technologies that exist today. Only we need to DECIDE / ACT FAST.

Ok, let's name two problems here to illustrate how this works. One is quite old, but no one so far cared to give it a policy focus with teeth. The other is so new, it seems even the UN have not considered yet.

About the rate of change
http://www.cicero.uio.no/fulltext/index_e.aspx?id=5690
Hydro-power is methane emitter unless ...
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44533/story.htm


Before listing them in more detail here, one thing needs an early highlight:

Problems - and solutions - come up so fast these days that the bureaucratic never-ending procedures of all kinds of panels, UN blessing, scientists back-forth throwing the ball etc etc needs a bit of speeding up.


Why, you aks? The first problem I list will answer it amply: -
It is not just the change of temperature that matters, but equally, the rate of that change.


Average emperature may only increase a couple of degrees and so is our target for the containment of a potentially harmful increase. As an example, we set a target of say 2 °C increase over a long-term. But that is just the first part of the story even if we reach that target. We also need to set targets for the rate of increase. Too fast a change, and side effects will all but eat up the benefits of contained overall temperature target. Animals may adapt faster. But plants are slow adapters as they cannot move away to favorable climate. They need to replant themselves first. But that very slowness can actually limit the possible rate of change to target.

1. Rate of change limit to sustain ecosystems

A convincing study by Leemans and Eickhout back in 2004 found that forests ability to migrate to stay within the climate zone they are thus adapted to is limited. The critical limit seems to be 0.4 °C per decade. If the rate should exceed that rate, this relatively old but remarkably important study predicts that all ecosystems will be quickly destroyed. In their wake opportunistic species will start dominating (mostly weeds I assume.) The breakdown of biological material will lead to even greater CO2 emissions. This will in turn increase the rate of warming undoing all the benefits the limited targeted rise would otherwise bring.

Currently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that global average temperature is already increasing by 0.2 °C per decade. That rate cannot rise without consequences and all policy should target a limit change frozen at that rate, lest we will get close to destroying all ecosystems EVEN if we manage to contain the amount of INCREASE.

THE CRITICAL TIME PERIOD IN THIS IS THE NEXT FEW DECADES, as fastest changes could occur around that time.
THE FOCUS IN THIS should be the short-lived greenhouse gases – such as methane and tropospheric ozone – and particles with a warming effect, such as soot (black carbon).

2. Shallow Dams, Hydro-power Plants. New design

After a new focus comes on an old problem comes a brand new problem. It is about methane emissions (much more potent heat trappers than CO2) that shallow dams feeding hydro-powers create.

Now dams are not natural lakes with their own ecosystem braking down methane to CO2. NEW dams cover rotting plants that emit vast amount of methane trapped in water under normal circumstances. But when that water passes through the turbine of a hydro-power plant gas fizzes out like bubbles do when you open a soft drink.

According to Ivan Lima, National Institute for Space Research, Brazil: - Dams worldwide could generate the equivalent of one-fifth of methane from ALL OTHER sources. In particular, brand new tropical shallow dams can be most harmful if they are linked to hydro-power plants.

But new problems, if tackled fast enough can bring up brand new solutions. Let's take the world's shallow dams. They produce MORE methane per unit of power than some fossil-fuel burning options, say many scientists. But what if we trap the methane that fizzes out; - And not only contain it but use it to generate MORE power?

Methane is the main component of natural gas and Lima estimates that in China alone (the most ambitious hydro-power builder by far) around 2.6 million tonnes could be collected from dams for additional power generation, or the equivalent of over seven months of natural gas imports.

All we need is change the design of dams and the way they are linked to hydro-stations to minimize methane emissions on one hand but also to trap the rest for power. The technology exists to do both, Lima says.

It would provide countries with more cheap and clean energy instead of a global warming burden.

So again, it doesn't matter if the problem is new or old, solutions should come FAST so that the result can be MORE CHEAP & CLEAN ENERGY WITH TECHNOLOGIES THAT EXIST TODAY.

In summary
- The target rate of temperature change should be limited, not just the amount of change
- The next few decades will be critical for all ecological systems to survive
- Shallow dams and hydro-power plants urgently need new design